Man Up – Man Down

  In today’s episode we welcome Benjamin May, the founder of the charity The New Normal. Another highly inspirational tale for a number of reasons. Ben didn’t have the most positive start in life. He was expelled from school at the age of 10 and ended up with a criminal record. Ben’s parents were getting a divorce and one of his teachers cruelly told him that “parents who get a divorce, don’t love their children”.  Ben was obviously upset and planned his revenge. He waited for a little while, called the teacher at home, and left threats on her answering machines, in a voice that he didn’t think the teacher would recognise. Unfortunately she did, and 10 year old Ben was arrested and put in a cell. At that point he was told that he doesn’t have any hope in life. The minute he went to secondary school, everyone knew

g   Mick is the founder and CEO of Yodel Mobile, one of the world’s leading app marketing agencies.  Despite founding several successful businesses and winning industry awards, Mick was diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADHD at the age of 54, back in March 2022. Back when he was in school in the 1980s, he was tested for behavioural ‘problems’ by the local authority, but didn’t receive a diagnosis other than ‘just having problems’. Mick always had challenges with spelling and writing from an early age but just accepted it and tried to work around them. When his son was diagnosed with dyslexia 7 years ago, Mick felt that he could relate to a ot of the symptoms. As a result he had an assessment himself and was diagnosed with both dyslexia and ADHD. For him it was a huge relief, understanding why there are certain elements of life that he

This week’s episode was a special one for a number of reasons. Mainly because we welcomed Louise Chunn, the founder of our sponsor Welldoing.  Secondly, we wanted to mark the fact that it’s Mental Health Awareness Week. And obviously we talk about mental health on here A LOT!  Thirdly, David was in Portugal for a stag do, so was living the digital native dream. Recording from Home 2, the nicest co-working space David has ever used. He even had a soundproof booth to record from. Although this only helped amplify the squeaky plastic stool he was perched on, which Volker helpfully pointed out, when he heard it.  Fourthly, this was the first episode that David had recorded since his Dad had died. David didn’t want to go into details, but it had been a very traumatic experience (that he may share in the future). However, he wanted to thank everyone

  In this episode we welcomed Joe Horton from Guild of Dads. Joe set up the Guild of Dads podcast and brotherhood for dads in 2020 after he went through a period of great personal change and upheaval in his own life after his dads’ passing. He now coaches and mentors other professional men and dads who are at the midway point of life – to navigate this tricky time with greater balance, purpose, and thriving relationships. He also organised a monthly dads’ hike on the Ashdown Forest in Sussex aptly called The Guild of Dads Hike. Joe lives a great life, but at some point a few years ago he asked himself ‘is there something else I should do’? Given he is a keen student of personal development, he thought there must be more in life, and more he could do. Listening to a podcast about brotherhoods for men,

This episode was recorded back in February, the day before David and his family visited David’s dad. Sadly it was the last time David’s wife and children saw him. However, on that day, which was the last opportunity for David to have a coherent conversation with his Dad, following some suggestions from Steve, David got to know a few things about his father’s childhood, which helped strengthen their bond. In short, David feels that he didn’t have any unresolved issues, despite a complicated relationship with his Dad. So David will always be grateful for recording this episode at (in hindsight) such a critical time. But enough about David – let’s learn more about Steve. Steve spent his 20’s and 30’s working flat out as a Marketing Manager in three big organisations. Aged 40 he “fixed it” with his father (who had put him in a children’s home at the age

This week we were joined by Andy Delderfield, the founder of Alcohol Free Runners. Although Andy and David only met a  little over a year ago through one of the co-founders of Oner Year No Beer, they immediately hit it off and made a firm  friendship.  Andy’s story is that having travelled and finally settled in Spain, he began to enjoy the ex-pat lifestyle a little bit too much – spending the weekends drinking solidly and feeling like crap for the rest of the week. As a result he was overweight and depressed and his relationship with his family was suffering. He discovered the One Year No Beer Movement and after several hiccups has not had a drink in 4 years. During that time he has become a lot healthier, lost loads of weight and now runs ultra marathons. During lockdown he  ran a marathon without leaving his house and

  Jason is a former CMO of a multi billion dollar global media business who decided to completely change his life as he approached his 50th birthday. Fed up with his lacklustre energy and lifestyle Jason embraced health & fitness. In a remarkable personal transformation, Jason lost 20kg in weight, while self correcting several ailments and gaining a lust for life he hadn’t experienced since his teens.  As a fully qualified Coach and Personal Trainer, Jason now helps tens of thousands of middle aged men to live a better, healthier life through his fast growing social media fans and PT clients. From an outside point of view Jason had a life that was to be envied. A corporate job with lots of travel, for a well known organisation. People were always excited to hear more about his work once they heard what he did. But while he had a job

We welcomed Roei Samuel who founded two companies, RealSport which got acquired and then Connectd. RealSport grew to a community of over 8 million monthly unique users across UK, USA & Australia and was acquired in 2018. After spending time as an investor, he realised that many of the frustrations he felt as a founder were also true as an investor and start-up advisor. There was a distinct lack of diversity and accessibility in investment opportunities for start-ups. All the same types of deals were going to the same group of investors – stifling innovation for both the founders and potential investors. So he founded Connectd. What we wanted to talk about today was his journey to becoming a 2x founder whilst having dyslexia and ADHD. The power behind neurodivergent founders is that they build workplaces that understand that people’s brains work differently, and the power behind neurodivergent team members

  This episode was definitely a sensitive subject to touch on but one that our guest, Andy Barham, dealt with, with grace and humour.  When we started the podcast, the goal was to raise awareness of topics that men are embarrassed to speak about. Erectile Dysfunction is definitely one of those topics. Andy Barham was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Thankfully he caught it early and beat it after having his prostate removed. However one of the side effects of the operation was erectile dysfunction. While this is a common side effect in the early stages of recovery, Andy found that months went by without getting back to normal.  After trying traditional ED medicine (the “blue pills”) he then progressively had to try more extreme methods to get an erection. The only thing that worked was self-administered injections into the penis. Understandably, this wasn’t very practical. As he explains, there was

    Beau Marksohn joined us for an episode on body dysmorphia and eating disorders. He was born and raised in NYC and grew up in a household of severe abuse and neglect. As a result of this he struggled from the age of five from feeling insecure in his body.  He was always scared as a kid growing up, never felt safe, never felt any sense of consistency and never felt loved. As a result of all of this he started using food to comfort him from a very young age, which then progressed to drugs and booze before his teens. Suicide attempts, anorexia, bulimia, living an unhealthy life, ending up going from overweight to underweight. Beau then became a compulsory exerciser and . Depression, anxiety, ADHD, addiction. In 2016 he started treatment, therapy and support to tackle his addiction issues as well as depression, anxiety and ADHD. In