Get Booked – Be More Kid

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and you're listening to Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Here we love talking to authors about the books they've written, going into detail about the topics covered, the mental health and wellbeing elements, publishing and writing tips, and giving you the extra special insight into a different book and the author, or in the case of today, authors each week. And on today's show we'll be talking to Heart's Ed and James, as well as behaviour and relationship experts Mark and Nikki Taylor about their book Be More Kid. This book is about highlighting learned behavior that is impeding our joy of life, traits that kids have until the world and responsibilities affect us, the preconceived notions that childlike energy means we're somehow being irresponsible and the social impact of that. And I wasn't too sure I had much left to learn as my kids seem to think that they are the adult in our household, but I've loved unpacking the areas of my life that needs a bit of a rehaul. Ed, Nicky, Mark, welcome to the show! Thank you! Hello! Now, uh, this is going to be interesting. So there's 4 of us going to be potentially talking over each other. There's possibly cats that are going to be coming in Nicky and Mark's side, and we're hoping that my beagle stays quiet. So the joys of lockdown recording. Lucky Ed's kids are back at school, so otherwise it would have been a free-for-all. Well, I still have one of my children at home because he's in secondary school and he's had his, his flow test yet, so he's not allowed in until tomorrow. So I've told him to, uh, keep it down. And no, I've told him, if you're gonna stuff your face on 63 brioches, can you do it before and after? Because you know what it's like, these kids, they need at least 80 3 snacks a day just to keep them going. We always argue here because the kids always go, "There isn't any food in." I'm like, "Yeah, because you've eaten it all." Oh, it's just incessant, isn't it? I mean, my youngest, he's been back at school this week and I'm like, "How have you coped with just having what's in your packed lunch?" The joys, the joys. I've got to learn everything new now, but I've been trying to be more kid and I've been eating incessantly as well. I don't think that's in the book, actually. Well, I sometimes like to go outside of the book. So why don't we start by, if you tell us a little bit about each of you. Ed, do you want to start and then maybe you can sort of lead on to where the book came from and then we can sort of chip in? That's a great idea. So hello, my name's Ed James. I'm a broadcaster kind of first and foremost, I guess. I've been working on Heart in the West Midlands for 19 years, which always scares me whenever I say that because it's an amazing job and I still feel I'm quite new into it and I still feel I've barely scratched the surface. Barely started. But yeah, it'll be 20 years next year, which is frightening. Um, in addition to that, I co-founded a content marketing agency nearly 3 years ago, and I've been a lifelong fan of self-improvement and self-help. I guess I've read all the books and just try to learn how other people do what they do and how to find con— tentment in your own life, I guess. That led me to do an NLP course with Mark and Nick. That's where I met the guys for the first time. I was like 4 years ago, guys. Yeah, I think it was 2000— well, actually, so this is 5 years ago, 2016. There you go. So enjoyed the course, opened my eyes to the potential and the possibilities. I did the first one, which was Practitioner, then I did Master Pract, and just was blown away by the— just how it changes everything about your life and the way you view your life. It's just, it's just such an amazing thing to do. And on the course, Mark, actually, I remember this, Mark turned to me and went, what's the big goal? And I thought, well, I've got two choices here. Do I just give a standard answer, or do I actually answer it honestly with what I want to do? And I thought, well, I may as well be honest. I said, I want to write a best-selling book. And Mark went, well, well, well, you can if you put it in your timeline and you create it as a goal and you work towards it. And actually, we're kind of keen to help and get on board as well. And that's where, that's where the friendship, I think, started. And then we started to meet up and talk about it. And I shared the concept for the book and Mark and Nick totally bought into it and said, we've had the same kind of thoughts. And it really was a meeting of minds and ideas. And we all said, this is such an amazing concept that should become a book. And in a nutshell, the idea came when my daughter was 5 years old. She broke her arm. She fell— well, she either fell or was pushed off the top bunk. I'm still not sure which. We don't talk about that. And it was really interesting the way she handled it. She cried initially when the arm— when the break took place, but absolutely after that didn't cry, didn't moan, didn't complain. It didn't affect her life in any way. If anything, she just threw herself into life with more gusto than she already had done. She got a pink cast, which she loved because she loves pink. She loved the attention from all her friends. Didn't stop her doing anything. She absolutely thrived. She relearned how to do things. So she used to open drawers with her other arm and use her head to close them. And I just thought then, blimey, if that had happened to me, I would have been— it would have been the end of the world. It would— I couldn't drive, obviously. I probably couldn't turn up at work. I couldn't see anybody because I've got a broken arm. I'd be in pain. I'd moan about it. I'd probably stay in bed all day and overeat. And it would just be such a big thing. It's the old thing of the— I guess we all know it's not what happens to you, it's how you react to that. But when I saw how my daughter handled what could have been a really horrendous thing, something clicked in my head and I thought, hang on, she hasn't— she hasn't thought about that at all. She's just innately, organically dealt with it. And what can we learn from that? What can I learn from how kids just handle things and just cope with things? Because I used to be a kid and I would have had her reaction years ago, but I don't now because I'm now at the stage where I overthink and I make everything a problem. And that's where the idea came from. We sat down, we just looked at how kids behaved and operated. We interviewed loads of kids, loads of adults as well, and we found that this was a thing for a lot of kids. They just had a mindset of potential and possibilities and fun and excitement, and no matter what was happening in their lives, they just made the best of that. And, and then we just thought, well, hang on, this whole thing's been wrong all the way through. The self-help industry is all about what can you learn, you're not 'You may have the right intentions, but you need to know these skills.' And we— and as we were interviewing all the kids, we're thinking, 'This is completely wrong.' The kids just actually know how best to handle life. And we've all been kids. And the problem is we take on board all this extra stuff over the years, and we— and we weigh ourselves down, and we procrastinate, and we overthink, and we— and we anticipate things that turning out wrong and bad when we don't need to do any of that. We need to reconnect with the resources we all had as kids and get involved with those, and that will give us, you know, a new energy and a new purpose for life. And that is what Be More Kid is all about. I do know what I love that, and there's been so much— I've got so many— a list, a ridiculous list of things I want to talk about, and I'm hoping that we can squeeze them all in. But ultimately Being more kid, it's like, it's learning how to live in the now. Yeah. And I read a fantastic quote once in a book called The Anxiety Girl, and they said depression is to do with worrying about the past, and anxiety is to do with worrying about the future. If you live in the now, both can't exist. I think that it's, yes, we talk about living in the now because kids have, you know, are in the present. They They don't think about what's going to happen, you know, even next week. And that's where the enjoyment comes from for kids when they're just being themselves, because they just completely immerse themselves in what they're doing, and they just totally enjoy it. And they don't think about what other people might be thinking about them doing that very thing. But some of the things that we speak about in Be More Kid is actually how you can then take what we've learned as adults, the useful things from being an adult, and apply them to the thinking of and the resources of being more kid. Because the problem with if you always live in the now is that you would never actually— Ed would never have written the book. Because you're not thinking about the future. So there's a place for everything, yet it's utilizing the best of both and using those to tap back into the resources that you've had which were empowering as a child, and then utilizing those as an adult. So, so the future does have its place, as does the past, but not driven by those things that have caused us a problem, you know, and held us back. That's the thing though, isn't it? It's finding the balance, and we don't seem to be living our lives in a balanced way at the moment. We're kind of getting too much in our head and coming up with excuses as to why we don't do something. Do you know what? I saw something fantastic on Facebook a month or so ago where, in the book, you talk about how people have regrets, or they making excuses for not doing something. Oh, I'll do this when I lose weight. Oh, I'll do this when I get my bonus, or I'll do this, or I just need more time. Then all of a sudden, we quite a few of us got a lot of time because of COVID and, and then we still didn't do what we wanted to do, and we're like, oh, okay, having more time wasn't it, it was just making excuses. Yeah, we talk a lot, especially on our training courses, about living life consciously. Now, by that I don't mean sort of, you know, with your incense and doing Om consciousness type thing. I mean living your life on purpose so that what you actually do is you appreciate that life will ebb and flow. Because too many people actually look for a notion of balance, i.e., they think every area of their life should be a 10. So if you sort of cut your life down into sort of different segments like your health and fitness, your relationship with significant other, your family, This is the Wheel of Life, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Wheel of Life. So you can use the Wheel of Life exercise in the book. And what you can, you do is look at that moment, where are you as a sort of level of satisfaction, 0 to 10 in each of those areas? And what's driving that? Are you spending the proportionate amount of time for what you get? Because what a lot of people do is try and get 10 out of 10 in all areas. That's spinning plates. That really does wear people out. People down. That's called stress. Oh, and we don't believe in work-life balance, you see. We believe work is one area of life. And so we believe it's important, like your relationship with your partner or whatever else, and your kids. They're important. And we think what you should do is, is look at how do you— and there's a pun here with our surname— tailor your life. Hey, um, how do you tailor your life to what it is? Because We all know, so you've got kids. It's like, if you think about areas of your life, which areas of your life actually changed, Hazel, when you had kids? Because, um, you know, most people think they'll have kids and their life will just go on as it always would. Well, no, your priorities change. You, you know, you have a responsibility to keep them safe. You can't, you know, pop off at the drop of a hat or But to be fair, I mean, I think I've traveled ridiculously with my kids. They're just an extra excuse. But most people, they'll stop going to the gym. They will— perhaps their career will change, um, and, and lots of things happen. But we don't plan for this. We're not conscious that that change is coming up. And, and this happens throughout our life. We call it the grown-up trap. The grown-up trap— life happens to us. We— there are expectations from maybe society that we get married, that, that we take on a mortgage, that we car finance. And all of these things trap us into just being this grown-up, and we're not living our life to the full. We're always looking, how do we get out of debt? How do we, you know, do get the next iPhone or whatever else, rather than actually stripping it back and looking what's important in our life? Like we did with the book. Initially, when we first had the conversation, it wasn't on his wheel of life one of the most important things. 'Cause so we said to him, look, Ed, we get approached by a number of people for different projects. When you've got the time, when it's actually really important, you come back to us and we'll do it. And it took him about a year or so. Yeah, wasn't it? You know, it's okay. I'm ready. Yeah, he came back about a year or so later. I'm ready, folks. I've got some time, you know, because he's a busy guy like we all are. And so he came back to us and we went, right, okay. So let's put the plan in place. But we've got to realize that this is going to squeeze other areas of our life. So we believe in this notion of living a conscious life. So because Nikki and I, we, we disappear for at least 2 days a year to go through the wheel of life with each other. And we sort of strip things back and we go, right, what do we want to fulfill now for the next 12 months? What is it in these areas do we want to fulfill? What do we want to do separately? And together. Wow, that is complete conscious living. That is fantastic. Well, if you want to get your outcomes, you've got, you know, because the problem you've got is, is that we have so many things, especially with modern technology, so many competing things which lead to stress, which then you have this problem of anxiety, you have this problem potentially of depression. But if you manage those things and you manage to put goals in place and actually take action towards those goals, like we did with the book, then, then you will succeed and you will feel fulfilled in life. It's only when our lives go unconscious— I mean, neuroscientists reckon that for 95% of the time, people aren't consciously in control of their lives. How scary is that, by the way, that most people for most of the time are sleepwalking through their lives? Oh, well, as you say, it's been a passenger in life, isn't it? And What I found quite interesting about just talking about trying to get Ed to squeeze some time in to do the book, we seem to be bogged down by these preconceived ideas of what we should be doing and what we should be spending our time doing. I used to have other mums saying to me, "I can't believe you get to go to the gym all the time. Why do you find the time?" I'm like, "Well, actually, if I go to the gym, I have more energy and I can get more done." It's like speculate to accumulate. And in the same way, I'm pretty certain it was an idea that was bogged down in your head because you knew you wanted to get this book out. And I'm sure that was cathartic and made you even more incentivized to kind of be more proactive with life because you're, you're getting more done. And you've got to commit to it as well. So I remember it was every Friday at 1 o'clock, I think it was, for a few hours. And we met every single week and we— and that was blocked out in all of our diaries. And that was the time we we'd do it. And if we needed more time, we absolutely would. But you've got to— if it's important, you've got to make it a priority and commit to the people you're with and the project you're trying to do. Otherwise, as Mark said, it's not conscious and it just won't happen. We should really start at the beginning with page 2 with the 5 regrets. And this is what you try to rein in on for the readers to kind of really embrace what it is that they want to do. We, as we said before, we're sometimes passengers in life and we just kind of don't give ourselves the time to actually think about what we want. And the 5 regrets: I wish I'd had the courage to live life true to myself and not the life of others that they expected of me, or I wish I hadn't worked so hard, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings, I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends, and I wish I'd let myself be happier. We're not doing that, are we? That's— and that's when we, we become passengers, when we're not actually fulfilling our lives the way that we want to do, especially when we were kids. Yeah, it's so interesting because if you talk to, talk to kids, particularly of a certain age— I mean, the, the age group that we did the research with were really between the ages of 5 and 7. And really, the sort of 5 and 6-year-olds, they're just such fantastic ideas about what they were going to do with their lives, you know. They were going to be dancers and, you know, doctors and, you know, all these fantastic things. Astronauts. Yeah, astronauts. And they really, really believed that that's what they were going to do, which is fantastic. And then as they started to get a little bit older, because we did research with older children too, it was then almost what society expected of them. And you could actually see their mindset changing. And this is what happens through the teenage years. And, you know, giving an example from my brother, from a number of years ago. My brother was, it was when computers were just sort of starting out, and he said he wanted to develop computer games and he wanted to work with computers. A person at school said to him, "Oh, you're just never going to do that. You just need to work in a bank or do something usual, normal." And so this is the kind of influence that we have with good intention. People do it with good intentions. Because they don't want the kids to be disappointed, you know. And so my brother fortunately didn't listen to them, and he now actually works over in America, and he works— he does exactly what he wanted to do. He was actually moved over by Microsoft. So he's ended up doing exactly what he wanted. That's because he didn't listen to people trying to tell him what was possible and what wasn't possible. But I think it's very easy for us just to get influenced by someone else's opinion. And I think that only gets more intense as we go into the workplace. And, you know, people for— again, with good intent and sometimes not with good intent— start to influence what you believe about yourself and your capabilities and what you can achieve. And then you start to get the family and the, you know, all the other things that just seem to flow one after the other. And we can then start to feel guilty for even wanting to do things for ourselves. Particularly when you're a parent. Nick, that's a really, really good point. And just, just think, think about kids now. When a kid wants to go to the park, or a kid wants a sweet or a toy, they are relentless. And we lose that ability. So as we get older, we don't put ourselves first in the way that kids will. And we people-please, and we go, oh, well, I want to do this, but I don't think they'd be keen on— my mum wants me to do this, so I'll just agree to do it. When do we and why do we stop putting ourselves ahead of other people? Because, you know, actually all then you do is you live a life that you're unfulfilled and uninspired by. And why would you choose that to be your life? Because people are worried about what other people think, especially with social media. And there's a lot of jealousy around. I think you'll find that your biggest critics of what you do when you are living your best life are those that are jealous of you doing what they wish they could do. You know, there are a lot of mental health and wellbeing issues definitely more to the fore at the moment, and people are worried about judgments. That is why we are not being more kid, because we are worried about what people perceive us to be when we do that. If we put ourselves first, oh wow, look at her doing that job, I wonder who's cooking dinner for the kids, and things like that. We are constantly getting these judgments. And, you know, it is even more so in the last 10 years. You don't just get it in the street or in the playground, you're getting it on social media. Yeah, that's why within the book put a lot of how to do stuff. That's why I would put exercise in there, because we didn't want this just to be, um, another book which is, is, is just a what— what I call a what book, because there's so many sort of self-development type books out there. They're just what. And that's why we sort of put within each chapter at least one exercise people do, because the biggest issue I think we face today, and, and it's linked with the mental health issue, is emotional control. Is that we've got these wonderful things, being human, called emotions, which— and we're conscious of them. And what we don't have is, a lot of the time, the mindset techniques and the tools to be able to do that. And I'll talk from, for myself here. I was diagnosed with clinical depression after, well, this is probably now about nearly 20 years ago, after basically looking to drive my car into the parapet wall of a motorway bridge because I'd had enough. I couldn't see past what was going on in my life at the time and I'd had enough. Now, for whatever, a glimmer of hope came through the clouds and I didn't do it. But that was the sign where I went, I just can't do this anymore. Something's got to change. I went and saw the doctor, um, their first thing was go on antidepressants, which is, you know, the normal route, and they offered me counseling. The problem was when I got into that system was I weren't on the antidepressants very long, they just didn't agree because I would wake up dopey in the morning and couldn't really function correctly. But I did the counseling. The problem with the counseling was I might, after a few weeks, I might have been feeling a little bit better. But every time I saw the counselor, they would then dwell back on the past stuff and go, you know, we need to talk this through and we need to do that. And I'd almost reinstall all of the stuff from before. And so when I got a sort of negative response, because I'd have a bad feeling about going to the counselor because it would drag up all the things from the past. And I just think that What you need is, and everyone really needs, is whatever's good for them to have some sort of mindset techniques to be able to exercise emotional control. So it's a bit like you were talking earlier, when we look back over our past, we actually look at the past as being learnings rather than all wrapped with negative emotions like anger and fear. And, and when we're looking at the future, we're actually looking at it from this childlike aspect of its opportunity. There's fun to be had amongst all of that, rather than, as exactly I said earlier, having fear of the future, because that's what anxiety is. Anxiety is just really seeing things turning out the way that you don't want them to. So for us, the book's been very important, especially for— from this point of view of change, for us to help people start pose sort of questions for them within that about how their life is, but also give them some tools like the Wheel of Life and other exercises where they can start thinking, yeah, you know, I really need to invest in my mindset because let's face it, we all take our car normally for a service every year, but we don't service our minds. We don't service us as individuals. And I think that's the emphasis with me with the book was that for us, it was when we started writing it, there was a— there's a bigger thing behind this for us, uh, and especially with the year we've been through, there's not a better time for a book like this, especially with regards to people start thinking about their sort of mental and emotional wet status. Now, it's interesting that you said that you found it quite hard having to go back and look over things that have happened in the past. However, sometimes if we don't unpack and deal what's— what's happened to us, that it will go with us in the future, and we can't actually accept what's happened and move on. So sometimes you've got to put in the work to kind of be able to excel in the future. Like page 17, the whole— there's a section on acceptance of what you can't control, but it still means that you have to process possibly what has happened. When I read that chapter, actually, um, there's a few things that have happened to me in the last 3 or 4 years that were definitely impeding the way that I was living, and I went through a process of accepting, and certain people have possibly put me in a rather not great position. I just accepted it and actually started saying hi and being a little bit more friendly and kind of just letting it go. And weirdly, I even lost weight and I felt so much lighter and happier and I've slept better. And the power of just working through something to accept, yes, you've got to put the work in sometimes, but it's great to actually change your mindset. Give your brain a bit of a Control-Alt-Delete. I, I'd agree. I mean, what I say about difficulty dealing with the past is it's about— the thing is, right, the way the brain works, if you think about neural networks, we have a saying, neurons that fire together wire together. So it becomes hardwired neural networks, and this is where the 95% of living life for most people on automatic happens, because they hardwire behaviors. Without releasing the negative charge on them, i.e., the emotions which are on them, that the content then becomes hardwired and will keep producing those emotions automatically whenever you think of that past event. The way we look at things is very much along the line of what you're saying there. One of the biggest learnings people ever get is to accept things and just let them go. But also having techniques where you can actually release negative emotions off past events. So those emotions don't sort of harm you, because a lot of people, they, they get what we call a gestalt of emotions. So something will happen, which emotions stored on it, and then the next thing happens, the next thing happens, and it's just all piles up. It becomes a whole sort of stack of anger or a whole stack of fear. And that's when we have the final straw that breaks the camel's back. Somebody then has anger issues, or they may have phobias, And if you can then go back with a mindset technique and release that negative emotion from the past, as it were, but then it takes the charge off your past, then you can then, like you say there, exactly, let go of, of that stuff and start accepting that a lot of the time people just do what they do. People do the best they can with the resources they have available at any one time, and it's really down to us, as Ed said earlier on, how we're responding to events, which is the important thing. Do you know what I mean? That we are all completely different, and I think that one of the main things that we can do to help ourselves out is to know what gives you fire in your belly, whether it's listening to poetry or going for a walk in the woods or watching a ridiculous program. Find what distracts you and just gives you that fire, and then try and just reprogram your mindset that when you're thinking certain negative thoughts, go to your happy place. There's a really good bit in the book as well, because actually, as you get older, it's interesting. The films you used to watch, you don't watch anymore. The music you used to enjoy, the instruments you played. We sometimes see life in terms of it's a progression, and what we used to do, we've grown out of, and it's not part of our lives anymore. But there's a lot of power in reconnecting with the things that gave you that fire and passion. As a kid. And what we found in the people we've had a chat to is when they go back and they, they have a go on the instrument that they used to play, or if they used to ride horses or whatever, it's amazing how you feel when you do the things that used to light a fire in you as a kid. Because guess what? They still do as an adult. And that's a really exciting thing to try as well. Well, yeah, I mean, it can be a little bit embarrassing for my kids when, like, their dinner ladies and their teachers see their mum flying down the road on her rollerblades with leg warmers, and the kids are kind of on their scooters going, "Hi!" "Oh, look, is that your nanny?" Like, "No, it's mom." I think that's so nice for them though, because my girls are, you know, 31 and 29 now, and, you know, they've got this Be More Kid attitude themselves, and it's just so nice because, you know, they don't care about what people think about them, and we don't care about what people think about us. And we just have so much fun. This week I actually bought myself a new toy. I bought myself a skipping rope. I was in the supermarket and I saw it and I said, "Mark," I said, "A skipping rope." I said, "I haven't skipped for years." To be honest, I was never particularly good at it, but I'm thinking this time round I might actually master it. So, as soon as I got home, Mark actually altered the length for me and I was out on the patio and I thought, when we created this patio, I didn't think it would be so useful for this kind of thing. There used to be the washing line in the way and stuff. So yeah, I was out and, you know, I'm doing a little bit of skipping every day. And the feeling that I get from that is just, I get so much fun from it. And because it's exercise and I'm feeling energized from it, and it's something that I'm doing because I want to do it naturally, I just don't care what anybody else thinks about it. But within the whole Be More Kid book, what we did was, although it doesn't necessarily come out from the book, but it's come out from, you know, some of the other stuff we've done since then. There's actually 4 philosophies which come from the book. One of them is about playfulness, which is, you know, what we're talking about here. Passion, which is what you were talking about just a moment ago, with the fire in your belly, Hank. Things that excite you. And being present, which is where we started when we were talking about— Just enjoying the moment. And having that purpose. So reconnecting with what's important to you, and that's where your life goals come in, because that is what stops us having those— fulfilling those ambitions and those aims from when we're young. And it may be that as time goes by, it doesn't look exactly like that. But say, for example, I used to want to be a ballerina. I just— I believed 100% I was going to be this ballerina, and I actually thought that I would be spotted somewhere. Someone would see the grace of the way I was walking to school or something like that and think, "She's a natural ballerina," you know, and I'd be sort of taken off somewhere and, you know, trained up with the Royal Ballet or something. But, you know, even though that obviously didn't happen, I still love dancing and that is still important to me. So if I want to actually fulfill what's important to me, then I will go to dance classes, which Mark and I have done, you know, a number of times. We've done ballroom and, you know, Argentine tango. And are we the best? Well, actually, I'm much better than Mr. Taylor. Sometimes we're dancing by satellite sometimes, but we have so much fun. We really do. And, you know, it's those 4 philosophies. If we keep all of those in mind, then that's the way to live a Be More Kid life. I do say the fun sometimes comes with a caveat though, because we were out for our exercise a couple of Sundays ago, going for a nice walk, and we passed an empty child's playground and they got a balance beam which was a zigzag and it's only, I don't know, 18 inches off the ground, about the sort of size of a normal balance beam, about 5 inches wide. And so I said to Nick, right, it's the balance beam challenge. Gotta do the zigzag. And so, so we went on it. Nick went first and she said, oh, it's not very good in walking boots, it's a bit sort of slippy. I didn't believe her. So anyway, she completed it after a few wobbles, of course, and, and I completed it and did my dismount and did a 5-point landing doing a faceplant in the mud. Oh no! Yep. I was just so overjoyed. I just jumped off and didn't notice the ground, so I fell away and did the kid thing as such. But there's a lovely picture of me on Facebook if anybody ever goes— this muddy face and the muddy knees. But we had such a laugh. I normally go away. Having some fun. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm normally the one that's arguing with my kids as to who gets to go on the tree swing first. I think we're missing a very important point here, and that is, Mark, did you do the ballet classes as well? I didn't. They sort of passed me by because I played rugby, so, you know, they passed me by. I was too busy being muddy on the rugby field. Oh, that's a shame. Well, that's something that possibly you can put on the list. Yeah, there's still plenty of time. I've got the legs, yeah, I've got the legs for tights and ballet shoes. I feel a challenge coming along. What I would like to know is, what are each of you's favourite chapters that you contributed to the book, or what was your favourite stage? Should we start with you, Nikki? Well, that's a very good question. I think the thing that I think is most telling for me is that I talk about the accident I had in the book, and, you know, this isn't something that I've really shared with people. And I think overall we've all shared stuff that's been very personal to us in the book, and it's not stuff that we've actually spoken about with anybody else in the past. Yet I think for me, talking about the accident was, was really cathartic because, you know, I got to this stage where I was doing really well with the civil service. I'd been working for them for sort of 26 years, and that's really where I saw my future. And when we had the accident, I literally went overnight to being totally dependent on someone caring for me, and I couldn't even cross the road by myself. And, you know, and for me, that was the feeling that I had most at the time was embarrassment. And, you know, what will people think? And 'How do people perceive me?' Because I felt people judged me by the role I had at work. And so by sharing that story, that was really important to me because I wanted to tell other people that if you're in this situation and this has happened to you in the past, then it's perfectly fine and there's actually a way forward. And the best thing you can do is actually talk about it and tell people about it. Because it was, for me, it was a very stressful time. And, and it was not— I couldn't see where my future was going. Yet we used all of the techniques and the things that, you know, we, we train people in our programs and also how we coach people. And we used all of those things with me. And I'm actually a better version than I was before. And if I hadn't done that, then I wouldn't be where I am now, and I wouldn't have written the book, and I wouldn't have been helping all of these thousands of of people around the world that I've had the opportunity to do. So for me, that was an important chapter because it's— sometimes when things happen, actually, you don't know that could actually be the best thing that's ever happened to you. You just need to embrace it and see where it takes you. I think sometimes when we're forced to kind of rejig our lives a little bit— I mean, you talk about the gray zone in the book— when something that on the face of it looks quite horrific to happen, sometimes it forces us to reassess our life and to actually realize that we have more in us than that. We, you know, when we're faced with a challenge, we can sometimes completely knock it out the ballpark. And it's— there are quite a few stories in the book that are very honest and relatable from all three of you that I find are very helpful. And depending on each chapter, there's I think it really does help, especially when I was reading it, to kind of just get a picture a bit more about why you've decided to go down this Be More Kid route. And I did love listening to a lot of the stories that related to what was happening in all the many different chapters. What about you, Ed? What was your favourite chapter? I think, so what got me interested in this whole thing was I learnt cause and effect with Mark and Nick, and that really absolutely blew my mind in terms of are you at cause or are you just the effect of everyone around you and the world? And at the time it was like a light bulb that went off in my mind because we all have times in our life where we just, we go with the flow but not in a good way. We have— we're not taking control of our lives at all. We're not living, as Mark said earlier, with a purpose. And that is— I think that's the first step of anyone who wants to take control of their lives. And it absolutely was for me as well. In the book, we talk about it in terms of, are you a passenger or a driver in your life? And I just think this concept is so amazing in terms of— you, you think about your life right now and you think about your life as a car. Where are you in that car? Are you in the passenger seat with another person at the wheel? Just going where your parents, your boss, your kids, your teachers— are you going where other people want to go and you are actually a passenger in your own life? Or are you in the driver's seat with your hands on the wheel? Because we all need to be in that seat. That does not mean we won't come to a roadblock or a diversion or an accident, or you won't break down. But unless you're in the driver's seat with your hands on the wheel, you've not got any chance of making the best of your life and, you know, and doing what you want to do and be content. And I think this was the thing that changed the game for me because I went through— and I obviously, we talk about this in the book— I went through a relationship breakdown and bankruptcy, which at the time was horrendous. And I remember I used this concept and I go, okay, I'm in the shit here and I'm in a really bad place. My mindset was not good at all. I, I've got a choice. Am I just going to let this take place or am I going to put some things into place and get a hold of it and actually start to live with a purpose of what I want to do next? I think that was the thing that actually I look back on and that That's where it all started, I think. And I learned that from Mark and Nick. It's in the book, and it's still— I still use that now because we all go through stuff in life. And just because we've got this book out, it doesn't mean everything's amazing all the time. There are days where you go, that was a tough day or a hard day, but you can't stay in that place. At some point, you've got to go, hang on, I'm a passenger here. I'm at the whim of what other people say, and I take that on. And you just need to flick that switch in your head that says, get back in front of the wheel and sort it out. And that for me is such a powerful concept and one which I go back to now. And that, that's why I like that particular chapter. Do you know what I mean? The issue is that a lot of us face is that we are lazy, tired, and love being in the comfort zone. And what happened to you, especially especially when you had the, you know, Sainsbury's bag of belongings, is that you were no longer in a comfort zone, so you were forced to not be lazy and to do something about it. Absolutely. And it goes back to the point that I think Mark made earlier. How do you know what is happening in your life, which feels like the worst thing ever, how do you know it's not exactly the thing that needs to happen to get you to a place where you want to and should be. And that's the other interesting thing as well. We, we talk about life being a journey, and that is so true. There are ups and downs, but you just have to embrace everything while you're being conscious about it, because, you know, you can get to some amazing places through some real times of, of hardship. And that's what life is. That's, that's the journey we're all on. Well, and I find that we do a lot better when we're incentivised, and I think Be More Kid basically tries to rein that in without having to have, you know, a major disaster or something. It's about reining in what it is that is your incentive to do whatever it is that makes you feel alive. You know what, I mean, I think I'm normally quite on top of things, but you realise when you read books like this, actually, that, I mean, I have been a little bit of a passenger. I know full well that if I'm paying my bills and the kids are happy happy, and this is happening, and this is happening, then I get really lazy. Whereas if I know that I need to— I don't know, if I'm desperate to go backpacking with the kids again, you know, I'm incentivized, and I really start kind of throw everything up in the air and really go for it. And what's stopping me doing that all the time? Nothing. Exactly. Although we will always turn around and say, well, sleep impedes our ability. We're all struggling with sleep at the moment, and it seems to be a very good excuse for everybody not to do anything I'm just tired, I want to do this, this, and whatever. However, you know, a bit like what I said before about going to the gym, you put in that time and you'll have more energy. Spend an hour at the gym and you'll get 3 hours more productivity out of the rest of your day. It's, you know, you've got to speculate to accumulate, but this book is about changing that mindset and trying to find what is going to push us forward. Just on the point of sleep, we've done a brilliant podcast actually, if you search Be More, in the podcasts. There's one all about sleep and there's some amazing tips. And it's— you're right, it's especially for right now because there's a lot happening in the world and a lot of people are not, you know, able to get the sleep that they need. Sleep is one of the most important things. It's still used as— sleep deprivation is, you know, the worst thing ever. Yeah, to get that sleep is hugely important. And there's some great tips on the podcast of how you can do that. Just search Be More Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, you'll find it. Oh, brilliant. I will actually look at that because it's not just myself, it's a big topic of conversation when I go out for my dog walks with my friend, that we just, we're not getting the sleep, we're having the most craziest dreams. And back last year when the pandemic first started, I mean, it was a bit of a thing, wasn't it? We all went through the stage of having these really crazy dreams. And a year later it's still happening. And lack of sleep, especially when, you know, you've got to go to work and look after the kids or dealing with family, whatever it is that you've got to do, sleep is such an issue. Figure out your sleep and the rest will follow. So I definitely will be looking at that podcast and see what ideas you come out with. Just to remind our listeners to pop on to beatmorekid.com and there's they can sign up for— is it monthly updates? We have— there are some resources on there, and it's something we're going to be developing over, over a period of time, Hazel. It's— but at the moment, there's— yes, they can sign up for further information, and then they can access exercises which are referred to in the book on there too. Yeah, so when you— there's things like the Wheel of Life and how to start saying no. We connecting with your inner kid, and at the end of each chapter saying, right, if you want to go into this further. So it's quite interactive, which I love that element where people can go on to the website and then try a bit of an activity, break it up a little bit, put things into action so that they remember. Yeah, and we also have a Facebook group as well, the Be More Kid Facebook group. So, you know, it'd be great if people friended us on there, and then, you know, they'll see some of the stuff that's going on too. So can people put pictures of them rollerblading with their kids and embarrassing them? Incredible. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love that. As soon as you said that, Hazel, I thought, hmm, that could be the next thing. Mr. Taylor isn't that agile on his feet though, and so I've just got this fabulous picture already of seeing him doing that. But I think you'd be okay, Ed. Do you think? Yeah, come on, Ed. Let's all have a trip out on our blades. Do you know what? I started doing— I live in southwest London, and I went to Bushy Park on my rollerblades about a year ago. And as I was going down, this 80-odd-year-old bloke came past me and went, "Oh, you need to push your feet out a little bit more like you're cross-country skiing." And I was like, "Oh, love it." And this 80-year-old bloke, he's like giving me the tip and I tried it. And he's like, "See, you're going way smoother now." I was like, "Thanks, mate, carry on." There is absolutely what Be More Kid is all about. And that's what life is all about. It's not about age, it's about attitude and outlook. I love that story. You'll only get me rollerblading if you wrap me in bubble wrap first and give me some sort of inflatable suit or something. I think that can be sorted, can't it? With Be More A&E. I like the idea of seeing you going around looking like the Michelin Man on rollerblades. I think that's brilliant. And, you know, you can combine the whole ballet thing as well. Wow, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's the only way it would be, yeah, is so without a visit to A&E, that's the only way it would happen. And the first thing I do, of course, when these incidents happen, Hazel, is I take a photograph and it's on Facebook. Oh, well, she's okay though. She checks, she kills herself laughing, says, are you okay? And then proceeds in photographing me. Well, to be fair, I've just liked the Facebook group, so I— so it will come up when we do we finally get you in bubble wrap and rollerblades. Good. Watch this space, listeners. It's going to happen. He said it on Men's and Women's Radio Station. So what was your favorite chapter then, Mark? My favorite chapter is the one which you were with page 31 in with procrastination, because procrastination, I just think, is the thief of our dreams and it's the graveyard of all of our good ideas. And, you know, with the chapter when we wrote that, we went into about looking at what is it that causes people to procrastinate. And we've dealt with some of the things already when we were speaking about worrying about what other people think. And but I just think procrastination is, is that thing that just stops people in their tracks. And if you can work out why you are procrastinating, why you're putting things off, it just leads the pathway then to, to more fulfillment in your life. But yeah, so, so my thing is, is all about procrastination because people get into what we call the busyness trap. And you've already alluded to this, Hazel, you know, saying we're busy, I'll do it when, you know, everything appears all right. We're in this comfort zone, which we also call the gray zone, living what I call mundane to Friday, um, and, and just that life's okay. Don't get me wrong, life's okay. Life's, you know, pretty okay. It's not as good as we'd want. It's not as bad as we've been before. And so it is the area we know. And as you totally said, we will not often do anything whilst we're in that zone because it's comfortable. You know, it's, you know, we'll pull ourselves out of it for a couple of weeks holiday each year and we'll think, oh, I wish life was always like this. And then we'll have bad times like we've had. Over the last 12 months a lot of the time. And then we'll think, crikey, I wish life was like it was before. But the trouble is we need to recognize when we are in that zone that we are coasting. We are actually just on the rollerblades going down to, you know, and potentially going downhill, you know. But that change is actually uncomfortable. You know, the more you do it, the more you get used to it. There's a story I tell. Yeah, the story I tell on— I love metaphors. I love telling stories. As Ed knows, I do know, but your stories are brilliant, actually. This is on the Be More podcast. Be More. I tell a lot of stories because I just love metaphors. And the one is there's a guy sat at the side of the road and he's got his dog in front of him and his dog's whimpering. And a little boy walks past and he says, hey, mister, do you know your dog's whimpering? And he says, yeah, I do. He said, well, mister, why is he whimpering? He said he sat on a nail. He sat on a nail. Why doesn't he get off, mister? And he said, well, I guess it's just not uncomfortable enough yet. Oh, wow. Now I think that's a lot of people in life. And so, you know, if you listen to the podcast, you'll hear that again. But yeah, I just think, you know, it is a case for a lot of people. It's like, how bad does it have to get before you're going to change? How bad, you know, do things have to get? And that's why The Wheel of Life is in that chapter, actually, the procrastination chapter, because if you do that assessment, you do that audit of your life, you've then got an opportunity to move out of procrastination. And hey, yes, it is uncomfortable, you know. And then the opportunity comes up exactly as you said before, Hazel. A lot of the time we're on this away from motivation. We move away from pain. We move away from, you know, it being boring or whatever else. What the idea is, is to get towards pleasure. And that's what Be More Kids is about. It's about actually stop living a life where we're just living it unconscious, being driven by moving away from pain or how bad does it have to get and procrastinating, but actually being in control of our lives, being the driver and moving it forward and moving towards pleasure rather than all of our life just being driven and that it has to get bad. You know, I haven't got enough money. So I've got to go and learn more. So what we're— the concept as such is, right, let's, you know, and if you want to, by the way, if anybody wants to wallow, want to be in the gray zone, that's fine. I always think I would say it to our people we train, and Ed knows this, once we talk about cause and effect. If you're being an effect of everything in your life, it's okay to have a wallow and, you know, wallow in your own self-pity, eat chocolate, hide under the duvet and whatever else. The thing is, though, sometimes you've got to come out of that. And once you understand this process that Ed was talking about of moving to cause, being the cause of the effects in your life, rather than just being at the effects of everything that happens to you, then you start being empowered. And when you do get to your wallow situations, your bad days, you go, okay, I've had the chocolate, I've drunk the wine, let's go on with life. So procrastination, I just think it just kills lives. It just, you know, It is, it is the thief of our dreams. It really is. Well, it's people thinking that it's too late to do something. They procrastinate for so long and then say, no, it's too late for me to do that now. And you know, as you referred to the graveyard of unfulfilled dreams and intentions, you put on one of my favorite proverbs, which is the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Yes. If you're alive, it's not too late. Yeah, exactly. See, I'll share it because you said about there about it's never too late or whatever most people do. I actually was a career police officer. I was a police officer for just over 29 years in the West Midlands. I was a sergeant. And so I retired allegedly in 2009 at the age, at the ripe old age, so I'm going to give my age away now, 51. And I've never worked harder since. I've never worked harder since with all the stuff we do. And wrote a best-selling book at the age of 62. It's now— 60s is the new midlife, but it's never too late to do anything, you know. It's never too late. And, and we do all sorts of stuff, and I, I will continue to do all of that ad infinitum. And, uh, Ed's mum has become a model, hasn't she, Ed? Yes, she has. Where's she modeling All sorts of people. Yeah, she just— it's weird, she's done all sorts in her life. She's a broadcaster, she's done TV work, she was a teacher, she used to run her own PR agency. A bit like Mark in a way, that she retired and then thought, well, actually, I love what I do, I love stuff, I don't just want to stay at home and just chill and relax and knit. I'm enjoying things in life. So she saw an advert for a model and applied and got a job. Well, the thing is, is it really work if you love it? No, exactly. And yeah, she really enjoys it and she goes all over the place, works for all sorts of people. She— and she loves it because of who she meets, and she's all about people. And, and that's what life is about, isn't it? Just stuff you, you enjoy and find stuff you enjoy as well. Yeah, absolutely. And, and Ed's mum's 70, so, you know, it's— and she won't mind saying that, that's telling you that, because she's very proud of it, isn't she? Quite right. Absolutely. It's all about purpose and passion. Absolutely. You know, if you find what you believe is your purpose in life and you actually do that and you earn money from it, then it's not work. It's not— you've got a great section on page 69 about purpose that I absolutely thoroughly loved. Yeah, we're big on purpose. Yeah, absolutely, because that's often, you know, Mark and I, we, we have coaching clients, and, and that's probably one of the major things that people come and see us for. It tends to be people who have not been able to get their results by doing other things, so they come and see us. And a lot of the time, the problem originates because people have lost their way, particularly when they get to a certain age, you know, maybe when the kids have grown up and, you know, if someone's devoted their life to looking after their kids and they're off to uni or they get married and they buy their own houses or whatever, and you're just left in the house by yourself, it's all of a sudden, well, actually, who am I and what's my purpose in life? And so one of the things that we do is we, we help them reconnect with that. And we use the basis of what's in Being More Kid about finding your purpose. That purpose exercise. It's a great exercise to do. But when you're actually following your purpose, what we believe in then is everyone deserves abundance in life and do the things in life we want. We should all have abundance. And if you can get that abundance by living your purpose, then it's just, well, it's a no-brainer. Life is just so good. And just wholeheartedly agree. Do you know what? We have raced through the last hour that we've run out of time. I could chat to you three for at least another hour or two. We've got time for one more story. Go on, go on then. Because I would like Mark to tell my favourite one of his stories, and I think this ties it all together. We talk about this on the podcast, and it's how we started and It's all about— we often don't do the things we want to do because of what we think other people might think about us or how they might judge us. And Mark has got an amazing story that I think brings this to life, and it's a really powerful thing to hear. He's now dropped me in it, hasn't he? You know, it's that thing that you should never do to her. I know which story you mean. I know which story you mean. My favorite one. I love this story. And this story revolves around ants, as it happens, insects. So there's this colony of ants and they've got this competition whereby they want to decide who is the sort of strongest ant. And what they've got faced in front of them is this pole, and it's a really high pole, and they've got to climb to the top of the pole. So the ant that climbs to the top will go there. But it's, I mean, it's a massive task. It's a really high pole. And so they're all looking at it and some of the ants look at it and go, I'm not even going to attempt this. You know, I'm, I'm, there's just way beyond my capabilities. And then a few start going up and they'll be going up. And then all of a sudden they'll hear the crowd of ants below going, are you going to fall off in a minute? You're going to fall off. Oh, you'll never make it to the top. And guess what? They fall off. And this goes on all day. And these ants are having a go, but then the crowd are, you know, sometimes cheering them, but other times going, oh, you've gone further than other people, but, you know, it's way beyond any ant's capability to get to the top of the pole. Anyway, they're getting towards the end of the day and this one ant comes forward and starts going up the pole and all the others are shouting, oh, you know, and he goes past all these markers of where all the other ants have been and he keeps going and they're all going, oh, you'll never do it. Oh, be careful, you'll fall. You know, you need to come back, come, come back now, because if you fall, you're going to hurt yourself. And he goes all the way to the top and they're all cheering and everything else. And he comes down and he comes back down again. They're going, how, how did you, you do it? How did you do it? And they're talking to another ant that was with him. And he's saying, look, against all that adversity, he said, well, all those people, all those ants telling him, he couldn't do it, he said, "Well, he's deaf. He's a deaf ant." Oh wow, I didn't see that coming at all. I love that story. We all should do that, we all should be a deaf ant. There you go, that's a perfect way to end today's show. We need more deaf ants. Well, Ed, Mark, and Nikki, thank you so much for joining us here for Get Booked at Menzies and women's radio station. And listeners, do pop over to bemorekidney.com and download the resources as you read the book. Thank you all of you for joining me. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. The book is still on special on Amazon at £7.34, so it's a bargain. Quick, go get it! Go get it now before it runs out.