Deri Llewellyn - Ironman The Ayahuasca Baby

Full transcript: Deri Llewellyn on London Real

0:00 Hello London realers. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah or whatever the hell it is that you celebrate this time of year. My name is Brian Rose. I’m coming at you from London, England. I am really enjoying the holiday season.

0:14 I normally get the hell out of Dodge for this time of year. I usually go to Brazil or LA or Thailand or somewhere warm. warm, but for some reason I’m really enjoying the holidays, Christmas, and the whole thing. It’s very trippy. So wherever you are, I know this can be a crazy time of year. They call it the silly season. You might be going home to be with family who you can’t stand, or maybe you’re not with certain people so you’re feeling edgy about that. Let me tell you from someone who’s done it both ways that either way it’s okay.

0:51 I spent many, many a Christmas day on my own. I did it for probably the first five or 10 years of my life in a way to toughen myself up. So I remember a few times in New York City with myself and an egg roll because those were the only restaurants open on New Year’s, excuse me, on Christmas. So there’s a tip, go Chinese if you’re solo. And I did it to kind of toughen myself up.

1:19 And maybe it worked, I don’t know. But I’m here to say that either way, whatever you’re doing, whether you’re solo or with family, it’s character building. So, you know, get through it and it’s gonna be fine. This week on the show, we’ve got Derry, Ap, John, Llewellyn Davis. This guy is an ultra marathoner and he’s also climbed five of the seven highest peaks on each continent in the world.

1:44 And he had a lot of things to say, but he talked about his near-death experience when he was climbing Mount McKinley in Alaska, one of his failed climbs, actually, and how it just really gave him perspective, because he was also going through the financial crisis in 08, and it was quite a parallel to draw how he was about to die and about to go bankrupt. And he had some really good perspective, so check that out. Also, we had some wonderful female energy in the studio with Sonia Dubel as a guest host.

2:17 You might’ve first met her back in April for her episode, The Secret Bliss. She’s a yoga instructor. She’s done everything. She’s been an actress, model, singer, and she was great to have in studio, but also at the end, she talked about her soon-to-be-born child. She’s nine months pregnant, and she came to the studio.

2:39 I was fully ready to give birth if necessary. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but luckily she kept the child during taping and you girls out there will be either happy or sad to know that Sonia makes nine months pregnant look sexy. So, I don’t know how she does it, but she talked about how her daughter, who’s going to be born in a week or so, is an ayahuasca baby. You can watch me with about 15 minutes left, shut the fuck up, and listen to her talk about how her ayahuasca journey in Brazil in March, I believe it was, led to her pregnancy.

3:21 And it was pretty heavy, pretty heavy stuff, whether you’re a guy or a girl. So tune in for that. It’s a fantastic show, a lot of interesting perspective, to say the least. As usual, we’re sponsored by Audible. I am currently listening to The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.

3:41 It’s an excellent listen. If you want to get a free copy of that, go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash London Real and you can get a free book if you sign up for a 12-month subscription and you can cancel at any time. So I’m listening to these 48 Laws, and it’s funny because I’ve used some of these laws working in the city for many years without knowing the specific names of those laws. So it’s an interesting book to kind of read and try to see the way that you end up acting, you know, in a power situation.

4:15 And apparently it’s the most requested book in the American prison system. So there you go. Check that out. Also, we’re sponsored by Onnit. I am loving the Alpha Brain.

4:27 I’ve been back on it now for about two weeks since my last ayahuasca session and I’ve been taking one a day, about to go up to two a day and just loving it makes me feel very crisp. So I’m gonna be on the Alpha for a while. I’m also waiting for my hemp-force protein in the mail. So as soon as that gets here, I’ll give you my review. I’ve heard good things, but I wanna check it out myself.

4:49 So I’ll let you know on both of those products. They also have Shroom Tech Sport, Cordyceps Mushrooms, Nick and I love it for hard training sessions. If you do any jiu-jitsu, any Thai boxing, any kettlebells, anything with heavy anaerobic cardio, Cordyceps Mushrooms are your friend. So check it out, it’s the Shroom Tech Sport. And with all of those products, if you type in the coupon code London Real, you get 10% off and keep this show free so we can get it out everywhere in the world, which is what we’re doing right now.

5:21 If you want to watch any of our faces, or if you want to take a look at the lovely Sonia Dubel, go to our YouTube channel, it’s London Real TV. You can watch all of the episodes. Also come check us out on Twitter, we’ve got some great Twitter fans now. Great back and forth with Twitter right now, really loving Twitter more than ever. And we’re also on Facebook.

5:43 And you can check out our website, LondonReal.tv, we’ve got a forum there getting very popular. So check that out. enjoy your holidays, whether it be solo with Egg Roll or at home going crazy with Mom. And here’s Darrie Llewellyn Davis and Sonya DeBell. This is London Real.

6:22 I am your host, Brian Rose, joining us instead of Mr. Nick Gabriel, who is currently drinking massive amounts of ayahuasca in Peru, is the lovely Sonya DeBell. Thank you for being here. You might have seen her on her first episode here, which was The Secret Bliss, which which was what, February, March? Yes, yeah.

6:39 It was a while back. Was it before I went to Peru? Yes, it was. No, no, when you got back from Brazil, on your ayahuasca adventure. And now you are extremely pregnant.

6:51 Yes. Oh, I’m glad you made it and didn’t have birth. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Selfish thing to say. Me too, me too.

6:57 All right. I’m very happy to be here. All right, and also joining us is Derry Ap, John the Well and Davis, who has done so many things. I don’t know where to start. He has climbed five of the highest mountains on Earth.

7:09 He has ran the Marathon des Sables. Am I pronouncing that right? I don’t know, I’m not French, so I can’t call that. Okay, but which is six marathons across the Sahara Desert. Wrap your head around that.

7:19 And while he was doing these feats, he also managed to write this book, which is Life’s Great Adventure, available on Amazon, which it talks a lot about your adventures, but it seems also more almost a book about philosophy and as far as what you got from those adventures. So welcome. Thank you, good to be here. Really, really good to be here. Well, I lucked out to have you today as well, fantastic.

7:40 Lucky me. Very lucky. You don’t look like the guy who’s running through the Sahara Desert. Do you get that a lot, where people look at you and they’re like, I don’t see the connection? It’s not because you don’t have a tan, but I.

7:51 What do you mean? I don’t understand. So dapper. So why would you do this, such a thing like that? The Sahara.

8:00 Yeah. Everyone goes to the Sahara, it’s interesting, whenever I’m talking about It’s like it’s the Sahara thing that kind of that’s the the big one for people or the interesting one But even in your book you said that was the hardest thing you’ve ever done It’s interesting since that since I wrote the book I’ve done something Hardly but in a different way I did an Iron Man three weeks ago and three months ago So and that was harder but in a very different way So it’s it’s I think that everything’s different every adventure I do is different I think some people attracted like you and yeah, yeah you jiu-jitsu or and all that kind of stuff Some people are sort of drawn to one thing and a mastery in one element of the life, which I totally honor, and it’s just about, we use within life’s great adventure that the philosophy, if you wanna call it that, is just living a great adventure.

8:44 Now, in my context, it happens to be adventure. It is really drawing to the remotest places on Earth and exploring the greatest places on Earth through adventure and running and climbing and I like physical activity. You weren’t always into this, were you? This is something that started after, I mean, just a little bit of history. You were a rugby player, and then you had an injury, and that was the catalyst.

9:10 And how did that sort of all happen? Well, as my name suggests, I’m Welsh, so we weren’t allowed to have a round ball in our school in Wales. They don’t play rugby in Wales. No, round ball, soccer, bad, bad, bad word. So it’s all rugby, rugby, rugby, incredible passionate nation for rugby, as South Africa is clearly, so I was brought up with rugby and I think sometimes in our lives we have a passion, a core to what we do, and sometimes that’s taken away.

9:41 Now this can happen in many contexts. That can be a blessing sometimes. Well, it doesn’t feel good at the time, but absolutely I think that is, and this is, Stephen Covey talks about this in The Seven Habits and that balance, because if you’re totally focused on family and then the family’s taken away, what do you have left? If you’re totally focused on rugby and the rugby’s taken away what you have left. And it’s that ability to have a wider context to who you are.

10:04 Now, for me, I was very rugby-focused, and suddenly that was taken away. I got injured in America in a tournament. And you’ve got choices in your life. You can bitch a man. I got fat for a little while and, you know, bitch a man, I think.

10:19 How long did it take you to bounce back? It was about six months. I think you have to, sometimes you have to- The mourning period. Yeah. Plus, isn’t that your entire identity in the rugby?

10:26 Yeah, absolutely. It’s that identity piece with the rugby and I can’t, I struggle watching a rugby match these days because I don’t, I’m not a spectator, I want to be on the field and I can’t be, I can’t be, I could be, but I risk certain other things because the last injury was back so I was like okay I need to change something. But then you just, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? It’s a moment of reflection of okay, thankfully I’ve done a lot of personal development and exploration philosophy, as you describe it, to say, what is it now? Let’s go forward.

11:01 Okay, I’m 70 years old. I’m sitting on my deathbed or 104, 94 like that dude you had on recently. Yeah, 96. 96 ago. So, I’m 96 years of age. I’m sitting here. I got injured when I was 30. So, I’m going to sit on the sofa for the rest of my life and be one of those guys down the pub. Oh, yeah, when I was young, I used to play football. I was great, but I had an injury when I done, you know? Do I want to be one of those guys? And by the way, I had a couple of experiences in the pub when guys were doing that. I just thought, I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to be that man down the pub saying what could have been. I need to do something different.

11:34 So what is it I’m going to do? And I was actually on a Tony Robbins thing in Australia when I was looking at Destiny. When was this? Like 10 years ago? This was eight years ago. Eight years, okay.

11:46 I’m looking at Destiny and Legacy and I realized, I said, okay, well, we’ve got one chance at this life maybe we come back I think I think we probably will be cool I don’t know but whilst we’re here let’s make the most of it so I wanted to explore the greatest things on earth whilst I’m here was that something that gave you the the strength to kind of get up afterwards so it was the Tony because I mean he is very powerfully inspirational he actually taught me how to break a board when I was 10 years old in California see now you got access to that early. Very early, 16 minutes. I mean, I was 10. Can you still do it? I don’t know. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s try, let’s find a board.

12:24 Well, I used to live in Del Mar, which where I am from in California, has a place called the Del Mar Castle there, but that was my first experience, and my mother did the fire walk experience with Tony Robbins, like in the 80s or the 70s. This is very forward-thinking, mom. Yeah, it’s California. California yeah yeah but see you get the axis over here and over in this kind of the Brits are a little bit more staid you know I was brought up in the west tip of Wales there was no such thing I got into this much later in life no exposure to that way of thinking you mean okay not at all very boxed off and and that part of my passion my legacy is trying to get to this thinking in a different way that’s trying to get the the lives great adventure is kind of trying to get this accessibility to thinking in a simple way to get people joining but using adventure in a fun, cool way.

13:09 So it’s not got personal development written all over, it’s not got self-help or anything because it kind of can have negative connotations, unfortunately. Yeah, and I turn off when I see a self-help book. I know. It’s just so many. It’s hard to figure out exactly what the minutia of someone is saying.

13:23 And a lot of it’s cut up in different ways. It’s the same as things being regurgitated. But I think Tony’s been around for years. He certainly inspired me at a certain point in my life to really think big. And that’s when I created what I call global grand slam. So whilst I’m here, I want to experience the best that that’s got to offer.

13:41 And for me, that’s the both poles, the seven highest mountains in the world, the desert run, and the jungle run, and the Arctic. So it’s basically ultra endurance, six marathons back to back across desert, jungle, Arctic. You just chose this? Yeah, I made it up. And I threw an Iron Man in because just because a guy, a guy when I was on the marathon to Saab was calling me Tin Man because he was an Iron Man. And I wasn’t.

14:04 So I thought, right, I’ll do an Iron Man 2. And that was my bucket list. So well down the list now, so I’m continuing to explore and things will be added to the list. That’s the beauty of life. It’s amazing.

14:17 It’s really amazing because it’s not as though you had trained your whole life to do it. And I think that was, would you say that the book was really born from that? You were not the person who had trained your whole life to do it, but yet you still took it on and did it. And I think that that is really facing your fears and doing it anyway, go Susan Jeffers. But it’s true, it’s, you know, you have to kind of just find the warrior and then do it.

14:47 And then when you do do it, that is just another inspiration for yourself. You feel the strength of that. So I guess what was the first journey you took on? I mean, that must have been amazing. solo because you went from a team sport to this, or is climbing solo or is it a team?

15:04 It sounds like through each adventure you had on each continent, you’re going with different people aren’t you? Because you’re going with local guides. I mean of all the things you could choose to do, I’m just curious why you chose those things. Do you know what? I have no idea.

15:18 I think it’s withdrawn and I think this is part of the exploration. I talk about strategies, what I do in my day job, but within business, whether it’s business or adventure, whatever, I think we’re drawn to something and it’s a passion inherent in us that we need to discover. And it is a discovery and sometimes you have to do stuff to understand you don’t want to do stuff. I had to do the second book, which we’re working on at the moment, which is kind of the application of Life’s Great Adventure. That’s about Ironman.

15:45 And I had Ironman in the list, so I gave it a go. Now, an Ironman for those who are is a two and a half mile swim followed by a hundred and twelve mile bike ride and then a full marathon Okay, that’s a tough gig in approximate times for how long does that take well the what I didn’t By the way people if you’re gonna do this do you Matt do your homework first? I hadn’t realized if you don’t do it in 17 hours. You’re not an iron man you cut off literally And I only realized that two months before when I was kind of pooching around my bike not really I had to go a lot faster I had a bad day on that one but I did it in just over 16 and but here’s the thing I decided I wanted to do it I had no idea why partly born out of ego you know boys kind of down the pub right I’m gonna do an Iron Man but that was three years ago when I started that journey I couldn’t swim and I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a kid but I could run a little because I you know the running bit was the strong bit so again it just goes to show no matter what you want to have a go at you can have a go at anything now you’re gonna have to learn a lot you can have to you know try a lot you’re gonna have to be disciplined and persevere and whatever but I had to learn how to swim 101 and I had to get on my god bikes on like they were when I was a kid you love it with all these toys you’ve got you know it’s lightweight and man that’s just a technical aspect I love

17:11 Throwing on a pair of trainers and going running in the forest of Dean where I I live, easy, you know, shorts, t-shirt. Okay, you might have to put a pair of gloves on if it’s cold. But biking, it’s just the technicalities behind it now and the sophistication behind it and the kit and the rest of it. My bike’s for sale. Anyone wants to buy a bike, I got two bikes for sale.

17:29 But I don’t wanna do that anymore. Are you finished with the Ironman? I’m finished with the Ironman. So you did it? Did it, done, next.

17:34 I don’t wanna do it again. And looking at it now afterwards, was it what you expected? Was it a grind the whole time? Were you like, what am I doing? Did your ego get you through that?

17:43 No humbleness did actually and this is what I love about adventure my whole the whole start of the journey was born out of ego and that’s the book that’s part of the book is the exploration of that and actually what I discovered on the way was not what I discovered I knew I needed to do this but I didn’t know why and it was the universe kind of giving me lessons in different ways I think I needed to learn the lessons through adventure I think we all learn these lessons through different ways whether it’s through yoga or whatever it is right for you and the Iron Man for instance that was probably that’s still you know you know the when you actually crossed the finishing line you have you are an Iron Man. I didn’t realize that was awesome and I kind of all my kind of mantra beforehand in the training and everything else I had like an Iron Man hat and an Iron Man t-shirt and I was doing the foot you know Iron Man on the vision board the whole lot was Iron Man, Iron Man what did an Iron Man think today you realize. So the whole thing was really kind of, because Iron Man is the kind of pinnacle in ultra endurance for a lot of people. And on the very morning of, so when I was ready to, I’m ready for Iron Man, on the morning you kind of go out at five o’clock in the morning to jump in the water to start the swim. Still nervous, but still ego. And in a heartbeat, my whole day of what I expected, I expected to have a grueling, tough day,

19:07 Good, you know, knuckle down, get on with it. And there was a ripple from the back of that. I was throwing it in my wetsuit. Actually, I had to pee in my wetsuit before I even got in the water, but that’s another story. Is that encouraged?

19:18 So that’s out of warm up at five o’clock in the morning. But there was a ripple from the back of the crowd and the crowd at the crowd of wetsuited people parted and came through a team called Team True Spirit. And this is a team of, and I didn’t know, this was not part of my, I didn’t expect this, I didn’t plan this, I didn’t even know who they were or they were on the day. So if teams do two spirits out there, I honor you guys. It’s a set of ex-veterans or veterans who’ve lost limbs in the forces or in other ways. And those guys with one leg, one arm and the pinnacle, one guy being carried through had no legs. No legs carried through.

19:59 They’re competing in this event? through to the front to get in the water to start the Ironman. Now that puts it into perspective. People go, Ironman, Dario, man, I couldn’t do an Ironman. I was like, well, have you got two legs? Well, that’s a good start.

20:12 Yeah, it’s inspiration right there. Now I didn’t know that that was going to happen. And on that journey that day when I was having I had a bad day. You know, Ironman’s a tough day for a lot of people and I screwed a lot of the preparation up on it. But on the bike ride when I was having a tough day, I was going up one of those biggest hills, and the guy with no legs was ahead of me, panned pedaling on his bike, having a tough day going up the highest hill.

20:36 So I’m having a tough gig getting up the hill on my legs, right? And then you just go, oh, I can’t do, mind kicks in, oh man, I can’t do, oh, he’s got no legs, Derry, shut up, put up and get going. And again, on the wheelchair side of things, he was going around in his wheelchair, doing the marathon. So, I did not expect that. But, you know, I knew I needed to do an Iron Man, and now I know why.

21:00 Because of that humbling, humbling experience on an Iron Man of, and the moments I was having a tough day, and also the message now sitting here when I’m on the stage and I speak about this stuff, the message I can get through to people, that, and we’ve got it on the Inspired Adventure website and stuff of that story and these people, and it’s just, we as human beings can do anything, anything we set our minds to, you just got to think big enough and give it a go. So Iron Man, tough day, but tougher day for the guy who had no legs. Do you think it’s healthy to do things out of ego? I mean, Sonia and me and this whole show is kind of about trying to check your ego and control your ego, but do you think it’s an important part of pushing yourself, of being successful?

21:48 Yeah, I don’t think ego ever goes away. Actually, ego can drive us and ego can fuel us. It’s a part of us. It’s just not letting it be everything, I think, and checking it. It’s being able to check it, I think, more than anything.

22:02 Sonia, how do you deal with your ego? I think awareness, awareness of it. If you’re not aware of your ego, it then lives you. you’re not aware of it, so it’s your thoughts are in action, you’re thinking, you don’t even know what you’re thinking half the time, you’re just unaware. And I think that the root of everything for me is just awareness, have an awareness.

22:31 And then when you have that level of awareness in your life and you know, you know, these are the thoughts that I’m thinking right now, they’re serving me, you know, I’ve reacted in this way towards, you know, this situation, where is that coming from? And if I can be looking at the ego and at the way I’m kind of delivering my life and how I’m perceiving life around me, then for the most part, you know, you can have a really happy kind of existence. It’s when you don’t have that awareness.

23:07 When you are unaware, the thoughts are running you, you know, and you don’t have a realization that whatever you’re seeing in your life is really what’s going on inside you. And so, you know, your ego is then blaming life, blaming situation, blaming things around you for whatever’s going on. And it can really, it can wreak havoc. And I think that that’s when you don’t have awareness in your life and you don’t have awareness in yourself and you’re not really embodying who you are, that’s the biggest problem in…

23:43 And you do a lot of meditation and yoga, so that must… Yeah, I do a lot of yoga. I love the healing of the body because I think it heals the mind and the two are a marriage. I mean, definitely with Jerry’s book and this whole, I think it’s a very beautiful thing to serve and inspire others because it’s such a great need out there to inspire people. And to me, inspiring somebody is almost alleviating their fear.

24:17 And you seeing, you know, somebody with no legs can take away your fear of, like, keep on going. You know, you’ve got two, he’s got none, he’s still doing it. And we get inspired by each other and it’s a service. So he didn’t know he was inspiring you and probably all the other people that were looking at him, but that’s what we do. We inspire each other and I think if you have that awareness that we are to serve each other and that your awakening and your awareness is not just a personal trip, it is a service to all the energies around you.

24:56 If you can just be awake yourself, be aware, and try every single day to nurture that quality because it’s not easy, you know? Darragh, you seem like you put these huge adventures, no tests in front of yourself, knowing that there’s a chance you’re gonna fail. And I mean, I think you climbed, I don’t know, it was McKinley, one of the mountains where it just crushed you. And I mean, that in itself must be a way to be aware of your own ego and humble yourself in a way.

25:25 It seems like in a weird way if someone was analyzing you, this is your therapeutic loop that you put yourself through. Yeah. I’m being analyzed, aren’t I? Oh my goodness. No one told me about the analyzing.

25:35 I have a new career. No, you’re right. And when I was going on these journeys, I didn’t realize the therapeutic aspect of it. It was just a feather in your cap on the climate. It started from ego, ended in humbleness.

25:47 And as part of this journey, the reason I wrote that book because of McKinley, because As you know, within that chapter, I nearly died on that mountain. And I realized that everything I learned in life, all my lessons, what I stood for, what I believed in and what daddy’d done, my children would not know. And I wrote that for my children. It was never intended to be published. And as you know, there’s some personal stuff in there, which I was like, I was telling my publisher, really?

26:11 That’s for my kids. It’s not meant for public. My publisher, no, that’s the bits we want. That’s the real bits. Can you tell us what happened on McKinley?

26:17 Are people that are listening and haven’t read your book yet? Well, two things happened. I find my adventures have been a direct reflection of what’s been going on the rest of my life at that time, which is an interesting life concept. And I think we reflect in all areas of our life, particularly our passions, we reflect with what’s going on in the life of the time. So certainly when I was going through the businesses, we were building, everything was going great, all the adventures went great, you know, Nailed and then everything to Saab and Kilimanjaro and climbing the mountains.

26:45 When I climbed McKinley, it was around about the time, I don’t know if you remember it when the banks were collapsing. Oh, wait. Yeah. And this mountain’s in Alaska. This is Alaska. It’s in the depths of Alaska.

26:54 It’s on the Arctic Circle. It’s one of the nastiest mountains in the world. I honestly chose it at that time. So I was heavily involved in property and business and everything was collapsing in a big way. You know, I was going down, there was some illegal battles and all sorts of that. At the same time, I planned McKinley like a year before. Okay.

27:14 So was it, it was coming. So I was like, and everyone’s like, you can’t go, you can’t I’m going. I’m done. It’s bugged. I’ve got the kit.

27:21 I’ve been training. I’m done. So I went, and on that mountain, it was the first time I ever failed. Simultaneously back at home, I was failing in business. Things were collapsing.

27:30 The financial system was collapsing. My financials were collapsing around, and it was that. Going on that mountain, and then on summit day, we got shut down in Denali Pass, which is on that mountain. You can imagine the winds come across Russia and hit Alaska, and as a venturi effect happens on the top of Mount McKinley, which is one of the highest mountains, it is the highest mountain in North America. And in this pass, the legend goes that people have literally been flash frozen in that pass because it is so in hospitable.

27:59 And we literally got shut down in that pass. And it’s the close, I got blinded and fell on a slope and had to ice axe and rest, and I said, yeah, it’s the closest I’ve been to that, you know, this is, I’m going to die. Yeah. It was as close as it gets. And having experienced that, I want to spoil some parts of the book of people, but But having experienced that and knowing I was having legal battles at 17,500 feet on a sat phone with the lawyers back home, and I just thought, do you know what, I’m done.

28:27 And it was one of those moments in, I nearly died up there, and to be frank, I died back home. Because again, it comes back to who are you, what do you define yourself on? I’m a businessman, I define myself as business, what’s your biggest fear as a businessman going bankrupt? And I was looking it in the eye, and I did actually go, but actually when I went down. I went down with a smile on my face because I knew it didn’t matter anymore. Now that all happened on Denali in that mountain. And I nearly stepped off that mountain. There’s literally one moment where I was going to end it all. And it was out of run money, it was around wealth. It was because of the face, the ego and all the rest of it. And the only thing that stopped me taking that step because I was insured up to the hilt. So everything would be protected. My wife, the family, everyone would be fine. Money be sorted. I died in Alaska. Done. Big moment. And anything that made me step back was my child because she wouldn’t have a daddy. And I hadn’t written that book. And that was that moment. So you talk about what is adventure and is it being therapeutic? Yeah. Because I was able to stand on that mountain and realize when you’ve stripped of everything, and this is the thing being in the deserts and in the mountains and everything. By the way, I hope you don’t have to do this.

29:39 I encourage you to do it through yoga or something else instead, right? You were up there by your own design, it’s weird. It’s not like somebody pulled a gun on you and you’re in an alley and you see the light flash. I mean, you’re up there because you chose to. Absolutely.

29:52 Which must make it feel even worse. It’s raw, you’re stripped of everything and it’s the closest you are to, and it is survival, you know, one wrong step on that mountain, it’s all over. You’re minus 50 degrees, it’s brutal. So when you come down from that and you faced death and you’ve looked death in the eye and I had to walk back into bankruptcy. I literally walked back, came into the country, done, closed things down and went bankrupt.

30:14 I went into bankruptcy with a smile on my face, had a good fun with the receivers because it was like, do you know what? I don’t care. Don’t care. Because you’ve already faced the worst thing. I’ve faced the worst thing I could possibly face.

30:22 And I had to face my fears in adventure and my fears in business. And now this is how I now help, you know, other business owners and everything else because I’ve been there, guys, you know? Right. I don’t care how dark it gets. Yeah.

30:33 I’ve been to that dark place and a lot of us have and I’m blessed to be with you guys, the people I see on the professional speaking circuit and my friends, all these people who are out there inspiring, guess what, we’ve all had bad days and we’ve all had dark moments and that’s what defines us. And I just had to be, I’m stupid enough that I had to go on these crazy adventures to kind of find it. More than defines us, it’s our teacher. It’s what really grows us.

30:57 You know, you don’t become a hero for climbing a hill or fighting a small wall. You learn in these times, but it’s how you actually, it’s how you manage them. I mean, you could have stepped off the mountain or you could have faced your fear and said, God, this is, you know, which is what you did. This is a really tough place to be. Everything that I’ve cultivated in my life around my ego, who I am, business and everything, it’s facing me right now and saying, you are not that.

31:31 You have to step out of that. And I think that it’s an incredible journey for awakening is to have everything. I think it’s great is to fight for everything, have everything, have all these great perceptions about yourself and then lose it all and then have nothing. And if for a while you do feel like you’re standing in a desert and there’s nothing to you and it’s just vacancy and it’s a scary place. You just don’t know who am I, what am I, everything that you think you are is suddenly gone, and then you actually have those moments, you have days where you think, I actually don’t know who I am, I don’t really wanna be here anymore.

32:12 And then you come through it and you’re like, God, isn’t that amazing? Isn’t life so amazing? And it’s going through the tunnel. And if you’ve never been through the tunnel, you could never write your book to help other people through the tunnel because you become like the tour guide, don’t you? If you drop somebody at the edge of the forest, You give them no lamp and no map and no nothing and say, you know, run along, they’re gonna be scared, they’re gonna be petrified.

32:37 I mean, it’s just on the rock, they probably won’t even go into the forest. But if you actually say, you know what, I’ve been here, this is the roadmap and it does get better and it’s beautiful and God, when the sun comes out, it’s like, you know, electric. And you can actually inspire people and people need inspiration. I just find, I have a hard time hanging out with anyone who hasn’t hit rock bottom in some way, You know, because it builds so much character and I just find that people, I don’t know, maybe it’s unfair if I say they’ve had an easy life or maybe they didn’t take some chances that I have a hard time really relating to them.

33:10 Because you’re not, this, you’re not, if you haven’t really faced failure, you’re not trying hard enough. You’re not living it to the max. You’re not pushing yourself. It doesn’t have to, you don’t have to go stupid and climb mountains and nearly fall off them. But it’s that, are you really living?

33:26 Is this, you know, that’s the whole thing, life’s great adventure. are you really living your life’s great adventure now? And if, you know, I know, if I go outside these flats today and I get knocked over by a bus, which I kid on that roundabout, it’s dangerous. The question I ask, and this is a question I ask of the people I talk to is, are you happy with the legacy you left? If you go out and if you get more under a bus today, are you happy with the legacy you’ve left?

33:47 And if your answer is yes, great, you’re living your life’s great adventure. If you’re not and you wanna do something more, do it now before it’s too late. And that’s why I wrote the book. This is why I do what I do on those bench stuff. But when you rip it all back, I know a lot of people say this and I think this is why I needed the lesson in a lot harder way.

34:06 I needed it to be slapped a lot harder in the deserts and in the mountains because some of the greatest spiritual teachers who come from a spiritual context say at the essence of everything is love. I was like, yeah, whatever. Bull, I’m Welsh. It’s about ego. And it was only when in the desert, when I was on my knees, All I thought about was my wife and my child.

34:26 When I was at the very end of my tether and Denali, the only thing I thought about was my child. And you’ve got a beautiful baby arriving there right now. I’ve got one, same day, next day, number three. And it’s that, it’s the essence of everything is love. So, you know, I create my whole life around that.

34:43 Adventures are very important to me, but I work three days a week because I love what I do. But the rest of the time, I’m with a family and with my children because my regret was that daddy’s worked. I’ve done big businesses. I advise loads of businesses, but didn’t see my kids grow up. That’s not good enough for me because the essence of it was my children and my wife and the love I have back home and my family, while simultaneously living my passion and doing what I love to do, because I love business, I love strategy, I love adventure.

35:08 But it’s that understanding the very essence. Why is it as males that we just run away from that? Like I conditioned myself away from that for the first 35 years of my life because that was weak. I want to climb mountains, man. Don’t talk to me about love.

35:21 How do we do that, Sonia? Why do you do that, Brian? Help Sonia. Help us. I’m interested.

35:27 Me, it’s we. I mean, why do men do that? Why? Do you think it’s conditioning? Do you think that, you know, a lot of men have been brought up, I was talking about this the other day, if you look back to even sort of men in the 40s and women, and they were really women, and their nail polish matched their lip color, and it was so women, and that’s what they did, you know?

35:49 And if they didn’t have stockings, they would draw lines at the back of their legs. And the men got up, dutifully got dressed, put their suits on, and off they went. And if they commented on like, hmm, that’s a beautiful flower arrangement, back then you’d be like, excuse me, it would be potentially gay, you know. And I think to myself, men have been robbed of that quality to be soft because you’re allowed to be. There’s a lot that there is a definitely there is a Shiva and a beautiful quality. It’s like the you know Roots of a tree and the trunk and it’s strong But there needs to be a softness with everything Invite the feminine into it I’m not saying it has to be 5050 but you have to you know invite that because it makes the person complete It’s the yin and the yang women beautiful soft be you know everything feminine, but invite a bit of you know, a bit of the strength of the masculine, it’s the two, they go together and they should go together and it’s the balance in life and I think that a lot of men feel that they are not allowed to be that or they can’t express or experience that and it’s not, you know, I think it’s time to take them back. What do you say to that, Terry? I really want to know what you think.

37:04 I’d like to say that’s a beautiful flower arrangement you have over there. I think, no, I think you’re right. And I was brought up in West Wales, okay? What’s the equivalent in the States for West Wales if you had to… Oh, man, deep south.

37:24 Deep south. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

37:29 And, you know, where are we taught this stuff? You look around the role models. So the role models, you know, my generation above me now, the men in their sixties and seventies, right? That was the role models, which you’ve just described pretty accurately. And in West Wales, there’s a lot worse than that.

37:42 I can trust me on that one. So, you know, we look around us as what’s the man? What’s the man supposed to do? The man goes out and earns the bread and brings it home on the table and shoots the cow and does that sort of stuff. And that was the, my wife, my mother, God bless her, she was a housewife and that’s what she did.

37:59 And there was a very clear masculine energy, energy, and use the term energy, rather than male and female, because I believe we’ve all got different energies and some females are a lot more masculine in their natural court, and some males are a lot more feminine. And that’s where we get the gay connection between the women, where they work, because their energies work, one’s more masculine, one’s more feminine. It’s about polarity. So for us, and this is Tony Robbins, the way The Superior Man, the book, and talks about what really is a man.

38:33 I’ve read that before. I’ve not read that. That’s not Tony Robbins. There’s someone else. No, but he was on Tony.

38:38 He was actually on the speakers, I think, at the platinum side of Tony. It’s redefining what a man is. Now, I think I can stand up, because I think men can relate to me a little bit, because I’ve done the ventures and I’ve climbed the mountains and I wear a suit, so I’m a man, all right? I can stand here and be a man. But simultaneously, because I’ve kind of ticked the boys’ boxes, that book was written for men and ironically, we’ve got a much bigger female audience.

39:06 I didn’t plan that because it was meant for, how can I get the messages I’ve learned in life, which is the softer messages, the love messages and the rest of it into men in a way that they’ll understand it, which is, let’s talk about adventure and let’s weave in the philosophy. So what is a true man for me, for my wife, I’m there to be the superior man. I need to let her energy wash off me. I have to be strong and that’s not about, and that is being the softer side and being able to listen and all those skills that we are not taught, we do not understand.

39:39 But to be a true man these days for our women, it’s a whole different gig. So my wife’s a professional as well. So those old days of what we were brought up with a model in the world of the woman stays at home and the man goes out, that’s gone. So that’s the only role models a lot of us were brought up with and there’s broken families and all the rest of it. So the new man, the new real masculine man needs to be able to allow that feminine to grow.

40:07 And also we’ve got to be able to extract the feminine energy out of the women. My wife’s a doctor. She had incredible masculine energy when we were first together because she had a corporate world, you know, a doctor world. know, I needed to enable her to be feminine. So I have to be, you know, a real man and be there and listen and all those skills and I’m a crap listener. So it’s all those skills, those softer skills, which, where do we get taught the stuff? Now I’ve gone out of my way to understand this. I understood the love bit through the adventure bit, but it’s, it’s a tough gig. What about you? You’re the real man. I’m one of you. You’re like…

40:43 It’s funny, I was thinking about my second ayahuasca experience, we were talking about it earlier, and I cried for like 45 minutes straight. The tears were streaming down my eyes and dripping off my ears while I was laying down on a sofa in the studio. That’s another story. It was just all these tears that had been pent up because I hadn’t actually properly cried in God knows how long, 10 years. It felt so good, and I was like, Jesus, I got to do this more often.

41:11 It just felt good to just let it all out. Releasing so much. But Derry’s right. We are grown up. We’re brought up in this male archetype.

41:19 And the men do it to each other. Well, they do. I mean, in sports or in the city, I mean, we do it without knowing it, but we just haze and test the hell out of each other until we deem you okay to come into the male circle. So it’s something that we propagate ourselves, don’t we? But with the more information out there and the more talking and the more ayahuasca, do get it and and I think we’re changing a little bit right I mean I think in the 70s and 80s you saw men go too far they’re like oh we’re crying now and it’s like now we’ve come back yes there’s finding the balance the women is changing as well so you’re equally to blame the women are changing yeah more independent having children later in life which I think is a good thing yeah I do too I mean look I think that ultimately it is trying to find the authenticity in yourself no matter women you know men it’s just moving actually to this space that we are very much moving towards and people kind of wanting to wanting to be more authentic wanting to find truth wanting to and when I say that what I really mean is a kind of stepping away from allowing this mass indoctrinating machine to dictate to you and knowing that you don’t have to be the puppet of the media, you know, it’s incredibly strong the way we are so it’s sort of conditioned, we’re conditioned by our surroundings, by our society, by our friends and if you can just move away from that slipstream of

42:56 Consciousness and say who am I? What am I? And do I need to read Vogue to tell me that I need to be X, Y, and Z? Do I need to read this, you know, man magazine to tell me if I don’t have a ripped six pack? I’m, you know, I’m nothing. And how much, you know, protein training? And when you just step away from that and you’re like, you know what, I’m not gonna be the puppet of all of this information, I’m going to be me, and I’m going to find who me is. If it’s on the top of the mountain, if it’s in a meditational, you know, that situation in East London, wherever it is, and it can happen anywhere, it’s getting to that place where you actually, first of all, the first step is, there has to be something more. I want something more. I need something more. This can’t be it.

43:47 And then waking up, it’s like first, and waking up happens in little stages. it’s like that first little moment where you kind of click oh right I’m not my suitcase I’m not all the stuff I’m lugging behind me I can drop all that stuff and I can really step into me and then that comes back to when you do that you’ll find this person will soften this person will toughen up a bit because they will suddenly feel allowed to be themselves they’ll step into themselves and I think when we really are in ourselves we are balanced we are spiritually balanced with who we are. You know, we will always be different.

44:25 Everybody will have a different flavor and a different signature and it’s amazing, but we won’t be the kind of molding of the society we might have grown up in. We will be more authentic to the truth of ourselves. That’s well said. I mean, part of what we’re trying to do with London Real here is provide people alternate conversations that they wouldn’t normally have by watching the news and kind of things. And we have people in like, you know, Tennessee and the US that’s like I don’t have any friends that have these conversations So they tune in just to hear about us asking questions of why do we do this?

44:56 Why do we do that? So it’s nice to be able to you know to talk about these things Yeah, but what do you tell people dairy when they’re like, what do I do to get out there? I can’t climb a mountain. I can’t run a marathon in the desert, you know, do you have any Starter advice that you give to people because sometimes it can be such a leap go after your adventure and then they’re like Like, ah, it’s too big, you know? So first of all, I’d say that’s all shit.

45:19 And you can do anything you want. And that’s not doing enough. So don’t tell me you can’t run across the desert. The guy who inspired me had one leg. And the guy who did Iron Man had no legs.

45:29 So this can’t thing is the bit that everyone’s got to get over. Now, doing it for the right reasons is a different matter. So I had, I was speaking recently on a stage in London and a lady came up to me afterwards, quite a well-known lady, actually, and she said, oh, you know, you inspired me with a desert thing. She was a little bit overweight. She’d been on the telly, and she’d put a little bit of weight on.

45:53 And she said, you’ve inspired me, you know. Now I realize, you know, because you run across the desk in the car with one leg. And this was before I’d done the Ironman, so I didn’t even know, and she didn’t even know the no-leg story. So she said, I’m going to go down there. She said, she looked at me and she went, no, I know I’m going to go down the gym and I’m going to run a marathon.

46:10 And she said it like that. And I went, why would you do that? That looks painful, because she didn’t want to. She was kind of following my adventure, and that’s not the point of my message. My message is find your adventure.

46:24 Don’t try to be somebody else, which you were saying. It’s about being authentic. That book is not about, come on guys, let’s climb the highest mountains in the world. No, that book is find your adventure, be true to that, and step into it. Now, if that is, oh, I can’t run the marathon, Don’t be ridiculous.

46:44 If you’ve got two legs, you can run a marathon, you know. The oldest guy to run a marathon is 102. Buster Keats, I think his name is. So age is an issue. Guy that speaks with me, Alex, have you come across Alex, oh, what’s his name, Alex Parsonage, I think his name is.

47:02 He’s got diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and he’s running around the world. So what I’m trying to do with the book and with Inspired Adventure, which we’re putting up inspirational stories online, that they’re just trying to get round adventure and adventure themes, to say, if you think you can’t do a London marathon, come and have a look at this guy. If you haven’t got Parkinson’s disease and you’ve got two legs, crack on. It’s not about running the marathon. Go out and run a mile first. In that book, when I decided the first adventure that I was going to do, it wasn’t the wisest choice in hindsight, was the desert. I went from zero to hero in literally a year. The first time I went out for a run, I ran two miles, I got asthma.

47:42 I had to walk home with a metabolism in my legs. Now a year later, I was running six mountains across the One class. No, you start by going online and finding out what Jujitsu is. Is there something new you can do it? If it’s not Jujitsu, it’s like whatever. You’ve got to do that exploration bit and decide that you commit it because a lot of people are, I want to do this, but they don’t really mean this.

48:23 Yeah, your book is not really a handbook on how to do the Iron Man or climb a mountain. It’s about that was your highest mountain. That was your challenge. That was your passion and you sort of faced everything. We’re not having the tools.

48:39 You found the tools and you educated yourself and you left the fear. And everybody has something that it’s your true purpose and you know how many people live their whole lives and then when they’re checking out and they kind of go, oh, I wasn’t so scared. I wish I’d just done it. I wish I’d just. Do you know that quote?

48:56 It’s an old one, but it said playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do. I see that all the time. But you look at me and you go, you go, you’re nuts, you do jiu-jitsu and how they kick people around in a room, that’s mental, you know? So you got drawn into that and you’ve taken down that path and you’re meeting amazing people. The exploration, I’m guessing, of doing that, by following what you felt was your path is taking you down a whole different road.

49:23 Oh yeah, definitely. And even like you said, the ego can start you for doing something and then your pathway will take you in a completely different direction. I think we climb mountains every day. They’re little journeys that we have to go through every day that even those moments in life or situations where you can just wake up and be fearless and go, you know what? I can do this.

49:46 Why am I stressing so much? Why am I worrying so much? And that is a huge thing. It’s not always this long goal or where are you going to be or what’s going to… in the moments, every single day, the present moment. Can I live in this moment? Can I really enjoy this moment in my life? Can I not always be living in some future or waiting for some future moment to arrive? But can I really be present? I mean, that takes a lot of strength.

50:15 It takes a lot of inner wisdom. And you find who you are and you find what you are and what you want to do with your life and we all have we all have a purpose we all have you know this you might be sitting in an office you might be locked inside and fear you know you don’t want to leave your job because it’s survival security and all that good stuff but at the same time you you’re watching your life slip away from you and you’re dreaming of the time when you can at some point in the future be doing what you really want to do and then maybe you can be happy and and actually you know it’s the courage to take the steps today not you know you don’t have to plan I mean you’ve it’s a lot of planning to go and climb a mountain of a person but every day we have the opportunity to make choices that could you know really change our lives and make us passionate about even who we are because when you take those little steps all the time right I’m gonna do this I’m gonna be fearless I’m gonna quit my job or I’m gonna to really move into something that I want to do with my life, they strengthen us because they show us again, that’s the warrior in me.

51:24 I was scared, I did it and then you start to live and that’s how you live and when you’re checking out, you’re looking back over the book you wrote of your life, you’re the author of your life and you think, I may not have won those medals, I may not have did these great things but I did what I wanted to do. I did what I wanted to do, and if I wanted to go and plow a field and be a farmer and live, I did it. And you’re just proud of the fact that you didn’t cower away.

51:56 You didn’t, you know, because of fear and duty and survival, you didn’t cower away in your life. You were proud. So when you check out, you can go, yeah, I’m proud of that book I wrote. Wow. Some wise words there.

52:09 We need some ayahuasca. That’s what we need. Terry, what’s next for you? You know, what’s next for you in the next couple of years? I know you have this list of a few more adventures you wanna do.

52:19 Are those the ones you set for yourself years ago? Are they still as important to finish? That’s a very, very profound question at the moment for me. It is, isn’t it? The next is, so I’m planning for, she got ankle injury at the moment.

52:32 I’ve been out for two months and she’s really winding me up. But I think that’s the university teaching me a lesson to slow down and calm down. That’s a whole different story. But I’m now- That could be the most frustrating thing. Yeah, I’m actually just starting to do Pilates in the last two months.

52:44 Wow, that’s cool. All those guys out there who think Pilates are for girls, man, it’s really hard. So that’s getting my core ready for the endurance stuff again. But I’m going to be doing the jungle marathon next October. So that’s what I’m gearing up for at the moment.

52:58 So that’s six marathons back to back across the South American rainforest in Brazil, carrying everything you need to survive for the week. Back to back means what? Every day? Every day you do a marathon, you have to then, you’re self-sufficient, you carry all your food, You care everything to survive you get to wherever you got to go to you put up your hammock and you you kind of sleep under The under the jungle you get up next day run another marathon crack on how much kit is that how heavy is it?

53:22 When I did the marathon so I was about 15 kilo on my back But I like bringing a few treats with me. So I’m the ultra is a kind of bringing about nine kilo packs I like I like my food too much. So, um, yeah, but yeah, I’d be about 15k on the back and running then next that’s what so you can anybody want to join me come and join me for that one next year that’s the plan is this Brazil but the the big the big next one if for me is Everest I’ll just come back from Nepal I was in Nepal about five weeks ago just doing the planning for it because I’m ready for it now you know built up to do Everest so we’re planning Everest 2014 however I don’t know if I’m going to do at the moment. Can you explain why? Because it comes back to what’s the core of everything at the moment. My life’s all about my children. Little baby’s coming at the moment for me. Now I was planning Everest, I should be doing Everest next year, but then my wife decided that we were going to have a third. Clearly it’s her choice, not mine. Absolutely. So that kind of… One man show there. Oh, has that gone off? No, No, no, you’re on, you’re good.

54:33 So, with my wife deciding that, by the way, guys, if this ever happens to you, just be aware, when your wife announces that she wants the third child, and you say, what about Everest? It’s not the right answer at that moment, okay? I’m gonna use that, the Everest. Because it was all planned, so I had to kind of can all the plans for Everest for my baby. But now the third one’s nearly honest, literally, in a couple of weeks, we’ll have our third baby girl.

55:01 And Everest is seven weeks away and I can’t, I’m struggling now, I can go away for a week or two. In fact, it’s nice to have a break for a week or two every now and again. But to leave my children, especially young baby and my wife for seven weeks, I just don’t think I could do it at the moment. Your wife doesn’t mind? She understands your program. She’s pretty cool now.

55:22 She wasn’t cool at the beginning of the adventures but I think she understands now and she understands it’s way bigger than me and it’s part of my legacy of what I’m doing with adventure. So she supports me, but I just don’t think, when I did Alaska, now my eldest, she was two, and I left and I was away for a month climbing that mountain. When I came back and I came into the airport and there was my wife and my two-year-old, I was, oh, she’s gonna come run into Daddy.

55:48 No, she didn’t know who Daddy was. Wow. That really hurt. Especially, I just nearly topped myself on a mountain, nearly got killed, and I come over and my kid doesn’t even know who I am. That’s a bad day at the office, you know?

55:59 I didn’t even have the book. That’s why I wrote it. I thought, Jesus, I better write this book. All those kids don’t know who I am. And I’m wrestling with that at the moment, so there is no answer. I will do Everest. There’s no question. It’s part of my destiny Everest.

56:14 But when? But it’s when. And so next year is the jungle marathon, and I’m just stepping into that. If not the following year, then I’m probably going to do the Alaska one, the 6633, which is the 300 mile run across the Arctic. And I’m already talking to that. I wanted to do that this March, but that’s the one time my wife did put the kite box on me and say no. If she’s listening darling I love you and I’m not doing the Arctic in March. How’s the risk factor? I mean look I know that you, you know, but is there, you know, it’s risky, isn’t it? I mean if you… You’ve, that’s very well put because when I’m on the stage I get challenged a lot harder than that and I’ve had mothers in the audience say, how can you do that? You’re taking a risk. What about your children and your wife? Good question, actually. But for me, it’s been an interesting one to me.

57:07 It’s the very core of who I am, not from an egotistical point of view anymore. This is my legacy. This is my destiny. I didn’t start off with these adventures thinking, do you know what? I’m going to write a book about this and I’m going to try to inspire thousands of people around the world to step in and live their own event that was not the plan but I knew I needed to do it for bigger something bigger than me which is now manifesting itself so I am drawn to adventure and until the day I’m stopped being drawn to adventure I will continue to do it now what is the the risk factors well yeah there’s risks and everything I mitigate risk I’m a business strategist so I’m all about mitigating risk I always go with the best guys I get the best kit I understand the best seasons there’s a lot of research you got you just minimize the risk you never remove the risk.

57:51 And life is a risk really. It’s a risk you walk outside, you get on a plane, you just look at the statistical factors of getting on a plane, getting on a bus, you just be paralyzed if you’re worried about risk all the time. Now admittedly I am pushing the boundaries a little bit more than most. But here’s the thing for me, is I don’t believe our children listen to what we say. I think our children look at what we do.

58:13 And all I know is that I want to be an example to my children that daddy found out daddy Daddy was a bit of a dick in his early years, but he kind of found himself, tried to understand what his passion was, and daddy lived what he loved to do. Daddy followed his dreams. Daddy did some of the hardest things on this planet and in a humble way. They’ve got my message in that book, and the second book will finish that message off in a much deeper way. My children looked to me, and now I’m speaking in the primary schools now, I was in the nursery, going into my children’s school, my oldest school soon, talking about adventure.

58:50 What does my child say? Daddy climbs mountains. Daddy’s an Ironman, you know? So what does that say? And I keep saying to my children, you can do anything.

58:58 You’ve just got to find out, my job as a father is to help my children understand what their authentic thing is. And how can I do that? By living my authentic life. Yes, and you’re very blessed to have your partner because she is not in any way trying to stifle the person you are. Or a boy she used to try.

59:20 No, I’m sure there would be- Because women should take heed of this because- I’m sure there is, but you know, you have to let, if you love somebody, you have to let them be who they are and love them for who they are. So, I mean, you’re very lucky that she is so open. A lot of people might not want you to go away for a whole month. And that is obviously their fear. It’s like, oh, I don’t want you to go away.

59:44 I don’t want to be alone or whatever. But life is, you know, the birdcage has to be open for everybody in relationships to, you know, obviously be the support, but also be the kind of person who, you know, lets the other person grow. And that’s how relationships do stay together. Yeah, and I would say women need to definitely take heed of this because you have to let your man do these things because otherwise he’ll ultimately. Yeah, and vice versa.

1:00:10 Goes both ways actually and I think so let me I’m not gonna stand here and I’m sure my wife will listen to this at some point darling I do love you very very much but you know and she would be the first one to say this the first we’ve been together 13 years now the first six years of that relationship were tough we nearly we nearly divorced because of my adventures this was not easy Denali nearly broke us because I went away at the time when everything was crumbling and I was like screw it I’m going right so I was selfish at certain points in my life now I do adventure in a different way now it’s beyond me I do it for different reasons I make sure she has all the support so as a man we have responsibilities to make sure we honor our responsibilities to our to our eyes well but it was not easy but recently you know I said I’ve been challenged a number of times recently lady challenged me on this about irresponsible and she said to me she was really quite she ironically she was a life coach but that’s a whole different story but she stood there and she was really quite angry. It’s like my husband wants to do, he wants to run across deserts and stuff. It’s just stupid. And she was really quiet because he’s irresponsible because we have the children and all the rest of it. Now, we had quite a debate for a while. At the end of it, I said, so your message you’re sending to your children is if you really want to do something, you

1:01:25 Really love to do it. Don’t do it for duty and you need to actually do something else. And you’re actually stifling your husband to not actually live his dream. So you’re telling your husband, I want to live my dream but you’re not allowed to live yours. Humblingly I got an email, she bought my book, she gave the gift to him, he read it and she said I’m really sorry, I’ve been wrong all these years, we just need to, you know, I want you, and now he’s just about to do his first run. That’s such a, that’s beautiful. And I go, wow.

1:01:52 Now what’s that done for that relationship? We’re talking about adventure, you’ve got to, I think a woman needs to understand that we have, we’ve got to, as long as it’s coming from the right place because also we can be we can be selfish to the best of times right so I think from a man’s point of view we have to come from the right place I was a lot more selfish and came out from ego in the early parts of our relationship but I think that’s where my wife reacted to it yeah no I’m not I’m doing it for the right reason to make sure that the support that she understands she got the right support in place I’m not doing it from this ego point of view or a selfish point of view so we’ve got a job to play as a man there but also the woman has to support advice I’ve got to support my wife and everything she wants to do. And it really is important to let the other person grow. I don’t think the relationship would actually, I think that’s our relationships and you know people have to give each other the space and not, you know, you’ve been together for 13 years and if you think about that you know you meet somebody at one place, people evolve. They’re not the same people they woke up in the morning as. So if we always you know sort of box in our partners and just imagine oh I remember you I know who you are well no you don’t we’ve been together for 13 years I’m a totally different person people grow and you have to let them grow otherwise you’re not gonna grow

1:03:04 Together they’re gonna meet somebody else who accepts the new them and off they’ll go this is a whole new topic but you know it’s it’s why we have you here’s about for another our relationships mom too it’s just it’s really it’s really so important I mean I’ve had this experience you know when me came back from Brazil it was so amazing we had two weeks of ayahuasca and it was really beautiful and I went with my partner and he did not want to go and I said to him well I’m gonna go alone and he said okay I’m coming and off we went and he had the most amazing experience and now down the line and when we were there we booked for January and obviously we had we had an ayahuasca baby we didn’t we weren’t preggers then and we booked for January and with Dennis McKenna and Graham Hancock who’s just so legendary all gonna be there at this two-week seminar and just you know really bonding and doing the ayahuasca and it’s my it was my dream anyway so we obviously to come back find out I’m pregnant and down the line we get an email going so you guys still on for January and I’m like um no I’m not on for January I can’t come with me he was like okay darling well I won’t come Ethan I went oh no no no you were going and he was so shocked but I knew how much he wanted to go and I knew how much I would love to go and he said no it would be two weeks and I was like I don’t care you know two weeks award it’s like once in a lifetime you have these

1:04:33 Opportunities to go and grow your spirit and it’s something that I would want to do I’m not going to rob you of your growing and it’s fine and everything will be fine and it was something that you know I was and then obviously your family go you can’t do that you can’t do that and you’re like listen just whatever and you we have it’s our duty to love somebody to the space of allowing them to go on there you know they’re growing journeys and and I think it’s when you do that you get the same back because there’ll be a time in my life where I want to go on something that’ll be nurturing and growing for me and I’ll really need to do that. The support just goes both ways. So you drank ayahuasca, it was March or April of this year, and you were planning to go back together in January?

1:05:20 Together, in January. Okay, and then this happened. And then this happened. But he’s going to go on his own. He’s going to go on his own.

1:05:27 Okay. Yeah. Ayahuasca baby, cool. Yeah. A lot of them have come.

1:05:32 Cool. That’s trippy. I actually do have- I’m going to keep away from that stuff. I already got three. That’s enough for me.

1:05:38 I’m going to ask you about that. I just want to know, Jerry, how can people reach you? Obviously, they can find your book on Amazon, Life’s Great Adventure, otherwise, how can they reach you? Are you on Twitter, website? Yeah.

1:05:50 So, we’ve created, we’re just in the embryonic stages of this because from the book, so the book, you can get it on Amazon. If you go to www.inspired-adventure.com, you can buy from there and more money goes to charity. As, we haven’t mentioned this, but the book’s been my gift, so I’ve given the book away to charity. all 100% of my author royalties go to Global Angels, which is a charity I’m on the board of, which I’m very passionate about. So this was a legacy, this was born from a legacy.

1:06:20 It was for my children, it’s been given back. Now I’ve started to speak around this as well, and all of that’s gifted back to the charity as well. So this is a pure philanthropic mission for me to inspire. On the website, you can buy the book and that means more profits go to the charity. But on there, we’ve created a video wall.

1:06:36 So, when I speak, I try to get it captured and filmed, so everyone can access it. This shouldn’t be, this is why I love what you guys are doing, this is London Real, it’s so awesome because in London, and if you’ve got some money and you’re in London, you can access inspiration. You can access, because there’s loads of stuff going on. If you’re sitting in West Wales, or in the depths of the South in America, or in South Africa. Sorry, there’s not big motivational speakers coming in to inspire you. So what you’re doing with London Real, we’re trying to do from an adventure context on Inspired Adventure. So you’ve got me up there, you’ve got Mr Frostbite, a guy who lost all his hands and his feet in Alaska, exactly the place on Denali that I did. So he’s come up and speaking, you’ve got the guy who’s got, he’s running across the world, he’s got Parkinson’s disease.

1:07:23 You’ve got the guys who inspired Adventure, then the guys with no legs. You’ve got videos, have got inspirational clips. We’re at the very early stages, but we’re just trying to get inspiration out there. So if you want to be a little bit more inspired, a little bit more of a story, go to inspiredadventure.com and there’s a community on there and you can contact me because there’s a whole networking community thing there. I’m on Facebook and I’m on Twitter. I don’t know. I don’t understand how to use that properly yet. I’ll fill you in on it later. But yeah, inspired adventure is the best place to grab me. So it’s inspired-adventure.com. All those notes will be on the YouTube and on our iTunes notes as well. Awesome. It’s been great having you here. I just want to grill Sonya because this is a rare opportunity I have you nine months pregnant. So, and you know, it could happen any moment. I know. So is this an ayahuasca baby and can you expound on that?

1:08:12 It definitely is. You know, I just, I really, there was a part of me that thought, I know that there are children in my lifeline and in my picture, but I just didn’t know when. You know, I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how, and if I was given the choice, I would have said absolutely no, this is not the right time. I mean, it’s just not the right time, and I’m not going to go there. We go into our two-week ayahuasca adventure, and the final…

1:08:43 Do you remember I told you, Brian, that the final… Seminary wasn’t? No, the fourth… No, the third time I took the ayahuasca. I lay down and I was the visions I had were that I was a child in the womb of the universe of the earth and I was connected to it and I had this umbilical cord attached and I was so I don’t you often don’t know why you’re scared but I was scared under in this journey that I was going on and I just kept on being told that I was always taking care of you always going to be safe and and I had this umbilical cord attached and I was in the womb of the earth, anyway, and that came out and I analyzed it and never thought anything of it, but ayahuasca also has a way of kind of detoxing you physically and mentally and emotionally, so by the end of those two weeks I was just cleaned of whatever, you know, patterns, not completely but certainly in a big way. And then we obviously came back and it was a month later and did the test and it was all positive and I was in the shock, absolute shock. I was off to an ashram in San Francisco. It was such a big thing for me. And even then, there was a journey for me and I think that after you do ayahuasca it lives inside of you and it lives inside you for a while and no it really does and there was a very, I mean it’s a whole other thing but I went through a very tough time when I was in that ashtray, a very tough time and kicked in at my morning sickness stage of six weeks, the ayahuasca was still working,

1:10:43 I was in this really incredible space that I had never been in in my life before, probably something like a Denali. I really didn’t know, it was as though life was just asking me to kind of strip back everything I thought of myself, you know, who you are, what you do, all your labels, all your indoctrinations. And there was, it was really one of the biggest learning, hardest things I’d ever been through. I was going through morning sickness, I was in a place that I didn’t know, I was still kind of working with this ayahuasca, still questioning, still exactly, and it was amazing.

1:11:27 And I did finally get through it, it took maybe six weeks, six weeks of this feeling, And it was tough. And I had moments where I was, you know, I really, I got, it was tough. And I didn’t know who I was, didn’t know what I wanted, didn’t know anything. And when I came through it, and you know, and what I kept on thinking when I was going through it, the only thing that got me through, I couldn’t even do yoga, I couldn’t do anything. In fact, I didn’t want to do anything, it was nothing I wanted to do.

1:11:54 And when I got, when I was going through it, the only thing that kept me was, I’m obviously experiencing this because I’ve always been Pollyanna. My whole life I’ve been Pollyanna. I would look outside it would be raining and I’d be like the trees need the rain. You know everything had a silver lining and I’d never experienced what it might feel like to not be in that space and I wasn’t in that space and I’d never experienced such a darkness. I could I could only intellectually relate to people and maybe try and verbally and intellectually try and help people if they were in a dark place.

1:12:33 I never had the authentic experience of a dark place myself. And it was that that kept me going. I thought, life is giving me this experience because I’m meant to feel this. I’m meant to feel, in some way, at first-hand experience, what it feels like to feel like nothing, to feel like nothing. Like, it doesn’t matter if I existed or not.

1:12:54 It doesn’t, you know, and that’s how dark it went for me. And then, you know, when I came through and I kept thinking Victor Frankl, it’s like, God, he’s in a concentration camp and he did it and he did it for other people and he kind of gave his pain for other people. So that’s what I was going through. And when I finally came out, I remember stopping on the side of the road and it had been raining and I saw these beautiful iceberg roses. And I knew that the cathedral curtains were parting because I suddenly just loved this little pink and white rose with water droplets on it.

1:13:32 And I was like, oh my God, this is so beautiful. And it was like, I was back and I thought, I’m back, I’m back, I love life. And I loved every moment more. It was like the appreciation, just that I could appreciate woke up again. And it’s a scary feeling when you can’t even find the appreciation for appreciation or gratitude for life.

1:13:58 You just don’t have it, you don’t care. And I knew what that felt like. And then after that, it was bizarre because a couple of people came into my life that were in depressed states. And they were actually, obviously, bipolar. And there were people that were going through some very tough things.

1:14:19 And I had this experience. and I could actually, I could actually sit with them and go, I know, I know what that feels like. I have been there, I know what it feels like. I mean, it’s not, you don’t take away somebody’s experience because it will never, ever be the same. But at least it wasn’t an intellectual, I know, let me help you.

1:14:39 It was actually, God, that’s hard, I feel you. I feel you, you know, I’ve been there. And it makes such a difference. It’s like giving somebody, you know, you’ve been through the tunnel, you’ve been through the forest, you’ve climbed the mountain and you’re like, been there, back again, I can do it with you, I can help you through this. And if you’re going through something really tough and you say to yourself, I’m experiencing this because down the line somebody’s gonna walk into my life and they’re gonna need me, and they’re gonna need me to have journeyed this journey, not just intellectually.

1:15:11 And I say, you know, there’s some great teachers out there, some great, like there’s a great yoga teacher who he is tattooed, He was a drug addict. He was at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom. And now he teaches yoga, and he has a spiritual, philosophical nature about his teaching. The people that go to him, the people that find him as his teacher, would not be the people who would find me. They go to him because they are.

1:15:44 They come from a space where they maybe were exposed to drugs. They took drugs. They had it tough. And they see him as the warrior who will show them the way. So we all are a teacher for different, we’re here to inspire different groups of people.

1:16:01 What is your experience and who are you and who are you gonna teach and who’s gonna come to you to maybe sort of, you know, be shown the way. And those people that go to him are never gonna come to me. I’ve never been at the rock bottom with a needle in my arm going, God help me find my way home, and he has, and so that’s the teacher. And I think that that’s the journey, you know? And I’m sure in my life, I’m gonna, I’m guaranteed, I’m gonna have so many more of those, but they are like the warrior in you, okay?

1:16:38 I might feel numb right now, but this doesn’t exist in it. I will get through it, I will get through it. I’ll come out of it, and I’ll be able to help somebody with this experience. Wow. That’s a serious story, Sonia.

1:16:50 Thank you for sharing that. What do you do? Nice job. Now. Now.

1:16:55 There’ll be a special extra edition of London Real. I thought about, I would have to maybe deliver today and I just thought, okay, I would get through it. With the camera on. And Google. And then upload it to iTunes.

1:17:06 I’ll hold the towels for you later. Wow. I kind of feel honored that London Real has kind of chronicled Sonia’s pregnancy in a weird way, you know, because, you know, we first met her right when she came back from the jungle. That’s really trippy. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been so wonderfully surprised by this show. I didn’t know what to make. I’ve never met Derry before. What a cool trial log this has been. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. A real pleasure. Sonya, it’s always a pleasure.

1:17:36 It’s beautiful. It’s really lovely to be here and really lovely to meet you. You too. doing and love that the book’s for charity and and I think everybody should you know get a copy and get inspired get inspired yeah not necessarily to climb your mountain but their mountain that’s mental try yoga instead is much easier that’s she knows all right um thank you so much for coming on and until then it’s about the journey it’s about the journey thanks I was in an open top car in LA sunset strip in the evening with my with my fabulous mates I’m more who’s a writer up in the in the hills in LA and on the radio came one of my favorite songs which is the Eagles song Hotel California