Every Day Is Mindset Day | Ollie Marchon | Modern Wisdom Podcast 193

1. 0:00 – 1:00

   Intro

   1. OMOllie Marchon0:00

      When the whole world's talking about hump day, I'm like, it's fucking mindset day. There's only a positive mindset today, so whatever that's gonna be, whether it's when I'm attacking the barbell in the gym, gonna attack my emails, if I'm feeling a bit, a bit low, it's like just, just do your best today 'cause you need a positive mindset. And if we're waking up Monday morning, feeling sorry for ourselves that we've got, got to go to work, like what the fuck are we doing?

   2. CWChris Williamson0:18

      You are a living breathing example that if you focus on integrity first, you end up with a competitive advantage. The game that no one is playing right now is the honesty and integrity game. Ollie motherfunking Marchant in the building. How are you doing, man?

   3. OMOllie Marchon0:38

      Mate, great. It's about time. I'm doing very well.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:40

      (laughs)

   5. OMOllie Marchon0:40

      I'm very pleased to be here. How are you doing, Chris?

   6. CWChris Williamson0:43

      I'm good, man. This is such a long time coming. The internet is waiting for this.

   7. OMOllie Marchon0:48

      Mm.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:49

      You feeling ready?

   9. OMOllie Marchon0:50

      Yeah, I'm, I'm born ready, man. I've been lit- literally looking forward to this all, all week. Um, I've just had a cold shower just to wake myself up, make sure I'm primed and ready, at my best. Um-

2. 1:00 – 5:19

   Playing Rugby

   1. OMOllie Marchon1:00

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00

      I love it, man.

   3. OMOllie Marchon1:00

      ... let's get stuck into it.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:01

      So first things first, you played rugby for England sevens, which was something that I only stumbled upon when you post, like, a throwback Thursday photo of a fresh-faced Ollie from a, a half a decade ago. Um, what are some of the ways that playing high level sport at a young age shaped who you are today?

   5. OMOllie Marchon1:21

      It's a brilliant question. Um, firstly, address that bit. Yeah, I guess, I guess anyone that's sort of followed me o- of late, over the last two, three, four years, will only see me as, like, the fitness, the fitness guy. Um, but prior to that, my, my, my life was, the be all and end all for me was, was rugby. Um, I had a couple of spells as a, as a professional, uh, rugby player. Um, but my most successful one and in the h- I guess at the highest level was with England sevens. And that environment in itself is a very high-pressurized environment. It's elite sport. Um, there's nowhere to hide. The, the game itself is very demanding, both mentally and physically. Um, you... It's a bit like Formula 1 in terms of, like, a World Series. So you'll travel around, you travel around the world from place to place. Um, and you'll be away for sort of two to three weeks at a time, and then you'll be back in the UK in training camp for sort of six, six to eight weeks. Um, and during that time, uh, the way the, the way England sevens was set up is that we all l- sort of lived, or the players that had to commute in would live, uh, in a hotel in Teddington in, in London. So that environment, you, you know, you're, you're alongside the other players in, I guess, a, a nice hotel, but a player's digs for, to, to some, some degree. Um, you're in an environment where you're just eat, sleeping, breathing performance-based sport. Um, you're using every waking moment to try and just get a little bit better, understand the game a little bit more. It's a, you know, it's a f- it's a, it's a full-time, it's a full-time job. You're in the gym one minute, you're d- working on your skills the other. You might be doing some conditioning at other times. And then when you are away from, from home, that's, you know, quite tough as well because there's a fair amount of travel to do. There's acclimatizing to the different time zones. There is then being able to lead up to the, to the competition and, and, and the tournament o- over the weekend. So that's, uh, a new experience in itself. And then you're playing two to three games across a weekend or two or three days. So there's a fair amount of getting yourself up for a game, bringing yourself back down, having to recover, bring yourself back up, then, you know, spending, you know, sleeping, getting back up for day, day two. And anyone that's played rugby will know there's a fair amount of knocks, um, and when you're playing sevens, which is at high speed, it's almost... You're taking the guys that are like... just the best, best athletes, you know. They're, they're big, strong, quick, big engines, ro- very robust, very resilient, um, and you're putting them on a field where there's acres of space and just saying, "Right, like, game on." Um-

   6. CWChris Williamson3:33

      It's mad to think a rugby pitch is a pretty big bit of turf, and then you, you only have seven people per side to fill that with. There's just bags and bags and bags of room.

   7. OMOllie Marchon3:46

      I think, yeah, I think a lot of people that obviously follow me now w- with fitness, the best thing I can liken it to is like a CrossFit MetCon. That sort of four to seven, four to six minutes, I mean, 'cause games are seven minutes a half, with like a, I think it's two or three minutes half time, maybe even less than that. So it's seven minutes of nowhere to hide. Um, yeah, intensity. There's, there's, there's sp- like acceleration, deceleration, a little bit of maybe catching your breath dur- you know, during peak t-times. There's, there's impact. There's, there's tackles. There's rucks. There's having to catch. There's skill elements. So it's, it's a bit like CrossFit in a sense. You know, the te- you know, when you, when you blend the technical lift that it requires you to link the whole kinetic chain and then there's a bit where it's, like, on a, on a, on a assault bike where you need to rip it and then you need to get ready to, to, to do pull-ups and there's a strength element. It's, it's a bit like that.

   8. CWChris Williamson4:32

      It's also-

   9. OMOllie Marchon4:32

      It's very, very high demanding.

   10. CWChris Williamson4:33

       ... also not far off three rounds of a UFC bout.

   11. OMOllie Marchon4:38

       Yeah. I mean-

   12. CWChris Williamson4:39

       (laughs)

   13. OMOllie Marchon4:39

       I mean, hon- honestly, honestly, mate, when people, I guess when people see some of the conditioning pieces or, or what I have done in the past, I- I'm not really like that so much anymore now I've got a bit older and maybe a bit wiser and oth- other responsibilities. But when people s- see, do see some of the, the workouts and stuff that I've done, it's very much been influenced by, um, my, my time during sevens, you know, and we talk about that environment. I went and did a, a training camp pre-World Cup in Ru- sevens World Cup in Russia in teens up in the Alps. So that was training at altitude. You know, sevens training at altitude up in the mountains is, is just a different beast. Um, so yeah. It's, it's a, it's an incredible sport, but yeah, at th- at that level, they're very, very highly elite athletes.

3. 5:19 – 8:07

   Most Impressive Athletes

   1. OMOllie Marchon5:19

   2. CWChris Williamson5:19

      Who is the biggest freak savage that you saw during your time in sevens on the world circuit, or who do you think are some of the most impressive athletes that you saw during your time playing and why?

   3. OMOllie Marchon5:33

      I think it was a r- for me it was a realization that I've always been quite fast, so coming from an athletics background, I'd always been a sprinter, sort of county level, 100 meters, 200 meters, that sort of stuff. But when you get on a rugby field with, uh, you know, sevens, and I, I use someone like Dan Norton, who's, uh, England's, England sevens legend. Um, that guy... So I was, I was a, a hybrid. I was a winger and, and, uh, played hookup. So I was like this utility player and I, I guess that's the story of my, my career in rugby throughout just this, um, jack of all trades, master of none. I guess it leads into my fitness career.... but when you on a pi- you know, on the, on the pitch with someone like that and Carl and Arles, these, these are top level sprinters. Like, they could hold their own to some degree with, you know, on a, on a track, and they just run awa- uh, they'll run away from you. If you don't make-

   4. CWChris Williamson6:15

      (laughs)

   5. OMOllie Marchon6:15

      ... if you don't get your positioning right, um, making a, yeah, making a tackle, it was a baptims- baptism of fire training alongside Dan. Like, particularly if I was, um, you know, in tr- in training games, he's, he's the starting winger, I'm marking him in defense. If I didn't get my tackle right on him, I was used to coming from a fifteens background or just playing the sevens circuit, I could turn and chase the guy down and make a tackle from behind. If someone like Norts got round you, y- you're just eating dust. There's no point even chasing them.

   6. CWChris Williamson6:42

      (laughs)

   7. OMOllie Marchon6:42

      Um, so you learn-

   8. CWChris Williamson6:44

      Just let him go.

   9. OMOllie Marchon6:45

      Yeah, y- well, you just l- you just learn how to defend guys with, with footwork, with speed. Um, so that's someone I, you know, someone that was in my position that I, that I train with day-to-day. Um, of course, like, he, he's one of the fastest guys on the circuit. There, there are others that are up there. Um, and then I, I actually had my debut in, in, in Dubai, and the two teams in our group was South Africa and Samoa. Uh, and there was a, there was a third team as well, Portugal. But I was playing again, hooker and wing. I remember coming onto the field and scrummaging down at, at hooker. So you're in the, it's three versus three and it's basically like a, you know, it's a, it's a man test. Uh, these, the scrums aren't very long. It's just basically who can, who can have that biggest initial impact, get the ball out and, and we, and we crack on. And when you're packing down at five foot nine, I was about 86 kilos at the time, against three big Samoans and South Africans.

   10. CWChris Williamson7:33

       (laughs)

   11. OMOllie Marchon7:33

       Like I say, I wa- I wa- I wake up, I wake up day two, mate, and my, I, I, my neck had never felt anything like. T- trying to just twist and turn my head, I'd never felt anything like it. There really, there really is, it's a, it's a complete test of, of speed, physicality, endurance, strength, power, um, and it, it's really shaped who I've, you know, my, my view on fitness and, and what I, why I, why I've become this sort of like generalist in terms of fitness. And I guess why my style of training fits very w- well within the, the CrossFit functional fitness space, because it is a true test across all different modalities.

4. 8:07 – 13:30

   Rugby Sevens Background

   1. OMOllie Marchon8:07

   2. CWChris Williamson8:07

      How much has your rugby sevens background influenced how quick you can run after your toddler son?

   3. OMOllie Marchon8:14

      (laughs) Mate, funnily enough, my wife always beats me to run after him.

   4. CWChris Williamson8:20

      (laughs)

   5. OMOllie Marchon8:20

      And I think it's j- just a mother's instinct. Um, yeah. (laughs) I think my rugby sevens background has influenced a lot, like, a lot in my life. I think, I think, um, maybe not so much parenting, but definitely, but definitely the, uh, like I said, the way I view fit- fitness and the way I, I just view day-to-day, um, putting myself in the firing line, very high pressure environment, looking for challenges and knowing that ... Yeah, putting myself in an environment where you make one mistake and that could cost, cost you the game. You know, you miss a tackle on a sevens field and that guy is, is getting through, unless you're a sweeper, inherently your, your num- your scrum half is, is gonna make that tackle, it, it falls on you, um-

   6. CWChris Williamson8:58

      So that is, uh, a lot of faith in your own ability.

   7. OMOllie Marchon9:04

      I think so. Uh, wha- uh, and I, I liken it to th- the, the environment right now as well with, with this COVID thing and, and people saying, "How are you feeling about it?" And I've just got so much faith in my own ability, more so in my work ethic than, than my ability, because I think a lot of the ... And again, um, I might- I may do myself a disservice when I talk about this sort of stuff, but I never had uber amounts of talent. You know, I was never the tallest, the biggest, the strongest, the quickest. Uh, I had a ... I developed a work ethic from a very young age, instilled, uh, on me by my, by my father. Um, I, at times I took some of my talents for granted and that then led to some shortfalls when I got injured in, in my initial s- uh, stint as a rugby player. So I got injured and I, I couldn't play for, for 12 to 18 months, and, and that taught me a few life lessons as well about not taking things for granted. Um, I've alluded to this in the past that growing up my, my ... All I wanted to be was a professional athlete. Um, and once I got that, you know, you, you sort of get to the top of the mountain, you know. I'm nowh- I was nowhere near the top of the mountain, but I got that professional tagline or so I, uh, so I thought. I then started taking things for granted, didn't do the work, um, didn't put in the extra hours, didn't go above and beyond, all these things that now I do to the Nth degree. Got injured, realized that, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't invaluable and that I could, you know, they could just push me to the side and, and the next minute I was waking up in university halls as a, um, as a, as a, as a fresher while I actually went traveling in Thailand, but... and then, and then I'm a fresher and then I'm ... You know, my life was completely changed and turned upside down from being a professional athlete, and that, that, that taught me a few life lessons.

   8. CWChris Williamson10:36

      How much do you think the lessons that your dad taught you are to do with his heritage? Because your ... Is it subcontinental? Is it Indian? What is it?

   9. OMOllie Marchon10:45

      Mm-hmm. Massively. Massively. I, I actually been thinking more of this. I'm gonna go- maybe go a little bit of a tangent with the whole Black Lives Matter thing, because I've done a lot of thinking about my own personal experiences growing up as a person of color. Um, now a lot of people, even today, someone said to me, "Jesus, you're tanned. Like, where have you been?" You know, a lot of people now might just see me as a, as a, as a, you know, Caucasian that's just got a, uh, pretty ex- extreme tan.

   10. CWChris Williamson11:09

       A wicked bit of color in him, yeah.

   11. OMOllie Marchon11:11

       Yeah, but, but when I was younger, I, I was, I was subject to, to, to racism and, and, and, um, not, not massively, but again, it's a bit of a tangent, but I've done a lot of thinking about my culture growing up and how my, my relationship was with my dad. And yeah, that's definitely shaped who I am today. The- I think there is a work ethic installed in ... My, my dad was a, was a surgeon. Um, I think this was passed down to him from his father. The legend goes in my family that my granddad, I never got to meet him, he actually, uh, decided what my uncles and aunties would go and study. So my dad obviously went, went into medicine. Um, my eldest uncle, he became a priest, um, and coincidentally since then, he's, um, he became an alcoholic and he, he died. He passed, uh, passed away of, of being an alcoholic. I don't know whether that's linked to upbringing and, and maybe (laughs) the career in which he went into or certain other, certain other issues. But my dad's side of the family are very high achievers, and I, I don't mean that just purely monetary, I mean that by, you know, they, they pushed their needle hard, um, very successful in, in business and my dad was very successful in his, in, in medicine. Um, and I think being the eldest son-... um, there was a lot of pressure on my shoulders. Uh, I, I studied psychology, chemistry, biology at A-level 'cause I, you know, I thought I had to go and be, you know, become a doctor. Soon realized that- (laughs) that wasn't for me when, when I got my grades back. Um, that, just that, that learning environment ...

   12. CWChris Williamson12:37

       Rugby, rugby seems a little bit safer option than this, than this doctoring-

   13. OMOllie Marchon12:40

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson12:40

       This doctoring shit sounds a bit hard.

   15. OMOllie Marchon12:42

       Yeah, but there, there was definite, there's definitely some, you know, an e- an element of that im- imposed on me. I think some families, like I said, I never had a, I didn't have a tough upbringing. I was very fortunate. My, I wa- I never wanted for anything, but th- my dad was very disciplinarian. He was very authoritative. There was, um, there was a, you know, there were times when myself and him v- very much clashed, particularly when I got into my teenage years and I, you know, got a little bit bigger, a little bit, you know, a little bit more cocksure with myself. We w- we really did, did, really did clash. Um, and I think the communication between the two of us was poor for, for a number of years because we just didn't see eye to eye on things. But now I'm a bit older, a bit, bit wiser, and I can look back at what he did instill in me, I'm, I'm incredibly grateful for. Um, I took my first job at 14 years old and, and they were all things that, you know, I, I, I think were insti- instilled in me from, from my father.

5. 13:30 – 15:53

   Faith in your future self

   1. OMOllie Marchon13:30

   2. CWChris Williamson13:30

      One of the things that you mentioned was about having faith in your future self, and I got a, a buddy, a real character, a guy called Andrew Tate, who is a son of a chess grandmaster, world champion kickboxer, multimillionaire living in Romania, driving fa... He's like a real life genius James Bond meets Dan Bilzerian. This, this is-

   3. OMOllie Marchon13:53

      He's got a brother. He's got a brother, right?

   4. CWChris Williamson13:54

      Tristan, yeah. Um, so-

   5. OMOllie Marchon13:56

      Yeah, I know, so I know of him.

   6. CWChris Williamson13:57

      Um, he put this thing up, some of his stuff, he posts, uh, rap lyrics. The rap lyrics are less so for me, but some of the stuff that he puts up has absolute pearls of wisdom in, and he did this one about, um, "I don't care about spending money. I don't care about deciding to buy this car or those shoes or this house or that dog or take this girl out or do any of that stuff. I have faith that future Andrew will make it work, that if I decide to spend my money now, the Andrew in the future will make it work no matter what happens." And that really stuck with me, this idea of having so much trust in your future self that you have, uh, expanded your domain of decision-making in the present to account for what you know is a capability in the future. And I think one of the problems that a lot of people have is that when they consistently make promises to themselves that they break, "I'm going to stop drinking this year, I'm going to stop cheating on my boyfriend this year, I'm going to lose weight, do this, do that," every time that you make one of those promises to yourself and you break it, your brain keeps note. Your mind-

   7. OMOllie Marchon15:12

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:12

      ... knows that you said... Imagine that you're friends with someone and this friend keeps on turning up late or doesn't arrive at dinner. After a little while, you'd be like, "I, I'm not inviting you out for dinner anymore 'cause I don't trust that you're even gonna show up." You have to see yourself as that friend, right? You are a friend to yourself. In a very real way, we talk to ourselves, our inner monologue occurs as if we're talking to somebody else. "What did you do that for? That was a stupid thing to do." You know? And I think that what you appear to have tried to cultivate here is, over time, expanding that domain of competence so that you have faith that you will be able to do those things in future, right? Future Ollie will get it sorted.

6. 15:53 – 17:39

   Work ethic

   1. CWChris Williamson15:54

   2. OMOllie Marchon15:54

      Yeah, com- com- completely. I think it's having faith in whatever your talent is or whatever your passion is, it's really doubling down on that, and then if you can apply some work ethic with that, a- and be confident in it. For, for me, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot recently as well, for me, I just, I wanna... I work as hard as I can to try and get a seat at the table in whatever industry or whatever table that might be at. And I, I know it's a bit of, like, an analogy there, but if I can get a seat at the table, then I've got a chance to eat and I've got a chance to listen to the, to the people that are at that table that know more than me in whatever particular field that may be, and I get a chance to network with those people and communicate with them. Um, and whether it's in fitness, whether it's in business, whether it's in, uh, you know, listening to, you know, the chance to come on this podcast, you know, the, the, the guests that have come before me, you know, are people, you know, that I, I, I'm happy to say they're some incredible people that have released books that, you know, huge followings. But I managed... What I've done, I've managed to get a seat at the table on the Modern Wisdom podcast. Do, do you know what I mean? It's the same with, it's the same when I, I get an opportunity to, to sit and, and, and just listen or take in information from guys that are in the financial world or understand a little bit more about business, understand a little bit more about marketing, and understand more about fitness th- than, than me. So if I can continue to show that people can trust in me, you mentioned that piece there about, you know, always sh- the people that, that are flaky, you know, you won't ever get that from me. I will always show up and you can always trust in me to be there for, and, and do what I say I'm gonna do. Um, and b- I think because of that, then people then buy into, you know, who I am and what I'm about, and like I said, that gives me a seat at the table. If I can get a seat at the table, I get a chance, I get a chance to eat, and I get a chance to listen, and I get a chance to network, and I get a chance to grow, I get a chance to be a little bit uncomfortable with my, with my company, and then, you know, I level

7. 17:39 – 20:22

   Dont mince your words

   1. OMOllie Marchon17:39

      up.

   2. CWChris Williamson17:39

      You, you've gotta catch up with them, right?

   3. OMOllie Marchon17:41

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson17:42

      It's, it's interesting to hear from someone who purposefully puts themselves into situations where they're out of their depth. And I think one of the real reasons why your audience resonates with you online, and I know that I do as well, is that authenticity. I, I hope that it's one of the reasons that the audience listening to this podcast enjoy this as well, that I try not to mince my words. I make a point of never ever cutting an episode unless there's something libelous or a connection dropout. I don't, I don't ever fettle with it. So I forget a word, I say the wrong thing. There's this episode with Daniel Schmactenberger where there was 20 seconds of pure silence, and I was like, "No, that's staying in 'cause he meant it to be in there." Um, I want the audience to have faith that what they get is what happened. And I think-

   5. OMOllie Marchon18:27

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson18:28

      ... the same thing for you with the people that you work with. It's like, if you want to put your faith in me, if you ask m- me to turn up as a husband, a father, a business owner, a coach, an athlete, an ambassador, whatever it might be-... I'm gonna do it. You want me to do a thing, and I'm gonna do it. And given kind of the last few years of the Instagram influencer world, and obviously, I've contributed to this terribly with the, uh, go from zero to hero Love Island reality TV (laughs) uh, transformation that happens where people are chosen for not their talent, simply their presence. Um, the, you can pick someone up like, uh, um, Tommy Fury. He was great on Love Island and became, like, this world or national star, and no one cared about how good he was at the thing he dedicated his life to (laughs) .

   7. OMOllie Marchon19:18

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson19:18

      What does that teach us? It teaches us that fame doesn't actually to be, need to be being famous for anything. Fame is about notoriety by any means. And I really think that there is a counterculture now that people are resonating with, and it's virtuous, integrity-driven content that is meaningful and, and honest and truthful. And as you see, Instagram testing out removing the like count from underneath posts and rolling that out across the world, that is going to further increase people's likelihood of posting things which to the creator makes sense, to the creator feels like it resonates. They might care about how many comments they get that are meaningful as opposed to the like count that's underneath the post. And what this kind of all loops around to is that you are a living, breathing example that if you focus on integrity first, you end up with a competitive advantage. Going for the lowest common denominator and just trying to pick the easiest fruit that you can works, but everyone can do that. The game that no one is playing right now is the honesty and integrity

8. 20:22 – 22:10

   Thence to follow

   1. CWChris Williamson20:22

      game.

   2. OMOllie Marchon20:23

      Yeah, because I think, uh, within time, people see through all of that stuff, and if there's no substance beyond it, then, then that's where the, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing then, then to follow. And I think with a, with, with that whole thing, I don't need, I don't want or desire at all to have tens of thousands, hundred thousand, millions of followers. What I, what I re- what really, you know, gives me enjoyment, fulfillment is the connections. So, I'd rather have a much smaller following that I can actually connect with. And going back to that analogy, like, if I can get a seat at the table with X, Y, and Z and these people that are higher level and I can take from it and then I can, like, give to my, my, my people and, and give them, like, that tangible connection to it, because not everyone's gonna get these sort of chances in life, for one reason or the other. So, if I can leverage my talents, my work ethic, my drive, my, you know, ability maybe just to ta- you know, talk a good game until I get to, get to that table and then go and help-

   3. CWChris Williamson21:13

      Fake it till you make it, yeah.

   4. OMOllie Marchon21:13

      Yeah, and then, yeah, exactly, and then go and help the people that, that have supported me on the way, then I'm doing my job. It's like, um ... Yeah, for me, it's, it's just about connections. And y- you soon see that people that, people that follow my social media, yeah, my stories in particular, the way, the way, the way I run my stories, there's gonna be some value in there every now and again fluttered in. There's a bit of my son. There's a bit of my wife. There's a bit of just me resharing what, you know, th- the amazing community that we've built that engage in our fitness. Um-

   5. CWChris Williamson21:38

      There's a lot of brownies. There's a lot of food.

   6. OMOllie Marchon21:40

      E- but then there's a lot of the, but there's a lot of food, and it's the same, it's the same shite every day, right?

   7. NANarrator21:44

      (laughs)

   8. OMOllie Marchon21:44

      And j- and gen- like I've, I've alluded to this in the past, it's definitely not an exciting thing to follow when I post a picture of a salad. But it's the same people that will actually show up and watch my picture of the salad that I actually care about following me. Do you know what I mean? 'Cause they're like, I'm holding myself accountable to things that I do every day by posting this salad. I know you find it fucking boring, but thanks for actually showing up and still following and supporting. Like, this is, this is my journey, it's my accountability tool, and you're still following it, and you still watch it.

9. 22:10 – 23:58

   Giving back

   1. OMOllie Marchon22:10

   2. CWChris Williamson22:10

      Yeah.

   3. OMOllie Marchon22:10

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson22:10

      And the thing is, as well, when you decide to do that, if you decide to consistently give to the audience, they will give back to you. And this doesn't just happen for content creators. It's all well and good, me and you, as two people that have to produce or choose to produce content every day, but this goes for everyone that's listening. Your, um, relationship with your mother or your, um, children, you know, your parents or your children, you want to have a reciprocal relationship. You want them to have faith that you're going to do the things that you say that you're going to do. And when it comes from a business, entrepreneurial sense, I wish, I wish that I'd realized 10 years ago that going wide and shallow is nowhere near as effective as going narrow and deep.

   5. OMOllie Marchon22:50

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson22:50

      I would much sooner be the best podcaster in Europe within the wisdom space than try to be f- fucking, uh, model DJ club promoter reality TV influ- You know what I mean? I don't, I don't need all that. I need the thing that I love, and I want to become great at it. And, you know, thankfully, what you have, or at least it appears to, and we're gonna get onto this now, as a lifestyle kind of aligns in one way or another. But one of the things that I find most fascinating about yourself is that you are athlete, businessman, coach, family guy, as in dad and husband and brother and son and all of this stuff. You appear to have quite a hectic, like, classic sub-continental, uh, family thing, like, tons of extended family. There's al- it's always, like, every other week, some- someone's birthday or a barbecue or something like that. Um, what are the things that you do to ensure that you keep all of this aligned, everyone that watches your stuff, getting up with shark mentality 4:30 in the morning? Like, how do you piece this routine together?

10. 23:58 – 28:16

    Playing spinning plates

    1. CWChris Williamson23:59

    2. OMOllie Marchon23:59

       Good question. Um, I mean, you know, sometimes I don't really, sometimes I don't really know. Sometimes I feel as though I fall short on some of those elements. You know, if, if we look at, you know, who I identify as now, and you've, you've listed off a, a fair amount there, s- I, I liken it, again, to playing, you know, spinning plates or turning, turning the dimmer switch up at certain times. There are certain times of the day in which I need to, I really need to turn the, the dimmer switch up on being a coach because I'm in front of people and I'm coaching. Then it's my time to train, so that's when I just need to block out my time and just get my, you know, get the work done that I need to get done. When I'm back home, I do find it very difficult to try and switch off and be present around my family. That's something I, I really need to still develop. And, you know, just because I am a father, a businessman, a, uh, an athlete, and all these things, it doesn't mean I'm very good at all of them. Don't, don't, don't get me wrong. There's, there's-

    3. CWChris Williamson24:42

       Mm-hmm.

    4. OMOllie Marchon24:42

       ... times in which I really do get it wrong. Um, and then I, I, but I have good people around me...... that will tell me, um, and that we have an honest conversation. Uh, I'm pretty good... I'm, I'm pretty self-aware as well, so I'll do a lot of self-reflection on how I'm, how I, how I think I performed a certain day or a certain week on certain tasks, and then, and then I'm, I'm able to maybe adjust and remodel myself for the week to come. Um, but I think... So you mentioned about, you know, shark Mondays and that sort of thing. For me, tho- those little bits are just... It's just the narrative. I think when it come... when it... we link this to mindset. When I was a, when I was a rugby player, or just a personal trainer, there was never any anxieties about what I was doing day-to-day, because I was just so in-... I just enjoyed every moment of waking up and being a professional athlete. Until, of course, I decided that I was gonna walk away from that. Same with personal training. Like, I never really viewed it as work. I was just in a gym which I'd created, my fi- my first gym, and just coaching people. It was re- it was really sort of flow state. When I'm on the gym floor, I, I, I find it really easy. When I s- transitioned to business owner and the other bits and pieces which you have to sort of learn about, you know, like being a, being a husband and being a father and those sort of things, then anxieties, eh, and, and stresses and, and, and more weigh on you.

    5. CWChris Williamson25:54

       Felt the burn there, didn't you?

    6. OMOllie Marchon25:55

       Yeah. So, so for me, I, I'd never on a Sunday night, like most people used to get that, "Oh, it's Monday morning tomorrow," when it, when it... when I was playing rugby. It's like, "Oh, I cannot wait for it to be, to be, to be Monday." I never used to get that, that hump day thing on a Wednesday, because I just didn't have that slump. And you get these people that are employees that work a nine-to-five and they're just living for the weekend. That was never me. But when it moved into being more owner/operator of a gym business and all these other things that I then had to try and teach myself or learn about, I started to get these, these, these feelings of like, "Oh, shit, I've gotta get back at it. I've gotta do... I've gotta answer emails. I've got these things that didn't really come very naturally to me or I didn't really enjoy." So just to change the narrative in my head, like if you, if (laughs) you wake up and the first thing you think to yourself is, "I'm gonna be a fucking shark today," you know, y- you... Whenever a negative thought creeps into your head, it's like, "Hang on. No, no, no. Like, sharks don't think like that." You know, I know it's a, it's a childh- maybe a childish way to put, put a spin on things. And mindset day, like Wednesday, when ev- when the whole world's talking about hump day, I'm like, "It's fucking mindset day." And I... It's... There's only a positive mindset today. So whatever that's gonna be, whether it's when I'm atta- attacking the barbell in the gym, whether it's whether I'm gonna attack my emails, whether it's how... you know, if I'm feeling a bit, a bit low, it's like just, just do your best today 'cause you need a positive mindset. And then I find myself getting through the week and I'm like, "Oh, it's the weekend. Chill."

    7. CWChris Williamson27:15

       You made it. Fucking made it.

    8. OMOllie Marchon27:16

       Yeah, I've made it.

    9. CWChris Williamson27:16

       Yeah, yeah.

    10. OMOllie Marchon27:16

        Look what I've... Look what I've, like, achieved. So I- I s- I put it out the other day, you know, uh, we live out the narrative each day that we s- sort of tell ourselves. And if we're waking up Monday morning feeling sorry for ourselves that we've got, got to go to work, like what the fuck are we doing? You know, cha- change the story or just ch- like change... Tip your life upside down and, and leave your job, because that's no way to exist. And I think particularly people have found during COVID, because there's... they've done a lot of self-reflection, or at least they should have, is that people are just existing and enduring life and letting life, letting life employ them. They're employed by their employer and they're employed by life and they live nothing on their terms. So mindset day, shark Monday, that's my way. You know, um, you know, you, you're a big man on morning routines and I'm sure yours is fairly, f- a lot more polished than mine, but it's my, my way of setting my intention for the day. This is how I'm going about it. I'm on the front foot. I... You know, we say... we, we talk about, you know, win, win the morning, win the day. I'm, I'm winning my first

11. 28:16 – 30:40

    Not useful

    1. OMOllie Marchon28:16

       thought.

    2. CWChris Williamson28:17

       I love that.

    3. OMOllie Marchon28:17

       And on Sunday night when I'm, when I'm preparing myself to go to bed, I'm like, "It's fucking shark Monday."

    4. CWChris Williamson28:21

       Let's get it. Yeah, exactly.

    5. OMOllie Marchon28:23

       Yeah.

    6. CWChris Williamson28:23

       There's two equivalents that people listening to this podcast may be familiar with. Um, James Altucher, past Modern Wisdom guest, has a fantastic blog post called Not Useful, and Not Useful is an ongoing, uh, mental tool that he uses, the same as your shark Mondays. So whenever a thought creeps into his mind that he doesn't want in there, something negative, uh, negative self-talk, a concern, an anxiety, a fear, he labels it. Realizes that he's thinking this thing, labels it as not useful. Is it useful? Not useful. And then allows it to go.

    7. OMOllie Marchon29:01

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson29:01

       Like, why are you thinking a thing if it's not useful to you? It genuinely isn't. Do you want to be worrying about whether or not that tax bill that's due in a month and a half's time is actually gonna get done? Are you going to worry about whether or not your boss is going to be... Not useful. If it happens, you'll deal with it when it happens. There's this, uh, quote that I tweeted yesterday from Shane Parrish as well, guy behind Farnam Street. "It's not who you think you are or who you want to be. You are what you do consistently. It's not enough to say the right words or even think the right things. You have to act on them."

    9. OMOllie Marchon29:36

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's br- out of power. It's brilliant. I mean, everything you just said, it, it... I think when it comes to these things, I've been an early adopter of, of all of these things, not kn- unknowingly. Um, you know, my... the things with the mindset, the things with, you know, fitness-orientated stuff. You know, go... I'm going back sort of 10 years. Behavioral science stuff is now... I'm not saying it's caught up. I'm not saying I was a- a- ahead of the curve.

    10. CWChris Williamson30:00

        You are a tr- Mate, Oli Marcham is a trendsetter.

    11. OMOllie Marchon30:02

        (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson30:02

        You heard it here first.

    13. OMOllie Marchon30:03

        I guess what I'm saying is by, by default I've... because I've got an awareness of these oth- of these things or, or how I wanted to try and thrive in my life and the things I needed to do to try and get there, I started to implement and I started to put things in place, and then they naturally, I guess, then get... led to a bit more success. Some things didn't work. There's been times where I've really burnt myself out and got it completely wrong 'cause I just didn't know what I was doing. Um, and then as things b- become more and more evident, more research and more, more work gets put into the way people behave and wh- how they should behave, then I'm like, "Oh, shit." Like, that's something I've, I've, I've kind of been doing. I've not been doing it quite right, but, um, I've, I've done my, my version of it.

12. 30:40 – 34:45

    Selfreflection

    1. OMOllie Marchon30:40

    2. CWChris Williamson30:40

       Yeah. One of the things you-

    3. OMOllie Marchon30:41

       And it's wor-

    4. CWChris Williamson30:42

       One of the things you mentioned was that you iterate on self-reflection, and what you can presume is it doesn't really matter whether you're a bookworm or not, whether you're consuming hours of podcasts every week and li- Audible subscription maxed out and all this stuff, AirPods never leave your ears, all this shit. It doesn't really matter about that because you've identified that over the last decade...... you've allowed an evolution of ideas and a survival of the fittest in terms of mindset approaches, ways of dealing with business. Small failures haven't knocked you off. You've allowed them to be what they are. Okay, that's a lesson, I'll try not to repeat it. And the good things that you've done, you've allowed to stay with you. And what that's allowed you to do over time is to iterate this evolution of Oli's mind-

    5. OMOllie Marchon31:30

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson31:30

       ... which now has inevitably come upon some of the stuff that research says. Because if what you had found disagreed with the research, there's more research to be done because you're apparently some, uh, well of unique information insight. Of course that's going to be the case. If you exist in the world for long enough, you would be able to stumble across pretty much all of the insights of science. You would just need to look at things with sufficient dexterity so that you would actually end up reali- oh, well, this is how motivation works or this is why you've got, uh, uh, ego depletion and willpower is actually finite, but perhaps if I have a nap, willpower could come back. Like you don't need to run tons and tons of focus groups. You just need enough time and enough attention to actually work out what's going on. And that's why, as you say, over time, you've allowed yourself as a coach, businessman, dad, all this sort of stuff to, uh, these emergent realizations have occurred and now I think you've started to layer on top some more, uh, consumption of books, of podcasts, of audio books-

    7. OMOllie Marchon32:35

       Mm-hmm.

    8. CWChris Williamson32:35

       ... of coaching, the, uh, coaches association you're a part of, Nike Master Trainer, all these people you're exposing yourself to, and that's when you're gonna really start to level up, right?

    9. OMOllie Marchon32:45

       Yeah. I think, no, just on the research thing, like research is always there just to fit someone's bias and also it only becomes relevant when there's like a problem they need to fix. Um, I, I didn't wanna be, I didn't wanna, I never wanted to be part of that cohort of the, the problem they need to fix. So I wanted to try and get at... I guess I, by, by trying to be ahead of it and trying to adopt all these principles and things that were, they was whispering, you know, this might work, but it might be a complete waste of time, there might be no science and stuff behind it. Well, let's just give it a go. Why not? On my own experiment, uh, I've got nothing to lose other than just a bit of learning. And the learning thing I think is really important here. Like, most people struggle with the, the notion of putting in more effort to things, whether it's their fitness, whether it's their relationships, whether it's their, their, the way they view their nutrition, what they do with their nighttime routine or going to bed or all those kind of things. Like effort is where people actually lack, but effort is where the body just learns. Same with the people that you're trying to teach a press-up to three years after they do their first press-up. Like why can't you just accept the fact that... just think a little bit more about what we're trying to do here when we're trying to connect the full body to move as one p- like one piece? They'd rather just bang out the reps as fast as they can and think that moving through something faster is gonna be better. Surely that's, that, that's gonna be better for me. No. Take your time, slow down, think about what you're trying to achieve, and your body will learn and therefore you can move on so that you get the prerequisites to move your press-up onto the next thing. I mean, I'm using press-up as an example here, very basic of course, but the point being through more effort comes more learning and that's where then you get to a level where the, the learning might need to change. It might not be I- I can't just keep experimenting on myself, I then need to start l- you know, re- read, read, put this into context, read the latest literature.

    10. CWChris Williamson34:22

        That's the advantage of you having a brother, right? That you can just, just start experimenting on him, see if this works.

    11. OMOllie Marchon34:28

        (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson34:28

        Just, "Mate, can you grow a mustache for me please? See if your lips go up. Put this cap on backwards, see if your lips go... slightly shorter shorts, slightly longer socks."

    13. OMOllie Marchon34:36

        Exactly that, mate. That's exactly what Charlie, he, he exists for. He's my little, uh-

    14. CWChris Williamson34:40

        Skinny fat. (laughs)

    15. OMOllie Marchon34:40

        ... my little rat, lab rat.

    16. CWChris Williamson34:42

        (laughs) Sorry, Chaz. Um,

13. 34:45 – 40:00

    Learnings

    1. CWChris Williamson34:45

       yeah, I love that man. And, uh, uh, pushing yourself into those areas of discomfort is something that for some people, if you're more type B, is, is going to be a challenge. Whereas relinquishing that, if you're type A is going to be a challenge. So let's talk about some of the times where you've perhaps either pushed yourself too hard or how you are, how you've learned over time when you are pushing too hard and some of the mindset approaches that you're using to, uh, give yourself that breathing room to say, "Okay, Oli, like 60 hours of work this week is enough, or this many miles, this many calories." You know, how have you, uh, allowed yourself to let go of that tether?

    2. OMOllie Marchon35:23

       Yeah. So let's address the s- I guess the sort of learnings I've had, I've had along the way. Like I said, when I, when I was in the rugby environment when things, a lot of things were done for you, like your, your output was monitored, you'd wear GPS trackers, your, your program was, was prescribed for you, your, your nutrition was looked after, it's a very safe environment. You can't really get things very wrong unless there's a, a, a, um, an injury or something that is just a freak accident. When I moved into being a personal trainer, um, and, and running my own business, I was, I'd never been employed by anyone in the fitness industry, so I, I worked for myself from the get-go. There's no one really teaching you about how many hours of, of good delivery you can do, how that then fits into your own training, how that fits into your sleep. At the time when I first started, I was, I was... I used to drink, I used to party and go out at weekends, all that kind of stuff. So you get it wrong, right, and you, you, you drop the ball somewhere. And then when I did finish playing rugby and I moved into owning my own gym, um, I put all of my, that work ethic, that drive, that passion, that, uh, tenacity into trying to run a business. Um, and yeah, I burnt myself out. I just got it complete- completely wrong. I, I got... It spiraled out into a, into a stage where if I wasn't actively sat down "working on my business," my only other outlet that I knew about was training or s- some sort of physical pursuit or endeavor. So I found myself going on ridiculously long runs, swimming, doing endurance stuff because I could fill time. That meant I didn't need to sit down because if I sat down, I had to be doing work of some sort.

    3. CWChris Williamson36:55

       ... were you with your missus at this point?

    4. OMOllie Marchon36:56

       Yeah, and so, so I was with my missus. My missus, uh, we're with Loz. She was, um, she was working as a air hostess at the time for BA, which again, is a, is a horrific job. I feel for anyone that works as a, as an air hostess. She'd done it because she wanted to see the world. She, you know, went to some amazing places, but of course, when you've got a, a boyfriend or someone back home, you do- you never get the chance to switch off yourself, or, you know, a lot of the- the- those guys that thrive in that environment, or, or girls, or bo- guys and girl- girls that thrive in that environment will then come back to the UK and just sleep and wait for the next, next shift, whereas Loz was coming back, trying to spend time with me, I was overworked, overstressed, and we almost split up, mate. I- e- g- genuinely, w- we almost, we got to a stage where our relationship was really, really bad. We decided to move in together, um, it was a great decision, and a few, a few months later, she, she fell pregnant, um, but anyway, I've digressed slightly. So that was a time in whe- in which, you know, I- I- I soon learned that I'm d- if I c- if I carry on this way, I need to organize my life a little bit better so I don't, I don't burn myself out. What I've began to put in place s- since then is just a- a- a greater level of self-awareness and self-care, um, a greater level of- of ability to try and build up the other side of my arch, and, and this happens, had this happen through a, through a mentor of mine at the time who was saying, you know, being a type-A person, person, always looking for that challenge, like my whole day is about challenges, because what I re- you know, what, being an athlete, it's about winning, right? So you, you know what the ch- you know what the challenge is, whether it's game day, you know what, you know how you need to win in terms of the metrics and the scores, so I'd look for that challenge, tick that one off, it's like, "Yes." Dopamine hit, like, "I'm a beast. Next- where's the next challenge? Who wants it next?" type of thing. But that, again, that, that, that would only take you down, you know, one, one, one, one path, and eventually that path is, is gonna be a dead end and you need to reverse, so, you know, they, there's something they said to me is about just trying to find a bit more flow, um, and that doesn't come very easy to me, it's a, it, for me it was about trying to find a hobby that was outside of fitness, you know, even things like puzzles and chess, as, as stupid as this sounds, like it ne- that, those things never r- quite clicked with me, but I guess spending a little bit more time with my son, that was, that, that, that allowed me to find flow. Going on, you know, l- reading, reading books and listening to podcasts and going, going on walks and being in nature and, and just doing things that weren't, uh, formal forms of exercise, which is all I knew about, or sitting behind a laptop and trying to push business ideas. I also will add to that, like I do have a h- I, I seem to have a, a large capacity for work, and the boys that are very close to me at, at, at the gym, you know, A- Alex our head coach, he's always telling me that, he's like, "Your brain just works on this, on this level of, uh, uh, capacity," that I, uh, he, he can't keep up, and sometimes I'll, when we have our meetings, I'll be like, "This, this and this," and he's like, "Where does this all come from?" And I guess it's just my, uh, a bit of a reactive nature, a bit of a, um, it's wanting to just keep, keep everything moving, it, I guess it's ingrained now in the culture of Marchon, it's like, "Just, just keep going, keep moving."

    5. CWChris Williamson39:51

       (laughs) Yeah, it's a, an app- an appropriate surname, right?

    6. OMOllie Marchon39:54

       Um, but, but p- people around me, you know, people around me rein me in when it, when I need t- when I need to be.

    7. CWChris Williamson39:57

       Having that support system, it must

14. 40:00 – 44:39

    Secondorder effect

    1. CWChris Williamson40:00

       be a big change and as someone who independently has a similar mindset to yourself, always never, never had a job for anyone that wasn't me, y- 18 years old started running my own business, very quickly attached my sense of self-identity and self-worth to the success of the business, found it challenging to detach that, then went another step further this second order effect is really pernicious and there may be some entrepreneurs who haven't heard me talk about this before that are listening, um, if you begin to attach your sense of success to the amount of suffering associated with the process of doing work, you have gone too far. So I used to have a successful club night, 1500 people, really amazing door take, accounts look fantastic, great reviews, no problems, but if it had come easy to me, I'd feel guilty and I'd go home feeling unfulfilled because there was some part of me that felt like suffering was innate in success, and that I needed to suffer, and it's a puritan work ethic, you can imagine these priests, uh, doing hoeing the gardens and self-flagellation in service to God, right? It's a puritan work ethic and that's what I had. I was sacrificing myself in service to this desire to be something, but the problem was, I'd completely missed the bit that mattered. I wasn't even chasing success anymore, and success should be in service to happiness, so I'd bypassed both success and happiness and was just looking, uh, for the pain and for the suffering, and what it sounds like you've done is begin to build some structures in place, forcing functions that mean that you have to do the walk, the family time, the hike, the support structure, the, uh, second cousin's birthday, whatever it might be, um, and when you then reintegrate that with flow, there's this great quote from, uh, Kyle Eschenroeder was the, the podcaster that did the other day that I know that you've listened to, and, um, he talks about Confucius, ancient philosopher, Eastern philosopher, talking about, um, how you first have to use the type two thinking, the slow, and then it integrates into the fast. "In the early stages of training, an aspiring Confucian gentleman needs to memorize entire shelves of archaic texts, learn the precise angle at which to bow, and how the lengths of steps are that he is to enter a room with. His sitting mat must also all must be perfectly straight. All of this rigor and restraint, however, is ultimately aimed at producing a cultivated but nonetheless genuine form of spontaneity. Indeed, the process of training is not considered complete until the individual has passed completely beyond the need for thought or effort." And that's what every training plan is trying to achieve. You're trying to instantiate habits which you could have naturally come upon. We mentioned this before, you've happened upon some good mindset tricks, some good-

    2. OMOllie Marchon42:59

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson42:59

       ... mindset approaches that have then been reflected in literature down the line, and this is the same thing again.... there will be someone out there, maybe someone who's listening, who happened upon the perfect cadence of work-rest, family-relax entertainment, perhaps myself and you and a lot of the other people, almost everyone who's listening, hasn't. Therefore, we gotta work at it. But after you've done the work, you can actually then allow yourself to be more free-flowing with it. You understand your limits more intuitively rather than, uh, uh, kind of academically. Does that make sense?

    4. OMOllie Marchon43:36

       Complete, complete sense. Yeah, I think you have to, you have to live through it to understand where... w- again, understand where in, in all of those things you're trying to identify as, like, where the priorities actually lie, um, (smacks lips) live through it, and then come up with your, you know, the, the best version or the best iteration of it for you. And that then, then might, that then mi- might change because priorities may change, other things might come in. It goes back to that A and B test and we, we sort of alluded to, to earlier, that the things that, that serve your life and that are working, you keep them in, the things that aren't, you change them. If you're dropping the ball somewhere then be, be willing to have those difficult conversations with the people that mean the most to you because that constructive criticism from your wife, your best mate, your business partner, your employees, that actually helps you be better at the thing in which you're trying to get better at. If you're just left to your own devices, you know, me and you are quite similar in per- personalities, if you're left to your own devices, you, you just, yeah, you, you're probably gonna get it wrong. You have to be willing, like, willing to take on the criticism, um, and, and imple- implement it and have those difficult conversations.

15. 44:39 – 49:52

    Uncomfortable experiences

    1. OMOllie Marchon44:39

    2. CWChris Williamson44:39

       That's the place that you get the growth as well. So, some of the things that I've noticed recently, I was on Mikhaila Peterson, Jordan Peterson's daughter's podcast last week, and sh- her YouTube channel has significant reach, which meant that there was a lot of comments of people who were hearing me for the first time. And I was questioning myself, I was like, "Do I, do I read these? Do I read them? Yeah, I'm going to." And sure enough, went through and tons of people have picked up on things that I've never realized. A bunch of vocal ticks that I've got, some imprecisions in my speech, some pauses where there shouldn't be, little bits and pieces. Now most of these are trolls online who are not doing this from a virtuous standpoint and it was painful for me to read some of that stuff.

    3. OMOllie Marchon45:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson45:23

       But I've not realized some of these lessons in 200 episodes, two and a half years of doing this podcast, probably 300, 400 hours of recording content, and yet I had to have this uncomfortable experience in order for me to be able to deal with it. Another podcast I did with Jason Calacanis, J-Cal, who's this huge Silicon Valley investor, and he made it quite uncomfortable. He has got a very, very big following and made the podcast a little bit, not confrontational, but it was at least adversarial. And I learned more in that one episode than I've learned in 20 or 30 of the ones where it's just easy and free-flowing. Yeah, they're great, but I don't actually expand my competence there. And again, this is why leaning into discomfort, as we spoke about earlier on, almost actively seeking that discomfort, even in the areas you don't want to feel it, so in an area of having a difficult conversation, yeah, it's difficult. Why is it difficult? Because it is outside of your domain of competence. But once you do it, that is now, that box is ticked. I have that capacity. I know that if I need to approach my coach because he keeps on turning up late and I know that it's because he's got a, a young daughter or son or whatever, and it's gonna be real hard and it's all multifaceted and this is what everyone, there's, uh, there's always a reason why my e- my situation is different when I have to have an awkward conversation with someone that works for me or a friend or whatever it might be. It's like, no, it's not. It's just maybe a little bit more nuanced. Go and do the work.

    5. OMOllie Marchon46:55

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson46:55

       Go and speak to the person. Have the difficult conversation because it will make you grow.

    7. OMOllie Marchon47:00

       I think, um, to give you peace of mind just personally, like, and what you said about, you know, reading those comments and stuff, and anyone that's sort of gonna read negativity or wanna take on, you know, criticism, which is a good thing to do, so long as you, you can sleep easy at night so long as everything you do comes from, one, a place of good intention, and two, like, there's no lack of effort. Like, there's, there's definitely, uh, an incredible amount of deliberate practice a- and, and the utmost of, of effort into everything that you do. And I think most people, there is. So you can read those comments and it- it's right, like, read them and take on the criticism, and read them and- and- and have an air of vulnerability. If you don't, if you're not willing to be vulnerable to, to, to s- you know, people that, that are gonna give you conc- constructive criticism or, or challenge your belief system, challenge the way you do things, then-

    8. CWChris Williamson47:47

       But see, i-

    9. OMOllie Marchon47:47

       ... you're not really-

    10. CWChris Williamson47:48

        ... in that way, criticism's a gift. If you have a true growth mindset free of ego, any criticism, a valid criticism, obviously like if it's just, "Your hair's shit," and it's like, "Oh, I don't like that mustache," and it's like, "No, this mustache is great." Um-

    11. OMOllie Marchon48:01

        (laughs)

    12. CWChris Williamson48:01

        ... if it's a legitimate criticism, your response should be, "Thank you."

    13. OMOllie Marchon48:07

        Yeah.

    14. CWChris Williamson48:07

        Because that is identifying a hole in your game that you didn't know existed and you've got it from this person for free. Yeah, maybe their intentions were them trying to bitch you, but like, f- fuck them, doesn't matter. Like... (laughs)

    15. OMOllie Marchon48:22

        And it's something, it's something I've, I've definitely, definitely had to learn. Like I said, I'm not someone who's got it all figured out and that ticks all the boxes in, in everything that I'm trying to be. You know, i- if... I'm a coach, right? I'm a coach. I'm a business owner. I, I coach people and I also try and, to some degree, coach my employees or the people that work for the business, or at least I need to communicate them to o- o- with- on a level. But the way in which I communicate to my wife or my child is very different the way o- in which I need to communicate to the people that come into my gym when I'm coaching is very different to where I need to com- communicate to my brother and sister who work within, with, who work alongside me. And sometimes they'll be like, "Look, the way you're speaking to me or the way, the way you've communicated or, or the way you've gone about it, that's just not right." And when it's my brother and sister, I'm like, "Oh, well, hold on a minute," and we get, we get into a bit of a-

    16. CWChris Williamson49:04

        (laughs) Yeah, well-

    17. OMOllie Marchon49:04

        ... we get into a bit of a-

    18. CWChris Williamson49:05

        ... yesterday, you didn't put the, the-

    19. OMOllie Marchon49:07

        (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson49:07

        ... the cups in the dishwasher.

    21. OMOllie Marchon49:08

        (laughs)

    22. CWChris Williamson49:08

        And then the day before, there was this dirt over the far side.

    23. OMOllie Marchon49:11

        ... but, but they're right. Like if, if I, if I'm trying to be all of those things and communication is, we just pick on that as a, as a skill set, and that's one of those skill sets I need, I need to take, take into consideration that if I've, if, uh, if I've, quote unquote, "employed" my sister or she's an employee of the company, I need to be able to separate the ability to communicate with her as someone that, that is looking after her job, but then also separate that from someone who's then having to communicate with her as my sister, someone that I, you know, who's older than me, who's, who's looked after me as a, as a kid and all the, all these things. So there is... It's just constant learning. It's constant learning, it's constantly willing to, to want to learn.

    24. CWChris Williamson49:50

        There's levels to this game,

16. 49:52 – 50:35

    Training for ages

    1. CWChris Williamson49:52

       man. And talking to the older sister who you also work with is probably up there with, like, the hardest... It's Sa- Sarah, right?

    2. OMOllie Marchon50:01

       Yeah, Sara. Sara Jane, yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson50:03

       Sara. Sara. Uh, shout out, Sara. Um, we were gonna go into training for ages, man, but I've been loving this mindset stuff and I've got more mindset stuff I wanna talk about. So I'm gonna blast through a little bit of training. Let's say that we are back in the world of gym and that someone-

    4. OMOllie Marchon50:21

       Yep.

    5. CWChris Williamson50:21

       ... or that someone has access to full kit. What are some of the workouts, couple of workouts that you've written recently that you've really enjoyed that you think some people could go away and do tomorrow?

17. 50:35 – 52:37

    My training philosophy

    1. CWChris Williamson50:35

    2. OMOllie Marchon50:35

       Uh, so my training... So just, just in terms of my philosophy or, or style of training now, so people have seen this sort of like train everything, ready for anything type thing. And again, it's bo- bo- bought out of, um, strength and conditioning based principles and what I used to do in the weight room that would transfer onto a rugby field to allow me to... in, in particular sevens, to allow me to be fast, powerful, strong, adaptable, all those... robust, all those sort of things. Um, now for me being a bit older and having to wear those multiple hats that we've alluded to, it's... training for me has to have high bang f- bang for my buck, needs to leave me feeling fulfilled. Um, it needs to be enjoyed... I need to enjoy it. It needs to be sustainable. It needs to be repeatable. I need to be able to train and then go and wear one of those hats that isn't the training hat, uh, whether it's the coach, the husband, the businessman, et cetera. So my training is very much different now to how it has been o- over the past. Um, I'll give you two, I guess, two workouts that, uh, one, one's strength based and, and, and one that might be more, you know, aerobic conditioning type thing. So for me, when we, when we, when we talk about our strength work, of course, we warm our bodies up appropriately based on any sort of compensations we've had in the past, injuries, that sort of stuff. So I'll leave you guys, you know, to your own devices with that. We then put together, like, a potentiation or movement prep type block, which will, which will mirror some of the exercises in which we're gonna go into in the k- in the key s- in the main strength area. It might also have some of the exercises in which we're gonna miss out because in that session we just can't throw everything into it. So there's talk session X that we're about to go into. So the k- the key, the KPI for us, the key performance indicator will be a squat, okay? So we always build off these, these movement patterns. So within our movement prep, we will do a variation of the squat. So it might be a goblet squat, high bang for our buck, gonna start... it's gonna train the, the squat pattern, get our body aligned with what's coming up. We're gonna get some, some good, a good amount of core bracing, anterior cores working nice and hard. So we're going to prime the body for what's to come through there. We then might put in a, um, a bit more of a core dominant exercise, so again, a hollow rock or a s- side plank clamshell. So again, bang for our buck, getting some

18. 52:37 – 54:44

    Lower body training

    1. OMOllie Marchon52:37

       lateral, lateral core, uh, strength stability there and we're also gonna get some work through our glutes and we might just put an upper body exercise because then it's a lower body biased session, um, so let's, let's, let's look at something like a press-up, keep it nice and simple, okay? So we've got 10 press-ups, 10, 10 goblet squats, uh, 10 side plank c- clamshells each side. We would then go into our squat, that's our main KPI, and whatever we're building through, if we're going through a training phase, we'll build to a heavy set of something. So I quite like now this, this notion of sort of auto-regulation for my training. A lot of people, you know, this is much similar to a, like, an RPE scale given that unless you are an athlete like I was when I was playing rugby and everything was constructed so that I should be able to hit a certain percentage on a certain day unless I'd had a tough on-pitch session or I had a bad night's sleep, life is so dynamic that you almost need to take physiology on a 24-hour clock. Like, how are you feeling on that day? If you're supposed to hit a certain number, but you've slept really bad, you've had an argument with your husband or wife, you've not eaten, whatever, you know, the e- emails have blown up in your face, someone wants to, you know, punch you, you know, that sort of stuff, just auto-regulate based on how you're feeling. So if today's it's five reps, we build to a heavy five, all right? And we'll do that over f- over five sets. Um, again, depending on time, we might pair that with an accessory exercise, something complimentary. If you've got issues around, um, you know, correctives, you could pair it with a corrective exercise. So let's just say we're finding we've got really tight hips, um, let's pair our back squat with, uh, like, a couch stretch or a, you know, just a, a, a static stretch. If we f- if we look a bit further down our training journey, we're intermediate, advanced type, type lifter, we might pair something with a complimentary pairing, so might be an upper body exercise. We could go into dumbbell floor press as we've primed with the press-up. It might be that we're trying to really make that a bias on, on a lower body session. So we might squat, build to the heavy five and we just pair that with a kettlebell swing. So 12... 10 to 12 swings. So we're getting some power into the system as well. So that'll be our five sets. That's our KPI. Again, we move into our accessory work. If we're taking this session as a lower body session, we then look at a unilateral pattern. So maybe a split squat, a lunge, step-up, something like that. We might also-

    2. CWChris Williamson54:39

       Do you always, do you always tend to have a, uh, a bilateral with a unilateral in there? So if you, uh-

19. 54:44 – 56:15

    Training volume

    1. CWChris Williamson54:44

    2. OMOllie Marchon54:44

       So again, so for someone like, someone like me who... where training volume is quite high throughout the week and, uh, you know, I'm able to train five, six days a week, um, we... I, I, I would... I, I can go through, like, a lower body session, an upper body horizontal push-pull, upper body vertical push-pull, then a more hinge dominant session. So I have the ability to, to, to stretch my session out over the week and get my volume in that, that way. Um, for most people, when we're looking at bang for buck, if we're gonna, if we're gonna pair the squat with a kettlebell swing, we can afford to go unilateral push-pull in our accessory work.So, um, we'll always put in a fair amount of unilateral and bi- bilateral work. So we might go, like I said, split squat, um, into a weighted push-up into a three-point dumbbell row. Um, four sets of 10 on those. And we always finish with either some, uh, some pump work, so some metabolic, like, stress pump work, 'cause again, that leaves us feeling good. We're very much aligned with trying to beco- obviously become stronger, become fitter, but aesthetics is, is a big driver for us, is a big driver for all humans, no matter what they try to say. Even people in the CrossFit world, I still believe they, you know, performance-driven, they still wanna look good. Um, so long as we, we get the balance right with that. Uh, so we might finish with some upper body pump work or we might finish with a... we might try and build that into a conditioning piece. So some farmer's carries with a SkiErg, um, with some, with some pull-ups, um, and, and do five rounds of that. Hopefully that gives you enough to sort of go with in, in terms of how we structure a s- a strength session. Um, again, we take into e- each individual's, you know,

20. 56:15 – 57:23

    Capacity work

    1. OMOllie Marchon56:15

       training volume throughout the week. Um, and then when it comes to just h- capacity work, uh, fairly simple. If it's monostructural, I've just done one today which was, which was 60 seconds on the AssaultBike, 30 seconds rest, 60 seconds on a, um, SkiErg, 30 seconds rest for 10 rounds. So it's a 30-minute piece, 20 minutes of work, there's 10 minutes of rest cumulative.

    2. CWChris Williamson56:34

       Wow.

    3. OMOllie Marchon56:34

       Um, I gave myself some targets, so on the AssaultBike I was aiming for 22, um... sorry, on the, on the SkiErg I was aiming for 22 calories a round. I was hitting around average probably 21, so I always try and set the bar a little bit higher just to make sure I push my intensity a little bit. And then the A- AssaultBike I was aiming for 20 calories, I think I hit 19 on average. Um, again, I don't try to push too much intensity when it comes to my conditioning pieces these days. I'll probably push intensity once a week, um, but mostly it's just aerobic, a bit of Headspace, I like to work up a sweat, like, like, y- you know, every, what everyone wants from a workout, like feel good, feel as though you've got some work done, feel as though it's quite high output, um, feel as though you worked up a sweat, and then allows me to go on with, with, uh, with the rest of my day. You know, coming on a podcast, having to speak, um, you know, still got a coach later on this evening. So it, it fits in that way. Hopefully

21. 57:23 – 58:53

    RPE scale

    1. OMOllie Marchon57:23

       that... has that given you enough?

    2. CWChris Williamson57:23

       I love it, man. Absolutely great. I like the idea of using the RPE scale. Um, there's a number of different physios and world-class coaches that have been on this show talking about the importance of using the equivalent of a 24-hour window. As you said there, if you're, uh, if you've had a terrible night's sleep and an argument with your boss and you just got into a punch-up outside in the car park and all the rest of it, your today's 70% is tomorrow's 50%.

    3. OMOllie Marchon57:52

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson57:53

       Or, you know, you're just not going to be working at your best, but tomorrow you might be. So go in, see how you feel. But again, what did we talk about with that Confucian gentleman thing? You need to go in and have very structured sessions. This is the sort of progression you are looking at, and then as you get towards that more intermediate, more advanced, there is a sense, there is insight into your training, into how you feel. "Oh, actually, I can piece all of these different things together because previously I wasn't considering about whether I'd eaten enough over the last few days or whether or not I'm feeling stressed at work over the last few days." I, I, I like that. It seems, having had Ryan Fisher on this podcast, the, the American Ollie Marchon-

    5. OMOllie Marchon58:33

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson58:33

       ... um, I've... he has a lot of similar insights into training as you do, uh, takes some of the functional fitness, um-

    7. OMOllie Marchon58:43

       (coughs)

    8. CWChris Williamson58:43

       ... potentiations and, and, and patterns, uh, but repurposes them into quite fun and different new ways.

22. 58:53 – 1:08:36

    Mixed modality fitness

    1. CWChris Williamson58:53

    2. OMOllie Marchon58:53

       I think that's the, that's the main thing. I think, you know, mixed modality fitness does allow you to explore movement and different patterns and energy systems and the way that w- you know, and it is, it is so exciting and it keeps, it keeps things cha- challenging and varied in a, in a more structured way. I think for most people sort of entering into it now, when we look at the Ryan Fishers of the world and the Markus Willies and those sort, those sort of people, um... funnily enough, I did a bit of research a couple of years ago into, into when functional bodybuilding started, uh, and when I launched Functional Physiques, and Functional Physiques came before functional bodybuilding.

    3. CWChris Williamson59:23

       (laughs)

    4. OMOllie Marchon59:24

       Um, because again, like I started as a bodybuilder, like w- I started as a bodybuilder because that's... well, I started lifting weights at 14. We talk about these early adopters, like this, this is going back almost 16, 17 years. There were no 14, 15-year-olds in the gym at this time. You know, I- that's when I started lift, st- started lifting weights. So, um, bodybuilding was the thing, you know, just like most people that start lif- lifting weights back then. You follow the magazines, you follow these people, um, and then as I start-

    5. CWChris Williamson59:49

       When did you, when did you get your fitness menopause? When did you let go of the tether from bodybuilding post-rugby and go into functional fitness?

    6. OMOllie Marchon1:00:01

       So I, I went, I probably w- I went into functional fitness, like I, like I said, I started with, with Saracens in the academy system from, from, from 15 years old. Weights started, uh, coming in at like 16, 17, like, then 18 I'm playing full time, full time rugby. So I was the guy that because I was doing on-pitch conditioning games in the gym, lifting heavy weights, my physique and the way I looked looked like the bodybuilder wanted to look, but only when he was ready f- like to compete go on stage.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:00:31

       When he was ready, yeah.

    8. OMOllie Marchon1:00:32

       Yeah. And my nutrition was always, because again, early adopter, I was into nutrition. I looked at the, back then, If It Fits Your Macros and following the, you know, the people, you know, the Layne Nortons of this world and all that stuff that was first coming out and just being willing to, to, to listen to all this, to all the research. So, you know, they'd see meals and stuff that I'd eat and be like, "How do you eat that and look like that and just..." I just under- I just wanted to understand it. So, um, I've digressed a little bit with that, but my, my training, I, I soon realized that by trying to stay as strong as I could, um, one thing, uh, when I was playing 15s, you know, they'd take our, our skin folds, so trying to maintain as l- much lean muscle mass as possible and the ways in which you do that, that became quite important to me from a young age. Again, athletics background, I spent a lot of time down the track and doing sprint-based, um, conditioning. That's very conducive with, with building a nice, lean, powerful physique. So all of these things sort of started fitting together and I started painting this picture of myself, "Okay, this is h- this is how I do it." Um-... don't get me wrong, there's some sessions where I was standing in front of a mirror and just, you know, do bicep curls, but I needed to be, I needed to be a good mover for the, for the rugby field.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:01:41

       You had, you had a very early fitness menopause, man. That's, that's, that's one of the earliest menopauses that I've heard of, but-

    10. OMOllie Marchon1:01:47

        I, I think I re- I think I really did. I really did. And I, what I... I, I remember going to the first couple of Body Pals and that sort of stuff, and people used to say to me, they're like, "Geez, when are you competing?" Or, "When are you onstage?" I'm like, "Dude, I've never competed. I don't compete."

    11. CWChris Williamson1:01:58

        Not, not, not my bag. Well, it's the same-

    12. OMOllie Marchon1:02:00

        It's not my thing.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:02:00

        ... it's, it's the same sort of funny argument about a lot of CrossFit. The intensity appears to be one of the key drivers of condition, and that the challenge that bodybuilders have is keeping that intensity high. It's not a natural environment. When you're steeping in your own neuroses with your AirPods in, looking at yourself in the mirror, it doesn't gas you up. You can be listening to the, the heaviest death metal or the brand new H track or whatever it might be, but it doesn't gas you up the same way as a room of 10 other people all throwing down at the same time as you. I actually think-

    14. OMOllie Marchon1:02:33

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:02:33

        ... that if there was a group bodybuilding class, like, not, not the Ryan Fisher, Marchon, Markus Philly stuff. I mean, like, fucking Monday is chest-

    16. OMOllie Marchon1:02:46

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:02:46

        ... and it's just chest. But if you were to create bodybuilding classes, I reckon you'd make some savage physiques out of that. If you were able to have the community aspect, the outsourced motivation aspect that you get with CrossFit and with functional training and classes and stuff like that, but it was just straight up eight to 14 reps, con- contraction focused, mirr- the entire room's mirrored, even the ceiling and the floor is mirrored. It's like a porn, porn set. And it... I reckon, I reckon you'd get some absolutely beastly physiques out of that.

    18. OMOllie Marchon1:03:19

        I think there's, there's twofold here. Again, using the examples you've used, the Ryans, the Markus Phillys of this world, one, and, and even myself, going back to that foot, that foot, the 14 years starting then, what, what, what we have is a considerable amount of general physical preparedness, right? We've done the bodybuilding bit, we've done multiple muscular contractions. We've tried everything there is to do. We spent, you know, days, hours in the gym. So it's very hard for people to, to, um, to, I guess under... Well, they need, they need to appreciate that, first and foremost, when, when they're, when they're entering into fitness. If you've only been in it two or three or four or five years, like, spend some time building your s- your physique and doing the hard yards first, and potentially specializing in trying to gain some muscle for a period of time before you start worrying about, "Shit, I need to do the metcon or the conditioning piece or go on a, go on a run." Like, just build some muscle first and foremost, learn to move well first so you nail your technique, drill your technique, stick to the basics. Progressive overload in everything in life is the way t- it's the way to go forward, um, and that would be, that wou- that would be how, you know, how you sort of address that. Um, and then I think, yeah, when it, when it comes to then further, further down that training journey, you can be a- you can afford to be a little bit more generalized because you've done the hard work and you've got those muscular contractions, and then training just needs to be whatever you fucking enjoy doing. Whatever you can enjoy and repeat, repeatedly do day in, day out, because if you just thrash yourself and just push intensity, you're gonna spend the rest of the day probably with your feet up on the sofa, or you're not gonna be able to train the next day and you're gonna, you're gonna burn yourself out. And the last point you alluded to with the bodybuilding thing, or people that j- or people who are training and just not getting in shape, it's 'cause you train with no intensity, and by that we don't mean, you know, chase your anaerobic threshold every, you know, every, every, every, ev- ev- every session and leave yourself dying on the floor. But it's like train with a bit of intensity that's not just standing there isolating certain muscle groups, doing body part splits each day, because if you're doing that sort of thing and you're a desk worker and you're sitting behind a desk and... You're gonna be spending a, a long time. That's why bodybuilders, bless them, have to spend hours on a elliptical or cross-trainer to, to cut weight and to... Because they train with no intensity and their, their lifestyle outside the gym isn't conducive with just, like, moving and, and trying to stay fit and healthy.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:05:37

        Yeah. You're right, man. You're right. It's, um, it's gonna be interesting to see where the sport of fitnesses goes over the next few years. Obviously we've had a very recent change in CrossFit's direction, um, over the last year and a half. The CrossFit HQ pivoted a lot more toward health than toward performance. I think that triggered an awful lot of people-

    20. OMOllie Marchon1:06:01

        Exactly.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:06:01

        ... in the CrossFit community. Uh, is it rightly so? I don't know. CrossFit is a business, a training methodology, and a sport, and trying to marry-

    22. OMOllie Marchon1:06:12

        Mm-hmm.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:06:12

        ... all of those things at the same time is incredibly difficult. Say what you want about Gregg Glassman and Dave Castro. They had challenging jobs trying to get CrossFit to be all things to all people. You're telling me that you want a training methodology that can get 60-year-old, 70-year-old Doris off the couch and moving with no pain in her hips and her knees, but you also want to create the fittest athlete on the planet. Oh, and actually it has to be a profitable business model as well. Anyone that thinks that they can do that easily is an idiot.

    24. OMOllie Marchon1:06:43

        I, I, I agree with you, but I also, what I will say on that is it's... (sighs) Where, where I think they fell short on it, and this isn't a bash, a- at CrossFit, just like our previous conversation was not a bash at, uh, bodybuilders 'cause to a large j- extent I'm, I still am one and have been and, and there are some great ones. But CrossFit then didn't apply or didn't... There, there were some great CrossFit coaches as well as some great boxers. I- I'm friends with them as well, been, you know, been to some, some great places. They didn't... The model itself was a bit plug and play. No coaches really gained the knowledge in which... W- when, when, when CrossFit became about the games and the Mat Frasers, you just saw these CrossFit boxers trying to program like the games and what Mat Fraser did rather than actually go back to what CrossFit was designed to do, which was just meet the person where they're currently at. And their narrative or the way in which they, they, they depicted this 18 months ago when they started going down the health route was just, it was such... It was too far one way.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:07:36

        Yeah, yeah.

    26. OMOllie Marchon1:07:36

        Like I, I, I again...If I liken this just to our gym, our youngest member is 14, our eldest member is 72. We have multi- we have a number of people who are in their 60s who will squat, who will do sled, like sled work, who will do, you know med ball ground to over shoulder or variations of, because there is a regressions and progressions matrix to every movement pattern there is. So long as you in- you, you understand it and you know when to apply it, and that is the art of, of coaching and programming, which I think is where some of the CrossFit stuff just got a little bit muddled, because the sexy Instagram stuff is the Mat Frasers and the, you know those top CrossFit athletes that are doing some gnarly shit. Um, but people ask me, you know, "W- w, eh, w- what we do is just a watered-down version of, of..." What we coach is a watered-down version of what we do. It's still some of the same movement patterns, the same exercises, the same bits of equipment, but it's meeting that person where it's at. What, what Fra- when I see Fraser do a workout, I'll just do a very, very, very, very diluted, like 20%...

Episode duration: 1:28:16