Episode 026 – Former world #1 Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu talks warrior mindset, overcoming extreme challenges and more

Harms: Hi it’s Harms here and welcome back to the Seekardo podcast today, we are joined by a special guest, without a doubt, by the end of this episode will leave you energised, fired up and give you some answers to some questions or challenges that you may have had, personally.

Which is something we all need right now, we’re in a crazy time where the media feeding the machine is on full operation and we are taking the bait.

That’s a reality which is leading to a whole manner of reactions within society within people within ourselves.

It’s at times like this where Ro and myself are reaching out to people who have a voice that cuts straight through that noise and in the same breath equips you with learnings, insights, tools which you can use within your own life.

So on that note, we wanted to bring in someone who has faced extreme challenges and adversity in their life and shown through them and who now coaches others through that process.

That voice today is Corey Donoghue and high Ro over to you, to give the listeners an insight to who Corey is.

Dr Ro: Hi everyone, we are in for a real treat today and first of all thanks for joining us again and supporting us on the Seekardo.

I’ve been itching to get our guest on for a while. He’s a very busy man, he is a father and it needed to be the right timing and wow, what timing it is.

This gentleman I’ve known for a decade and a half now.

I met him at the time of his life when there were challenges going on. We developed a huge bond between the two there was an instant connection and over the years through all the personal development events I’ve run, the one person I’ve reached out to immediately to see if they could come and join us is Corey because he has an ability in the middle of a storm to create calmness and to support people through incredibly adverse circumstances.

Corey is a father, husband. In his early childhood he grew up on the island of Grenade in the Caribbean and actually moved to England with his family.

I think like a lot of young lads got into sport very quickly and he has this incredible gift when it comes to football and at a young age of 10 years he was practising and I still remember the story where he was invited as a keynote speaker and he had the audience mesmerised as he explained just this discipline on a daily basis at such a young age and that led to him moving into professional football.

We’re talking to a former professional football player here today.

He has gone on and become a coach for the football Association, he’s a former London football Association coach of the year and by no means is that a simple thing to achieve.

There’s only a handful of people at the level that he is actually at now in the United Kingdom as a football coach, he’s a football tutor. He does safeguarding with children, a self-development coach, mentor has been for many years.

When people come to me and I’m out speaking I don’t do a huge amount of coaching at the moment and they say who can I turn to?

I say there’s one person you need to speak to and I’ll pass them directly through to him. One of the other reasons I love Corey is because he has this mindset of a complete warrior, but in modern day times because his background as well is Brazilian jiu jitsu he is a BKD, which takes years to achieve.

He’s a former number one European championship holder for BJ J. British champion founder of FBM hub for girls.

We have seriously a big star on stage today with us. Corey Donoghue it is a pleasure to have you here brother.

Corey: First of all thank you so much Ro, it’s a real honour and privilege for me. It’s an honour you’re spending this time with me, so thank you.

Everyone listening I hope you get something from this. I will just share my experiences. Hopefully, you’ll learn how my process was, what worked for me and really start to question ourselves about what will work for you.

One thing I learned a long time ago is that there is so much information out there, especially now with the digital age.

Take this interview as a buffer. Instead of thinking, I must do this, he did it this way so I’ll do it that way. As strange as this sounds I’ve never really seen myself as successful, I know it sounds strange thinking about the things I’ve achieved.

I just see myself as someone who had to change something in his life and there was no other route, I either went forward or back there was no stationary position.

There was nothing to say okay stand still because it wasn’t an option. I had no intention of ever going back.

Harms: The bio that Ro introduced there is so much in there, but personally I am curious about one the blackbelt jiu jitsu, which is a hot topic at the moment online.

If you listen to other podcasts online, YouTube videos of the celebrities they are all flocking to this sport. So, one question is why is this sport so attractive?

And maybe around the topic of gaining a black belt in that artform.

Secondly, talk to us about the FBM hub for girls. I am not aware of that as a topic and was unaware that you were doing something to support girls.

Corey: Funnily enough I got involved in Brazilian jiu jitsu and the things I’ve achieved now. I say that now as I started martial arts really late as most of my career, my early life was just playing professional football in different countries, and that was it.

So when I stopped playing in 2000, 2001 and I took up martial arts at the age of 29. Most people take up martial arts from a young age. But for me it was I needed something to channel my energy and the fuel which I was using to excel my football career, but when that ended I needed something else.

I needed something to fuel that and martial arts for me was a natural progression, but it was also the challenge for me. It was scary and I wanted something that I knew I had to enable me to protect my family and friends if needed.

Because unfortunately we live in a world where not everybody listens to reason.

I wanted to do something in order to protect myself, family, and friends so that was the main reason I started. I started with Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s art. It’s not an art per say, it’s more of an art form because his concept was to have no way.

There is not one set style that beats everything.

It doesn’t exist there is no one best art. His concept was to amalgamate all the styles and merge them into one artform, which is really an expression of yourself.

Now that’s what led me to Brazilian Jiu jitsu. I was very naïve. I’ve been naïve in many things in my life and that really helped me to mentally achieve these things because my naïveté was ridiculous.

I was good when I started martial arts because of football, so I found many things fairly easy. Kicking I found quite easy, punching was easy for me, knife defence and stick fighting was fairly easy, not easy in the sense of the process to get good.

But it was easy that I understood the concept.

I understood okay, this is an art form. This is what it is used for, this is the process, what is the way I can achieve this quicker and I got that.

Then when you get good with martial arts if you’re really being honest with yourself the number one question should be, can I use this at a time when I need to use this?

Anyone can get a black belt in a particular art, yes some take longer, but does that really mean you can use it when the time comes if you have to use it in the street?

You could be a black bet and a 10-year-old beats you up in the street, or stabs or shoots you. So for me it was really learning all the stand-up arts, none of them were to the ground, but I had this naïveté that I’m so good with my hands and my feet, and if I need to I’ll pull out a stick.

If they try to take me down I’ll deal with them. It’s nonsense.

Because you live in this bubble.

Why, because when you’re in a bubble you have your comfort zone and when you have a comfort zone, you feel good and everybody wants to feel good. If you talk about Maslow’s hierarchy one of them is security and security comes from being familiar and comfortable within a situation.

Brazilian jiu jitsu was predominantly all ground stuff.

Yeah, you might start with your feet but it quickly goes to the ground. There was loads of research that I was doing saying 8/10 fights in the street usually end up on the ground and I had absolutely no idea what to do on the floor.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the world champion in boxing. If you’re on the floor with the mechanics that energy, the leverage completely changes.

That’s what led me to Brazilian Jiu jitsu and I started in 2005. My first lesson I absolutely hated. I hated this sweaty guy on top of me, I could smell his armpits dripped from his chin, dripping in my mouth. It was disgusting.

But the thing that was the most horrible was that I knew I was helpless and then the fear kicked in because all your so-called expert boxing skills, the movement and the expertise of the skill counted for nothing when the person was on top of you pinning you down and you knew at that moment you’re helpless.

I started to think about am I going to stay living in this bubble or am I really going to stop and take life seriously and say if this happened in the street and the person got me on the ground would I be able to defend myself and my family?

The honest truth was no.

This led me onto the path of needing to add this discipline into my expression of what I consider martial arts to be, and that’s really what it was. I hated it. The first two, three months I absolutely dreaded going to class.

The extent of the fear some people have going to work, the co-workers but you have to go in as you have bills to pay.

They’re too scared to make the shift or make the change, whether progressively or straight away.

Dr Ro: Corey became a black belt and stand up martial art I said that’s equal to being in a job, so somebody is in a job they think everything is fine, they’re buzzing along no problem.

Now get into a fight and you go to the ground, which is going BJJ you lose your job, you go to the ground.

You don’t have anything to back you up. It’s the same thing, the same mindset that somebody might have.

Everything is good in life, but we all get hit by something at some point. I need another sport, another art in this case, another income financially to give me the extra backup if I end up on the ground.

Such a similar metaphor.

Harms: I had on my piece of paper this is a direct parallel to life in so many different ways, but I couldn’t get past that point, so the way you diagram that is a solid example.

That makes so much sense and no doubt will talk about the process within this podcast that you’ve gone through to allow the ability to change, the mindset involved.

Dr Ro: Corey I think you need to take us back all the way through some of this journey and take us if you don’t mind sharing it because it’s a public space, take us back to that bridge.

People need to understand how you got to this point, otherwise they just think you’re this guy a black belt jiu jitsu, okay life has been easy.

It has not been easy for Corey.

Corey: It’s interesting as when I met you I was lower than rock bottom.

People say the worst place is the ground, I was lower than that. At 10 I had been in England a really long time. It really kickstarted when I got interested in football.

I wasn’t interested in football not really, I played basketball, I liked cricket, especially coming from the Caribbean that was the sport I really liked to do. I didn’t think I’d achieve anything in it I just enjoyed doing it.

I remember finding the interest in football and just loved the way you could express yourself with a ball at your feet. Strange, simple, but simplistic game. I remember going to school and in those days we had career officers.

Every child would go into that office around 10 and they’d sit you down and say what do you want to do with your life?

As a way for them to I suppose try and project what direction they would push us in and I remember him asking me and I was so excited, I’m going to be a footballer. I just don’t know what even drove to that ferocious necessity, but I just wanted to be a footballer.

Not for the fame or money just I love that feeling and I remember him asking me and I said professional footballer.

I wish you could see my face.

I remember his face even to this day, almost like disbelief like he’d just seen black Jesus or something.

He says, be realistic and I remember thinking I don’t know what he means.

He says at the rate you’re going in the school you’re going to end up packing shelves in Lidl. I remember thinking about packing shelves in Lidl, not even Sainsburys or Tesco’s. He didn’t give me a proper supermarket.

I remember being hit with it, but something in me and I think it’s just my nature drove me to say, yeah you will see you.

It fuelled me.

At that moment I was almost like someone had taken my heart out of my chest smashed it a few times and then put it back. It completely at that moment destroyed me and then all the things started going in your head.

It’s really easy to blame the world.

All this stuff goes in your mind and you escalate it worse than what it is.

I remember leaving that office and going home and I cried and then I thought no one is going to tell me what I can and can’t achieve.

But even though you say that there is still this negative seed that’s been planted by someone who is ignorant that has no right to pant that see but in your mind you think they know, because that’s the career officer, that’s an adult, they have so much more years’ experience in life that I do.

If he’s saying that what if it is true and I had nothing to back up my belief that I could achieve it.

That was really tough.

Dr Ro: To put this into context help us understand what was going on at home.

Was your mum supportive of this dream?

Was it something you kept to yourself?

Did you lean on parents or people around you to go come on, you can do this or was it more of just your head was down.

Corey: My mum was only supportive of me going to school, not football.

Not because she wanted to kill that dream but because she truly believed that coming to England in the situation things were bad, racism was rife. That’s just how it was.

Her way to protect me was to say you’re going to focus on school, yes I don’t mind you playing football as a hobby on the weekends with your friends.

As a young 10-year-old who only dreams of being a footballer you don’t see that side, you just think my mum is against me too. Then when you start to think of things like that and you fuel that negativity you now go on a downward spiral.

Dr Ro: This is a great subject as well as around the table we’ve got half Sri Lankan, we’ve got Harminder whose background is Malaysia.

Harms: Originally from Malaysia, dad moved to India and then the UK. I’m first-generation here, but again got backgrounds in different ethnic backgrounds.

Dr Ro: So Corey from the Caribbean, my father from Sri Lanka, and this is an important message for those of you listening right now that may find yourself leaning on an excuse to blame your background, your heritage, your parents.

The reality is that our parents brought us to a different environment because they believed this is the space for us to learn and grow and maybe have the things that they didn’t have.

It’s not necessarily they’re trying to control us; they’re trying to give us an opportunity that maybe they didn’t have.

That’s probably the main drive your mum had at that moment in time Corey.

Corey:  But I didn’t see it at that time.

I know now as a person gone through life and experiencing different things that she only has the best intentions with love and respect for me wanting to achieve something, but at that time I didn’t get it.

I didn’t talk to my mum for a while after that, but then I thought let me focus on school. Did good in school and just really focused all my energy and spare time on football.

For years until I was 15 we moved around a lot, I was homeless for a bit but that’s another story.

There was a park and a school not too far from where we lived in north London. They had their own private part with a fence around it and I used to wake up at 5am every morning, Monday to Friday to go to the park, it was a 30-minute walk from where we lived.

Couldn’t afford a bike or the bus fare. I’d jump over the fence with one ball and for four, five years the brick wall was my best friend.

I trained non-stop. I just focused incessantly and I’d watch games and watch other players playing and practice kicking the ball against the wall for hours.

Just the most different ways I think of to keep myself excited.

I was driven the moment the careers officer said you’re never going to achieve it.

I did that whether it was raining, sunny, snowing I would go do that, train, go home shower and then go to school. I would do that consistently and the strange thing is this for me was just life.

I had no idea how I was going to be a professional footballer.

I had no idea, but there was a feeling a drive inside me that said just do it. If you do the next part, the next step will show it to you.

I trusted that feeling. Now fast forward a little bit when I was 15 before that I got into Islington. In those days you’d play for county and then district London and it was the best players from London. I made both of those.

For me it wasn’t enough.

When I was 15 our manager and I will never forget that he had contacts with Arsenal and he had spoken to me and they had come to watch me a couple times.

I remember he called my mum and I want you to picture this kid from the Caribbean had a dream of being a footballer from the age of 10, it was really late.

And your one dream is to be a footballer and that was thrown away by a careers officer and at 15 you get the opportunity to play for the biggest and best clubs in England.

He called my mum and said I really believe that your son has a future in football.

I was there listening to the call and he was talking to her saying the education will be sorted out and we believe he has a future and my mum said no.

My son is not playing football, he is focusing on his education, the phone went down.

My heart stopped. If I could have jumped off a cliff at that time I would have. Because nothing else mattered to me.

Dr Ro: I remember the first time Corey and I discussed this story and you could’ve heard a pin drop in the room.

I was asking him questions about that particular moment because these are defining moments, significant emotional events that define who we become in the future.

For the listeners you’ve got to put this in context, because today everybody fully appreciates the opportunity like that and the potential financial rewards for it. but we’re talking about what happened 30 years ago.

Back in those days I think even the parents there necessarily had an appreciation of what this really meant and your mum had this dream she has worked hard to get you to this point.

For her it must have been a wrestling match.

Corey: When she said no I was like you can’t do that, I’m going to run away. She said I know what I’m doing, no one ever made money from football. You might laugh now but that’s what she said to me.

The strange thing was that I thought my life was over and at the same time I didn’t because the next day the manager called me and he called my mum. Bill Hollinshaw was the manager for Islington and the manager of Arsenal called my mum again.

For me at that moment it was like wow, this is going to happen. Because no one calls you twice.

Now I started feeling positive.

My mum still said no. At that moment, I can’t even express how I felt.

At that moment, I hated my mum with a passion and I know it sounds really harsh saying that, and you only have one mum and if anything ever happened to her what would I have done.

At that moment, every negative feeling and emotion and frustration and fear of my future and life completely was projected towards her.

I remember the morning when I would normally go play football. I remember walking and I had no intention of ever coming back, not to run away, I didn’t want to be in this world anymore. It was done for me, I was sick of everything, and I know in hindsight, what a selfish decision to make.

Completely selfish, not just for me but for those people who loved me especially my mum who was doing it out of love.

But I didn’t see that as a 15-year-old kid. My life was football and you just took my life away from me.

I remember walking there’s a bridge in archway it has the local name of the suicide bridge.

In those days it wasn’t high, it was just a bridge made from a concrete beam and it was easy to get on top.

The reason it had that name, true story was because so many people committing suicide from that bridge. That’s where I went and it wasn’t a cry for help. It wasn’t a cry because I wanted someone to stop me.

It wasn’t an action for me to get my mum to feel bad.

Nothing of the sort, I had enough and I no longer wanted to be here. I remember walking to the bridge and I was calm, I wasn’t crying, no frustration. I don’t think I was angry and I remember climbing up and I waited it was early in the morning, no people on the bridge and I stood up on the edge of the bridge.

I held onto one of the poles and I waited.

I wasn’t waiting because I was second-guessing, the honest truth I was waiting because I wanted a lorry to come. I thought if I jump now and I hit the floor I might not die.

That would be the worst thing to do and survive as now I’ll have broken legs, maybe paralysed now my life is even worse.

I was waiting for a lorry, I thought if I jump at the right time and the lorry hits me at least then I know I’m going to be finished.

So I was waiting and no lorry came and is really bizarre thinking about it now as it’s impossible for a lorry not to come.

Felt like I was there for a minute, or two minutes. Where’s the lorry or bus?

Nothing came and it is a really strange thing about it now and I think divine intervention. It wasn’t my time as the lorry would have come and I wouldn’t be telling you this story now.

I was getting frustrated just waiting and then I remember feeling like someone had touched my leg and I looked down and there was someone there. I don’t know, I can’t really explain that as that part is a bit foggy.

I remember, this really strange and I know it seems like the story is so crazy. This feeling of what are you doing on the bridge?

 Do you honestly think you have a worse life in this world?

Don’t be so naïve.

There are people who don’t have parents.

You still have at least your mum. There are people who are disabled and still don’t feel sorry for themselves like you, get your arse off the bridge.

 All of these feelings were at the same moment, it’s really hard to explain. I remember holding on, still looking away, looking down at the road and then I looked back and there was nobody there.

Now that’s impossible.

Physically, that’s impossible because I’m in the middle of the bridge and if you run I have to hear you. You still wouldn’t have been able to run out of sight that quickly, impossible. There is nowhere else to go.

It is a bridge, there are no trees or entrances, there is no nobody. Cut a long story short I went home and no one ever knew about it. the only time I shared that story was at an event with Ro.

From that moment on I made a decision and it was a decision. If I want something in this world I have to stop blaming the world for what I don’t have.

The world owes me nothing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Before the bridge I hated the whole world, I hated white people, black people, Asian people for no reason. I hated the government, hated everything because I wanted to vent that anger there and had no idea how to do that.

The thing I really changed was my attitude and my belief changed. I knew nothing about positive mindset.

I started to look at things in life that way, and from that moment, everything changed. Just a

shift in my attitude and behaviour, that then helped me to determine the actions.

Harms: You then went on and ended up as a professional footballer.

Corey: In those days it was my fault because I was an arrogant kid. I knew how good I was because I thought to myself if Arsenal came to me and I only played football four, five years ago I know I’m better than you fools.

The arrogance wasn’t good because it stopped me from achieving it quicker.

So I didn’t turn pro until I was 24, which is late.

If you don’t make it by the time you’re 16, 17 you’re never going to make it.

There are the occasional one-off stories of people like Vardy and Ferdinand but that’s very, very rare.

Finally did it at 24 and it was amazing and it was what I expected and at the same time was’. Towards the end of the career I was playing the best football I’ve ever played.

I was playing in Norway and I had some of the most amazing experiences and some of the worst. Then towards the last season before I retired I was 29, two clubs came in and it was like wow, but I didn’t want to play anymore.

The feeling of what I was doing, the joy and excitement had left me and I started to question, there has to be more to life than this.

Dr Ro: Just to summarise, I asked Corrie I spent hours talking to him and he said to me, essentially they controlled everything you did everything you ate, said, and people were literally hanging around you because you are the star.

You would spend huge amounts of money on an evening for everybody else.

I remember the way you described the lifestyle; it wasn’t who you were as a person, it was what had been created around you.

Corey: Agree.

Don’t get me wrong yes successful footballer but it’s not like what Ronaldo would experience. I’d spend on weekends the equivalent of £2,000 on a night on drinks and nonsense and I don’t even drink.

So it wasn’t even for me, but you don’t think about that at the time. So many friends in the club and then when I retired how many of them were still around? Maybe two.

But you don’t see it when you’re in that environment and that world because you live in this bubble which is contrived and nonsense and it makes you the most naïve and sometimes the most stupid person.

Because you’re not taught how to manage your money.

Now it might be a lot better. I looked after myself and my money.

That experience really afterwards taught me that this world you might have today, gone tomorrow if you’re not smart and you can’t start thinking of yourself better as someone else.

I remember there was a quote that resonated with me by Quincy Jones. He said the only time you should be looking down at somebody is when you want to help them up.

That hit me because there was a part of me that was beginning to turn arrogant.

And it’s nonsense because you start planting seeds that you don’t want to grow and when they grow, life becomes harder. I went through that phase and then got that out of my system and then I lost all my money because you’re not taught how to do everything.

It was maybe one of the toughest periods of my life.

Then you just start to have to reassess yourself and start to think about what do I want in life?

You have to restart and sometimes people say okay, but you’re not really restarting from the beginning as you have all that life experience.

But sometimes it’s best to remove all of that and just start fresh. Because otherwise, sometimes a tendency to think you’re your past takes your future, that’s absolute nonsense. Your past only dictates to where you are right now, from that point you have to decide but now we start talking about the mindset.

I achieved my lifelong dream of being a footballer but it wasn’t actually what I thought it was. I never had my passport for nine months; the club held my passport.

When my grandparents died I had to ask for my passport in order to go back home to London just to see them because the funeral was taking place, and then when I came back I had to give them my passport.

I thought I can’t live like this; I’m a grown man being told I have to be in bed by 10pm.

The love stopped and it was more of a game. Now look I’m not moaning and saying life wasn’t good because it was amazing in the sense that you can make decisions, but I’ll say this quickly and leave it at that.

People think when you have a lot of money or you’re in a position you have so many choices and I do believe this and I was listening to some guy about choices are an illusion.

I remember hearing that and I’ve been taught by your Dr Ro and other mentors that when you don’t understand something, don’t throw it out.

Don’t neglect it just because your mind is not at the level to understand it, accept it as the truth, embrace it and then ask questions why it’s the truth. Then after that you decide. I remember him saying choices are an illusion, I thought they are not.

He says in order to be successful there is a finite amount of choices you can make.

I.e. playing football I can’t be out at 10pm when friends are still out. It’s not a choice I actually have. I can choose to go to bed before 10 but not after.

When I eat and I have a game that afternoon I can’t eat whatever I want. I have to eat what’s appropriate to refuel me in the correct way so I can perform most efficiently, the choices are limited.

When you start thinking about it there are specific finite choices if you want to achieve certain things in life.

There are things you have to sacrifice and say okay I will sacrifice this now to achieve that.

Again it’s just from what I’ve seen and from my own experience that people are not prepared to make the sacrifice, they want everything and now but not prepared to make the sacrifice.

Even sometimes when working with people and clients you give them something that you know they need to do.

But they don’t want to do it. or they do it for a week.

Everybody wants things to change now, everybody wants success now but they’re not prepared to put the time, effort and sacrifice in.

Dr Ro: That’s great lead in actually because one of the things that you’ve gone on from what you’ve done in the past is to now take a lot of this experience and take it to people on a one-to-one basis.

The transformation I saw in you was a sponge in the personal development world.

You came to my event, you went to other people you grew, you learnt, and along that way natural ability to coach people just came out.

Corey: If it weren’t for you Ro you I wouldn’t be here.

I think everybody needs that person or that light at the end of the tunnel, or that the lighthouse to show them the way.

But you have to be open to be shown.

Most people are not open because it challenges their belief structure and if you keep that and not open to expanding you’re never going to achieve anything from my experience.

Dr Ro: I remember you emailed me and Corey was like a sponge.

In the same way you applied your football to your martial arts. It was like okay I just need to grow as a human being, and you literally sponged everything that was thrown at you.

The emotional evolution that Corey went through was astounding to the point where I could be in a room with him at an event and I would just pass people over to him because he was just literally doing interventions with people live at the point.

Harms was at our last turning in 2017.

He would have seen you as somebody in the audience.

Harms: It’s fascinating and I am wondering if we can, we can take a part of the story and then start to decode it with Corey’s skills and processes that he would take somebody through.

Namely focusing on okay, so when the football career ends and this can be again parallel to anybody’s career, anybody’s life when something ends you said something fascinating which is your past doesn’t define what you’re going to do next.

It defines everything that happened leading up to that point.

The next part is now up to you.

You mentioned phrases such as behavioural change attitudes.

I wonder if you can now talk into that space, how does somebody actually go and change their mindset.

How do they actually go and take action and then actually consistently take action and how maybe you’ve helped clients and how you maybe did that yourself.

What’s the process?

Dr Ro: Just on the back of that what Harms is asking maybe you can tackle the concept of affirmations because some people talk about affirmations, the whole concept of visualisation and people back in the day when the stranger secret came out you saw people sat on bean bags saying I’ve got affirmations.

If I just picture it everything is going to be fine.

You don’t believe that. So maybe you can integrate that into that first question.

Corey: Everyone listening I don’t want you to think of me as, let’s listen to him this is the gospel truth.

No.

This is the truth for and what worked for me, this is what has worked with many people I’ve worked and helped. But everyone is different.

Negative thoughts and feelings, they’re internal processes or forces, it is an internal thing that negativity and feelings that for the most part give a platform to it. You choose whether you embrace it or don’t.

We all experience negativity at times, negativity is accepted as an internal force. People say that the way to come at it is to do positive affirmations, be calm, centre yourself. Positive visualisation, image, et cetera yes, these things work if done consistently and correctly for that person.

They are really powerful and it really works, but from my experience the majority find these things and the skills it’s like a discipline.

They find it very difficult to do. If you’ve got all the stats of those who follow the person on stage, they’re powerful.

Yes, they work, but how many of those people doing it, did it actually change?

That’s why I believe sometimes it doesn’t work when I think back over my life. What I realised was that it wasn’t my positive thinking and positive mindset that changed me first. I was so deeply negative about everything in my life.

It was my attitude and my behaviour; the way I carried myself.

I was acting like a professional player even before I knew all the steps of how to be a professional player.

My attitude and behaviour helped to change my negativity to positive it wasn’t the other way around. I didn’t start with affirmations as I didn’t know anything about it or about positive mindset, or the law of attraction.

What I did know was that at this moment in time right now I feel like crap, my life feels over. I have no idea how to do this, but I don’t know if I just move my body and at least do one thing that helps me to move in that direction that hopefully the rest will follow.

I am not for one second saying that positive mindset and vibrations and energy, feeling positive isn’t the thing that shifts everything because I do believe that.

I believe everything is the mind, but I don’t think the mind shift is the easiest to do. I believe that sometimes the physical aspect is the easiest because everyone can move, unless physically you can’t.

I can still be negative in my mind but I can at least do a physical step first.

Dr Ro: We’re talking about breaking the inertia, if you suddenly feel paralysed or a situation has stopped you in your new tracks it’s physically breaking inertia, physiology, changing something and the combination of movement.

But also I’m going to do this to start the moment again because you can’t steer the vehicle unless it’s moving.

Corey: That’s all it was, I know I have to stop this negative rot and blame the world, but I don’t know how to do that.

I don’t have the skill to start thinking positively, I knew nothing about affirmations, I didn’t know how to meditate, all I knew was this fuel inside me which I have to channel. For me it was physical.

Let’s say you want to start a business and you’re thinking negatively about yourself, but just say what the heck with it.

The worst that can happen is nothing happens and you’re back where you’re started. so why not give it a try.

So for me it was exactly that.

I have to get the vehicle moving and then after that now, my mindset changes because I can see a physical change and because I can see some success in the direction I’m going in it gives me the confidence to think that it’s working.

If that works what else might work, there’s the next step, I didn’t know it but I know it now.

That’s how my mindset changed, the negativity stopped, the self-nonsense within my head stopped.

Then I started planting the positive seeds.

For some people affirmations may be first, if your mind is strong enough and you think positive and you truly believe that then brilliant start with that. But most people from my experience and especially me, that was not the case.

I’ve been to seminars when they say think big and of course there is the power of thinking big, I’m not knocking them but you can’t think big if you don’t believe it.

You have to think on a smaller level, believe that and grow. But no one teaches that.

Harms: That is fascinating because the exciting and selling the big appeal or selling the magic pill is so much.

You’re right, more saleable, marketable, and also sounds exciting. I’m going to think big and I’m going to 10 X my results and all of those kinds of phrases.

What is interesting is the small item could be thinking big for that person in that current circumstance.

Dr Ro: For the listener there is a fundamental area here which is looking at your core beliefs and values and that’s a separate conversation for different podcast, but you can make a statement but if you don’t believe that affirmation.

Corey was with me when we did events where we actually had the whole audience speaking out affirmations, but the point was that these were affirmations that we had been working on with them during the course of the event based on their beliefs.

Some people there now really believe that they can get physically fit.

Others believe they could get into a great relationship, off the back of that the affirmation becomes something they can attach meaning to, but otherwise it’s just a statement.

Often they would have had in a seminar environment or training environment, they would have practised the action, which is interesting, what Corey is saying they physically did an exercise in action and the affirmation supports that.

Which is in great alignment with what Corey is saying.

The next big question then is if somebody starts the motion breaks the inertia, they’re taking action in whatever field it is, say it’s the first run of the first push-up.

The next big question is how do they stay consistent?

Corey: I sometimes have momentary doubts about a new venture, whether I can do it or not. I ask myself a few simple questions, and then I do it anyway. What helps me to stay consistent is my attitude and behaviour.

My attitude is that the world owes me nothing, that’s the first thing I say to myself because I believe the world owes me and if you believe the world owes you because you were born there, or because you pay taxes or because you’re black, white whatever it is then you’re going to achieve nothing.

When you find out the world isn’t giving it to you as if you have a God-given right, then it’s going to annoy and frustrate you.

For me the first attitude is the world owes me nothing. Just stop blaming the world and I don’t like it and that’s just how it goes. I have to find a way to attract what I want. I believe that there’s always a way.

I just have to be open to feeling and listening to the source.

It’s the internal feeling that you have no idea what it even is but there’s the feeling, you have to trust the feeling. When I say trust the feeling I’m really saying you have to trust yourself more, I believe that too many people listen to too many people.

There’s too much nonsense out there and you can find what you want to back up or to disrespect, or to negate what you believe you will find.

You can find articles that say eating chocolate every hour on the hour is good for you. I’ll bet you’ll find articles to say it’s not good for you.

Whatever you want to find if you look hard enough, you’ll find it, but that’s the problem.

People look too hard for excuses or reasons not to do something or they look for reasons why it doesn’t work instead of saying, this is how I’m going to stay consistent.

Dr Ro: What Corey is talking about is the fact that when you start something if there is a little bit of doubt.

Doubt is basically belief what you do is you go and search for something else to validate that belief and then make it a reality for you.

You’re spot on and that we see that a lot in this world in personal development.

People come to the table with an excuse, but really it’s just a way of validating a belief that was holding them back to start with.

They’re allowing that tiny little belief to stop that inertia being broken.

The easiest thing to do is just chuck more weight on that belief and then I’m not going to get anything done.

Corey: You’ve explained it perfectly.

I understand it then comes back to the six human needs again of security.

The reason I think so many people are sheep and follow so many idiots is because they feel some kind of connection. I’m not the only one.

This person has written it on the Internet so it must be true. Nonsense.

I think they see, read and hear stuff. There is this feeling that inside them is questioning it but they ignore it and they turn to logic.

I believe that sometimes logic is the most dangerous thing to listen to because you have to trust yourself.

The question people will say is how do I trust myself?

 Again that’s a separate conversation.

If I go back to some of the things I personally do I have quotes on my wall. I’ll read you one.

When my missus was pregnant, her mood changed and I love her to bits I hope she never hears this. I was told don’t ever challenge her if she wakes you up three in the morning to get something, you get it.

If you come back and she doesn’t want it, say nothing and I learnt that. I wrote one of the quotes and this is about staying consistent. During the time she was pregnant with my son I had to be consistent and remember I’m not pregnant, I’m not going through this pain. It says joy and happiness and then I have two phrases, the first one says sweety I understand please continue. That phrase was no matter what she says, right or wrong you listen. The other one was you are right sweety please continue. That was it.

You don’t react, retaliate, you say you are right. Staying consistent is easy and not.

What I mean by that is you can have quotes on your wall, but it makes no difference if you don’t read what’s on your wall.

Dr Ro: Also what it means to you Cor.

What you’ve explained to us is your reminder that you aren’t carrying a baby and you’re not in her shoes and actually she just needs you to be supportive in that moment .

That’s your reminder so it is a great anchor.

Corey: That’s the key to stay consistent you have to constantly remind yourself with videos, I have a morning ritual.

Or you remind yourself with quotes.

On one of my walls it’s covered with picture frames. It was my wife’s idea and in every picture there is a moment which is captured with our family.

It is the most exhilarating, energising and moving experience every time I sit here, no matter what I’m going through, no matter how my day is, all I do is take a moment I look at the pictures and every picture in the frame has to be captured of a moment by picture people smiling, otherwise it doesn’t go on my wall.

Every picture I can’t help but smile. It is a reminder of how I stay consistent.

Everyone is busy at times and I might be out the whole day and I travel a lot and I might not see my family for three weeks at a time.

Then I come back and I am exhausted, physically and mentally and the first thing my son wants to do is play, I can’t say no I’m tired, leave me alone for a minute.

Because that’s selfish and I have to understand he hasn’t seen me for three, four weeks so I have no right to now say no. I’m tired, so what?

Deal with it.

This is the moment you have to give your family.

The pictures remind me of that, that’s how I stay consistent with that. one of the things I have is a morning ritual. So during this time, my morning ritual has slightly changed and changed for the better.

The first thing I do is I wake up and I sit in my office, light a candle and I meditate for 15 minutes, I appreciate who I am and just absorb the energy from our home and for my family and the pictures and just set me up for the day. To say today’s going to be amazing.

Then I start the day and I do three things; I first cleanse myself and then I ground myself and protect myself.

Then visually I cleanse my family. I ground them and then I cleanse them, like vibration. I do that in 15 minutes and I’m set and then what I then tend to do straightway I drink a glass of water.

At that moment it sounds really strange but I just appreciate the water and I’m present with the water and vibration carries power.

Energy carries power that’s not even science or pseudoscience, that’s the scientific fact that energy and vibrations carry power, it can be measured. So when I drink a glass of water when I hold the glass I imagine my vibration and energy of love, positivity, fulfilment, joy, happiness going into the water and I let it just sit there for a while and I imagine it being fuelled and I drink it.

I double fuel myself with positivity.

Then immediately after that sometimes before my son wakes up and we just sit and laugh and play.

I just give him his moment because that’s how he wakes up he is always smiling. I don’t think there’s a time I can remember where he wakes up crying.

So my process to stay consistent with that is give him that moment. depending on what the day is and I have the day to myself and my missus takes him I now start my process and I go through the list of these are the things I need to do.

This is the hour I’m going to answer emails.

This is the time on the work and then this is the time to do that, if I get a chance I’ll do exercise before I sit at my desk. What I’ve been doing in the last week is every hour from 5 o’clock in the morning until seven in the evening I’ll do 21 press ups and 21 squats on the hour, every hour.

If I miss it is not a problem, but I have a set routine in my head to fuel my body because it’s one thing staying consistently fuelling your mind, but it is another thing to stay consistently fuelled with your body.

There is a chemical reaction that takes place with your mind but also when you move your body.

There’s loads of evidence of state change, when you want to change your state or move from a negative vibrational energy or mindset to a better one, physically get up, pull your shoulders back, lift your head up, breathe deeper into your diaphragm and physically move.

Don’t slouch in the same place and it’s proven. all I do to stay consistent is I remember these things.

Dr Ro: What you’re saying is for you what works if you have an hourly routine or is it right after a certain time you have an hourly routine?

Corey: It depends because with family I can’t set aside a certain time. One thing I do say when I go into my office and close my door, I leave my slippers outside so everyone knows I am inside.

All I need is just 15 minutes.

Even my youngest he is two when he sees the slippers he’ll knock and then I don’t answer and he says okay, daddy meditating and he’ll go.

I just need the first 15 minutes and then the rest of the time the physical movement that I get in when I can.

Harms: What we’re talking about here is a shift in physiology and attitude without necessarily focusing just on affirmations.

I just want to clarify for the listeners what would be a couple of tips on how to determine what are the right attitudes and behaviours.

Either how you did it or what could be a couple of tips for people to identify and to zoom in quickly on what are the right attitudes and behaviours to take forward is there a way they can measure, feel, sense, model?

What would you suggest?

Corey: This comes to trusting yourself again.

This is how I determined it for me.to know what’s the right attitude for me in order to do this, you have to first know what you want, what do you actually want?

It can be something as simplistic as powerful as I simply want to feel good every day. What happens after that happens, but I just want to feel good and your primary, I really believe your primary essence of why you’re here should be to feel good.

I really don’t believe anybody on this planet wakes up and says I want to feel bad today.

Or I want to buy that because it will make me feel like crap.

 That’s not the nature of who we are.

You wake up and the essence of who you are is to feel good, everything you buy, you do, you say for yourself is usually 99.9% of the time because you believe it will make you feel better or good.

Otherwise you wouldn’t bother.

The first thing you have to decide is what do you want?

Whether it is goal orientated in terms of this is what I want to achieve in my business. This is what I want to achieve in my life, career, or this is how I want to be with my family. Then you have to say where I am right, what I feel right now, what I’m doing in my life now does it help me to travel along the journey in the direction that I want to eventually be?

If the answer is no then you have to change, but the challenge with change is this, it’s not until the pain of changes greater than the pain of staying the same do people usually change.

For me it shouldn’t be that you should wait until there is pain in order to say I need to change my attitude. You have to use whatever fuels you.

So here’s an example I make things up in my head and it sounds really strange but it works. When I’m about to fight in a competition or business. I look at my opponent and I imagine he’s about to attack my family.

That fuels me, you can imagine me thinking you’re about to attack my family. That’s not going to happen in this lifetime, it gives me the fuel and energy to say it’s on.

The thing with fuel is you have to regularly change it. I’m giving an example, there which the majority will think that’s negative, and I’m going to talk from my own experience and it’s not to go against anyone’s belief.

You have to use whatever fuel helps you to get past that stage and then you can start thinking about how to make this positive?

Dr Ro: To put this into context Corey used to do mixed martial arts, cage fighting.

We haven’t talked about this so much this time around, along with all the BJJ Corey literally would put himself into these competitions because he wanted to challenge himself.

I asked him the question, how do you approach it as you’re going out against guys twice your size, they look like trucks.

What you’re saying to us is under whatever circumstances you’re facing you call on whatever the trigger is, the anchor is, the emotional stimulation is for you that gets you motivated without taking judgement for anyone else.

In your case that’s your approach. It comes down to you as an individual finding your trigger.

Corey:  For some people it might be an object they anchor to, some people refer to it as superstition or a trigger.

Call it whatever you like but it’s what do you do in order to fuel you for that moment to achieve what you want, which then motivates you for a period of time or inspires you for a long time. I 100% do not believe there is one better than the other.

I believe what works for you might only work for you. I’m watching a documentary on TV about Michael Jordan.

I knew some stuff about him, but he used to make up stuff in order to fuel him for games and it’s amazing.

One example is he’ll say in his head the person defending him came to him after the game and said good game. I remember in the documentary it fuelled him. The next day he played them again and the fuel of the guy saying to him good game knowing it wasn’t, fuelled Michael, and he destroyed the guy and the team on his own.

10 years later, they asked him about the incident, as they played the same team again. And Michael said no I made it all up.

I was like wow, some people might be psychotic. But hey, it works for him.

Harms: There’s lots of voices via marketing or whether it’s genuine, inspirational people.

How does someone from my generation now anchor all of the things that you’re talking about, and I think one of the challenges my generation faces is that they don’t want to take the path and Michael Jordan was a unique case.

But they don’t want to put in the work that you described within your journey and change behaviours, change attitude, make a start. Stay consistent.

Everybody is looking for an easy route.

So how does somebody shift that mindset?

Yes it may seem great to find an easy route, but maybe that’s not the answer.

Corey: For me it will always come down to what I want.

There has to be a destination but it isn’t the ending. The destination is just for you to go through a process in order for you to experience what you need to experience.

First you have to decide okay what I actually want. Now if you’re young, you might not know particularly what you want to do in terms of what vehicle you want to use, that’s okay.

You have to have a sense of what you want to achieve in terms of what legacy do I want to leave? How do I want the world to see me, how do I want my family to see me?

What are the things I want to do to make my life the way I want.

For everyone it’s different now.

Worst case scenario you don’t know that, at least you need to know what you don’t want to feel.

How do you not want to be? Then do the opposite of that. If that is your starting point it’s okay because you might not know particularly where you want to be and what you want to do, but you have to know what you don’t want and go from there.

Then you say is everything I’m doing now allowing me to get to the place I want to get to?

If you don’t know where you want to get to at least say, is what I’m doing now how does it make me feel? Go from the most basic, simplistic way of how I want to feel.

Does this make me feel good? okay do more of it. Does this make me feel that bad?

Yes, okay then don’t do it.

Harms:If you’re one of these people on social media chasing the so-called gurus.

There’s a lot more happening now because of Covid-19 people going on doing lots of video messages and doing this, do that, do that. I think a great way to add to what Corey is saying is when he talks about how it makes you feel, if you find yourself doing it because I have to do this because I don’t want to miss out, or I’ve got to do this because this is what everybody else is doing.

If it’s being driven by that my feeling is that is the wrong approach.

Because you’re really talking about a core feeling here, you’re talking about does this feel real to me, natural and is it aligned with my core path and who I am as opposed to am I doing this to try and keep up with everybody else and not be left behind. Which I think Harms is happening a lot in the younger generation.

Yes it’s like, okay, that person is doing it, that person is living that kind of life. And then there’s an instant feeling of wanting that immediately, whereas what Corey is saying, which I love is that once you determine what you want then you put the work in.

You’ve got to be the 10 year old who wakes up at 5 AM by himself kicking the ball against the brick wall.

That’s what comes but that came from an inner desire versus I saw somebody else do this and I don’t want to be left behind or it seems cool.

The approach we should be taking is asking hard questions about ourselves which Corey has listed out.

Once you’ve gone through the process yourself you don’t have to look at somebody on social media and say that’s what I want to do.

Yes, that can be inspiring, but the questions must be answered primarily to then give us that feeling of wanting to go forward. Corey you described it amazingly by saying does it feel good and I think that’s a great starting metric.

Corey: Let’s say the person doesn’t know how they want to feel, no idea what they want to achieve, and they have the internet and they see this person doing that, that, and that.

If you see someone it’s not the right way to go about it as you shouldn’t see someone and say I want that. But that’s okay if it’s a feeling that fuels you not I want to do that because they’re doing it.

Just do something, anything is better than doing nothing.

Harms: That last example is probably closer to where my generation is; it is that feeling of I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know who to look to.

I don’t know what to try, if I try I will fail?

All these kinds of things float about and I love that it, it is a case of if that feels right let me try it and then don’t try begrudgingly for the next year but then change it if it doesn’t suit you and try something else.

I think that’s fantastic.

Corey: This is really challenging for the millennials as most people are used to having everything now.

If you think like that you’re going to have nothing, don’t be so hard on yourself if something doesn’t happen immediately. You see someone else doing it and you think in your head how easy they got it.

You do not know that though. You don’t see what is underneath.

You don’t see the work; the sacrifices and they might not tell you. You only see the rewards and accolades. If you do something I’m saying truthfully, you have to commit completely otherwise you’re not going to know if it’s for you or not.

If you only half commit then why bother?

 If you do something commit and then give it time and decide if it’s for you.

This is a personal belief from my experience, and those I’ve seen. Change doesn’t happen overnight.

And if you want it to happen overnight, and you force yourself and expect it to happen overnight you’re going to be frustrated, annoyed, angry and that’s when you quit too quickly.

If you expect it to take a little bit of time, then when it does actually happen you’ll feel better as you take the pressure off you.

 Life is serious, but it’s supposed to be fun. If you are not enjoying it what’s the point?

If you want more from life you have to be prepared to give more yes, there may be the odd one or two stumbles across an idea and get rich or you win the lottery.

But the percentage of that is very small so it’s okay to start from wherever you are not sure, but I will say this, don’t look at someone who’s achieved something of success and say yes I’m going to do that.

The reason they achieved it is because they committed 100% to it.

Dr Ro: The Michael Jordan story you brought up and I’ve been watching as well, as much as he had raw talent, my goodness me, the discipline, the hours, the focus, the attitude everything we talked about breaking inertia that’s wrapped up into that story.

Corey: He was psychotic, he was obsessed there was the film he made where shooting starts at 7 o’clock in the morning and finished at five, six in the evening, and he will get some other NBA to come and train with him for three hours after that.

Sometimes playing until one in the morning and wake up the same morning, five, six in the morning to shoot the movie.

Harms: The message that you described and as part of your journey because people look at Michael Jordan say that’s the only way to do it well, actually, that model or that journey can relate to so many of us in different ways of life.

Which leads me to my next question because, assuming somebody now has changed, broken the inertia, started to take action.

Doing the work consistently and now it’s time to live, it’s time to perform.

It’s time to be the best self and turn up essentially, this ties into a question that we prepared which is how did you perform in front of tens of thousands of people when playing football but also know when you entered the cage, whether it’s in BJJ. Whether it’s performing on a world stage and world championship.

What did you do to prepare for that moment?

Why do you do these things, why are they important to you?

There are going to be people and the listeners of the podcast are achievers.

They are go-getters and they would have come on a journey where everything you said they are like yes that’s played out in my life as well.

But now they could be at a place in life where it’s time for them to perform at their best, so that’s really what I’m trying to get out of this question.

Corey: For me it boils down to, primarily two things.

Number one I want to consistently do things that make me happy.

It is really strange saying that because, and this may be a shock to most people, but I hate fighting. I hate going to competitions and fighting. I hate going into a cage where a guy is trying to kill me.

Then the question is why do you do that?

The reason is I want to grow.

The only way for me to grow I feel as a person as I have to put myself into situations which enable me to grow at my own pace or for me to, either way I have to grow. If I don’t grow I die.

In the cage it is not as bad as everyone thinks, if you prepare your body and mindset you’ll be fine. There are people who have suffered horrendous physical conditions, but for me it’s about growth.

When I stopped playing football that feeling of growing or feeling happy, of achievement stopped and it was a choice I made.

But I needed something else to give me that feeling. Football is a team sport so you have people to rely on, the responsibility is big but not as big as there are 10 other players.

When I went to a martial arts competition it was one on one.

My preparation is a simple process for me and I’m going to be 100% truthful. Everything I achieved in Brazilian jiu jitsu took me 11 years, 12 years.

On average they say it takes 10 years to achieve your black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. For me it was always about the growth. When I’m getting ready for a competition every single fight I am scared strange I’m saying that considering the former world number one champion.

Every single fight I was scared, not scared for my life. I’m scared that I won’t perform. I’m scared that I won’t express myself at the level I’m supposed to express myself, but that fear immediately goes the moment my foot touches the mat, because then my fuel kicks in and like I’m scared.

I know you’re scared. And if you’re not I’m going to make you scared.

You say whatever you have to say to yourself in order to fuel the fire. Instead of allowing that fear to paralyse me, fear can paralyse you if you allow it to but remember what fear is. It’s like a negative emotion.

It’s an internal force it’s an internal feeling you create most of the time fear is not real.

You make it up in your own head. When I’m going into a competition I think the worst that can happen is I die.

I have that mindset so when I’m preparing for competition I say this, I’m scared and I know I’m scared it doesn’t make any difference to me using these acronyms.

 All I do is I just embrace it. I say I’m scared, so what?

That’s it.

When you start the process the momentum begins, it completely disappears. The same starting a business or new career or family and there are elements of fear.

The moment it starts and it’s actually happening the fear goes.

Most people don’t allow themselves to get past the fear stage, which is why they don’t achieve anything or fulfil their dreams because they are too scared of what might.

But nothing has happened so stop worrying about what might happen and do what you can do right now.

Preparation is really simple for me. I think of a scenario in my head, he’s trying to attack my family or this guy is nice but I don’t want his sweat in my mouth.

It sounds funny but it doesn’t matter what the scenario is.

I just make it up in my head and I am ready to go.

Harms: My take away with what you said there is when you are in a position where it’s time to perform, time to actually do what you’ve been training for the preparation for whether you like it or not, you still want to do it and I think that’s important.

That feeling before is almost like something that is stopping you from the final act which is performing on the world stage at championship or relating to an everyday person doing the presentation, maybe speaking on stage, simple as making a phone call.

Everything you’ve done up to now, has led to that point.

So what’s the point of backing out now.

Corey: With all of that it’s growth.

I say if I back out this how will I feel afterwards and secondly I won’t grow. If I do this, no matter what happens whether I lose or win it’s irrelevant. I will grow.

No matter what happens with the business, whether successful or not you will grow.

If you continually grow it’s impossible not to get better.

But if you don’t grow how can you get better?

I have to set an example for my kids. No matter what you do in life you have to say regardless of the outcome you are going to grow and you will be better and you will learn something new about yourself.

So why would you not do it.

Dr Ro: I think it’s a great lesson for the younger people listening to the ones that are going to BJJ, we’re using an analogy here, but it could be any situation. A conversation with a loved one, a partner.

Corey you went through a big shift in trying to grow to get a high level of performance for many people listening you may not be aware that Corey won all these championships off the back of a plant-based diet.

You changed your diet to increase your personal performance and your growth.

One thing you looked at is okay I’ve got my mindset right, my physicality right.

What about the fuel I’m putting in my body, you shifted your diet and came off meat.

Corey: I am not here to convince you to be more wholefood and plant based, that’s not my job. For me it was an experiment. In the beginning I was a massive meat lover. I only ate chicken.

I had this false perception of I’m only eating chicken but when I went to the health event it is easy to stay within your own conception of what you think is true and to stay within your bubble. When I went into it I was close minded.

I can only get protein from meat and I can never perform at this level eating vegetables and carrots and being like a rabbit. It’s ignorant because you’ve been taught like that.

When you go through and think of what I have achieved it must be because of meat, it’s so stupid to even think that, but you’ve got no other connection to make. The only last thing for me now was the fuel I actually put into my body, as the fuel into my mind was taken care of.

It was Ro really who challenged me and said why don’t you try it. at first I was like no.

Then I started it and literally for the first three months I hated it and in my life I don’t really hate anything, but it’s just that intense feeling of dislike because I was getting smashed in the gym, absolutely annihilated.

I was weak, I was slow, my focus had gone off, my instincts and slowed down.

Dr Ro: Detox, detox.

Corey: Completely, but I didn’t realise that. I said I need to go back to meat.

Ro said just try this and the reason why is because I wasn’t getting enough fat intake when I was on the vegetables.

Then I started having a spoonful of coconut oil, using olive oil and literally nine or 10 days I was a completely different person. I don’t care if one million people say it works, I have to test it for myself. you have to have that single mindset in life.

Yes, be open to learn but also be honest with yourself and test it for yourself. So when I did that my performance increased my speed was better, I came back better and I didn’t have this lethargic feeling of when I ate meat I have to sit down and relax.

All of that stopped and off the back of that I was getting injured a lot. But when I switched to a plant-based diet I was recovering so much quicker. I tested it and I wrote down so I knew it.

Dr Ro: So many athletes now in the last decade say the same thing.

Corey: Protein doesn’t exist without plants.

Animals have protein in them because they eat grass, but they don’t produce protein itself, but people still think this nonsense because it’s being bred into us.

To function effectively, not just in jiu jitsu, in life, business, my family, all of that helps me if I fuel my body with the right stuff because I am more focused. I have more energy than ever had in my life and I’m still able to play a match with my middle son for an hour non-stop.

Changing to a plant-based diet for me was absolutely huge but I never believed it would be until I actually did that.

Harms: To me it’s a classic example of what you described all the different elements coming together to be the best you can be.

Can you give our listeners some steps or suggestions to give them some guidance as they come off excited and motivated.

Corey: I’ll end with a story.

When I was young there was this kid and he was really bad at school. He was just one of those obnoxious bullies completely unruly, I don’t think the school wanted him there. Constantly in trouble and I don’t know if it was stuff at home but there was something not right with this kid.

I think the only source of positive fuel that he had was when he was able to do sports so his dad sat him down and said if you don’t change your going to be playing no sports. Whether that was the fuel for him to change, I don’t know, but what happened at the end of that term there was exams.

He never did well.

The exam at the end of this term the results came back and this kid got 84%, the highest he’s ever done.

That moment he completely changed whether it was the exam result itself and he completely changed his life around and then years later successful business.

10 years later, after the exam. What happened was that the exam board did a review and they realised that the exam sat of 12 or 13 students actually were sent the wrong results. He didn’t get 84%.

In fact, he only got 46%, which meant he would have failed. The message behind the story is why did he achieve something even though his score actually wasn’t any better?

For me it really was just simple, his attitude and his belief changed.

Nothing else, he was told that he got 84%, so he started believing in himself.

Once he began to believe in himself that actually I can do this then his attitude changed about life. He stopped blaming the world.

He started to do something which helped him to achieve the things that he achieved.

The message I will leave with you is it doesn’t matter what the world tells you, it doesn’t matter what your history is, your family’s history.

What people tell you should be, it’s none of their business.

You decide what you want your life to be and just do the first step, do one thing, find someone who has done it before and knows what they’re talking about and doing the things you want to do.

Or read up about them and just do the first thing.

Once you believe and your attitude has changed and you just begin the momentum in that direction there is nothing you can’t achieve in this world.

Dr Ro: That inspirational message can be applied to putting on the gloves for your first round against the bag.

It could be to get the pen to paper and write the first sentence in a book you’ve been thinking about writing. It could be getting out the microphone recording the first few minutes of a product you want to create; it could be writing a letter to somebody you care about. It’s taking the pen out; it’s getting up dusting yourself down.

A lot of people might be thinking how you can help me get to the hub of my problem, what’s the first thing you do?

Corey: They have to fill in a questionnaire and that’s for me to ascertain where you are in your life and are you at a place where you are ready to change. Sometimes people are not prepared to do what it takes to change.

I go through the questionnaire and if I feel I get a sense of you really do want to change I’m willing to help.

If I feel you’re not prepared to do whatever it takes for you to change then I can’t help you, nobody can help you.

They contact me through my website and then there’s the section where you can ask me a question, no obligation and then if you’re interested in anything, just go through the website and have a look.

I’m more than happy to share whatever you need help with, but I believe this, and the reason why I set it up is because I had help when I needed help.

In the most unlikely of places at the time I didn’t even know it was help, that was you Ro. In your email you said to me three conditions.

You said read these three books, then implement and do it, no questions.

The third one was when you’ve achieved things for yourself or you know this is real and you know it works then I want you to give back and help others.

That’s what I’ve stuck with and set up.

I’m not one of those who want to be a personal development coach, most of them their lives suck.

They don’t do what they preach but yet still trying to help others, that’s not me.

I’m a person I like to just live what I’m doing and if I can help someone along the way from my experience of things I know 100% work then I’m all for it.

Dr Ro: You’ve honoured that all through the journey by giving back almost a decade.

Thank you so much it’s been a pleasure having you on.

Harms: Thank you Corey, Ro and thank you listeners we will see you on the next episode.

Corey: Thank you for having me.