In this masculine episode, Peter Taylor, Co-Founder & CXO of The Awakened Man Project, shares how he helps successful men release their brakes, get out their own way and become even more financially successful, while getting their time back and finding more fulfilment and joy in their relationships.
You will discover:
– Why you may need to quit your own company
– How to overcome your biggest foe in business, you
– And the true cost of playing it safe and small
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach, and that is Pete Taylor. Now his journey exemplifies the transformative power of adversity, he built his own company with a team of 18 and 70% growth year, over a year, he left his company then to begin the climb of his second Mountain, which was building a community of men and helping them and himself to achieve self actualization. Simultaneously excelling in the corporate world. He scaled a startup in to a renowned London design firm, and now holding multiple pivotal roles in companies. Pete’s provides valuable consultation, optimizing businesses sharing insights on resilience and mindset. And he’s also a father, he’s mentored and built multiple seven figure plus businesses, and he coaches men on resilience, discipline, and character forging. And Pete, I’m so excited to have you here. I can’t wait to dive into how you’re helping men right now and some of the breakthroughs that they’re having. But before we get there, I’d love to just hear a little bit of the story. What were you doing before launching heroic man? And how did that ultimately lead you to make the leap?
Peter Taylor
Yeah, Scott, good to be here. Good questions to start with. Steve Jobs that this absolutely spot on. I’m sure you guys have heard this before. But it’s only when you look back, you’re able to connect the dots. And I was having this conversation. Like literally days ago with my business partner at heroic man, I was like, you know, I can pinpoint back to just two years ago, when I made that jump when I quit my own company. And I can pinpoint to when I took the walk around my lives. I’m very fortunate. I live in a in the British countryside. Now 1000s and 1000s of acres of woodland on our doorstep. I have a dog. And so we go for a walk every day. And I was taking this walk and I was thinking about everything I’ve got, I had pretty much a team of 20 people. We owned a building in London, we won multiple awards for the work that we do. We we’ve built this great company, I’ve got this amazing culture, I’ve got this, I’ve got the car, and I got the house in the country. And they’ve got the model wife and I’ve got the watches and they got all just got everything that I always wanted when I was in my early 20s. Yet, when I’ve taken that route, which I’ve done the route in The Woodlands 100 times. So I know very well, yet internally, I felt really lost. And I felt very lost. And I felt extremely lonely. And it was just a week later, the on a Saturday morning, I got a text message for one of my team members just like I used to do all the time. It wasn’t just a standard message. But it was just a little bit of a moment. And I was very used to dealing with that. But it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was my screw it moment. It was the Why am I dealing with this still. And that’s it enough is enough. It was a tiny text message and cyber a bit of software. Three months later, I’ve left I’ve literally quit my own company, the business that I built from living room up to where we were and transitioned into building their heroic man. And then actually law now I look back at what the heroic man has become. It was the work that I was searching for, for such a long time, it was what I needed for such a long time as why still need which is the part of the beauty of it is that the guys, we’ve got 1000s of guys in our communities now unlike we’re very much in the trenches, we’re very much in the trenches doing the work as well. And it’s an amazing place to be. But if I hadn’t have gone through, could scaling a business from from where we were and up to where we got to was incredibly painful, wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. And that’s and me, not knowing truly at like how to be a very, very effective leader and actually how to step into my masculinity played a huge part in this. I didn’t know how to do that I was never taught how to do that didn’t have strong role models growing up. And that absolutely led to a business breakdown absolutely led to me feeling huge, huge moments of anxiety and depressive bouts and, and all sorts of thoughts that I’d never thought I’ve had that will go through my mind. I’d never I never thought I’d go to these dark places. And they absolutely I absolutely did go to those dark places. And so I suppose the message that I’m trying to get across there is that through adversity, there does come growth if you if you find if you look for it, if you’re looking for the for the growth, it does crop calm, no matter how painful the journey is.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been kind of fascinated with this topic. It can come across a number of podcast series or video series. And basically, it’s broken down to the role of charisma, and character and leadership. And I’d love to hear from you as someone who’s down to kind of in this day in and day out working with men who are by basically any standard very, very successful men, yet they’re still having this experience, like you have feeling lost. Right. And so my question would be, what are the roles? In your opinion? What are the roles of both charisma and character and leadership?
Peter Taylor
I mean, they all play fantastic roles. And yeah, I talk to the guys a lot about the three things that men really need to work on, not just from a business standpoint, but from their own personal standpoint, is their skill sets as light as like level number one is to increase their skill sets from a man increases his skill sets, he’s likely to increase his value, he’s likely to increase his worth, he’s going to do better in business, he’s going to do better outside of life and a skill set anywhere from one to learn the next market marketing hack in the next Facebook course, all the way through to on and become a better leader. Right, I’m gonna learn how to talk on stage, I am going to learn how to lead my team, I’m going to become a better manager. So there’s a skill sets. The set the second like level here is your behaviors. So as your character traits, this is like how you behave day to day. So like, are you disciplined? Like how much self discipline the when the going gets truly tough? When it gets very, very, like, when push comes to shove? Do you fall back into self sabotage and victim mode? And you know what well, I’m gonna It’s a testing day today. So I’m going to take a rest I’m going to have a day off. I’m just gonna, I’m gonna take it easy, I’m gonna stay in bed. Or can you fall back onto your discipline? When when like when, like motivation, like falters? Because motivation is it’s finite, it’s not there all the time it’s come, then it comes in it goes and us guys, we seem to want to rely on it. Well, I’m gonna wait until I’m motivated. I’m gonna wait to Monday, are gonna wait to next week to start the thing because I’ll be motivated then. But if we can fall back onto something like discipline, which is, which is ultimately it’s a, it’s a, it’s a trait, it’s something that we can build, then we can become incredibly successful falling back onto that. And that. And discipline isn’t just to do with your business, it’s not just being disciplined in being able to make the sales calls, right, it’s also to do your health, it’s like being able to get up early and go and train even when it’s cold, and it’s raining outside and to go and do the hard things. And a man being able to do hard things, is incredibly important for his growth. You know, when a man says to himself internally, so I say to myself, I’m gonna get up at four in the morning, and I’m going to go to the gym, that’s a hard thing to do. If he gets a phone or morning, and the alarm goes off, and I don’t get up, I hit the snooze button. Or I just go you know what, I’ll do it tomorrow, that I’m going back on my word. And for a lot of guys, and I see I see this a lot. And I talk about guys, because I happen to have 1000s of guys in our community. So I see this a lot is that men typically think they can get away with this sort of behavior when they break their own promises because they think that no one is watching them. And so Kane now is what it’s just me against me. No one’s watching me so so right. So right if I have a day off. Now also, they obviously think that they’re never gonna die. So like dying, dying. And yeah, and death is just way, way way into the future. And I got years and years and years and years left, so we’ll put things off. Whereas, and the truth of it is, is that there is someone watching, or there’s always someone watching and it’s, it’s yourself, it’s your psyche. It’s your whatever you want to call it. It’s that internal part is your soul. Your soul is always watching you. So when a man breaks his word to himself, no matter how small that is, just as like, I’m going to get up in the morning and I don’t it’s micro but that imprint on your soul imprint of the imprint of the imprint of the imprint micro to the macro becomes a betrayal now becomes the man you are. So being. So just like being disciplined, and and building strong character traits is incredibly powerful for man. And then the third one, that kind of the top tier is your belief system is how your beliefs like how your internal belief system work. And it’s whether, like most of us, the prehistoric traumas and crap that we’ve been through in our lives, has an app The last thing a fax like has got keeps that internal resistance on us. And it’s how much that affects us. Whether it’s like level 90 affects us massively every single day, subconsciously, we don’t know it, or whether it’s a level 10 And we know it’s there. And it’s okay, because it’s level 10 We could just hop over every time, like our belief system is incredibly important to our success.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Wow one of the things I noticed as I was doing some research for the episode was you guys talk a lot about masculinity and men showing up in the way that they’re meant to show up. And, you know, as I think about the word masculinity, the one adjective that comes to mind is toxic masculinity, right? Like, it’s almost taking a negative connotation, it brings back the Mad Men era, you know, or a lot of really, really bad pictures of masculinity. So what does real masculinity look like? And how does it show up in the work and at home?
Peter Taylor
Yeah, this toxic masculinity? Yeah, it’s, it’s a real trendy topic right now. And I don’t I try not to pay too much attention to it. I think for me, like toxic masculinity is just dependent on the person. It’s just like, it’s, it’s bad traits of a man. Right? And then And then because there’s a, there’s a few guys that have that then every, you know, when, when a guy sets a boundary, it’s because he feels strongly about something. And there’s no ill intent now. But it can be then seen as controlling, and then that can be seen as toxic. It’s like it no wonder is freaking confusing in the world today. For a lot of guys, as they’re like, how to act, and what they should do. And like, what what it means to be a man. Like I know, for me, I’d never really had anyone there was never like any like ceremony Pete you on our man. Like, you’ve now crossed the border, from boy to man, there was none of that. And there was no, there was never really like a true guide. My father, I have a great relationship with now and I always have done but when I was 13, my my parents divorced. And just like a lot, a lot of children at young ages, parents divorced, and my my father wasn’t around for a long time. So I didn’t really have anyone for to follow there. And it wasn’t until my early 30s, when I actually had this business breakdown, that I kind of started to learn a little bit more about, oh, that’s a boundary I didn’t know boundaries existed. Like, to me, I used to run an architectural practice. And a boundary was a fence in the garden, it was just like a wall. Right? Not something that I would personally have. And the and that I that I could I could set in, in a pleasant manner. And in an effective manner that wouldn’t, wouldn’t upset anyone, but would be good. You know, Pete, I respect that, that you want to say no to something. So I think in today’s world, like masculinity, there’s many, many forms of it. And that like, the likes of Andrew Tay, and Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson are white all have their own shapes and forms of it. I think Andrew Taylor gets a lot of bad rap. And I partly think he gets that. Because there’s so many young guys, just like I was at one stage that don’t have male role models to follow. And because there is someone of your stature, that is very, very vocal, then it’s like, oh, well, there’s someone for me to follow. And I think that the like, the bad thing about that is that Andrew takes a lot of things, but he has a lot of status he has, he has built the physique. He has got all the cars, he has got all the money he like he has done all the work. And what I think what breeds this, this toxic masculinity, even deeper is that there’s a lot of young guys following what he says, but they haven’t gone through like the trials and tribulations of life. So it’s, it’s an interesting subject. It’s a very, very interesting subject. It’s very, very controversial.
Scott Ritzheimer
And so we’ve got to jump off of that to this idea of self sabotage. So how is it that that self sabotage seems to just continuously creep up on men and what are some things that they should be aware of to kind of root it out and and overcome it?
Peter Taylor
Yet, self sabotage is an interesting one. So the first, the first thing I would say to guys here is name entertainment. So we call self sabotage one or two things, we either call it the inner enemy, or we call it part x. Right? And the inner enemy is here. It’s hard to mess up our day is hard to mess up our week is here to keep us small, it’s here to keep us safe. And, and I say safe in not not a good way. And that in a way that it will keep us safe. And then later on, we’ll feel angry and agitated and have anxiety I have over feeling safe. So here’s an example. I’ll go I’ll go back to the to getting up at 4am to go to the gym. So I’ve told myself, I’m gonna heat up before I’m gonna go to gym. And it gets the four of them and I don’t get up because the voice in my head, the part x in enemy says Pete, chill out my. If you’re trying five days already, you’re in good shape. You don’t need to get up, have a rest. Just relax, stay in bed. It’s cold outside, it’s warm in here, hit the snooze button, buddy. Unlike Yeah, you know what? I’m right. I’m right. Hit the slopes. And that’s it for I am. And then say I can get up at 7am 8am. And I get up and I start my day and I haven’t worked out I haven’t done what I was gonna do. And I’m so I’m already I’m feeling slightly behind. But it’s finally going home at 10 o’clock. I’m actually annoyed. I’m actually I’m angry at myself. The and I’m frustrated at myself that I hit the snooze button and I didn’t go to the gym. And here’s the voice coming back in my head. PE idiot. told you you should have got up late. Why’d you do that? You keep doing that? Why do you think you’re not where you want to be? Because you do stupid things like that. Right? You tell yourself you’re going to do something then you don’t. So part x is playing two roles, who is keeping me safe is trying to keep me safe and comfortable and warm in the morning. He’s got he’s got his arm around me. And then later on at night, or later on just in the morning, just five or six hours later, is then digging into me. Okay, it’s it’s just here just to keep keep me safe, keep me small, stop me from making those uncomfortable and painful decisions. It’s like, I know when part x come pi x is will never leave, the inner enemy will always be with us. We have to learn to live with the enemy, your self sabotage, we are self sabotaging ourselves, it can come up where we might be given a big opportunity. It might be a big opportunity in business might be a big opportunity to go and travel or whatever that looks like. And your inner enemy may pop up and it’s not the right time. Maybe it’s not the right time for you to take that business opportunity. There’ll be others down the line. Just just pull back on this. And we’ll do it. We’ll do it another time. Yeah, it makes sense. And then a week later, should have taken that business opportunity. Why didn’t you take it? Now you’ve lost out on that. Right? So that’s there’s a couple examples there. But that’s where it can really really play havoc on your line. And the like I said the first thing to do to really is to name entertainment. So I self sabotage. The pi x is coming up. He’s here again he’s here to keep me small. But I know that every time that I lean into kind of going alright, part x is actually this is my decision. Like historically when I’ve got up at that time in the morning and when I’m trying to felt pretty good right? Even though it’s painful an hour afterwards I feel great. I’ve got loads and loads of energy I get loads of work done. My better father a better leader. Right? Okay. So if I can get if I go by history, then that’s probably the right thing to do part part x is trying to keep me small him. Well, that makes sense.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it really does. It really does. And and just the number of times that that shows up like you said it’s always here it’s you know, you can overcome it you know, five times or 50 times a day and it’ll be right there waiting for you at the nice turn.
Peter Taylor
It will never stop and and that’s what we have to come to terms with as guys is to know that pike’s will always be there always right even like if you had a hard day at work and a really really tough day at work and the kids are at home and your partner’s at home in his in your stepping out the door anything I want to tell him that work and I know it’s gonna be mayhem when I get in by the highest part x talking to you there because if you really wanted to you could you could switch the energy on you could really switch the energy on it but if that’s the standard of man or woman that you hold yourself to you can really you know, on your turn it on, that’s my family, and I walked through that door I know I’ve had a long day now I’m tired but I’m not going to be I’m not going to stick with my with the comfort. And you go Do you know what I’m doing? Babe, I’m tired, kids, I’m tired. I’m just gonna chill on the sofa for a little bit Daddy needs his time. You’re not gonna do that. Right? Because that’s not the standard you hold yourself to you. That is your pie. It’s keeping you small. We are heroic man we have we are a great seven part. Training on this is our inner enemy.com. And it’s this like, seven part audio series. And we go through tactics of like how to get over self sabotage. And while it’s very, very, very tactical, it’s like, Hey, here’s some tools that you can use day to day on getting through self sabotage. And honestly, it’s changed your life go for them.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s fantastic as fantastic. Now, Pete, there’s a question I like to ask all my guests. And I’m just fascinated to hear what you have to say to this. But if you could, what’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening knew?
Peter Taylor
To be truly honest, and to be truly open is the biggest secret for this. I’m this is sort of work on for me, I have to admit is still absolutely working for me. Like, even on my I’m very, very active on social media. And sometimes I go to say something and hold that back. I’m not going to go on. I’m gonna go 90% And what I want to say and not the full 100% and but this goes for like all walks of life, the more honest we are goes for when we’re running a business we’ve got you know, was it Ray Dalio is like radical honesty. Right? Despite when you’re running a business, when you when you, when you’ve got your family, the more honest you are, the more war you are, the better your life will be. And what I see with a lot of men, particularly in the Western culture, is that we hide our shame, and we hide our girl and we hide our vulnerability with and we’re not open, and we carry it on our shoulders. And it’s like, no, no, this is this is what this is what I did for six years building the business. I will build this business, I will carry the weight, I won’t talk to anyone about what I’m truly feeling internally, I’m just going to bottle it up. We’re going to suppress the emotions, I’m going to carry it on my shoulders. I want to go through life until one day, I’m like, You know what, screw it, straw that broke the camel’s back, I’m out. And that that’s a business breakdown. But that happens in relationships that happens through all walks of life. And more often than not, it’s because we’re not open and not vulnerable. And we’re not especially guys, particularly guys, we’re not talking about what’s going on inside. And I’m not, I’m not suggesting that we go and have a good cry. And we you know, and every week we are in a man’s meet up, we’re all having a cry and talking about our deepest, darkest problems. And that’s just in that, but having an open conversation with guys that are grounded and conscious. And that it’s not surface level. Honestly, it feels great to get it’s a form of therapy to be able to talk it out. And it will elevate you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, that is so true. I want to come back to that in just a moment. Before we do though, I’d love to hear if you could just take your your kind of consultant, Coach advisor hat off for a moment, put your CEO hat on again, and you guys are building a business, tell me a little bit about what the next stage of growth looks like and what challenges you’ll have to overcome to get there?
Peter Taylor
Our next stage of growth, so So I love business. I’ve loved business ever since I started my first business was eight years ago. And I’ve been obsessed with the intricacies and just like the processes and the systems, and how do we take the next level of growth and, and I absolutely love the customer experience. I’m a huge fan of Tony Shea. And Delivering Happiness, he built the company’s apples, I learned a credible amount for the book Delivering Happiness. And so we pay great, great attention to customer satisfaction, customer experience and customer wells. Our next level of growth has actually come from and it’s I can see this, that it’s coming from a recent platform that we’ve released, which is a it’s a it’s a much lower barrier to entry for for man to come and join. And the you get a man will join and we’ll get 10 to 100 times a value. And we’ll get real community and I can I can really see this as that although this will take longer to grow. And the and actually our revenue will probably take a dip and I’ve mapped this out because I can see this a revenue problem. I know it’s going to take a debt but actually in the long term. It will ramp back up when we’re able to get it 10,000 superfans that absolutely love what we do. And then they can. And then it’s very, very likely that they’ll ascend into all the other things that we do. So twice a year, we do like adventures with guys. And we will go out and we’ll do some we do some crazy things. The last adventure, we’re doing match you’re doing in three weeks, we’re going to Greece. And it’s sold out in 24 hours. And I can I can see the power of building a community from the bottom on our karma lower ticket, so to speak. Because we can, we can build these 10,000 superfans, and then when we release something great into the market, it’s likely that that discus will load up overnight.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, well, it’s a remarkable, remarkable organization. I love the work that you guys are doing it heroic man. And to the point you made earlier, about men being able to get around other grounded men who are conscious about their growth, that that’s basically what you guys do, especially through your programs there. So tell us, if there’s someone listening to this, everything that you’re saying is resonating. They recognize there’s something missing in their life. They’re they’re bowing out to self sabotage, they need a community and someone to come alongside them. How can they find more out about the work you do?
Peter Taylor
You can find out about us by going to heroicman.com. heroicman.com. And you’ll be able to check out our podcast, which is extremely popular is specifically for guys. And we talk about all the work that we do with all the men on our programs. And as you can get access to a free community and as pay communities and there’s programs and so on. So that’s the best way.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s an absolute pleasure having you hear and for those who are watching, listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation. And I know as I know I did and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Peter Taylor
Pete’s journey exemplifies the transformative power of adversity. He built his own company with a team of 18 and 70% growth year on year. He left his company to begin the climb of his second mountain; building a community of men and help them and himself to achieve self-actualization. Simultaneously excelling in the corporate world, Pete scaled a startup into a renowned London design firm. Now, holding pivotal roles in multiple companies, Pete provides valuable consultation, optimizing businesses and sharing insights on resilience and mindset. Pete is a father, has mentored and built multiple 7-figure+ businesses and coaches men on resilience, discipline and character forging.
Want to learn more about Peter Taylor’s work at Heroic Man? Check out his website at heroicman.com and his audio mini-series on overcoming self-sabotage at innerenemy.com
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