E39: Tony Leake

Richard Hill
Hi and welcome to another episode of eCom@One and today's guest is Tony Leake. Now Tony works with senior professionals and business owners, helping them with stress and anxiety solutions. How are you doing, Tony?

Tony Leake
Hi Richard, I'm good, thank you. How you doing?

Richard Hill
I'm really good. Really good. Really looking forward to the next 45 minutes or so. Now, me and Tony go back quite a while, actually, don't we? Quite a way. You know, maybe I'm trying to think actually, maybe like 15 years or so we've known each other I think?

Tony Leake
It's at least that.

Richard Hill
Is at least that isn't it yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how's things?

Tony Leake
Things are good. Yeah. Yeah things are good.

Richard Hill
Great. Right, well let's get into it then. I've been thinking about getting Tony on the podcast for for a few weeks now and he and he agreed to it last week. So here we are. So I think it'd be good to kick off and tell tell the guys a little bit about what led you to becoming an anxiety and stress coach.

Tony Leake
OK, well, mostly it was down to my own personal experiences with stress and anxiety, because going back to when we first knew each other, things were very different for me. You knew me first when I was a software developer and then. Yeah. And my last job in I.T., I was working as a technical director for an online retailer, as you know. What most people didn't know at the time is the struggles that I had to get out of bed and go to work every day. What most people didn't know was about the panic attacks I was having on a regular basis until the point that they got so bad that I was hospitalized because of the panic attacks quite a few times. And now you've known me that long and you didn't even know that about me.

Richard Hill
I didn't know that. I didn't know that, Tony. Wow.

Tony Leake
And that that's kind of what happens to a lot of people. There's a lot of people who are going through the same kind of things, but other people don't know about it. So for me, I had to get away from what I was doing because it was partly the work situation that was causing the anxiety and I had to get away from that. So when I did that, I needed to figure out how to help myself. And so I trained in lots of different alternative therapies, found out how to help myself and then figured out actually, I want to go and help other people who are going through the same thing. So I went through lots of training over a long period of time. And that's basically, that's the shortcut of the journey. That's what brought me from there to here over the last ten years.

Richard Hill
Oh, wow, wow. That's that's really cool. Really cool to know that that was something that you were personally sort of struggling with and learnt ways to manage, I guess, those times and then obviously then got a real, real, real strong interest in that as a, as a career, and obviously, fast forward, I guess that's like 15, 16, 17 years ago that we started our friendship. And then here you are, sort of a completely different career. Now you're doing something that you're very passionate about and something that you're really, really interested in.

Tony Leake
Yeah, absolutely. But it's not just what you said about managing it. It's actually about getting past it. Getting over it. Because that's what, that's what my work's all about. No, it's not helping people to manage symptoms. It's about helping people get to the other side of that fence to where they don't have the panic attacks and they don't need to manage them.

Richard Hill
Great, great. So we're going to have a lot of people listen to this episode that no doubt will have their own challenges and own sort of, especially this time of year. I think it's some quite challenging times right now. But what would be one bit of advice you give to people that might be suffering right now with, anxiety?

Tony Leake
One piece of advice, I guess my advice would be if you're suffering from anxiety, don't suffer from anxiety and you know, that might sound a little bit tongue and cheek. And in some ways it is because one of the things I find is that anxiety is a very serious thing. But it doesn't mean we have to be serious when we talk about it. And actually sometimes being a little bit light hearted about it can be a good thing. But actually I genuinely mean that because there are a lot of people who suffer in silence and you don't have to. If you're suffering from anxiety, get some help. First thing go to Google. I did this the other day. I typed in Ten Top Tips for helping with anxiety. I got nine and a half million pages back. Now, I don't know about anybody else but I find that quite anxiety-inducing to try and figure out which one they should be reading. But actually, most of them say the same kind of things. They say learn to relax, do some breathing exercises, turn your phone off now and again. And it's all really good advice. Yeah. So that's the first thing. And if that if that works, fantastic, if it doesn't, then go and get some help because there is help available. And if people don't, if people live with anxiety, it can lead to more serious mental health problems. So don't suffer with anxiety. Go do something about it.

Richard Hill
I think it's more and more talked about maybe than when I was a lot younger. I think it was something that, you know, I think I can generally say, oh, I know I've suffered over the years with various...I'm very anxious as you know, about certain things and you know different elements of my business and public speaking as an example, you know, I think they say that it's, people fear public speaking more than they do death and things like that, you become very anxious about sort of thing. It's something that, you know, a lot of people that have sort of come through our businesses and are still in our businesses, you know, we've spent a lot of time trying to help them with their, you know, the public speaking side of things. It can really hold you back can't it. This anxiety side of things.

Tony Leake
It can and you're right, people are talking about it a lot more, which is really, really good. And it helps when you've got, you get some people in the public eye talking about it. I mean one of the royal family was talking about anxiety a few years ago, which is great, but there is still a stigma about it in lots of places. I was talking to a guy the other day and he said, "Yeah it's a bit like a peanut allergy isn't it. I'd never heard of a peanut allergy ten years ago." And the implication was that it's almost made up. And there are still people who, that anxiety is almost made up, because you can't see it. And because a lot of people hide it thinking that it's not real. But it is great, it is positive, it's going in the right direction. It's more easy to talk about it than it has been in the past, which is great.

Richard Hill
It's something that we as a business, you know, our teams and our, you know, we make sure that, you know, we to spend time on, you know, making sure that we have a very open culture within the business, that they feel, well hope they feel that they're able to talk to their managers, to talk to me, talk to the team, you know, because we know, especially now, we are even more than ever that, you know, there's this whole change, pandemic etc., working from home, which is, our businesses are working from home. Hopefully that will change soon. But unfortunately, you know, we are where we are and some days are a lot more challenging than others. Um, I think it's....

Tony Leake
Yeah, and you make a great point there actually, Richard, that a lot of people's anxieties, a lot of their worries are stemmed around work. And they they used to be this thing that you have to be really professional at work, that you leave your home life at the office when you come into the office. And it's not like that. It's not like we are two separate people. Sometimes people are not going to be having their best day. And people like you as a responsible employer have to understand that, that most of the time people are going to be at their best, but sometimes they're not and trying to force them to put on that false face that, yeah, everything's great when it's not, that doesn't help. So that kind of enlightned-ness of allowing people to be open, that really does help.

Richard Hill
Yeah, I think more and more firms are more and more genuinely open to discussing it and giving their teams support, which is great to see.

Tony Leake
They are. And part of that is driven by the finances of it, because any reasonable size company has either got people off sick with stress or anxiety or had people off with stress and anxiety. And the financial cost of that is is massive. So some of it is driven by financial considerations, but actually whatever it's driven by the fact that it is becoming more open is a really good thing.

Richard Hill
Yeah it definitely is. Now right at the beginning you said about panic attacks. Now, what would you say to people that maybe suffer with panic attacks? Is there anything you would say that would maybe help with that?

Tony Leake
That's a great question. And there's lots of different aspects to panic attacks, and one of the things that's important is to try and manage them before they happen because there are lots and lots of really good techniques that would help really well when people are going through a panic attack. But the problem is, when you're in that moment, when you're having that panic, your mind isn't working properly and you don't remember how to do them. One of the simplest things is learning to breathe properly. And there's loads of different techniques for doing this. But the problem is in the moment, people don't remember to do them. Yeah. So it's there's a few different things cause panic attacks. One of them, as I'm sure you know, Richard, when people are in a stressful situation, they go into what's called fight or flight. Their body kind of goes into into overdrive. And that's OK. That's what's supposed to happen. Then when we come out in a stressful situation, we go back to a state called homeostasis, where basically where everything's OK again. A lot of things that cause stress and anxiety these days. They don't have end points. Things like what's going on in the economy, the politics that's going on around the world, pandemics, none of this stuff has end points. It doesn't go away. So what can happen is people end up with very high underlying stress levels.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
Then when something else does happen, we still go up into a heightened state from that. And that can be a panic attack. Ultimately it can lead to people going into a complete state of catatonia. We can almost, we can literally pass out from from getting into too high stress state. So learning to manage stress before it happens, and that can be very simple things like lifestyle choices. Turn off your phone sometimes. Learn how to relax. And one of the most common is people come to me with really bad anxiety and I ask them how much coffee they drink and they say not much, about ten cups a day and four or five energy drinks. And these, caffeine's a stimulant. If you're stressed and anxious, don't be filling your body with stimulants.

Richard Hill
Yeah there's quite a lot of things there, as you were saying that, I was having flashbacks myself to a time when, you know, I get, I my guess, they're panic attacks at the end of the day, they are. You know, and I remember I'd signed up to an event, you know I go to a lot of events for the business. But more for personal development myself. I've been around the world, various, you know, all over the place, different events and learning and whatnot. And I went to one event and there was probably about 15 people there and when I got there we were in the tiniest room. I felt so claustrophobic and I was really struggling with the room. And it's something that I've always had, but I never really talk about it, not because I'm embarrassed about or anything, you know, it's just something that, when I'm in a small, confined space, I get a bit panicky, definitely. And I was at this event, you know, I paid to be there, you know whatever it was, you know, I was like, oh, jeez, blimey. You know, I was breathing away, breathing away. And I managed to get through to lunch and then at lunchtime I like qent out, came back. But I really had to be very conscious of sort of, I was very much conscious of the fact that I didn't like it and I was getting really...And then as the day wore on, I still couldn't shake it. I couldn't quite shake that panic that I was getting. But I was in and out of it, I was enjoying the day to a point, but I was always at the same spot. I wasn't really myself because I was sort of, you know, getting just anxious. And then what I decided to do, it was a two day event, I actually decided not to go back the second day, which was a real shame, really. I wish looking back, I mean, this is several years ago now, I wish really that had been a bit better equipped, I guess, and been able to go back. Or had a word with the organiser maybe to say actually, look, I'm struggling a little bit with with the room size and things like that. But I really had a real stress point. Yeah.

Tony Leake
Yeah. And this is this is a kind of different aspect of panic attacks, because when it is triggered by similar situations it's probably happening for different reasons, because knowing you for so long, you're not a stressy kind of person most of the time you're pretty chilled and relaxed. So this was probably wasn't a stress induced panic attack. But panic attacks and and anxiety are not random events. They have a structure and they happen for a reason. And usually they happen, we go through a mental process. You go into a room, you go through a mental process that causes a panic attack. Now, a lot of a lot of the things that we do, we're just not aware of what we do. I don't know what kind of car you drive these days. It's not important. But I guess you've got two wing mirrors on your car and you've got a rearview mirror.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
And I guess when you're coming up to a roundabout and you check your mirrors, but without thinking about it for quite a few minutes and probably moving your head about, you probably don't know which order you check the mirrors in. And I can see your eyes going there because you're figuring out which order you checked the mirrors in but you weren't aware of that up until the point. That point, even though you're going to do the same each time. Now, in the same way, when you go into a small room, you will go through the same mental process every time, whether you're aware of it or not. And part of what's the work that I do is work with people to kind of slow down time, help them figure out what is that mental process that they go through and installing a better mental process. It's absolutely fascinating work.

Richard Hill
So helping people have that mechanism, process thing, that when they're in that situation, that they can draw on that thing that you told them, showed them how to cope with that, that place or that time or that thing happening again.

Tony Leake
Exactly. But what we want to do is get to the point where, I talk about it as if it's like taking an advanced driving course. So, again, most of when you drive and you're not conscious of what you're doing, but if you take an advanced driving lessons, the driving instructor will take all the things you do unconsciously and get you thinking about them and give them a little polish, get you to do them a little bit better. And then you allow them to become habits again so you don't have to think about them. And that's the same with your thought process. We make the thought process conscious. We figure out the need to change and you work on it a little bit, changing them. Then you just let it go back to being an unconscious person. You don't have to think about it anymore. It literally just goes away.

Richard Hill
It's fascinating.

Tony Leake
People are the most fascinating, they're much more fascinating than computers, I'm glad I gave that up a long time ago. Computers do predictable things. When you press a button, the same thing always happens. But with two different people, you press different buttons, different things happen.

Richard Hill
I think it's just quite interesting, for those that are listening, like I said at the beginning I've known Tony for, well we're not quite sure about that, 17 years? But I think when you're, even throughout your career, this is a bit of a curveball here, it's not really a question it's just a comment really. But I think something I read or they say that during your lifetime you have three different careers. And Tony is a great example of three very, very, very diverse careers, isn't it? I think you started off, well you say, I think it would be quite cool to...

Tony Leake
I think I've possibly had four careers.

Richard Hill
Four is it?

Tony Leake
Yeah, I started off, I, I left school, I did an apprenticeship with British Telecom as a telephone engineer for for about ten years. But then I got into into sales. I deliberately decided I want to be a salesperson, which I was never very good at, but I thought it probably paid well, so I thought I'd try and do that. And so you probably think, you know, I spent a lot of time in sales and recruitment sales. And from there that's when I went into IT being a software developer and then to help through the ranks in that and now into what I'm doing now.

Richard Hill
Yeah, but at a very, very high level, I can remember obviously some of the things you when when we first met you were some of the things you were doing and building and responsible for were ridiculous. So this actually brings us back, I won't mention any names, but obviously we're on eCom@One and how I know Tony is because Tony's background is actually was was right there with an e-commerce store, very, very, very, very famous e-commerce store in the UK, probably one of the first in the UK. And you were part of a sort of, very small team at the time, whereas now they've got literally thousands of employees, I believe.

Tony Leake
Yeah, yeah.

Richard Hill
And you were there, you know, coding in effect and now you're doing this, this is such a different career, isn't it? That's just quite an interesting one for those that are listening in. You know, I think there's maybe a lot of people that maybe tried different things or they're starting their journey with e-commerce coming out of, you know, out of a normal nine to five maybe, you know, and I think it's just at the end of the day, I think it's great. I think, you know, I'm in my second wave. I've still got a third one left, I don't know what that's going to be you know.

Tony Leake
Well maybe you haven't, maybe there's two and maybe you're going for mastery of this one rather than....

Richard Hill
Yeah, I'm not definitely not planning on going anywhere with this one. I love absolutely love what I do. I love what we're building here it's great. So I think there's some great, great takeaways for the guys that are listening in there, I think I'm also keen to understand, you know, it's quite as we say, it is quite a challenging time, especially those that are, well, everybody, you know, in their own way, they've got their own things going on. Absolutely. But I think for managers, business leaders that are that are managing a team and running a business, they've got that particular, specific challenges with working from home. Is there anything that you would sort of advise to help them with their confidence and that can help them lead their team at the same time?

Tony Leake
That's an interesting question, I'm hearing two questions there. I'm hearing how can you help them with their confidence and how can you help them to lead their team?

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
Now, taking that first part, how can you help people improve their confidence? And this is this is a bit of a a favourite of mine because confidence is is, it belongs to a class of words, it's got a technical name, they're called nominalisations, but I won't go into what that actually means. But confidence doesn't mean the same thing to two people. And asking people how to improve confidence is a very, very general question.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
And you really have to dig into that. And the questions are kind of what do you want to feel more confident to do? What is the end result? Because people don't get up in the morning with the goal of feeling more confident. People might get up with the goal that they want to go and meet a new partner or they want to go into social situations, or maybe they want to go and do some public speaking. And you have to figure out what is it that they actually want to do and then find out what it is that's helping them or stopping them from feeling confident to do that.

Richard Hill
Well, let me delve a bit deeper then. So I think that as a business owner you're sat at home, you are you know, you've not got that interaction as much as you would have in an office environment, just, you know, sat at home staring at your computer or two, and you're feeling a little bit low, and obviously you're there and you're trying to inspire, motivate your team, but ultimately you're feeling a bit crap as well. So what what sort of things would you advise to help me or to help that person that's you know? Because that's definitely me some days where, you know, I feel it's my responsibility to make sure my guys are OK and my team are OK and speak every day. But sometimes, you know, it's tough. Sometimes I'm not feeling it. But I want to be you know, I want to be, you know, I want to be able to motivate the team. But sometimes I'm struggling myself.

Tony Leake
Yeah, I totally get that. And, you know, well done for being honest about that. On a call that some people that you work with in business are going to be listening to so that's that's a great thing to talk about. So it's certainly, it's a massive question. The sort of things you can be doing is getting yourself in a good place before you start work, however you do that. And as a coach, I'd be helping you to figure out what are the things that you can do to help you feel a little bit better when you're not feeling so good. Because, you know, if you can feel a little better, then you can feel a little bit of, again, a little bit better again. Before you start work, and as a coach, coaches don't really give tips, but this isn't a coaching call. So the kind of things that I would, hopefully people will get to is before they start work, start asking things like, you know, what I want to achieve today? What state of mind, what state of mind am I in at the moment? What do I want to be in to be able to help my team? What do they need from me? What are they looking for? For me? Yeah. And actually, there's a really good little technique. I don't know how well this will come across in a podcast, but I learned this from a workshop that I went to with Paul McKenna. You know the guy. Yeah, he's he's known as being a hypnotist on the TV, but he's a lot more than that. And he has this technique he talks about in some of these books. He calls it step into a suit. And what you do, if you imagine, let's say, that you wanted to go to, go to a social event and you weren't feeling confident. He'd ask you who is a person that you can think of who is a real person or a fictitious person who, who would be who would excel in that situation. Would be calm, smooth, sophisticated, charismatic. So who would you choose?

Richard Hill
Who would I choose? Golly. James Bond.

Tony Leake
James Bond. Perfect. OK, so what does James Bond do? What does James Bond wear when he's been his most charismatic and sophisticated?

Richard Hill
So he's got his very tailored tuxedo on.

Tony Leake
Yeah, he got a tuxedo. So what you do is you stand up and you imagine James Bond standing in front of you. You can imagine this tuxedo there. And you imagine, and look at what you did there. You kind of moved your head up and you kind of took on a James Bond posture. Yes. And so what you do is you can imagine how he would be standing. You imagine the suit of clothes, and then you step forward and you step into it and you put it on. You take on his body posture, you take on his facial expressions. And if you do it, you'll be amazed at how it raises your level of confidence and you start to feel that way. Is it acting? Yes, it is acting. But if it works, who cares? If, and let's say we go back to business situations. If you want to be confident and feel motivated for your guys, you think of someone who's going to be like that, imagine them in front of you and step into that for the day and become that person. And it could even be you, because you've had days, many of them, where you've been that person. And it's not about you becoming someone you're not. It's about you becoming you on your best day.

Richard Hill
I think that's a great takeaway, obviously you can think of a time when you were on your A game or a time when you felt really confident and you had a really good whether it was a talk, an event or whatever it might have been, in a situation similar to what you're about to go into and replay that in your mind.

Tony Leake
Absolutely. And do you know what happens, here's a really interesting thing. When when people in that demotivated state and you say to them, remember a time when you were your best, they go I can't. So here's what I often, I was just looking for a book there, it's not where I thought it was going to be. This is something I would recommend to somebody and I was going to get the book to show that I do this myself. Because I go through this as well, which is even though I teach other people how not to do this, sometimes I go through this myself. When I do something that I consider to be a success, when I do something that I, when I did it really, really well. You know what I do?

Richard Hill
Make a note of it?

Tony Leake
I write it down. I've got a book, it's called My Success Book. And so what happens on days when I'm not feeling at my best? I've got this little voice in my head that goes to me, Tony, you're not very good. How do you think you could go out and help anybody? And I say, here's my evidence. Here's my book of evidence of all the times I've done good things.

Richard Hill
That's brilliant Tony I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. You just pull on that and go, Yeah, that's it. I am good enough. I am this. I can do that. I guess it's a similar thing because, you know, and you've helped me quite some time ago on the public speaking side of things. Now I do all sorts now, but on that side of things. But, you know, sometimes you know about to go on stage and it's like, Richard, you're crap. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the topic. All that little thing, then I think. Hang on a minute. Don't talk stupid. You know your shit.

Tony Leake
Exactly.

Richard Hill
You know, and I look back at the time when I did that talk. I did this. I did that. I led that project. I led that thing. We won that business. I spoke at that stage with, you know, whatever it may have been. And it's like, hang on a minute. And then and then just rock up with a smile on your face and enjoy the process.

Tony Leake
Exactly. So you've been doing that naturally. The only reason I keep stuff in a book is because there are times when I don't remember, I don't remember this stuff.

Richard Hill
And I think for me as well, I think, you know, I do 'umm and arr', I do stumble on my words every now and then, hence why we've called this podcast unfiltered as the guys would be editing this for about a week. But I think, you know, I've come to the realization that it's okay to mix a few words up, it's okay to get a little bit mixed up and maybe, you know, maybe a little bit all over a point. It's just human and it is me. And from my point of view, that's me. So I'm just like rather than trying to be word perfect in talks and presentations, you know, I want to do a good job and I, you know, I will prepare and do the work, but don't be too hard on yourself when a few things, little things really may go slightly awry, you know, and it's OK. That's the way I see it yeah.

Tony Leake
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Richard Hill
So I think that brings us on to the next question. So someone who maybe is a little bit lost right now and not quite sure, you know, what that sort of purpose in life is, you know, what advice would you give to them? You know, I think speaking to a few of my team and a few people that I know. You know, they'll look back over the last six months and think, oh, well, maybe feeling a little bit down in general, you know, what would you say to help those guys?

Tony Leake
That that word purpose, that's another one of those nominalisations. So let me tell you a little bit more about what they are. These are words that, they can be used in different ways. But one of the ways we use them as if we talk about them as if they were a thing. We talk about, I've lost my purpose. I need to get purpose in my life. We're talking about it like it's a mobile phone. I've lost my phone or I need to get a new phone. But purpose isn't that. Purpose is just the way that we're feeling about things. And as long as we're waiting for some external thing to give us this bolt of lightning, the motivation, we never we're never going to find it. Yeah, one of the one of the things with especially the word purpose is it gets overused in personal development books. Now, as you know, I'm a big fan of the, of personal development. I'm not always such a big fan of the personal development industry.

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
Because one of the things that personal development industry talks about very often is you'll never be at your best until you know what your purpose is. And it's great because it's a very emotive words. And all these these normalizations like confidence are very emotive words. And it can get you worried. Oh, no, I haven't got my purpose. I'm never going to work at my best. It isn't necessarily true. You know, I was talking to a lady last week, maybe the week before, and I've been working with her over some anxiety issues and she'd been going through some very serious health problems and over the last year and she didn't know if she was going to pull through, if she was going to get better. Thankfully, she has, she she's over it all. But she was left with quite a lot of anxiety. We've worked on that and the anxiety is now gone. And then she said to me, but I don't know what my purpose is anymore, because when I was ill, my purpose was to fight the illness and still be there for my family. And that got me up every day. But now that's not there, now I've not got that battle, I don't know what my purpose is anymore, so I don't know how to get out of bed anymore. Because I said to her, you know, what do you want? What do you want to do for the next year? And she said, you know, I just want to learn to appreciate the little things in life like being there with my family and I went, there you go, there's your purpose, your purpose for the next year and you can change it in a year's time. Your purpose is just to learn how to enjoy life again. We don't necessarily have to have this big purpose in life if you've got one, great. But if you haven't, then live with what you've got. But if people really want an answer to that question, what's my purpose in life? That's when you need to go out and find a life coach, because that's what life coaches do. And if somebody engaged in that regard and they ask me that question, here's what I'd say to them. Get up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do. Get a notebook and go and sit in a quiet place, if it's if it's nice outside in the garden somewhere, you won't be disturbed somewhere that's not in your office. And ask yourself these questions. What do I want? What do I really want? What makes me happy? What I want to do for the rest of my life? And don't expect an answer to come to you, but ask yourself that question every single day for three months or however long it takes and anything that comes into your head, write it down. And the more that you write down, the more answers that you'll get and you start to remember all the things that make life worth living for you, that make you happy to make you feel connected to life and your purpose will come out.

Richard Hill
Wow. I think that's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Fifteen minutes, half an hour every morning. And just sit there and think about what makes you happy. And like you say, I think yeah. I think it's just that consistency of of doing that, checking on a daily basis to try and find that that thing. Yeah. That's great. That's great. So many takeaways there. I think it's clear that you've worked with a lot of different people over many, many years. And obviously you mentioned that lady that you've helped. Is there anybody else specific? Any? I think it'd be nice to sort of maybe let us know of a story or a person that you've helped specifically overcome an anxiety, a specific anxiety. And so what the end result of working with you was?

Tony Leake
Yes. I mean, there's a few ways I could answer this, because the first answer would be to think of someone who's very seen in business, because then that all sounds really impressive or try to make it sound impressive, but actually there's a guy that I worked with a number of years ago that, it's just one of those that really makes my job worthwhile, and when I first started in this line of work, I did all my training, but I knew needed to get some experience. So I went and volunteered as a therapist, as a therapist at Mind, the mental health charity. And I did that for about four and a half years because I knew that I was going to get some experience working with people with some severe problems. And if I if I was able to help these people, then I'd be able to help anyone who walked through my door of my therapy practice. And there was a guy who I met and he he used to be a teacher. He didn't really, I had to change a few facts because I have to make this anonymous, so let's say he used to teach, but he had a very normal job and he was struggling with anxiety and he didn't do anything about it. And it got worse and worse and worse to the point that his panic attacks got so bad that there was a point where he didn't go out of his house for four years. When I started seeing him, he just started coming out of his house again. Someone had to bring him to the appointments, obviously, because he couldn't he couldn't go anywhere on his own. And I spent about, I worked with him for about 12 weeks. And when I first started working with him, his anxiety was so bad that he would spend most of the time sitting there biting his hands to the point that by the end of our hour together, his hands would be bleeding.

Richard Hill
Wow.

Tony Leake
And that is, that is extreme anxiety. That's what it can do to people. And I asked him, what do you want at the end of this? What do you want to be different? And he said, I want to get over this and then I want to retrain and I want to go out and help people who have been going through the same thing that I've been going through. And we worked together for 12 weeks approximately. And the only thing I ever showed him was a breathing exercise to do when he got his panic attacks. And the reason we went over, over and over again was because I knew that he wouldn't remember to do it and we had to really drill into him until his body remembered it, not his brain. And one day I was I was out with my family in a pub just around the corner from here called The Lock Keeper having Sunday dinner. And I saw him in there and he was with his new girlfriend. And he came to me and he said, I just want to thank you, because a few weeks ago I had a panic attack and for the first time, I didn't run away and I was able to remember the breathing exercise that you showed me and I was able to control the panic attack, and that was the last time I saw him. But about a year and a half ago I went back and did some more work with Mind. And somebody said, oh, did you hear about Steve, what he's up to these days? And I went no, tell me what he's up to. And he's retrained and he's working as a support worker, helping people with mental health issues.

Richard Hill
Tony has blown me away. It's like I'm getting tingles listening to that. Wow, changing lives. That's unbelievable. Yeah, something that was so debilitating and it really, was obviously genuinely struggling. And then now he's able to help other people is amazing.

Tony Leake
Yeah, but what's frightening is, you know, there's lots of people like him out there. Yeah. And a lot of them fall through the system and are not getting the help that they need.

Richard Hill
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's that's really. Yeah. That's really got me that. Well thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. So I think, I think obviously we are, we're in lockdown 2. I think we had that first, our business, we had that sort of four-month sort of lockdown, then we went back to the office for a while, then we've got locked down again. But this time it just seems that bit harder. It seems that bit tougher. I don't know if it's this time of year or you know, we're obviously all getting fed up with it all. But, you know, why do you think this lockdown feels that bit worse than the first one, or is it just me?

Tony Leake
Well, there's an interesting observation, because as you asked me that question, I was thinking, is that true for everybody? Is everybody thinking it's more difficult than the first one or is that something that you and some other people are feeling? Yeah, because I spoke to somebody recently who had a bit of a life changing moment during lockdown and he's completely decided on a new direction for life. And they're busy working on it now, actually feeling really, really motivated and energized. And so if some people are feeling drained and some people are feeling energized, it's possible to feel both. So that begs the question, what's the difference between the two those two people? And the answer is in something we were talking about the other day, it's in mindset, it's our attitude towards it. So, when I say that, when I hear those words coming out of my mouth, I've got to be careful what I say, because it almost, I'm making it sound too simplistic and I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying, well, if you're having a hard time, it's just your mindset, go sort it out, because while it is that simple, it's not that easy, because let's look at what's happened here. And this might answer your question more fully. When lockdown first happened, we weren't expecting this. It was a bolt out the blue for most people. The government told us it was going to be three weeks. None of us believe that. But most people, I personally believed and I think a lot of other people thought six weeks, it's back to normal. Ten weeks we'll have forgotten that this ever happened.

Richard Hill
Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Leake
And what was it four months before we came out of lockdown? And then life's just getting back to some kind of normality again and then they pulled the rug from us again. And there's just so much uncertainty. There's so much changing in the world. We all know it's not going back to how it was when this is finished and and people in general don't deal well with uncertainty.

Richard Hill
Yeah, which is where a lot of anxiety comes from, just not knowing what will be or depending on your circumstances.

Tony Leake
Yeah. So I think that's probably more the answer to your question is that, it's we don't know what's going to happen and we, we're not sure when it's going to change. We know things are starting to get a little bit better, but things are starting to get a bit better before we get pulled. We don't know yet. And I think that's what's tough is it's hard for anybody to cope with.

Richard Hill
Yeah, okay. Well, we'll see where we are in three months won't we. I think. I think when, I think spring will have a nice ,I'm looking forward to that myself. I have to say that's why I feel like I'm very much where I feel every year, I really look forward to spring, which is literally, I'm going to say around the corner, it's not quite but that's what I'm telling myself, it's only a few weeks away, so I'm looking forward to that. So what would you say t business owners, a CEO that's maybe thinking of investing in an anxiety coach such as yourself? What would your advice be to them?

Tony Leake
I just say, pick up the phone and give me a call. Let's have a conversation and, you know, sometimes. I can talk to people for ten minutes and they don't need to, they don't need to come and engage me as a coach because sometimes all I need to say to people is switch your phone off from time to time. Take a few hours off work and get yourself a hobby so you're not thinking about work all the time. And by the way, don't drink so much coffee. And sometimes that's all it takes. And some people will take that advice and go with it. The people who work with me as an anxiety coach, which is quite different to working with me as a therapist, but there's some people who have a personal trainer because they get value from that. Some people, if they want to lose weight, they you know, if people want to lose weight, there's basically three variables. One is more healthy food. The second is eat less food. And the third is exercise more. Now, everybody knows that but actually making it fit within our within our individual lives can be very difficult. And the same thing saying to people switch your phone off and don't work so much, dead easy for me to say that. But if I'm talking to the CEO of an international bank and I'm saying turn your phone off and take the weekend off they go hang on a minute. I can't do that. And so a lot of the coaching then is about figuring out how can we make their life work in a, in a better way that's more more healthy. And some people want to work in that way. Some people don't. But the reason people have to pick up the phone, they'll never get this from my website is, it's all about the relationship between people. I need people to be able to feel confident to tell me whatever thoughts are going through their head. We all have thoughts that go through our head and we think, I hope no one ever knows about that because they'll think I'm crazy if they knew I think about that. I need people to tell me those thoughts and then we can deal with them. So, yeah, I would say pick up the phone. Let's have a conversation.

Richard Hill
Yeah great. So we're going to take a slightly different direction now. So if I ask you, who's your favourite guitar player who would you say?

Tony Leake
Oh, well, knowing that I'm a guitar player myself obviously...My favourite guitar player? That's a big question. And you might get a different answer if you ask me on a different day. But probably the best answer would be Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. And that would be possibly because when I was really getting into their music, was when I was a late teenager, early 20s, and those were great times in my life. And so Led Zeppelin's music was a big backdrop for that era, for that part of my life. And hearing that music just takes me back to those times.

Richard Hill
Yeah happy memories.

Tony Leake
It is happy memories. And in a lot, he's not the most technical guitar player around. He is no slouch by any stretch of the imagination. Some people say he's a bit sloppy. I'd love to be as sloppy as he is, but his career, he's very creative and I love his creativity. So Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin.

Richard Hill
We've had a few guitarists, a few guitar enthusiasts on the pod so far so we're getting a bit of a list together.

Tony Leake
Fantastic.

Richard Hill
So I like to end every episode with a book recommendation, Tony. So what would be the one book that you would recommend to our listeners?

Tony Leake
OK, and I am glad you gave me a heads up you were going to ask me that question, because as you see behind me, this is not a green screen. These are real books. And I had to think about this for a bit. My first answer was going to be Jonathan Livingston, Seagull, which is a very left field book. My second answer was going to be a book by Nancy Klein called Time to Think, not because of the content of the book, but because of the title. Going back to what we've said earlier, if most people would spend just taking a few minutes every day, just taking a few minutes to think, they'd have a lot less anxiety. But the book that I'm going to recommend is a book called Change Your Questions Change Your Life by Marilee Adams. And this goes back to your question about how can you, how can you help people in your team? To anybody who wants to be doing that, to anybody who is a manager or a business owner and wants to maybe learn to coach people a bit better, I'd certainly recommend that book. And the basic premise of it is that we communicate a lot in questions and answers. And even any time we make a statement, a statement is is, could be an answer to a question that's not really being asked. And we could formulate it as a question. And if we want to get better results in life, we've got to ask better questions. And what she talks about is that the questions that we ask force us into certain kind of mindsets and just being aware, you don't have to memorize loads of questions. It's just being aware of what mindset will that question put you into?

Richard Hill
Yeah.

Tony Leake
Let me give you one example and then I'll shut up because I'll talk all day about this book, I really would. I'm guessing that there are times in your business. As well as I know you're doing, I'm guessing there are times when things don't go to plan.

Richard Hill
Absolutely.

Tony Leake
Yeah, you and every other business, everybody who's prepared to be honest anyway. And, one of the questions people often ask in that sort of situation is who's fault was it? And the sort of mindset that puts you into it, puts you into blaming mindset. It puts you into a very closed mindset. It puts you in the mindset of looking for what's wrong. But if instead you start asking the questions of, well, actually, so what is the current situation? What do we want instead of the current situation and what is one thing that we can do to get us there? That puts you into mindset of possibility. And it's just being in that mindset means that you're going to get better results than being in that mindset of blame. So being aware of the effect that questions have on people. So Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams. I must have recommended that so many times.

Richard Hill
That's fantastic. We talk a lot about growth mindset. And I guess we're talking about a similar thing there. The way that we look at the situation is the way that we ask questions, asking different questions and get a different result. And rather than that, negativeness that can come from situations that you can usually find a different way. Fantastic. Fantastic, Tony. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on eCom@One. Now for the guys that are listening that would like to find out more about you and connect with you, what's the best place to do that?

Tony Leake
I have two websites, my website, tonyleake.com, Leake is spelt L-E-A-K-E, that's my website that talks about the coaching and the anxiety side of things. My other website is leadersandteams.co.uk, and that's where I talk about the kind of mindset training that I do with businesses.

Richard Hill
Wow. Well, thank you very much and thanks for being a guest on eCom@One.

Tony Leake
Been a pleasure Richard, thank you.

Richard Hill
See you again. Bye.