It’s no accident that our adversity and struggles will help us in the long run. It’s through these moments of pain that we’re able to move into the person that we’re destined to become.

Men particularly need this more than ever,

Today I welcome Pete Taylor to the podcast. Pete is a growth coach and strategic advisor. You might know him as one of the founders of The Awakened Man Project and The Boardroom. Formerly running his own businesses for the last 7 years he now advises multiple businesses at board level and assists in the growth of others.

Join us as we discuss:

1. Why men need a community more than at any point in history in a world where men are encouraged to be less than masculine.

2. The 3 types of discipline every man needs

3. How to create boundaries that will serve your personal and professional growth

4. A secret hack you can add to your daily routine that will help you continue to grow day after day

For all the guys in my audience, this is an episode that can’t be missed. We need each other more than ever to continue to grow.

Discover Pete on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/pete_taylor

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Discover how to work with me: https://www.adamliette.com/work-with-me

Transcript

Adam Liette
What's going on smooth operators Welcome to this week's interview. So glad to have you. Here on another wonderful day. Time I'm recording this, it's still early sun is just starting to rise, I got the first cup of coffee already in but we're ready to go. And I was doing a lot of reflecting this these past couple of weeks, we just we had an event here in my small town a lot of military vets got together and being able to break bread, that liquid bread mostly with my fellow vets and reflect on where we've been, and the things we've done and things we've seen things we've experienced. And having that male to male contact and being able to share things openly, cleanly, clearly. to vent have all all the emotions that come with that kind of interaction. And it got me reflecting on my own life. And the fact is the things that brought me here weren't always the most pleasant things. It was through adversity, through difficulty through pain through turmoil through stress that I developed. The person I became, I don't think it's an accident. There's a there's a passage from the Bible. I don't I don't do much Bible talk with you all. But I am very much a Bible reader, Romans five, three through five where it says And not only that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us that one verse got me through multiple multiple deployments, multiple areas of my life, where I'm like, How the fuck do I do this. And it's because of that, because of that experience. I'm really excited for this episode, because we're going to dive deep into some of those things, some of those painful experiences that lead us in a new direction, how to become that person you need to be to lead your team and then take those leadership skills, those things that you develop, and extol them upon those that are following you, which is why I'm so excited to have Pete Taylor on the podcast. Pete is a growth coach and strategic advisor. He's one of the founders of the awakened man project in the boardroom. He's ran his own business for the last seven years. And now he advises multiple businesses at the board level and assists in the growth of others. Pete, Dude, I'm so happy to have you. How are you today?

Pete Taylor
Good, Adam, pleasure to be here. And I love the You're the star of that introduction. And I'm gonna I'm gonna dive straight in because I don't want to forget what I was gonna say when you were thinking about when you're talking about seeing all your guys over the weekend and breaking bread and having a couple of drinks. And like I've, I've learned this, that this is so friggin important, especially for men, to have a community. And like if we think about college days and university days and like I used to play football back in the day, I used to be part of a team. And when I really think about that, it was never it wasn't actually like the sport itself. It wasn't like college or university itself. It was just the guys I was with it was the community I was with. And it was it was being in that like camaraderie and, and like there's I don't know what it's like in the US but in the UK huge, huge like drinking culture like alcohol drinking culture. And like I actually stopped drinking nearly six years ago because it was just kind of leading me down to a bad rule and we can go into that a little bit later. But like I look at the drinking culture now in the UK and I'm like yeah, but I can I can still understand it because you get all that you get that community you get that like Guy time and especially if you're a business owner and it can there's there's so much that we carry on our shoulders. And we can't necessarily talk about that with our team because they're our team right we don't really want to tell them all the all the shit that we're going through and you know, fuck I got I got a fight 100 grand this week to pay everyone salaries and when we're going to get that from can't necessarily take that to them. So having like a community and having a group. So friggin important no matter what, no matter who that is. I'm absolutely a fan of having a group that have got emotional intelligence that can they can hold a strong conversation that doesn't have to be surface level. It doesn't have to be like, oh, let's just talk about women or or boozing or whatever that looks like, you can go a little bit deeper. And, and I think in today's society, especially with men, men don't typically go deeper. It's all it's normally surface level, when then the deeper shit, we keep to ourselves until one day bomb, it just, it can explode.

Adam Liette
It's so interesting. And I know when I when I left the military, the number one thing I, I think one of the most common causes for PTSD this is I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a doctor, you all know that. But I think part of the reason that guys feel that way after the service is, is the loss of brotherhood. Yeah, it's it's actually not what they dealt with, not what they, you know, well, partially, but it's the brotherhood that lets them overcome it, that lets them keep driving on through it. So I think it's finding that brotherhood outside of that, and we can find brotherhood in multiple different places. But I love the fact that it's like, we need to go deeper than that. It can't be just surface level stuff. And have you found any particular ways of finding those communities or forming them yourself? Maybe? Or like, what what do you some of the strategies you've taken to do that.

Pete Taylor
And to be honest, this is this is part of the reason like my current business now is like, so my first business, which I set up in my late 20s, after after going through, like 15 years of corporate, I set up this this business in my late 20s. And that was an architecture business to architecture, interiors construction. We built that from from living room all the way to three storey building in London, we won awards for the work that we were doing, and a team of 20 people, we had tenants in the building, it was a phenomenal experience. That bricks and mortar, right so very, very, very much offline. Right, the business i i run now is called The Awaken Man project. And it's all online, we have like in person meetups, but it's all online. And this was really set up from me needing to be around other high performing guys, and just and me needing to do more like inner work and more personal work. As I learned this, right, my my, my business got to level it did through my personal work and through my personal growth, but it was never going to grow any further unless I grew as a leader. Right, right. And what I was really missing and I was searching for it for frickin Ages was like a higher level community. I like surpass a lot of my friends from from from school. And now it was great to see them. But we would just talk about the surface level stuff and me to be in a business owner that didn't really understand maybe what I wanted to talk about, couldn't talk about it with my team. And I joined a number of like masterminds, but they were never, what I was searching for it with the mastermind is always just like about the next marketing technique, or like the next like how to drive more profit and revenue, which is great. Like we you know, it's good that it's good stuff as business owners. But actually having something that's a little bit more deeper, where we can talk about maybe the chips on our chest, but not not in a way where we're going to you know, be have a heck of a cuddle and have a cry and go in the woods and and bash on the drums and sing Kumbaya not Not, not that that's not really about me. But to be able to get something off your chest, but then also to be pushed. Go right. Well, now you got that off now now like what's the what's the direction? Like what's the strategy? Like how can you move forward from this? How can you move on and not like, stay in like victimhood?

Adam Liette
Oh, that's that word right there victimhood. I think men have been conditioned, especially late lately, last decade or so, to be perpetually on the defensive, perpetually in victimhood, and I think it's almost like a fear to be a man. And and

Pete Taylor
men have been conditioned. And and this, this, more about to say here is actually was the start of my business breakdown. And men have been conditioned to be nice, and to be nice guys, and to be a daring and to be agreeable. Right? And this was absolute. So it's, in the end, my business will grow over six years and I built that with someone else. I had a business breakdown. It was very much like I did an exit on the business, but it was nowhere near what I could have been and what it should have been. Because it was a it was a moment of a straw broke the camel's back. Something mega Mega Tiny. on a Saturday morning, one of my team members messaged me and I got pissed off and I was like Why am I still dealing with this? screw this up this, I'm out. Three months, three months later, I'm literally out with a business that I spent the last six years building. And it was and now like when I was, I can look back at that. It was because I was a nice guy. I like. So we did that we dealt with architecture. And now I'm very used to this term called boundaries. All right, back then a boundary to me was a fence in the garden, right? Now, but now I am very, very aware of are like I can I can have personal boundaries, and I can have professional boundaries. And I can say no. Right. And I can put these agreements up that this is what is aligned with me as a business owner, and as a man. And I don't agree with that. And I and I can't say no to things. But for so long. I was I was raised by my mum. And so I'd like my mom is a wonderful woman, she's downstairs now looking after my boy. And it just but I had so many feminine traits from my mom raising me that I didn't, I was never really taught things like how to be assertive, how to be like how to be like, super grounded as a guy how to have like, boundaries and and to be able to say no, and not have to justify the reason for saying no. No, not make sense. Yeah, does.

Adam Liette
Like these are my boundaries will Wide Shut out. They just aren't like, it's, this is who I am. And I'm not gonna make any apologies for who I am, who I am and why I've set up these boundaries.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, that's like, and now I'm not doing the work that we're doing with all like, so we have like 1000s of guys in our communities. And one of the first things we're talking about is boundaries. There's four levels to boundaries. But I didn't have I was on level one. I didn't, I didn't really know what boundaries were and I didn't really have any. Right, yeah, Level Level. Level two is like you've got boundaries. So you know, what's important to know, you know what your values are. And you know that there's things that you will say no to, but you don't communicate them. So they're just internal. And like, this is a problem because especially as a business owner, this is a nice to have this all the time, like so big team of 20 people and they would come in and they would present me with all their 67 problems. Right? And me being the nice guy, I'd go no problem myself, and they're not going to solve that or solve that. Solve this. And then that came to be Oh, don't worry, Pete will solve everything. Peach the guy? Dang, right. Yeah, got problem, bring it to peel solver, because it was the problem solver. So but in my head, I'm pissed off. And you get resentful, because of why this is why they keep bringing these problems to me. Why do I keep being walked over? Right? I've got these boundaries in my head. But because I'm not communicating them, no one knows about them. Right? So that's like, as like, the level three, Level Level two is that you communicate boundaries. So people know about them, but you don't enforce them. Right, which you this was. And this was where I got to this is where I got to my previous business is that I was communicating boundaries with my my team and my colleagues and my business partner specifically. It was like, as these are the things I actually don't agree with, you need to stop doing that. Because this is not this is not professional, this is not right. And it's not the way I want to run a business. Right? So I'm communicating that I'm communicating very strongly. Right. And the consequences of if you keep crossing the boundary, then we're going to have serious uproar, and we're gonna have serious upset, probably gonna lose clients, you will lose team members, right? There's consequences. But it's the enforcement part. So it's when the boundary keeps being crossed, is them going? Well, we, we talked about that. Continue to cross that boundary, and there's going to be consequences. So it's the actual enforcing of it. And that's where I was messing up with, like, when I became better as a leader I wouldn't necessarily enforce or I would, it'd be too late. Like you like one of my one of my guys would make it make a mistake. And I should call the mistake up there and then, like about I'd leave it a week.

Adam Liette
Yeah, it's already too late by then.

Pete Taylor
I think about it for a week. And then oh, yeah, this I'll say that and this is how I'm going to work the conversation did it. I still in it, and it's already too late by then. Right? And then the like the Level Level one boundary like is the you've got strong boundaries, they are well enforced. Everyone knows. And it's just really it just becomes your aura then. So it's like everyone knows everyone Everyone Everyone knows not to, not to, not to offer me drugs. Because they know, they they just know that's not that's not about me back in my 20s Yeah, I had a great time. But now not so that so they know that so it's it's everything from in your business to in your in your personal life is having very strong boundaries. And when I started embodying that there grew my leadership.

Adam Liette
And I think that level one boundary. It's I think where most people get uncomfortable with it is the fact that there are consequences. And we're like, Well, what are those consequences mean? Like, what do you mean by consequences? Is it something that you kind of have in your mind ahead of time? Like if someone crosses this boundary? Here's what I'm going to do. Do you like pregame it in a way or the way? I think we're all hesitant to act on the emotion of the moment, but would feel if we're in control of it? You know what I mean?

Pete Taylor
Yeah, I like, I like rules. Like, like I like. So the way I look at this is that, here's my standard of living. So here's the standard that, that I expect to live my personal life by. And this is a standard that I expect, not even expect, because even even the word expect last like it was an expectation versus actually what happens. So I like I prefer the word like agreement, like these are the this is what I agree to do. So I have standards to run my life by and run the business by and with those standards come come rules. So it's more it's like a an If This Then That. So if this happens, then this will happen. Right? And because it's sometimes like something will happen in the moment. And you know, I've never thought about that before. I didn't expect that person to say that. And they kind of crossing a boundary. But I've never, I've never experienced this boundary before. So I don't know what to say in this moment. And, and we either have to deal with that in the moment, or we have to look back at that. But the way I've dealt with this is I look at the real key things that are important to me, like my values, and then what comes up often. Right, so what will come up often, for example, is my team members coming to me with all their problems? That would come up often. Now another another thing that will come up often is my my old business partner. Doing things with the bank account probably shouldn't be doing things with a bank account with, right, that would come up. Yeah. So I'm like, right? Well, these two things come up, often they they piss me off. I'm going to create a rule for these now. Because they're the things that come up 50% of the time, 60% of the time, right. And then I would look at that for a lot whole my life. Okay, well, this, this thing keeps coming up with my partner with my wife. Okay, well, now let's, because it's so frequent. Let me let me like think about this, unlike what's important to me here, and then create, like a boundary and a rule here and then have the conversation around that. So yeah, that's that's how I began to get kind of get better at that.

Adam Liette
I think the analogy I'm coming to mind with, especially for most of my guys, we've been tactically oriented. And we're now moving up into leadership positions in our companies. It's a bit like programming a CRM, that sets like the analogy I'm making, in my mind, the if then these clear rules, we have to establish this, the program doesn't run without these. And so we're creating a program for our lives for our expectations for our agreements with ourselves and those around us that have clear definitive if then ins and clear, definitive rules that they will follow. Otherwise, the whole damn system breaks down, right? This isn't fucking work.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, absolutely. And, and the good thing about rules is the especially when it comes to business, especially when it comes to business is that you can take emotion out of it. And it's like that, like the feelings and the emotional side that can so often get in our way, this guy won't, that's the rule low. Like, allow this, although I've got like, shitty feeling in my stomach. And because this is gonna be a hard conversation we're about to have, but here's the rule and it is quite clear cut. And so it can be it's really, really powerful when in a in a business and like we used to. So when I started getting better at this I would take so we used to have, like contractors that would work for our company. We go we go to them clear sets of agreements. It's just like a kind of a contract sort of thing. But just like real clear, like if you want to be part of our pool of contractors that we use, then here are our 10 agreements for you to be within that pool. Right that that Inc and anybody include things like you pay on time we we we do not run your cash flow and your cash flow is not our problem and And you pile up because it was because it was a thing get that kept coming up over and over again, I'm like, Well, I'm gonna kind of rule on this. And if they break the rule, and they're not going to be part of a contractor pool, right? Again, it was nice guy syndrome. Being at being a nice guy, I would accept other people's cashflow problems. So given given 60 day terms, rather than 30 day terms, and then it just does you in

Adam Liette
and you're compromising your own integrity, then now you're putting yourself at risk. Now you're taking on undue stress. And I think that's been what we've been programmed to do is take on everyone's shit. And now we're like, Gosh, why don't why am I so miserable all the time? Well, look in the mirror at this. But I think until you like realizing it in that real clear, definitive way, I think it's really helpful for me, just to wrap my mind around something that can be a bit obtuse, until we actually put something concrete around it.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, I am, I have a number of clients that come from military background. And typically that they've either got strong boundaries or already, or they're very, very good at going, Oh, that makes complete sense. I'll just, I'll just use that without emotion, done logic. Very, very, like easy to do. And like, because they're so used to following protocols and like, and having structure. Right. That's definitely something that I've seen with a number of the military guys that we get to work with.

Adam Liette
That's awesome. Most of us are good like that. I was a special operator for like, half my career. So we get used to like no rules, which is really, it's like the other side of things. But instead, it has to be personal rules. Like we don't have external rules, govern to us, we have to develop our own sexy, like part of the whole selection process. It's crazy. But that's a whole nother episode for a whole nother day. But, um, you mentioned your clients. And I know that you, one of the things you you talked about on your on your site was, like getting them to get to peak performance. And so I'd love to start getting into some technical things that we can do to really get ourselves into peak performance, like what are some of the protocols that you you help install?

Pete Taylor
Oh, this is gonna sound so blinkin obvious. But it's not it's not to everyone knows, but it's actually doing it is just physical performance. It's your physical health. It's your how you like your actual health. So that like a diet and nutrition is one of the it's one of the diet like eating, moving, sleeping, right, get like day out, you get them right. And your baseline raises like exponentially by getting enough sleep by by moving, exercising, and then and then eating in the right way. And it's one of the quickest things, but it's also one of the most powerful things like to just biologically to have like huge enhancements. And just going back to like a, like a business perspective here, I ran this with my team. So during my 20s, I used to compete in bodybuilding and fitness modeling, and I got really, really into it. And I learned a shedload about how food and how exercise affects my body. Physically. I also had, like how it would affect me mentally. So when I got really into business, ah, I can actually use this to my brain work better. Right, amazing. And then when I started employing people, it was like, Hey, let's, how's your eating? Like? Yeah,

Adam Liette
number one question. None of us have ever been asked by our employer. Yeah,

Pete Taylor
yeah. But for me, I'm like, Well, I want a team of high performers I want if I if I can get 20 savages that are just all performing, right, and I can just increase their performance by 20 50%. And we could so we I got like health coaches in to do like seminars of all the all and it because it didn't really it didn't really cost me a lot for the gain that I got from this. Just to teach everyone basic nutrition is like, hey, like, this is what protein looks like. This is what carbohydrates is like this What fats look like. This is like calories like kind of way where you where you should be. Right? This is just teaching basic. Oh, and by the way, like hydration. If like you hyper hydrate, you change your whole game. Like if you just get in the habit of drinking a liter of water as you wake up, it could change your whole day. And it's these like little tweaks. And lo and behold, guess what? They all start feeling better. But the team feel great. I'm like yeah, I'm not surprised and so then they want more. So one of the one of the best initiatives I ever put through the best This was we set up this, we actually had the exact heart rate belts, then I don't know if they do in the in the in the US is in the UK, it's called my zone. And really, really great bit of kit cost us about 70 pounds a person. Yeah. And it's a heartrate monitor, but what it does it links to an app. And we would then set challenges in the app. Okay, so and then there was a leaderboard. So I had all my team on the leaderboard. And so every bit of exercise that you do you get points, right? Me being ultra fit, you think, oh, Pete will be at the top, but it doesn't work that way. It goes on it goes on your heart rate. So because I was Ultra fit, I had to work harder to get more points. Right. Whereas some of my team members who weren't as fit as I, they could just go on, they could go on, like a walk or strenuous walk and get loads and loads of points because our heart rate has gone up. But it was a great initiative, because it just meant the team were then it was a bit of a competition. And everyone's getting fit, and had loads of like camaraderie and jokes around it. Just an easy way to like to optimize an entire team's performance.

Adam Liette
And it builds on that natural inclination. We all have as men to be hyper competitive with each other, too. We're not inventing this, we're just channeling it towards a desired output. Yeah, so cool.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things and we do that with the guys that go through our programs, we do a similar sort of thing. So we we get them into we get the house already get the nutrition sorted, we get their physicality sorted. But we also get them to do scorecards. So when I when I come and join our program, we'll assess them frickin everything. Right, we see where their vices are. And you know, and we need them to be honest, we'd like to Is there is there a problem with porn? There's a problem with social media. Right it like, where are the vices, the things that you do that, you know, you probably shouldn't be drinking too much. And, and we look at you think about like, how we can optimize them and really quickly look at look at where his vices are. Like is does he watch too much TV? Does he drink too much? Is he is there substance abuse? Is there too much? Too much porn going on? Right? Is there like loads of social media scrolling? And it's like Doom scrolling. Right? What other thing is the man is a man doing to numb. And then once you find them, it's like, well, let's, let's alleviate that, let's reduce that. And just by reducing that, you can just, again, increase a man's productivity and increase performance and just improve him as a man overall.

Adam Liette
I love it. It's so antithetical to all the do whatever you want feel happy DadBod bullshit. You hear out there and in the funny thing is, I think all of us listening if you're not looking in the mirror right now, but shit, there's one thing I've done fuck, like, but the fact that you are confronting it, and I'm confronting it myself with a couple of vices, I'm like, Ah, shit. But there it is, right there, like being able to have that mental strength to acknowledge that there's a right

Pete Taylor
there, I was talking about earlier standards. Right? Like, like, as a man, like having a set of standards that you live by, like, what's the standard a man the that you're gonna be, like I think about is they are going to look at me and be proud. And say, I'm, I'm proud that that's my dad, not just for the way that I, but the way that I look. And he sees me going to the gym, and he sees me, like, boxing it but he and he's, and he sees me, he sees me working hard. Right? He sees me making sacrifice. I'm, I'm cool with that. And any and he sees the way I handle conversations, and I handle conflict. And it's like, what is the type of man that I am? Would I look back and be proud of that man. And so that's, that's an easy thing. And one of the biggest tools that I use, this is this is a really, really easy tool is to look at every day, it was something that we regret. Consciously, like, you know, in our stomachs, I regret that because that because they're bright, they're in that regret is the sign that that is the message. That is the universal message that is telling you that this is something wrong, and you need to do something about it. So if it was, you know, that fifth point that fifth down, probably shouldn't I didn't need that. I was I was good on three. Right? And then I had some I didn't need that and I can't regret that. So all it's like, Why did I watch porn? I felt shame after that. I didn't feel good about it afterwards. You know, I just I succumb to an urge as a man, right? Not an urge. And I gave into that urge. Or like, I was gonna watch three hours on Netflix. Like, I could have spent some I could have grown the business a little bit more, spend some time with my family or whatever that looked like. So it's like where these regret showing up in your life. And when they when I regret happens, do something about that.

Adam Liette
And it's the acknowledgment of the regret. I think that prevents there was a phrase you said earlier about, what what are we doing to numb but it's it's acknowledging the regret and being okay with acknowledging the regret that helps pull us out of that if I'm if I'm hearing this correctly.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's like sometimes it's just like the awareness of it. Like, because I have done so much friggin work, I'm so aware. And so right now I'm going through a divorce. Where with son bout eight, nine weeks ago, we decided that we were going to separate and we were filing papers and we're going through the divorce. And about a week after we agreed to separate now we can have our week afterwards. I joined Tinder, you got Tinder in the US. The date.

Adam Liette
I've never used it, but I know it's out there.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, I joined I joined Tinder. So it's this dating app. Right. And about four days into joining Tinder. I just I found myself just swiping, swiping, swiping, swiping like left, left, right, right, left. And it was kind of like I was just scrolling on social media. It's like another form of social media. It's another form of like Instagram and just lost in that. And I was spending like a couple of hours a night. Right. And normally I go to bed at like nine and one that I'm going to bed at 9pm. And I was in bed at nine with my phone up till 11 scrolling swiping. And I spotted myself. I'm like, Ah, okay, right. Number one, I'm sick. I know, I'm seeking validation. Because I've just this the first time, a long time that I've been that I'm actually single I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm seeking validation. But I'm also just numbing. I'm also it's just this is a this is a mechanism for me. Because I because I'm going through some pain. And I am just numbing, just swiping, swiping, swiping. And this is and so I'd rather than me just doing more than I got Scott confront it, like head on and deal with that. But because I've done so much personal work, I was able to spot that as this is a this is a mechanism him that I am numbing. I'm aware of that. Now I'll do something about it. But I think for so many without like asking yourself good questions, or you'd like to is this naivety to the awareness?

Adam Liette
Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. Because I think there's that part of us that was always like, Well, yeah, well, he's got it. I mean, yeah, I mean, but I'm just like, I'm so flawed, there's no way but the fact is, we're always going to be exposing new flaws. We're always going to end something who's gonna come along, but I think it's the structures that you have in place that help you reassess your rules, get back to your expectations. So it's not about I have to be perfect and never stray from this. But I have tools and patterns to bring me back to my optimum performance and where I want to be by the rules that I established, and I'm not going to change those rules. I just kept keep on changing the shit around me.

Pete Taylor
Absolutely. And it's like, you just go back to the standards, angling when it be you doing this between 911 at night? Does this adhere to your standards to the level of man that you hold yourself to? No, it really doesn't. Well, it's like, right. That's do something about it, then.

Adam Liette
It I love it. Because yeah, it's It's refreshing. I mean, to think that we're always reinventing ourselves. We're all we're not reinventing. We're always continuously improving ourselves. And that's not a character flaw. It's, it's the sign of continual growth. And I think that right there is is one example of that level of deeper conversation, that if you have a male group, or a group of compatriots, people that you are able to be honest with that's the type of shit you can bring to them. And they're, if you're not seeing the problem, they're gonna see it for you.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, and that and that's like, and that's why it's important to get around other guys that do have high emotional intelligence. Because if you're and this is a trap that I fall into is that is that a lot of the guys I was hanging around with didn't very much just like school friends, and we're just like to drink. And if I'd have said that Tinder thing to them, they just have a look, then let's have a look. Yeah, let's have a go. And then it would never have would have never have liked articulated into, oh, that's an issue. Whereas they're like the guys that I get to hang around with now, who are real high level, there are a lot of people that you don't that might you don't need to do. Like, that's not the level that you play out. It's not the level we play out. It's probably because of this reason. Oh, oh, why I would never have thought that. But when you're in those arenas, it's like proximity, the environment that you're in, if you're in a higher level environment, you get exposed to different levels of thinking.

Adam Liette
of one particular mate, he's German, so he's like, you know, just super, to the point graph. I mean, I'm sure you. Yeah, you can imagine. And he's that guy for me. Like, I'll bring my shit to them. And he's like, why are you doing that?

Pete Taylor
No emotion. Yeah.

Adam Liette
Like, I've never met him in person. We don't have to where we get on the Zoom. We get on, you know, WhatsApp. My wife even knows his name. So like, I'll just talk to Chris. I'm like, Yeah, shit. Okay, good. Cuz she knew something was off too. Right? Yeah. So as we, man, dude, I keep thinking. So I'm immediately going to apply some of these things in my life. Like, I love the what did I regret today? I've already do what what am I grateful for every day, but that's another level.

Pete Taylor
It's it's like, it's so simple. Just one thing. And this is, this is the thing to like, because us guys, especially a high performing guys, we like to overcomplicate and we'll do our overdue loads and problem solvers. We do loads. Now, just like the one thing, just just at the end of day, one thing, don't ask, it doesn't have to be 20. Things just like, that's the one thing that got me. It was the way I spoke to my wife. I shouldn't that like I regret that afterwards. Man, I shouldn't I shouldn't just want to, I shouldn't have said that. I'm going to honestly like the other week, that's I mean, me and my ex wife is so weird to say next wife now, but it's I mean, Denise, we're separating. And we had a little bit of an altercation very, absolutely minor. And I swore at her. I raised my raise my voice I didn't need to write and I and that night, that was my thing. It was like, You know what, Pete? I should I felt a consciously immediately afterwards, I regretted that. And that was my thing. And then last weekend, when Denise had a we had a stroke, we had a good conversation. And I honestly believe that if I hadn't have like journaled on that, that one thing, the same thing would have would have happened, like, anger would have shut up and I'd raise my voice and, you know, the swear words would have come out would have got us nowhere. But yeah, I think cuz I was so caught up because I drew awareness to it. I was able to net the next time that happened to not go down that route.

Adam Liette
That's powerful man. So as we I love I love building ourselves. I love having that community. And I that some of the things you did with your you do with your team. I mean, for all my US base folks, like you're probably get tax like exemptions for a lot of this stuff and grants, insurance, this could be free for you, or at least a reduction on your health premiums. That being said, like if we're running teams, if we're especially I, I guess what I'm struggling with? Is that, so I happen to work with a lot of females? Like, are these things transferable to that? Or if we have a team of it's a bit more diverse under us? Like how do we take what we're learning about ourselves, and optimizing our performance and transfer that to our team? What are some of the structures that that we can do in that moment?

Pete Taylor
The health thing that I spoke about earlier, like that's completely transient, that's completely transferable. Yeah, I remember like, one of the ladies used to work on my team. She was so she got so competitive with it. She was she was a top leader of all time, and I mean, how, just like at each other, so it's amazing. But like, I found like, one of the best things that I ever did with my team was to give them some autonomy on the projects that we were running and not necessarily like a construction project, but like, like a business project. So So like, the company would have objectives, and then what we would tend to do is like, members of the team would be in charge of achieving certain objectives. And then we'd like have a meeting. And I it's, I call it like the 10 at 10. Roll. So it's like 10. The first 10 is like me saying, this is this is where I think we should go, like, what do you think and so we get feedback there. And I'm like, this is where I'm gonna drive it. Right? You got any opinions on that you got anything to add to that, and then the 80 is that they would then go and fulfill that and then go and deliver that and go and produce that. And then the last 10 is, then me stepping back in again and go great, I love that maybe we can make a tweak. They're amazing there. And just like that, giving, like, my team individual projects, so then, which contributed to the big omission of the business. Like it, it just gave everyone more drive to turn out to work every day, because they had they had their like one or two projects. That was they owned it, it was theirs. And it was their contribution to the bigger picture. And I found I just found that mega mega powerful. So it's so simple. I'm sure many companies do it. But I know many companies don't do that. Right? And we just have these big company goals, and then you just your number.

Adam Liette
That's usually like a turning point I found for most entrepreneurs is actually giving that ownership and relinquishing. I mean, it's control. Yeah, that we're relinquishing as leaders, when we give ownership if you're trying to keep control over it without an expect them to have ownership that doesn't work. Like they need to have full control over it as well. Right?

Pete Taylor
Yeah, yeah. And so for team members to feel like they're part of something, then in this got a little bit harder for me when when the team got a bit bigger. And I just kind of just expanded timescale on this, but I would, I'll do coffee catch ups of all my team members. So it's like me, like one on one, really, really informal, and what it used to be every week, then then it was every three weeks as a team start to get bigger than it was just like a little bit a little bit longer than that. And then I went, I had a couple of like managerial staff and like that, like they were, they start to do the coffee catch ups. But like, one of the best questions I ever used to ask was, like, if you are like, chief of the ship, if you are if you are steering the ship, like what would you do? And like the things just the things that will come out will always just because it's just a nice informal coffee. It's no real pressure we're like, out it's different environments are out of the office, that was really, really important to get out of that work, like the working office, where the meetings rooms and so on. And, and, but this is the important thing was the, to also implement some of the things that they were saying not everything, because some of the ideas weren't just weren't aligned or just just not great, right? But right to start to implement some of those ideas, and then ensure that everyone knew that that was, you know, that was Sarah's idea. She that's Sarah came up with this, that wasn't me. Right. And and when I started doing that my my team started coming up with like, more ideas and more contribution. Because I was like, Oh, the management actually listened to us. Like when we come up with something, they act and then 90 Day lesson they implemented it to

Adam Liette
implemented and then acknowledged where it came from.

Pete Taylor
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Close. Yeah,

Adam Liette
yeah. I've done the coffee chats too. And what I found, you mentioned like leaving the office, little trick, I found it because I've only worked virtual for like last six years. I would go to a different desk, where I'd sit, I'd grab the laptop and go to my chair, or my my couch or like it just changing up your background changes the environment. Yeah. And if you're if your team isn't comfortable around you, or they're, they're not afraid they're, they put their guard up around you. Like just change your environment.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the one of the, and I remember this, I was actually talking about this every week. If you can evoke feelings within your team, especially all at the same time, people don't forget like that when they get that feeling. And I remember Have you heard of Bob Proctor? I have. Bob Bob Proctor. He's sadly he passed away, I think nearly a year ago, but he's massive in the personal development space. Huge. And he's got this big program called thinking into results. And it's a big personal development program. It's wild worldwide. And I invested into that program for me And but actually, when I started doing the program, there's there's 10 parts to this. So there's actually it's not just individual parts, I can actually bring this into the company I didn't realize. So what I started to do was it was every Tuesday, we started forming finishes six, and we would go through part of the training, which is personal development, personal growth and bigger thinking. And we'd go through the training, and then we'd answer all the questions as a team. And it was freaking phenomenal because it was like the guys on the girls were getting a dose of personal development and being asked questions that they've never been asked before. And I remember specifically, one evening, we had this like bucket, and we put all of our fears into the bucket. And we burned them. So the big metal bucket and I remember, we're outside in the car park, and it was dark. And and we were, we were burning it and one of the guys was singing, all of us are dancing around it. And like, and I know that all my team, they will all remember that because it was all these just these feelings that we evoked and and we were doing doing something together as a team. And I think if you can spark as much of that as possible in an organization, it comes a fun place because it's decided that this is this is different, right? And we want to stay here

Adam Liette
it is doing stuff together, there was this bad thing they do in the military, it always like this builds a spree decor. And it'll always be like a five mile run together at really slow pace. I'm like, did you guys don't know what this means? There are more effective. I think what we do extremes, what I found is like the really like this actually doesn't build teams at all. This is stupid, or let's go out and get hammered. And but there's like nothing in between, or there wasn't a ton in between. But like, that's what we tend to think of. It's the bullshit and well, still bullshit.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that was definitely one of the most powerful things we did as a company.

Adam Liette
Dude, I love it. This we could go on and on. I do want to be respectful of your time, we're coming up on an hour. Guys, if you haven't gotten at least one thing to implement from this, go back, listen again. And listen to maybe a little more carefully this time because I got about six that I'm gonna start doing right away. And it's not necessarily anything new. But I think the reminder, that continuous asthma check. You know, that's so much of the structures we put in our business or to keep us on the straight and narrow. Well, dude, you need that in your life, too.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, 100% You've you like, like I said earlier, like your business will only grow as much as you're willing to grow yourself. Same with same with like, the relationship with your family like that, that's only willing that will only grow as much as you're willing to grow new Indigo there. So it's so important that we're constantly evolving, constantly constantly growing. The best the best path is the path of personal development is the is the best path gives us so much.

Adam Liette
Yeah, there are tangible results that come out of it too. Not just the more like woowoo fuzzy stuff, but actual tangible results in your life. You can see it you can smell it, taste it, it becomes reality. And I just love every aspect of that, Pete dude, this has been awesome. I've really enjoyed our conversation, where can the listeners find out more about you and get into one of your programs.

Pete Taylor
That's my best place is my Instagram. I'm really active on Instagram. My handle is Pete underscore Taylor to Pete underscore Taylor. Everyday I'm on there, doing stories, posting posting reels, and really, really active on that specialize.

Adam Liette
I've tried the stories thing, I just can't do it. But it's okay. We all have our like medium that we find ourselves attracted to, for whatever reason. And that's awesome.

Pete Taylor
Yeah, I think now that I'm like running an online business, and we're very online other than like we do in person retreats, and we do like big meetups. That's how people find us. They see us online, and then they are Oh, who's this Pete guy, and then they can literally see my life day to day to day to day delay and Oh, that guy's very disciplined or the guy's doing something that I want to do or he's always traveling to Dubai every month and going to Crete in on these big adventures and I want to do that too. So

Adam Liette
that's why the awesome, dude. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed getting to, to nerd out and explore, explore ourselves, and as painful as that can be sometimes the results are just fucking awesome. So Yeah, thank you for doing what you're doing in the world, man. It's it's it's very valuable.

Pete Taylor
Pleasure. Thanks, Adam.