Professor Green - How To Overcome Life’s Hardest Challenges & Find A Purpose

[0] To say that Professor Green has faced and overcome adversity in his life is such a gross understatement.

[1] He's self -aware.

[2] He's honest.

[3] He's critical of himself where he feels he needs to be.

[4] I've got to do some work on myself here.

[5] Things need to change.

[6] As you push things down, they come at you sideways.

[7] I can't keep projecting my problems onto other people and blaming them.

[8] You know what?

[9] If I ever see you again, I want to knock you out.

[10] And people are like, wow, do you wish you could go back in time and change what your last words?

[11] to him were.

[12] No, of course not.

[13] Because that anger was just.

[14] It was that constant.

[15] It was him being in and out my life.

[16] Him being such a kind, generous, gorgeous, man, but being such a shit father.

[17] I felt like he was threatening me and I felt like I was right to stand my ground.

[18] I didn't expect that five minutes after that, he'd walk up behind me and put a broken bottle in my neck.

[19] I got my phone, I called my nan, and I just apologise for all the work she had put in to me that this was how it was going to end.

[20] To say that Professor Green, a .k. Stephen Manderson has faced and overcome adversity in his life is such a gross understatement.

[21] There's moments in this podcast today where you realize how unfortunate his life has been at certain moments and how much of a seemingly unfair start he had, that it almost doesn't seem like it can be true.

[22] And we know Professor Green.

[23] We know his music.

[24] I grew up listening to Professor Green's music.

[25] We know his documentaries more recently and how inspiring and vulnerable those documentaries have been.

[26] And most of us will know about the tragedy that met him in his early years when his dad decided to commit suicide.

[27] But it's interesting to see how all of these events came to shape this man, a man that is empathetic, a man that refuses to be bitter, and a man that has overcome and thrived despite all of this.

[28] Professor Green is a remarkable person.

[29] He's a remarkable guy.

[30] He's self -aware.

[31] He's honest.

[32] He's critical of himself where he feels he needs to be.

[33] And because of that, and because of the content, the documentaries and the music he's made, he is one of my sincere inspirations, especially as it relates to mental health and the change that he's been able to make in the conversation.

[34] This is an honest conversation today, and it's one that I think everybody should and needs to hear, especially men, especially in the world we live in.

[35] So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the dire of a CEO.

[36] I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

[37] of research on you and I've listened to podcasts you've done and I've read parts from the book that you authored and I want to know from your perspective what you think the most pivotal moments were from your early years that came to shape the man that you became later in your life.

[38] Wow, let's start with the big ones.

[39] Yeah, we went straight in, didn't we?

[40] Straight in.

[41] It would be really easy to draw from some of the the more traumatic events, I think, because they're the more obvious, and they're highlighted quite often.

[42] They come up in conversation all the time, but I think, I don't think they're specific moments.

[43] In the same way, I think the worst traumas that I actually endured weren't any single moments.

[44] They were cumulative.

[45] They were things that happened over time.

[46] I think it was probably more a case of my or what shaped me being cumulative as well.

[47] It was the time that I spent with my great -grandmother.

[48] I was sort of six of us in the flat when I was born.

[49] There was me, my great -grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and my two uncles.

[50] So my nans, three kids.

[51] My mum was the first person to leave the house when I was a year old.

[52] She was there consistently throughout my life, but my nan was my legal guardian when I was, by the time, I was three.

[53] And at a point when my nan could have started a new life for herself, she took on the responsibility of her mum and her grandson.

[54] But it was amazing because, you know, apart from the ancestral shit that I absorbed.

[55] Sorry?

[56] The ancestral shit.

[57] Yeah, well, just, you know, you think, like, my great -grandmother went through two world wars, whatever relationship she had been through the relationship that she had with my grandmother, all the problems that they had as a mother and daughter, are the problems that my nan had with my mother, the problems that my mother had with my grandmother.

[58] What were those problems?

[59] I couldn't tell you because they weren't my problems, but they existed, and I was aware, because there were arguments, and there was stress, and they were shouting, and there were financial problems and struggles, and there was Robin Peter to pay Paul, me being shuffled off into a room when a money lender had come around to, you know, pick up money and conversations, and that I wasn't supposed to be privy to, but in a three -bedroom flat that was about as big as a room that we're sitting and it was quite difficult to avoid being aware of these things.

[60] But there was a lot of good people always go out must have been really tough growing up in Hackney but I didn't have, I didn't know anything, I didn't know any different, you know, it wasn't like I grew up in Wiltshire until I was 13 and then it was just airlifted and dropped off in Hackney and told to survive, you know, it was all I knew.

[61] But in hindsight there was a lot that wasn't mine to take on but that I absorbed that that stress and that anxiety definitely seeped into me and I was a very anxious child.

[62] I was always, man, I got a tummy ache.

[63] But at the same time, I was really fortunate because when, when people talk about, you know, kids who aren't brought up by a or both parents, they normally miss out on the nurturing that I definitely didn't because my great -grandmother was always at home.

[64] She hardly left the house, not least of all, because of her age.

[65] And that time I got to spend with her is probably what made the larger part of what good is in me or encourage the good in me, you know, I would run out into the living room, which was where she slept on a chair that folded out.

[66] Every morning when that weird holding screen was on the BBC with a little girl holding that puppet with that e -e, which in hindsight is quite scary.

[67] You're really weird.

[68] But before the cartoons would come on and, you know, she would read to me. I always remember her blue blanket that I'd jump underneath.

[69] And she taught me to read well ahead of my years, you know, basic numeracy and stuff.

[70] When I went to school, I was ahead of most kids because of that time span of my great -grandmother and I enjoyed learning.

[71] So I sought validation in the right places rather than throwing tantrums at school like a lot of people did because they won't get in attention.

[72] In single -parent homes, parents have a tough decision to make.

[73] Do I go out and work and lose out on the time of my child but be able to provide or do I lose out of the money that I would make, which would make supporting a child easier.

[74] It's a, you know, that's a conundrum.

[75] That's a really difficult situation to be in.

[76] I was really fortunate.

[77] I didn't lose out on that.

[78] And I think it's that that's what shaped me. You know, it wasn't any of any single event, really.

[79] It was that period of time.

[80] And you said your mum was the first to leave the house.

[81] Yeah.

[82] So my mum was 16 when she had me. Oh, wow.

[83] Yeah.

[84] My dad was 18.

[85] They were separated very quickly.

[86] And my mom had a lot of growing to do.

[87] I'm more than twice her age and I've just become a father.

[88] I can't imagine, you know, being a parent or having tried to have been a parent when I was 16.

[89] I don't know.

[90] Yeah.

[91] Yeah, man. Crazy age to...

[92] Well, you're a baby yourself, aren't you, 16?

[93] It's like...

[94] Very much, though, yeah.

[95] And what was your relationship like with your mum from that point onwards?

[96] So, me and my mum, we've had an on and off relationship in the latter years of my life.

[97] I don't talk about it too much.

[98] Loads of stuff about out there about my relationship or lack there of, of my dad because of how his life ended.

[99] But, you know, I always, I was brought up to not air dirty laundry.

[100] And my mum did try.

[101] She did.

[102] You know, and like I say, she was a much more, she was a much more consistent part of my life than my dad was.

[103] You know, she made.

[104] She made the effort.

[105] Has it taken you some time to get to the point where you can be compassionate about your experiences with her?

[106] I think it's taken me some time.

[107] to get to the point where I can be compassionate about my experiences with everyone that I was involved with growing up.

[108] And I think I got to that place quite a while ago.

[109] And it's quite liberating, man. It's quite freeing because that, I think holding on to anger, you know, it becomes resentment and that leads to bitterness and bitter is not something I'm interested in being.

[110] I think a lot of people get, you know, end up quite bitter and jaded quite early on and that determines the rest of their lives.

[111] And I used to be quite scared to even say the words, I'm happy because I would worry about what was around the corners that I couldn't see around.

[112] Now, I'm never going to develop the power to see around corners.

[113] And worrying about what's out of your control and preempting things that may or may not happen is not the healthiest way to live.

[114] It's not great for your mental health.

[115] It's not great for the quality of life.

[116] life that you have because if you're constantly worrying you know i can enjoy a lot of what um or be happy about a lot of the things that i've achieved with hindsight but actually when i was going through the early years of my of the successful part of my music career there was a lot of things that i didn't enjoy in the moment as much as i should because i was worried about dropping the ball because i experienced loss quite early on um and come from quite a disadvantage background and i I wasn't used to a lot of the things that I was starting to encounter.

[117] So I was scared of loss and of losing it and of dropping the ball.

[118] You know, it was why I didn't take holidays.

[119] I would attach a few days here and there on to work.

[120] But I felt I was, you know, scared to enjoy myself or to let go of that kind of almost incessant need to keep working because I was worried about losing it.

[121] But I wasn't enjoying what I had.

[122] So did I ever really have it?

[123] And it took me a while to get to a point where, you know, I'm in a place where I enjoy things.

[124] happen and life is a lot more pleasant because I don't spend my time catastrophizing about what may or may not happen.

[125] Not least of all because I've survived things, you know, and I know that shit does hit the fan and things do happen.

[126] It's quite likely that I'm going to get through them.

[127] So I can worry about them happening and ruin my life day by day because all I do is worry about what may or may not happen, which is also distracting and doesn't allow me then to focus on the things that are in front of me and that are important, which will build a happier, a steadier, a more consistent life for me. Or I can deal with things as they come, knowing that I have the strength and the resilience in myself to handle things.

[128] And it's taken me a while to get to that point.

[129] It's taken some therapy as well.

[130] But it's kind of, you know, I feel quite calm and relaxed in saying right now that I am happy and I feel quite secure.

[131] and that I can handle what may or may not come my way.

[132] Talk about worry there, and you referenced earlier, you'd say to your, I think, your nan, that you had like a pain in your belly.

[133] Yeah.

[134] And I guess you didn't really know what that was when you were younger.

[135] Nope.

[136] What did you come to learn about that pain in your belly?

[137] It was anxiety.

[138] It was a night in my stomach.

[139] The problem was, I was born with a problem in my digestive tract.

[140] I had called, I don't know if it was a procedure that was called pyloric stenosis or the condition, but stenosis is narrowing.

[141] And my stomach basically, your pile of muscle at the bottom of your stomach should open and close to let food pass, but mine was just closed.

[142] So at six weeks old, I had an operation, which has left me with a scar that goes from there to there.

[143] So whenever I said, man, I've got a belly ache, I got a tummy ache, I got a tummy ache.

[144] It was straight to the doctors.

[145] And that then meant that I would go to the hospital and have cameras up me, down me, you know, be put into machines to be scanned to make sure there wasn't something physically right.

[146] which there wasn't.

[147] It was psychological.

[148] I was diagnosed with IBS really early on and that's still quite misunderstood.

[149] Is it something psychological that manifests physically or is it physical and causes mental problems?

[150] And I think that really highlights the intrinsic link between the gut and the brain.

[151] And again, I guess that's a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

[152] Never really considered that before.

[153] Never really ever considered that they might be a link between the two.

[154] And with IBS especially, it's something that I've become increasingly curious about because, as I said to you before we start recording, I've definitely got a problem with my gut.

[155] I just haven't figured out quite yet what it is.

[156] Going back to your sort of your formative years, was there anything else through that period that would shape the man you became that you can really think of between the age of like, I don't know, zero and 16, like school life and stuff like that.

[157] Yeah.

[158] So I was quite a bright kid.

[159] And, and it's I'm surprised.

[160] Most people I sit here don't seem to be, especially people that come from that kind of background, don't tend to be that academic.

[161] Their smarts and genius teams seems to come from other creative sources.

[162] Or like yesterday we had Russell Kane here.

[163] He's just like a comedic genius and then became a bit more academic when he left school.

[164] But, yeah.

[165] I've kind of, I guess there's, I've kind of gone full circle and that I have to use the academic part of my brain in what I do now more than I have done.

[166] for the last 10 years during making music.

[167] But that wasn't really harnessed.

[168] It wasn't, you know, education wasn't big in my family.

[169] No one had been to university.

[170] So me being as bright as I was, I wasn't pushed as hard as I should have been because my nan sympathized with my situation, my dad being in and out of my life, me being a very sensitive child, my mum not bringing me up, and that all quite clearly affecting me. My only problem at school was ever, the only problem I ever had at school was my attendance and I went from you know leaving primary school with the opportunity to sit the exam for St Paul's to the age of 11 to a pupil or furrow unit by the time I was 13 because of attendance yeah because of attendance and by that point you know at 13 I didn't really draw I didn't really join the dots or draw a parallel between the two things happening but my great -grandmother passed when I was 13 and that was very very difficult for me because she was the person who if she said to me that everything was going to be all right she was the one person I believed up until that point when I realized that sometimes it isn't and some of her last words to me when we were in the ambulance on the way to the hospital where I can't fight forever and I knew at that point that was her saying hey I've had my innings and she was 90 she had a good innings two world wars one world cup I can't fight forever yeah what was she what was she what was the context of her saying that to you um I believe that was her saying that she had made her peace you know she she had you know she lived with arthritis diabetes um we made a good stock though you know to go through what she went through a metal plate and her legs she got run over when she was 19 um I believe she was um And this is only stuff I've started to find out recently.

[171] She was placed on a doorstep when she was a baby and she was brought up in foster care.

[172] Her sister wasn't.

[173] I didn't even know she had a sister until recently.

[174] And we talk about ancestral shit.

[175] You can see where these things start to, you can see where these things start and come from.

[176] And, you know, the issues that abandonment and detachment cause, they're more than just social.

[177] issues.

[178] They impact development.

[179] I can just see how a lot of my family experienced a lot of trauma early on from my great -grandmother to my grandmother to my mother to my dad.

[180] They all had pretty difficult childhoods.

[181] My dad ended up in care because he was the six of six children and his mum walked out.

[182] So he was in care for the first few years of his life.

[183] He was also born a twin.

[184] His twin died at birth.

[185] my namesake my uncle who I never met Stephen died when he was 19 went into a diabetic coma and passed away two years before my dad took his own life his brother took his own life in the same way in the year in between that of them two taking their own lives he lost his sister to cancer that he was the last possible donor for and he wasn't suitable there was you know there's trauma has been a pretty trauma's been pretty constant throughout almost almost all of my elders.

[186] When you think about all that's happened in your sort of generational cycles and with your elders, and then this is me just thinking, like, had I been through that, I would, I think I'd, I'd be overly conscious about how I, maybe unconsciously, um, can work to make sure that my, you know, you've just had a boy, right?

[187] Can make sure that it like stops with me, right?

[188] Like, you know what I mean?

[189] As much, because, yeah, I mean, I see it in my own family.

[190] I see that I've, there's parts of my parents that I've become that I don't love.

[191] You know, and I don't, and I, do you know what?

[192] And my parents were actually really unaffectionate, relatively unaffectionate and quite vacant.

[193] I still call them by their first names.

[194] And I find it really awkward to call them mum and dad.

[195] Like I've, I've never in 27 years looked at my mum or dad and called the mum or dad ever, not once ever, never.

[196] Crazy.

[197] And even like, I, I'm not close to them at all.

[198] And I'm terrified by the prospect.

[199] that when I have my kid same thing will happen so that's what I want to ask is like I would be like what are you what's your thinking and your like concerns when you think about your child and making sure those generational cycles end with you my concerns I mean my concern that around that to be like 100 % honest that there aren't any had I've had a child years before now I think there would have been many but I've done a hell of a lot of work on trying to understand myself trying to it's weird right you spend so much time learning and then you get to a point where you're like now i've got to unlearn all of this shit because if you're if you're fortunate enough to be smart enough to be able to take a long hard look at yourself and yourself aware um which is painful at times but then you can put your hands up and you can own your behaviors um and you you know you can take responsibility for your choices and your decisions and, you know, you go through relationships and I found at points I was finding the same person in a different body.

[200] Oh, yeah.

[201] And then, you know, the same problems occur in the relationship.

[202] But what's, you know, what's the common thread throughout that narrative?

[203] I am the common denominator.

[204] So I can't keep projecting my problems onto other people and blaming them for just being themselves.

[205] I've got to do some work on myself here.

[206] Things need to change and that, well, one thing needs to change.

[207] me how do I do that I have to understand myself better I have to understand my behaviors I have to understand my insecurities it is because it's the most this you know it's that kind of I've never had this anxiety dream I've only ever had the one where I can't stop pulling teeth out of my mouth like and even in a dream going okay I know I don't have that many teeth but they're still coming out but it's that whole like kind of all of a sudden you're naked in front of your entire school if you're going to go and see a therapist it look you have to go in and be honest you can't can't lie to a therapist, otherwise it won't work.

[208] And so you have to explore your deeper most darkest and frightening insecurities in order to understand why certain, why you have certain behaviours, why you respond so defensively in situations, what makes you insecure.

[209] How did you go on?

[210] So that process of unlearning all the shit you had to unlearn and like turning the lights on, I guess.

[211] Yeah.

[212] That started with therapy.

[213] I think it started before therapy I don't think I wasn't ready for therapy until I started to do some of that work myself I think like you similarly I have grown up with a mindset that I can do everything on my own which is it is it is I mean it's definitely helped me achieve a hell of a lot but it also has put distance between me and people that it shouldn't have and it's also made it hard for me to develop at lasting relationships at points in my life um some which you know i i look back on and think i could have i could have done better i could have been better um what are the key things you had to unlearn through that process though about yourself mine was mainly defensiveness really defensiveness and i kind of want to i guess the attendance thing is that that played out throughout my life i found it very very difficult to finish things um you know so i would always have ideas I would always begin things.

[214] I would get to a point where that sort of, you know, I didn't have my, my nan, as she wasn't as present a figure as for me to be able to just go, now I've got a tummy ache, but I would still get that feeling, which would make me want to withdraw and would make things harder.

[215] Despite that, I've managed to kind of use that same energy.

[216] And this is why I think, you know, stress comes down to perspective, because work can be stressed or work can just be work, right?

[217] It depends on your perception of it.

[218] And so my anxiety can be anxiety or it can be nervous energy and energy is what you need to get shit done and i've done a lot of work around mental health not least of all because of my encounters with my own problems but also what first made me aware of even the phrase mental health was that my father took his own life and that work kind of i think around the conversation of mental health and encouraging people to be more open and honest with their sense And you shouldn't be open to everyone.

[219] Be smart enough to be open to the people that you can trust because if you're open to everyone that you're opening yourself up to be taken advantage of.

[220] But the word, the one thing that goes missing in that conversation all too often is resilience.

[221] Resilience is incredibly important.

[222] And I think the only time that you can learn or become resilient without going through trauma and surviving it is therapy when you're not at a point of crisis.

[223] So that's why I was saying I had to do some of the work on my own for me to be able to go to therapy and then be able to grow through that because if you just go to therapy when you're at a point of crisis it's like waiting until you get sick to go to a doctor.

[224] I try now to take a more proactive approach to my own health and that's not just my physical well -being that's my mental wellbeing ultimately they should be one in the same it's just health but I think we have a very reactive nature to most things in in western culture we're not encouraged to be proactive and we also probably have a foolish sense of optimism about how life will unfold right we think it'll all be okay our health will be fine we think we'll never really get old because it kind of creeps up on you so it's crept up on me i'm 308 and me i looked in the middle of the day i saw gray heads i was like what the fuck is going on here i love it though because you don't what makes me love right people always moan about getting older yeah and i'm just i'm very like i can be quite simple a matter of fact about things and it's just like well okay the alternative is you die right that's the only way you stop getting older is you die so so what's you know unless you're biohacking and trying to lengthen you're telling me is um but you know it's i just think growing old is is great growing older is great if you can do it with with i don't know with I've always had good intentions, but I've made a lot of bad decisions.

[225] I think growing older once you get to a point where you feel happy and comfortable in your skin is, it makes it easier.

[226] I'm not stressed about getting older because I'm really happy with who I'm becoming.

[227] That's exactly it.

[228] That's exactly it.

[229] This sounds like a fucking weird thing to say I also don't care.

[230] But when I looked in the mirror of the day and I saw grey hairs, it's funny because the most comforting thought that I had was like, but I'm happy.

[231] And like, you know what I'm?

[232] strange thing.

[233] It's like I'm getting older, yeah, but I'm happy and I'm doing my self justice.

[234] What I mean by doing myself justice is like I'm living my life.

[235] Yeah.

[236] I'm like being myself.

[237] Yeah.

[238] And so I'm happy to get, you know, the worst possible scenario would be, I look in the mirror, I see gray hairs.

[239] And I've been working at fucking KPMG because my mom said that was success.

[240] And I'm like, I'm on my way to a midlife crisis.

[241] I'm not being myself.

[242] I've not pursued my dreams.

[243] It sort of feel like the clock is ticking.

[244] But when I look in the mirror, because I feel like I'm living my true self, I'm like, cool.

[245] Every time I get, you know, they had another number to my age.

[246] I'm like, cool.

[247] Ultimately, I'm like cool, because I'm living my, you know, and that's why this sounds like it's a very interesting thing to say, but it's also one of the things that's made me not fear death like I used to.

[248] Yeah, to be scared of death.

[249] Yeah, because I guess it's getting to the point of your life where you feel as though.

[250] And I did wonder if this played a part in what my dad did, getting to a point in life where you think you can't start over.

[251] I'm too old to make the decisions that I wish I made.

[252] And it makes me, it's given me more, I guess more, comfort's a wrong word.

[253] But like, I've always been quite happy to fall on a sword as long as it's my own.

[254] Yeah, yeah.

[255] And I'm always more scared about having, look, I work 10 years speculatively, you know, as far as music.

[256] You know, from 18 to 28, it was 28 when I first sold a record.

[257] I had people around me going, come on, bro, man. You've got to find something else to do.

[258] And I just, I don't know if there was like bit of self -belief buried beneath all of the insecurities that kept me going or if it was just blind stupidity or a combination of the two but i kept going because i wanted it so badly and i loved it you loved it i loved it i really really loved it there was nothing in my life at that point that made me shake my hands like writing a good lyric you know that type of excitement when you nail something you know you're walking around the room trying to get that last line of something and then you get it and you're like that feeling is not something that i get from you know many aspects of my life um and so i i continued and i think it's something that's it's quite it's not the easiest thing to do is it when you've got especially if you're from a disadvantaged background because you don't have a fallback or a plan b or a grandparent that will die and leave you inherit and so as you're set you don't have that security but at the same time you know i know i know a lot of people with that security who don't push for anything and every time i talk to them they've got a different idea and a different business venture but they execute and achieve nothing because they don't have to.

[259] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[260] So I think there's there's two sides to that coin.

[261] You know, if you grow up entirely comfortable, do you ever want to push that hard to get to where you want to get to?

[262] It's interesting, isn't it?

[263] Because that hunger of not having it is also an advantage, as is the, you know, the privilege of having it.

[264] You mentioned your dad there.

[265] And I watched the documentary you made where you, I watched, I think, there was two separate documentaries that I saw about the topic and you went on the journey of understanding him, the life he lived and why he made the choices he ultimately did.

[266] Can you tell me what you learned through that process?

[267] Yeah, quite concisely as well at the point I'm at now and it's that I think the difference between someone who will take their own life and someone who won't is the ability to tolerate how you feel at any given time.

[268] And I've had moments where I wanted to scratch my skin off, but I've never contemplated.

[269] suicide, you know, I've never suffered suicidal ideation.

[270] There's, there's, there's a big difference between lows.

[271] And also I think, you know, there's something that's quite scary is the hyper awareness that people have now around everything.

[272] Everything has a tag.

[273] Everything has a name.

[274] Everything is a condition.

[275] And I think we're getting to a point now where you need awareness before understanding and then, you know, awareness, understanding action.

[276] To me, that's the, the train of things, whether it's, you know, let's keep the depression.

[277] Like I think now there's a conversation around it, but how much is being actioned, not enough yet.

[278] But I do think it comes down to being able to tolerate how you feel.

[279] Because in my very lowest lows, I've come out by carrying on.

[280] And my dad got to a point where he couldn't, and there wasn't the support around him to help him in those moments.

[281] And sometimes I think even if the support is there, that choice is that person's.

[282] It just seems so unthinkable to just...

[283] But be lucky for that.

[284] Yeah.

[285] You know, you're right.

[286] I've just spent the longest amount of...

[287] So when I first started hearing about mental health, which is probably about 10 years ago, when I was about, I don't know, 18, maybe the term started to imagine on...

[288] Yeah, it wasn't just, he's mental, she's mental.

[289] Yeah, it was you're crazy or whatever.

[290] Yeah.

[291] And then it, thankfully, it's the stigma is...

[292] slightly, it's changed over time.

[293] And I just have always struggled to, um, to understand.

[294] And this is why it's almost become, strange to say, but a bit of an obsession of mine, to understand the position someone must be in to believe that, to feel that, that is a better outcome for them.

[295] It's just, and I, and this is why it was so powerful watching a documentary because, you know, even when you were doing a role play with the, the guy in the chair and you were being the friend and the guy was sat in the chair, he went to the clinic where they helped people who are having suicidal ideation.

[296] And just even in the role play session, I was like, oh, God, this is unthinkable.

[297] It's just something that I think someone who has had the privilege of good mental health will always struggle to understand.

[298] And that's a problem, because if you can't empathize with it, properly we can't I don't think address it properly you can I think you can empathize without understanding yeah that's true yeah you know and I think we all too often we we we want to fix things soon as someone says they're sad you're like come on cheer up that's not helpful that's what I mean I'm like I'm like okay be upset what's you know let's go through this you have to kind of go through the upset rather than trying to suppress it yeah because you push things down they come at you sideways yeah it's I think you know when my dad took his own life one of the first things I wanted to do was understand how he was capable of doing that and I quite quickly realized the only way I will ever understand how he was able to do it is if I'm in that situation yeah which I'm never going to be yeah so I let that go quite quickly and I don't think it's a good idea to try and I mean unless you're studying psychology and understanding the work ins of the mind which would allow you to empathize I don't think it's good to try and understand you know if something seems irrational or forgive me for using this word crazy to you you will drive yourself mad trying to understand it because they are not the workings of your mind and that's not healthy either yeah but you know just going back to the hyper awareness thing i think people will find themselves in situations where they will call themselves depressed when actually they've had something traumatic happen or something sad happen you know something sad happens and your cat dies and you don't want to get out of bed for two days it's not depression you're upset you're dealing with grief and lost that's normal you know if nothing has happened in your life that's traumatic and everything seems great but you feel horrendous you know or you can't feel anything then that's something to be addressed um i think we need to be careful of of everyone diagnosed or not everyone but people starting to diagnose with conditions that they perhaps don't have i think that's a danger and everything having to have a tag now and everything needing the name and you know everyone needing to be being put in a box yeah and yeah and And then the way that we treat people in those scenarios when we've misdiagnosed them or too quickly diagnosed them is also unhelpful, right?

[299] I've spent the last six months working pretty much full time at a mental health company in London called a Thai.

[300] And they're a psychedelics company.

[301] They're probably the biggest in Europe.

[302] Then one of the things that I came to learn from working there, they're the biggest in the world, sorry, not in Europe.

[303] One thing I came from working there, but also from reading one of my favorite books, which is up there called Lost Connections by Johanahari, was I used to think growing up that, because this is, what I was told, depression was a chemical imbalance in the brain because something was broken.

[304] And no one ever told me that trauma or what happened to you can cause depression.

[305] So I just, you know, you'd think, okay, well, and that makes you also almost blame the victim more so than saying, like, if it's like what's wrong with you, then it's like, it's kind of, you know, you're broken.

[306] But if it's what's happened to you, it's a much more empathetic approach.

[307] And also appreciates, you know, and that was the big shift that I've experienced.

[308] in the last like three years whereas I used to think everything was just chemical imbalance broken yeah you know and then what comes with that is often how do you fix a chemical imbalance with chemicals yeah yeah exactly and the best prescription in the beginning listen there are some people that will always need medical intervention to help it does help yes it does but I also think that you know sayings you are what you eat you can eat yourself into depression you know and all of those things they kind of become part of a self -perpetuating cycle if I feel like shit I don't move as much.

[309] And then I'll make bad decisions with food and then I feel worse.

[310] Yeah, God, that's so true.

[311] But it does become, and especially during this time when people aren't as active as they were, they're not engaging socially as they would have otherwise, you know, the sales of alcohol went through the roof.

[312] Alcohols are depressant.

[313] The more you drink, the lower you are.

[314] You know, all of these contributing factors that can contribute to negative mental health, you know, or can negatively impact your mental well -being.

[315] And a great prescription sometimes is, you know, eating better, going for a walk.

[316] You know, exercise doesn't have to be a 45 -minute hit class that leaves you wanting to not get out of bed for two days because that's you putting your body through another stress on top of all the stress you're already going through.

[317] But just, you know, movement, eating well, good conversation.

[318] Something I've found quite difficult but has become more apparent is my need to move away from certain people because they aren't moving in the same direction as me and they encourage certain things that hinder my growth and stop me moving forward.

[319] My life has changed and I found that very hard and you know when you talk about grief you instantly think someone's died but you can grieve parts of your life you know parts of saying goodbye to certain things certain people in my life has felt like the same loss as you know when I've actually lost someone who's passed away but you have to do those things in order to grow and to get where you want to be.

[320] And it sounds selfish, that selfish has so many negative connotations attached to it.

[321] But I think, you know, selfishness not at the detriment of others and selflessness, not at the detriment of yourself is good.

[322] Because how else do you, like, you're no good to anyone if you're no good to yourself.

[323] And that was a huge, huge learning curve for me. And one that I found really, really difficult to execute, to start making decisions based upon what was.

[324] right for me because I felt obliged to be here for that person and then doing the same things as those people and it wasn't help you know what I mean and it weren't helping me took me back to this time I met this monk world famous monk I said is it bad that I'm focusing on building my business and making money right now is that like a selfish thing for me to be doing when I could be off in Africa helping kids and his response to me was on stage he goes he says you have to fill up your own bottle so you can pour it out for other people and I always remember him saying that because it you know what the crazy thing is when I was 18 I wanted to I was sat in my moss side in this room and I was sat there thinking Steve you're making a wrong life decision because you know you've got a brain and you know you can like affect change and the fact that you're trying to build this business and not in Africa saving even just one life means that you're being terribly selfish and my the way that I rationalized myself out of that state of mind which was like stopping what I'm doing and flying to Africa was this belief that if I was to be successful, I would be able to help more people one day.

[325] And it's kind of relinks to what you've said there about like selfishness in many cases is actually selflessness.

[326] Yeah.

[327] Yeah, especially if you find yourself in a position later on where you can, you know, you can affect change for the better on a much grander.

[328] Yeah.

[329] You know, you have a much bigger stage now.

[330] I like guys.

[331] So I love a lot of the stuff that you say.

[332] Most of the stuff that you say, most of the stuff that you say and I generally don't like motivational speakers but I find when you speak it's motivational which is quite different yeah yeah yeah and it's weird because I don't I really don't endeavour to be motivation it's like most of the time I am in the gym and I write something on the notes of my phone and it ends up on the internet so it's like I'm not trying to be and also I'm not like but that's why it works but that's why it works and it's like whenever I did my documentaries I didn't try and tell anyone else's story I was just catalyst for them to speak.

[333] And it was your truth.

[334] Yeah, and it's my opinions which were formed during the process of the filming.

[335] I didn't go into it with, and if I went to it in, sorry, if I went into them with any idea, it was often changed and my opinion was shaped throughout the course with filming that documentary.

[336] I think all too often people think that by instructing people are telling them how they should live their lives, they're going to impact change.

[337] And I don't think that's the best way to engage people.

[338] I think people switch off.

[339] And I think the way in which you communicate, it's brilliant because you put stuff out there and people can take to it if they connect with it.

[340] And I think because of that, they do because it's natural and it's organic and it's not forced.

[341] And I think that's really, really important.

[342] And I think, you know, you talk about, I don't think you have to go to Africa in order to impact change because people will be inspired by watching what you do and are able to achieve.

[343] And that in itself, you almost don't have to, you know, you can just do and you would inspire.

[344] Yeah, this is a crazy thing.

[345] And, you know, the thing we have in our society today with young people especially is they all want to change the world.

[346] And they think, and genuinely, I get this all the time.

[347] I'll be on stage somewhere and a kid will come up to me that looks like me, a young black kid and he'll be like, I want to be a motivational speaker.

[348] How do I do?

[349] And I know what the right answer is because I know, I look at this kid or, you know, whether it's someone of my Instagram DMs that wants to change the world because they think, I think the way I've rationalized it is they want to change, they don't want to change the world, right?

[350] They want to be seen as someone that changed the world because of the admiration that they believe they'll get from that, because of the admiration that they saw me getting.

[351] So, in fact, they're not connected to the right thing.

[352] No, they're seeking validation.

[353] Exactly.

[354] If they wanted to change the world, if that was their objective, they would actually just be in a lab somewhere working on cancer, for example.

[355] Yeah.

[356] They wouldn't be trying to get on the stage, right?

[357] But like, you ending up on stage is a product of the work you've done.

[358] You never worked to get onto that stage.

[359] Never wanted, never thought about it.

[360] It was a byproduct of working on myself and that's exactly, yeah, so thank you actually, because I had lost my train of thought there and you just picked it back up.

[361] That was what I'm saying.

[362] I was like, I got on stage because I was focused on something else, right?

[363] And the way that people go on to change the world, I think is because they work on themselves, they fix themselves.

[364] So that kid, my advice to him probably would be like, go and like pursue your passions.

[365] And in fact, all of my idols are on stage because they didn't, copy anybody else.

[366] They thought they could make, you know, pocket computers and that black was equal to white in terms of racial relations, Martin Luther King.

[367] And they pursued their own thoughts and their own feelings.

[368] They didn't replicate people.

[369] But then that's the, we live in an age where people live almost comparatively.

[370] Of course, yeah.

[371] It's, you know, I mean, you know, it's such a shame.

[372] We have this incredible thing called the internet where we can communicate with people in any corner of the world, give or take.

[373] And we use it to.

[374] post -face -tune pictures.

[375] We don't.

[376] But, you know, it's a, there's, there's a brilliant tool there.

[377] And when harnessed and used correctly, it can bring about good things.

[378] And it's like anything, you know, like I was eating McDonald's in bed last night.

[379] I didn't see it on your Instagram.

[380] Really?

[381] It is on my Instagram.

[382] I was complaining about the absence of fries and my large fries.

[383] You're joking.

[384] It's on my Instagram story.

[385] Last night.

[386] Yep, last night.

[387] I was like, let's avoid the fact that I'm eating McDonald's in bed and talk about where the rest of my fries are.

[388] I was devastated.

[389] Why order a large fries if you're going to get delivered a small prize?

[390] I know, it's on Instagram.

[391] And then the next one's about gut health.

[392] Yeah, balance, bro.

[393] That's hilarious.

[394] That's great.

[395] Balance is really, I think balance is key.

[396] And I think all too often, like, especially with and kind of moving into this sector now, anything that involves nutrition or supplementing or I fucking hate, hashtag wellness world, man. Like the tone of it, it's just like that, that kind of, the soft.

[397] of that and that the approach to life that just having a green juice is going to correct everything it's going to save the world it's going to save you like oh car do you know it's it's the wrong approach to everything and it i think everything is to um it becomes quite divisive you know i i i believe in wellness therefore i'm not going to indulge in any of the things which i used to find fun because now i'm going to take care of myself me taking care of myself involves me having a blowout once in a while with my friends and suffering the hangover that comes with it to remind myself why I don't do it all the time and the waste of time afterwards because I can't function as highly as I would normally but I just think there's there has to be a balance truck it's all too often people right if you want to you know you can't don't just cut back on meat you have to be vegan you know there's so much instruction out there whereas it's all contradictory as well so much so much it is man and it's like you know you've got vegans who will you know i mean is is cocaine vegan how many vegans do how many vegans that go out on a friday or when we could go out on a friday night and we'll do cocaine and you know there's not a gram of cocaine if it actually has cocaine in it that doesn't have a dead body attached to it yeah yeah yeah yeah where are your you know what is your moral where is your moral compass now virtue signaling to at its finest um you talked about your documentary then and i one of the things that when i watched your documentary you really stuck out to me was you recounted the last conversation you had with your dad and it um it stuck out to me because I reflect on my own relationships with my parents and I was it made me think about the last conversation I had with my parents my parents are getting old especially my dad um can you talk a little bit about that and your feelings towards that conversation now yeah so my I'd opened I said I would never ever make myself vulnerable as far as my my dad again um and by that I mean, I would never give him the opportunity to let me down.

[398] And then I did.

[399] And it was just before Christmas, so we spoke, and we agreed to meet up the day after Boxing Day.

[400] I was sat at the food quarter, the shopping center in Walthamstow, my then partner at the time, Tio, I can remember it so vividly.

[401] And I called him to make arrangements for the next day.

[402] I wasn't driving, he had moved to Brentwood he was driving and I said so are you going to come and see me tomorrow and he was like oh mentioned the name of his wife now we don't and said oh you know her and the kids would really love to see her there are stepchildren there with no relation to me and I was like this ain't about and this is the first time that I ever I was always too scared to speak up to him about how I felt because I at times blamed myself or worried that I was the reason that he would disappear for a year and a half, two years at a time and not see me. So I would never speak up and tell him how much it hurt every time he did that.

[403] And this time I went, this is not about me coming to play happy families.

[404] This is about, and I was 18.

[405] This is about you and I sitting down and having a conversation as adults and trying to see if there's a way in which we can move forward and forge some sort of relationship with trust and he was like what actually you know what if you if I ever see you again I want to knock you out and I wouldn't I'd have bought my eyes out and giving him a hug but I was right to feel that anger because he had hurt me so so so much so many times throughout my entire life and that's what I meant about being cumulative you know it was that constant it was him being in and out my life him being the parent that I favoured him being such a kind, generous, gorgeous, man, but being such a shit father, you know, that was cumulative.

[406] It wasn't any one moment.

[407] It was all of the moments that he wasn't there, that he missed, that he let me down, all the days spent looking out of my front room window, which looked right at the bus stop, that he should have got off of a bus at to come and see me when he never showed up.

[408] You know, it was all of that that added up to that moment.

[409] And people are like, wow, do you wish you could go back in time and change what your last words to?

[410] were?

[411] No, of course not.

[412] Because that anger was just.

[413] I know.

[414] How could I not be that angry?

[415] Why should I feel guilt over his actions or lack of actions?

[416] I know.

[417] I can own that and I'm fine with it.

[418] And I don't feel like I should feel any which way about saying that to him because I was, me being that angry was justified.

[419] I mean like if I don't even think a lot of people would have even been trying to rectify the situation at that point, right?

[420] I a lot of my friends who won't even entertain a conversation with their biological fathers or mothers because they were absent.

[421] I have the conversation though.

[422] Get to a point where you can let go of and don't, but the problem is right, they have a narrative that they have to justify themselves.

[423] And this is something that I've learned.

[424] So they have a narrative and I still have this with members of my family now.

[425] If we get into that conversation about the past, they have a narrative which justifies, their every choice which makes it okay that they have to have to live with because i haven't dealt with their shit yet they're not going to deal with their shit you know if they were going to deal with their shit they would have done it the chances of me getting those people into you know through the door to see a therapist nil not happening um me taking that step and sorting my shit out doesn't mean that i can sort their shit out it doesn't mean that if i make the room and give them the forgiveness that they're going to be able to accept that forgiveness and be honest with me because they still have to hold on to that narrative to justify their decisions because they haven't made amends with their decisions and i can't expect them to yeah and you can't need that i can't and i can't but i can't need that because if i need that i'm always going to be underwhelmed offended upset let down and bitter and i don't want to be any of those things not least of all now i have a child that i want you know the great thing is my child is born into a world where it's me and my partner, and she's amazing, is incredible and has done, you know, a lot of the same work that I have in order to get to the place where she's at in her life, and we have this peace because we're able to have open conversations, we're able to discuss things rationally, we're able to be wrong.

[426] There's room, we make room for each other to be wrong, you know, we make room for each other to be upset no matter how irrational we give each other room and space and time and we're consider it and we're kind and we don't you know we we try our best not to to revert to a child and be defensive and offensive because of that um and you know it it's why we've had a child because we feel safe with each other on that point of like moving on so people in our lives we all have to to move on from things whether it's a relationship whether it's trauma, whether it's things that happened, you know, with our parents, whatever.

[427] People tend to think that, you know, they use this phrase a lot.

[428] One of my friends were saying it the other day, I just need closure.

[429] And I just, I remember thinking, oh, you're fucked then.

[430] You're fucked, you are fucked.

[431] Because what is closure?

[432] Closure is insecurity about what happened.

[433] And a lot of the time, especially in romantic situations, yeah.

[434] Basically, someone has walked out the door with your self -esteem.

[435] And what you're saying is, I can't move on until they come back and give it to me. Yeah.

[436] until they justify why they cheated or they explained to me, you know, because it's all, and it's a, I was just, I think I wrote on my Instagram, I was like closure, closure, closure is a choice ultimately.

[437] It is.

[438] If you need closure, close the door.

[439] Yeah, exactly.

[440] Find closure in closing the door.

[441] Yeah, it is because if you're constantly, you're still giving over too much of yourself to someone else.

[442] Yeah, they're, they got keys, right?

[443] Yeah.

[444] Like, why are you doing that?

[445] Why are you handing over that power to someone who doesn't even want it anymore?

[446] They've left.

[447] Yeah.

[448] You know, why are you?

[449] But then it's also, you can.

[450] people also find themselves in this situation where they try and take responsibility for other people's actions.

[451] It's good to take responsibility for your actions.

[452] If you've provoked something, then you know, you can look at maybe being responsible for how someone's reacted because you've prompted that.

[453] You've provoked that.

[454] But trying to take responsibility for someone else's actions, you'll drive yourself crazy because you can't take responsibility for everything that everyone does.

[455] We all make our own choices.

[456] And that, again, is not a good place to find yourself.

[457] And always wanting to understand is like why why do we have to understand everything people make choices we're complex there are so many variables in our lives the only thing you can do is introduce less variables and that's been quite easy during the last year because you know i don't have to walk into crowded rooms for the people that i don't know so when i have socialized when it's been allowed it's been amongst people that i want to see therefore less variables the situation is more predictable you know i'm kind of more aware of the outcome yeah And if you apply that to life, you know, if you, we all too often, though, we make excuses, not just for ourselves and I hate excuses.

[458] It's why I don't like being late to anything, even if there is a valid reason, you know, it makes me anxious.

[459] I hate excuses, but we all too often make excuses for other people.

[460] Oh, that's just Darren, you know?

[461] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[462] That's just how Darren is.

[463] But there's going to come a point where Darren just being Darren is going to have you respond disproportionately, because you.

[464] you've not made clear with Darren that he's overstepping the line.

[465] So he's got no idea.

[466] And then he oversteps the line the eighth time and you respond, but you respond for all eight times at once.

[467] And Darren's, you know, whoa.

[468] Whoa, you could have told me the first time, you know, and we could have had a rational conversation, but actually you've allowed it to escalate to a point where you've, you know, held on to this thing that Darren's done every time he's done it and then exploded because you're not comfortable having awkward conversations because you find them awkward.

[469] when actually if someone can't handle a direct and honest conversation and a rational conversation, is that someone that encourages you to be your best self?

[470] Like, I don't want to surround myself with yeasayers or people who deflect or who hide from things.

[471] I in my life now cannot, I don't have the time for the bullshit.

[472] I really don't.

[473] I like direct conversations.

[474] I like friendships where we are able to be honest, where if my friend, you know, I don't have a huge group of friends, now I know a fuck ton of people but the people that I do like if I if I if someone online calls me a twat from I don't know Greg from Skegness I don't you fuck he doesn't know me his opinion of me is made up of whatever he's read or seen and the dots that he's joined he's built the rest of bullshit he's yeah and his own bullshit that he's projecting right but if my best friend Felix says Stephen you need to check yourself I'm gonna check myself you know and it's important to have those people around you, you need to be able to, if you don't have honest relationships with people and open dialogue, they're not real relationships.

[475] It's hard though when you've had some success, right?

[476] Did you even find that in your own friendship circle?

[477] I think I found that a little bit where because I, I had success and some of my closest friends actually ended up, they worked to my company and that's how they became some of my best friends.

[478] Yeah.

[479] So I didn't know them before the company, but like what you work with someone side by side for 10 years and they inevitably, yeah, yeah.

[480] But I was always the boss.

[481] So I've always, I've always, I I've always worried that because I had that, like, I was like the pack leader in my little group of friends, that they might not check me all the time when I needed to be checked.

[482] Right.

[483] So it's just something.

[484] Because they feel like you know best.

[485] They know what I know best.

[486] And because I've always been like the boss.

[487] I've always been like, I've always been the one in charge.

[488] I've always been the one leading them as well.

[489] So it's like.

[490] So for me stepping into business now, it's really important for me to have co -workers that will challenge me. I don't want someone that just goes, okay, that's not working.

[491] We'll stop that.

[492] I want someone to go, yes, that that is underperforming at the moment, but given a chance in two months, you're going to see results from that because you're going to build and grow your audience.

[493] I need educating on that because that's not my, that's not my forte, you know, that's not my skill set.

[494] And so you need co -workers and friends that will challenge you, you know, and I believe in challenge, healthy challenge, because an opinion is not an opinion, it's an idea until it's challenged, you know, so if I say, you know, I believe we should go this way and you say, do you really and then I explain why I've stood on the table for it so now it's my opinion and I know it's my opinion but up until that point it was just an idea it was a belief but not necessarily a correct one and when you started to see success in your life were there people in your circle that were friends people you consider to be friends that were clearly not happy for you one of the best bits of advice I was ever given was by a rapper but he was a friend of my own skinny man who said to me, a real friend of yours will never be of hindrance to you.

[495] And there were definitely people who weren't as comfortable with me not being in the same situation that they were in doing the same things.

[496] A lot of people deal with this.

[497] I got a call yesterday from one of my best friends and he said, one of my friends is just complete, just unfolded me on all the social platforms.

[498] And I said, why is that?

[499] And he goes, well, I think it's because, like, I've started to do really well.

[500] And he, it's a reflection, he thinks it's a reflection on him.

[501] He thinks it means he's a piece of shit because I'm succeeding.

[502] Or an attack on.

[503] Yeah.

[504] This is just, and I, this is a conversation that people don't have enough but at any point in your life when you when you divert from the like the path especially the path that you share with your closest friends quite often there will be some kind of force from them to try and pull you back to them and say who the fuck do you think you are stephen yeah get back in line and have you did you experience that at any point where especially when your music career started to really take off and it's difficult because you can't take everyone everywhere and there's almost an expectation to.

[505] And I'm a firm believer in opportunity, like giving people opportunities.

[506] And then beyond that, it's up to them what they do with that.

[507] Like I'm someone who's not, I've had situations with people where I've seen them have opportunities, but they've been too insecure to take them because they felt like they're putting themselves beneath someone else.

[508] I don't have that problem.

[509] I want to learn from you.

[510] If you're further along in your career and I'm trying to not mimic what you're doing, but I want to be successful in the set.

[511] So you're a musician that's ahead of me and you're willing to take me on tour with you.

[512] I'm not going to say no to that because I'm insecure and I don't want to appear to, I don't want to be the support act.

[513] I'm going to say yes because I want to come along on that ride and I'm grateful for the opportunity that you're giving me. Some people don't have that mindset.

[514] Some people don't want to learn from other people.

[515] They think they know it all.

[516] Or they're ultimately scared and insecure.

[517] They feel like they look smaller by putting themselves as a support or by having someone feature on a song or by accepting help whereas for me it's always been a you know like when Mike Skinner signed me and I had the opportunity to go on tour with him and battle at every stop of his 12 rounds tour when he was at the height of his success you know I didn't feel any which way about doing that I was you know I was really really grateful for the opportunity to go along and learn in the same way that when Lily said to me oh let me do the chorus on just be good to green and we can perform it live at best of all in front of 60 ,000 people.

[518] Bro, I was still selling cocaine.

[519] I'd graduated from weed to Coke at that point because I had all of a sudden after I signed to Mike Skinner's record label developed this circle of model bookers and musicians and who all took it and weed is large and smells a lot.

[520] Coke is quite easy to move around and I would never have got caught unless in transit.

[521] it became quite an obvious decision for me to make because those things were normalised where I grew up anyway.

[522] I never saw crack or smack because I don't believe in dealing with people in the most desperate situations they've ever been in day and day out.

[523] When you think of Shortwich, what do you think?

[524] People pissing up people's doorsteps.

[525] Interesting.

[526] That's my home.

[527] I was wondering if just the term Shortch alone would make you think about the sky you have.

[528] Oh.

[529] Yeah.

[530] No, he used to pissing up thor stamps.

[531] Yeah, no, it don't, yeah.

[532] It's weird, man. There's, there's, like, I got hit by a car in 2013.

[533] I'm going to.

[534] Yeah, it was, well, I got squashed between two cars.

[535] I managed to get myself up on the bonnet, so it was only my left leg that got caught.

[536] The bloke didn't realize his car was in Eco, because it was a new car.

[537] So, it had his foot on the brake, which put the car in Eco.

[538] He took his foot off the brake because I was walking between two cars, and he felt the engine start, so he panicked and slammed his foot down, but instead of hitting the brake, he hit the accelerator.

[539] And that was a far more traumatic event for me than being stabbed because that was really unpredictable.

[540] Nothing came before that I contributed to.

[541] When I got stabbed, look, when I think I was eight, when Chesty, someone from my flats who he don't live in the country anymore, he got bottled and stabbed.

[542] And one of my pals, Jamal, who's younger to me, ran and I might have been nine because I think Jams was like seven and he didn't.

[543] he ran and called the ambulance for Chesty.

[544] Like, this stuff happened, you know.

[545] I didn't expect to get stamped by someone I didn't know that I had no history with.

[546] It didn't really feel like retribution for what had just happened.

[547] There was a little bit of bickering.

[548] He said, I barged his mate.

[549] It was proper stupid, young, bravado, macho, shit.

[550] Yeah, in cargo.

[551] And I just stood my ground, really, was all I did.

[552] That was all I did wrong in that situation.

[553] If you even think that's me doing wrong.

[554] In hindsight, I could have just gone, I didn't barge his mate.

[555] I said, excuse me, and I moved past with an open hand in a crowded club.

[556] I was as polite and as passive as I could have been and always have been.

[557] When they're drunk.

[558] But he was just on one, you get me. So, but then I did.

[559] I stood my ground.

[560] And in hindsight, like now at the age I am, and especially with, you know, having a child and just thinking about how I want him to grow up and what I want him to understand being a man to be, you know, I could have just gone, you know what?

[561] Sorry, brother.

[562] I've been done with it.

[563] But I felt like he was threatening me and I felt like I was right to stand my ground.

[564] I didn't expect that five minutes after that he'd walk up behind me and put a broken bottle in my neck.

[565] But at least my mum and my nan started talking again.

[566] I heard you called you, you called you, Nan.

[567] Yeah.

[568] In that moment.

[569] Yeah, so we were still fighting outside so he stabbed me. I managed to push him out of way, get out of the club.

[570] Holding my neck together, obviously you've got all kinds of adrenaline running through your body.

[571] at that point so you're not really aware of the I mean I know I've been poked in the neck and it's not really if you're going to get poked you don't want it to be in your neck doesn't you know your chance of survival is not high and then we got the fight got broken up I think there was police outside the club I think it was broken up by a plea the whole thing is a bit blurry to me and then I'm sat on there because I like getting arrested as well but I'm sat on the curb my phone's come out my pocket and I can see on everyone's faces you know this is not this ain't gotten well for me so I asked to pass my phone got my phone I called my nan and I just apologise for all the work she had put in to me that this was how it was going to end she just said you're going to be fine shut up she did actually tell me to shut up and she's cockney and she just said you're going to be fine you're going to be fine and she came to the hospital as did my mum and they both started talking over my table that I was on and it's kind of weird because when I went to hospital I was treated like I was some kind of notorious gang member that the hospital staff were not sympathetic to my situation whatsoever bearing in mind I've been stabbed I'd never say I'm a victim because I don't believe in approaching life as one but in that situation I wasn't the what's the word perpetrator or I wasn't the aggressor so it was a bit weird the whole thing you know to just be it be present that I was just part of something that came out of nowhere had nothing to do with no gang nothing no dealing nothing no no historic problems from anywhere it was just something that happened randomly but no that's not even what I associate shortage with um as well as pissing up doorsteps I think of new balance trainers and meards yeah yeah when I when I listen to that story about what happened with that guy in the club it brought me back to a time which I've never talked about before in my own life where I was in New York in a club and there was two tables in this nightclub, and I was on one of them with a couple of my friends, one of the guys that runs matron boxing, and there was this table of guys from Jersey next to us, and the guys on my table were talking to the girls on their table.

[572] And they became this altercation.

[573] So I know the bounces in this club, because I go it all the time.

[574] So I said to the owner in the bounce, I was like, there's going to be a problem here if you don't move this table.

[575] And as I'm speaking to the manager, the guy from the table next to me picks up a three -liter bottle of vodka.

[576] and hits me on the head with it.

[577] I'm surrounded by, I'm so good with these bouncers.

[578] Like I've sent the Man United shirts and these people know me. I'm always in the club.

[579] I'm always on the same table, that kind of thing.

[580] The big balancer must be fucking seven foot massive black guy.

[581] They're my boys.

[582] We talk about United every time I come in there.

[583] Like they'm always, he reaches over the crowd of bounces that I'm chatting to on my table.

[584] And he hits me with this bottle of a, and I go, see, because I was telling them to, I was like, there's going to be, if you don't move these, tables.

[585] I go, see, and as I'm looking, blood, because I'm wearing this cat, blood just comes trickling down my face.

[586] But again, I did nothing to instigate this situation.

[587] And when I was reading about what happened to you and you ended up in hospital and it, you know, it risked your life.

[588] I was thinking, what's the lesson here?

[589] How do you avoid these situations where?

[590] Variables.

[591] You know, and that's the thing.

[592] You walk into a room like that and there are many variables.

[593] There's any, anything can happen.

[594] You know, and for me, I was always, like, I was always someone that scanned the room i always wanted to know i don't like sitting with my back to doors never have um i still have sleep but when i open is why i've always suffered with sleep problems i think because of and that's my own doing to an extent you know because of some of the stuff that i used to do and i was by no means like heavy heavy heavy into things i just sold a bit of this and a bit of that because it enabled me to finance life while i worked towards what i wanted to do if there was another commodity that i was aware of that i could have sold that wasn't illegal i would have done it um and that guy he got eight years right yeah that was a whole mad situation though because they moved the trial date to when i was on tour so this was two years later that it went to court right um i get a phone call on the friday when i'm in newcastle and they tell me when from a police officer and they tell me when the trial date is and i just said you know what i'm so far past that you know i really don't care like i'm not coming to court and they said well we know where you are we know what your next two tour dates are they were brighton and london i think um and we'll issue a summons we'll arrest you if you don't come to court yeah um and i cried bro i was in a conundrum because um see this is where i've never spoken about this This is where, like, my moral compass struggled because don't snitch.

[595] Yeah, they had four other witnesses, they had DNA, they had CCTV.

[596] The last thing they needed in court was me, but what did they get from me being there?

[597] They get press.

[598] And then I get told by my record label, my TV plugger, my radio plugger, that I'll basically be looked at as an advocate for knife crime if I don't show up at court.

[599] But that goes against everything that I stand for.

[600] In hindsight, it's crazy because if I didn't grow up where I grew up, why would I care about that?

[601] I didn't do anything wrong in that situation.

[602] But I didn't want to be there.

[603] Didn't want to be there.

[604] The whole thing, like it still troubles me now, you know, because it's like you can't have one foot in one foot out.

[605] It's like, who are you and what do you stand for?

[606] Bro, I've been arrested before.

[607] I was looking at time when I was just before I signed to my Skinner's record label.

[608] and at that point there were other people involved if I was a snitch I would open my mouth then but I found myself in an impossible situation I'm like I nearly lost my life and now I'm being told that I'm going to lose everything that I've worked for if I don't go to court when I got stabbed but then it's going to and listen I've not lost a friend over it you know there are people I don't know that have made comments never when I've seen them everyone's all cool bro but it's weird you know it's still even to this day it doesn't sit well with me i haven't so for all the work that i have done and all the distance between me and certain things that that i still wrestle with because i was leveraged and it's kind of mad to think that you know in that situation they would have and i mean you only it was crazy they wouldn't even say even to just move the trial date or to you know for the trial to just happen during my first headline tour so I would have missed two gigs as well for which there was no insurance and at that point you won't like to hear this as good as good as business as you are I was actually in two record deals and it was costing me about 10p to earn a pound so it wasn't like I was you know I wasn't in a situation where I could I could weather that storm and these weren't times where you know that sort of publicity was good publicity it there were no rappers on the radio by like me tiny chippin and tinchy it weren't you know it wasn't a given that you could be a successful artist we were really just opening them doors so any negative attention was not just hurting me but but shutting doors for other people as well well there we are you know i had to go to court and it's not you know i never imagined testifying to be something that i would ever do but in that situation you know i kind of used to see that as a black and white thing but i guess there's some shades of growing in between.

[609] If someone stabs me in the air, I'm not caught 10 minutes early.

[610] But that's how I should feel, you know?

[611] Like, it just, but then I also think about all the other shit that I've had with the police and all the stuff that I've, you know, that friends have gone through.

[612] And look, some, if you bring it on yourself and you put yourself in a situation and you've got police who abide by the laws that they enforce all well and good, that's what they believe, you know, but there's a lot of police.

[613] that don't and I've had you know further troubles I got nicked in 2013 and was re -bailed and re -bailed lied to impart disclosure lost over a million pound in endorsements because of one cop is being a you know he had a been his bonnet and I was arrested for something I was never charged for but that never made the papers everything else did so I don't really listen I'm not saying all police are like that police have a purpose but when it's when they take it's when when you know they start to act out personal grudges that you kind of question it and the police police the police right yeah that's the problem that we have um but i don't want to i don't want to don't want to don't want to be better yeah i remember listening to your music when i was in when i was in secondary school a lot and i remember listening to a lot of your records more recently as well and even you know like as when i know you were coming in today i started like going back through my back catalogue of your music.

[614] At the time when you made it, as you said then, in the UK, in the UK hip -hop scene as a white male, that's a fucking staggering accomplishment.

[615] Like, do you know, no, genuinely it is.

[616] I'm like, I know a lot because you might not know this, but you're from the jump -off days.

[617] Yep.

[618] And I'm all the don't -flot boys that all best friends are mine.

[619] I don't know if you know you, you know what?

[620] No, okay.

[621] He'll be offended.

[622] No, but like, you know, I've kind of jumped out.

[623] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[624] We lived in Manchester and, like, they used to come to my house sometimes for five days in a row and, like, stay at my house and they'd rap and stuff.

[625] I used to write music back in those days as well.

[626] But watching how talented a lot of these people are at what they do, and still a lot of them haven't made it like you did.

[627] Yeah.

[628] Makes me beg the question.

[629] It's like, what were the factors that came to play to make sure that you, as a white rapper in the UK scene, got through?

[630] Do you know what?

[631] Just persistence.

[632] persistence, persistence, I just didn't stop.

[633] You know, there were so many full starts as well, signing to Mike Skinner's record label, me and him, me being lazy, not working as hard as I should have during the period when I signed to his label.

[634] And I can put my hands up and say that, but us also biting heads and not agreeing on music up until a point.

[635] And then just as we did, and he sent a really kind email, and he was like, look, I've been spending too long trying to make you into something that you're not, rather than focusing on what you're good at, let's go and it was almost at that point when Warner pulled the financing from his label they were subsidised as in his label they moved everything in house apart from all of their the rest uh sorry I think it was 6 -7 -9 uh was the label they kept and they moved that in -house and then they they pulled the finance in from the rest of their subsidiaries because of Napster and limelire you know the the money they were seeing had had fallen subsequently because of all the piracy um so the album never came out for two reasons because the label lost their financing and because i never worked hard enough um and then after that i went back to what i knew um and what facilitated me being able to continue my my quest to become a successful musician which by the way i thought would absolve me of everything in my past yeah and just make me happy what did you find out uh that was bullshit isn't it what a stupid fucking idea that was um so you thought that becoming a successful musician would make your part would put your past at ease basically yeah just you just you you and this is what's dangerous about pinning um your happiness or your your hopes of happiness on an ever moving goalpost that quite often you move yourself if i sell this many records i'm going to be happy and then you sell that many records and then it's like okay if i get a number one single i'm going to be happy then you get the number one single and then it's like well what's next you talked about this earlier you said about how you've got to enjoy the moment more.

[636] Yeah.

[637] Unless you'll never enjoy like that.

[638] Yeah, yeah.

[639] How do you do that, though, in the moment?

[640] In the moment, I don't like, for me, I'm just, it's just, it's been a really, really long journey towards not, you know, going back to the corners you can't see around.

[641] It's just taking it for what it is.

[642] It's like, I'm here and I'm entirely present.

[643] My head is not worrying about the meeting that I've got to go to afterwards.

[644] I'm aware of it because I've seen my schedule, but I'm not thinking about it.

[645] And I used to, like, I would lay in bed and my mind would be.

[646] spinning, spinning, spinning, about everything that I had coming up.

[647] There's no, like, it's good to plan, like, and I find you worry more if you don't plan, but I try and look at, you know, I don't look at my calendar too far ahead anymore because it doesn't help me, you know, I want to be present.

[648] I want to be able to be here and have a conversation with you to look you in the eye and talk to you without having other shit in my head, you know, an empty head and an open heart, man. That's, that's how you're present.

[649] And they're not the easiest things to achieve when we all have.

[650] much going on in our lives.

[651] And when we're always so, like, ambitious, because when, like, as you say, the moving goalpost, and I really like, because I will achieve something today, but before the day of even achieving it, I've already set the new goal.

[652] Do you know what I mean?

[653] And so you never experienced the achievement.

[654] And I've actually, since leaving my business, one of my mentors said to me is like, he just need to, he's that old and he's done it all, and he's way more successful than I'll probably ever be.

[655] And he was like, the one advice I'll give to you, Steve, is just like, try your very best to enjoy it in the moment.

[656] Because you look back on it with, you know, rose -tinted glasses and you wish you had just savored it more.

[657] Yeah, but you can enjoy it in hindsight, isn't it, is what I was saying earlier.

[658] You look back on it and you go, wow, I did that.

[659] But actually, it's that the accolades are not that important.

[660] The rewards are, they're part of it, if you're lucky enough to achieve, but the process is the part of it that you have to enjoy.

[661] And that's the, I think that's the struggle.

[662] That's why a lot of people don't necessarily find themselves that happy.

[663] because they're not in situations where they're happy to be doing the work that they're doing to get to where they want to be.

[664] And that's perhaps because they're in the wrong place.

[665] Where they want to be and what they're doing to get there, don't, you know, they don't marry up.

[666] And we're fortunate.

[667] We do things we love.

[668] We get to pick and choose.

[669] That's, you know, I was going to say that's lucky, but it's not.

[670] It's hard work and perseverance.

[671] What do you worry about then these days?

[672] I mean, most recently in the last two weeks, it's been like, is that noise that my son's making in his sleep normal.

[673] So for context, Stephen's just had a new kid.

[674] A new baby boy.

[675] Yeah.

[676] My first child.

[677] I'm really, you know, just, I mean, yeah, just the things that I encounter day to day.

[678] I'm not really to, I don't know, man. Like, it's weird to be at this point in my life, in my career, about to sign a new record deal to be putting music out, again, but to not have that, like my energy is different.

[679] I'm just excited in being able to have a route to market.

[680] I've had all this music that because of some stupid problems I had with, the label I was with that I couldn't put out.

[681] I wasn't able to, to exercise that part of, you know, what I did and that I missed terribly because that's my output.

[682] That's my creative output.

[683] You know, I enjoy working on all the other things I'm doing, whether it's a gulp or giz and gris.

[684] means anything, all the ideas that I have that I, you know, will hopefully come into fruition later on that I'm chipping away out behind the scenes.

[685] But music is my output.

[686] That's my hobby.

[687] It always has been.

[688] So when I get suppressed and I'm not able to, to work on music or release music and they kind of go hand in hand because it's kind of weird working on music that you know you can't release or that you know someone is standing in the way off.

[689] You don't feel as motivated to get in the studio and work.

[690] Whereas now I'm like, I don't know, but I'm not worried about how it's received.

[691] I'm just really happy to be able to put music out.

[692] My worries are not, not what they were.

[693] All the things I used to worry about, you know, I mean, I don't have financial security yet.

[694] And I'm in a much better place than I could have been growing up where I grew up.

[695] It wasn't what was expected.

[696] But, you know, I have to pay my mortgage.

[697] I have things like that.

[698] But there's, you know, they're not worries.

[699] I have to work to pay.

[700] You know, that's again you know work can be a stress or it can just be work you know my mortgage can be a stress or it can just be a mortgage i just have to work there's there's quite simple things that i have to do in order to pay my mortgage you know so i try and not get bogged down by by the everyday shit my worries are just whatever pops up and are they are they worries you know and i getting to to know a child like am i holding my child correctly things like that that they're my current concerns and your new record deal um I'm super intrigued to hear how different your music will be now that you're in a new phase of life, right?

[701] And surely that will be reflected in what you produce.

[702] Yeah, I think there's a, you know, we've spoken about grief and loss and letting go of things throughout this whole conversation.

[703] And I think there's part of Professor Green that's still there, that still wants to be a lippy little shit, that still wants to poke and prod and, I don't know in the age of cancel culture I probably need to watch my mouth but it's not something I've ever been good at but then there's also the more mature side than I think there will be a point between now and perhaps an album that I have in mind that I've started working on that there's a bit in between where I need to just get a little bit of that angst out and I think there is a transition to take place that will happen throughout the music because things are different and when can we expect to hear this music I'm having something out this summer whether I can tour it or not due to COVID who knows but amazing how do you feel about that must be must be all kinds of feelings bro just happiness yeah yeah proper because I've been sitting on this music for ages and then having the conversations with the label that I may sign to they hear the music and they pull out the songs which I would have hoped they do you know and they're not necessarily the most obvious and it's kind of cool to have that or the beginnings of that working relationship and it makes me excited about the music that I've been making and that I've been sitting on which sometimes these songs are not new to me but they will be to everyone else so to have someone kind of re -light that fire it's amazing yeah and a gulp so I'm going to try this now explain to me what it is while I try it okay so I have a whole lifetime of gut issues most recently in 2017 I had an operation to repair a high -oax hernia Sorry, I should have done this a bit more professionally, my bad.

[704] Carry on.

[705] And when I came out of hospital after the operation went well, there's the gulp.

[706] A cop.

[707] Yep.

[708] When I come out of surgery, I come out of surgery and the surgery had went well, but I had terrible complications.

[709] I had distension, ileous, collapsed lung, pneumonia, CRP, which is an inflammation marker of 672 which is I understand the looks on the surgeon's faces now and I nearly cropped it and then the options that I had were more surgery or leave hospital with a paralysed stomach and just hope it got better over time and so I didn't want to chance more surgery because I was more likely to have the same complications again so I started looking at ways I could treat myself more holistically and this was an education for me I found myself down at every rabbit hole, you know, I've been down every rabbit hole you could ever imagine, and I am continuously still researching.

[710] Actually, what I found out is the more consistent I was with looking after my gut by the old McDonald's, is that the better my mood was, the more consistent my mood was, the better I slept, the better I felt, the more consistent my energy was.

[711] And it's just, it's unbelievable how much your gut health contributes to every other pillar of your well -being and how much your gut health is also impacted by them so your sleep impacts your gut your gut impacts your sleep it's all interconnected so it's so what exactly so i've just i've just had one of these um sachets that i've got here in front of me of agop and what is this going to do for me in like dumb -ass terms in dumb -ass terms so that's feeding your gut um bacteria what it needs to thrive and it's also packed with vitamins that support your the healthy gut lining sure you know which help prevent or repair permeable gut and how often do I take one of these every day every day every day every day yep okay a lot people have got gut issues and they don't understand why I'm one of them I probably in the last increasingly over the last five six seven years I've got this sort of clear intolerance to something it's definitely like I can't eat bread pasta without feeling it for like two three days and and I and it's weird because I just kind of trundle through life feeling like shit sometimes and not really doing anything about it or getting tested or thinking about it.

[712] That's the thing with like, I think especially with gut health.

[713] And there's just health problems in general.

[714] Like a lot of people go through life just feeling run down.

[715] Because when I'm not, yeah.

[716] And it's just accepted.

[717] And I think that's a real problem.

[718] And I think there's a lack of education.

[719] And that's a really important part of a gulp.

[720] You know, it's not just us trying to sell these sashes.

[721] It's the educational piece, which is really important because people should understand what they, what they can.

[722] do in order to thrive you know you can live and be alive or or you know you can you can optimize parts of your health and well -being so you don't have to have that trip to the doctors rather than i'm all for proactively whether it's your mental health or your physical health you you said to me before we start recording that you um you spent your whole career like being the product yeah and now you're you're the guy in the boardroom yeah the proverbial border room on the other end of zoom um what's that change been like now you're an entrepreneur running a business, dealing with all of that bullshit.

[723] I'm so happy you said it.

[724] No, I mean, it is.

[725] It's bullshit, right?

[726] There's just like copious amounts of bullshit when you're running a company.

[727] How have you found that process?

[728] Business for me, I think things are all too often overcomplicated.

[729] And there will always be problems, but it's like solutions.

[730] I like solutions.

[731] For me, it's been a pretty steep learning curve, but I enjoy learning.

[732] I'm happiest when I'm learning, and I'm learning an awful lot.

[733] and it's quite nice being in the engine room it's nice to have ownership you know that's something that I haven't really had as an ice what parts do you hate what parts do I hate see I like problem solving but sometimes when problems present I don't like being presented with problems when there's not even an idea of a solution and I think there's if you take half an hour between finding out the problem and making me aware of the problem you can probably have thought of something that can contribute to the solving of that problem um and the immediacy the panic i don't like panic i don't want to you know i don't want the culture in our firm to be one of panic you know i want people to take ownership i think ownership's important i think accountability is important um and not to be punished just so as you can own it put your hand up got i fucked it but i fixed it and take some fucking pride in that and there's a certain type there's several types of people i'm sure you'll encounter in your business where you've got one type of person who i usually say to my business partner, they will like solve the problem and handle it before they even come to me. And they'll just come to me and say, Steve, by the way, this has happened, but don't worry, I'm on it, fix it.

[734] Don't worry.

[735] I love that type of person.

[736] I'm like, promotion, promotion, promotion.

[737] And then there's other type of person who'll be like, Steve, the office is on fire.

[738] The office is on fire.

[739] I'm all going to fire.

[740] And you're going to die and I'm going to die and I'm going to die and it's all over.

[741] We're finished.

[742] We're fucked.

[743] We're fucked.

[744] And that person can never be a manager because if they can't manage themselves they can't manage anyone else here and I and this is a hiring thing because I've seen both in my business and I will always promote the people who caught they grab hold of problems extinguish them before I even realize it was a problem amazing amazing individuals but then you want to have I think there's a third person as well and and and that's where apathy comes into it and it's like there the room's on fire and I'm watching it burn I don't really feel any need to leave or to tell you so we can just die here but we won't even worry about putting the fire out we'll just burn yeah yeah yeah that's the problem from where it's like I prefer the panic over the it's like do be panicked yeah but please try and find a solution before you know not that I want to wash my hands of all of it I want to work I want to understand that's one thing I've always been as meticulous with anything that I've done outside of music as I am with every word that I write I think you know I saw a post that you put up about the deep details and you know that yeah and I agree and you know this whole the devil's in the details and people get really annoyed with me or can get annoyed with me throughout my life in every aspect of it being really obsessive over the minutiae but that's that's fucking important those little things I agree wholeheartedly you know again cumulative all of those little things add up to make that one big thing and for me especially in brand comms like I want it to be communicated in a certain way because communication has been my thing I talk through my music and I want to talk through my product in the same way yeah I was just very detail -orientated my whole life but I think the problem I had is I never really explained to the people that I was talking to why I cared so much about details so I'd say look that that's not right or that little thing that is that symmetrical and the amount of times that I've got a ruler out in social chain my old company and I'd measure something to check the millimeters on both sides of it and those little things and I think people think you're being anal or whatever but it's it's a philosophy that if you have within yourself about high standards obsessant about detail as I say in my post yesterday it's those that those small details culminate to great things right so I'm just like these days I don't give a fuck like I want to be detail -orientated I want people to feel that I'm so detail -orientated that they won't show me something until they've been equally detailed oriented and that's a kind of culture and a philosophy of we give a fuck encourages the right type of culture it's caring yeah You know, and we're a very small team.

[745] You know, we've, we've been hitting some pretty punchy targets month on months since we launched in October.

[746] You launched October?

[747] Yeah, ahead of our first race.

[748] Oh, wow.

[749] In lockdown?

[750] Yeah.

[751] Yeah, yeah.

[752] Big balls.

[753] Either that or I'm a fucking idiot.

[754] I did wonder.

[755] But it's that, that's the culture that I want to promote.

[756] And it's like, you have to, I like what you said, because I think it's important.

[757] You can't just keep pointing out what's wrong.

[758] You have to explain why it's important that it's right, you know, not just saying that's wrong, fix it.

[759] I think it's important that if you know how to fix it, you explain how to fix it, but also why it needs fixing.

[760] People should be learning on the job all the time so as they can grow into roles that they may never have been employed for.

[761] You know, I've grown into a position and I don't think I was, I was, you know, ever, you know, as a child, probably looked at being destined to be, you know, not from where I was from.

[762] And I'm continuously growing into that role.

[763] because I want to learn and I have to I have to keep learning otherwise I don't see the point in continuing that to me is like you know people talk about about death death to me is is losing that that I don't know just just not being curious not wanting to learn not wanting to understand yeah I see something I've come to learn as well you know you talked about the goalpost moving and that and the importance of curiosity it's one of the things I talk about my book is like I came to realize at some point that the purpose of my life was probably just to keep myself in like forward motion of like chaos that's the way I describe it it's like I used to think stability was chaos and chaos and chaos to stability now I know that my stability is actually being in chaos which is exactly what you've said there like being curious being challenged until I die some day and like which happens to all of us yeah some some sooner than others if they don't get to ever really live that would look after they got health Yeah, there you go.

[764] Well, listen, Stephen, thank you so much for coming here today.

[765] You know, your story is remarkable because you're someone that is like unashamedly honest about everything.

[766] And that transparency and honesty has helped.

[767] I can't even imagine the amount of people it's helped.

[768] Even the rawness and the openness of you doing that documentary, I mean, you see it on the documentary.

[769] You see how being open and honest and expressing yourself can save people.

[770] And I know you're, I know, you, fuck me. I think of all the guests I've sat here with, I think, if there was one guest who I think is probably saved more people from themselves, from their thoughts, it's got to be you.

[771] So it's a great, tremendous service you've done to the world.

[772] I get really awesome.

[773] People say kind of things.

[774] No, but it is, bro.

[775] Like, if I could get in my belly button right now.

[776] No, but I was watching it and I was thinking, do you know, this is exactly what the world needs, especially at the time when it came out.

[777] And in terms of people that have the experience to say these things, you know, you're a real rapper.

[778] You know what I mean?

[779] Do you know what I mean?

[780] It's...

[781] Rapper, documentarian.

[782] Do you know what I mean?

[783] Exactly.

[784] There's so many tags now.

[785] At that point, like, the perception of you when you made that documentary was like, this is a tough guy, rapper that comes from, you know, the ends or whatever.

[786] And for you to be talking about those things.

[787] And the same way that Rea Ferdinand did.

[788] And crying.

[789] And crying.

[790] Right.

[791] Having the, having the, I'd call it courage, but, you know, it's a strange word to use.

[792] But having the courage to be that vulnerable, I think is just such a tremendous service you've done.

[793] So thank you.

[794] I just think it's the most important thing is...

[795] You've been part of a change.

[796] you've been part of this change over the last couple of years in mental health and men specifically talking about how they feel and that is fucking how that is a moment I think we'll look back on in history and say like thank God we realise that you know I hope so I think we need to really encourage people to stop applying behaviours to genders you know I shouldn't have to be called a girl for being sensitive why should only women be afforded the right to be emotional or emotional beyond anger yeah thank you brother I appreciate you Thank you, bro.

[797] Good a pleasure.

[798] Thanks.