Learning From Others Stefan Taylor: Why "Change" is Required to be a Better You
Today's guest spent 10 years in the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force before starting his business in the middle of the 2008 recession.
After great success for about six years, working with professional Aston Martin racers, he walked away from it again to find his next success online.
Why did he walk away from two stable careers? Because he was exhausted, drinking, and unhealthy and wanted to be the best version of himself. Learn why he says, "change is required to facilitate what you want."
Please welcome Stefan Taylor.
Contact Info
Stefan Taylor, Hey, thanks for jumping on. You're welcome. Great to be here at diamond. Fantastic to be. Yeah, I appreciate you jumping on, um, kind of end of day for you. You're over in the UK. Um, I like to start with two questions, right? Question number one is what is your area of expertise and what are we going to learn from you today?
So my expertise is I'm in the health and fitness industry. I've been in this industry for 20 years. I'm specializing now in the over forties. I'm over 40 myself. Yeah. And a lot of things happen to them, to the body past the age of 13 in terms of hormonal changes. So I found it really important for me to improve my own health and wellbeing by understanding how my body works best.
And I think that resonates with my clients. They come to me because. They are going through some of the things I went through, I'm struggling with weight gain, struggling with anxiety and stress, um, finding the right solution because they're generally driven individuals. And when a driven individual is given the right message and the right information.
They, uh, the, the doors to success are open and they can, uh, see and feel that health and wellness success within them. So I've worked specifically with people over the age of 40 building your health and wellbeing. Um, I'll be 39 this year. Um, I, I know, I know where this conversation is had and before we get in there, question number two is what are you not so good at?
Um, I'm not so good with remembering birthdays. That's a, that's really bad at that. Um, in fact, This is probably the worst. One of the mole X, my mum's birthday tomorrow. So it's in my diary. I see my phone is really and down in other places. Um, I know it's coming, um, but I must admit I haven't or a card. So on tomorrow on a FaceTime call and I know what's coming, my dad will say, where's the card.
Because I'm just so bad at remembering to send calls. You know what? You gotta do. You, you said it in your reminder. I like, I live by my calendar, my little task management thing, so I set it like a week early. And so, yeah. So it's like, Hey, so, and so's birthday is next week. And then I got time to send in whatever I gotta send.
So well. Yeah. Um, you know, like I said, so, uh, I'll be 39 soon. And it's actually something that I've talked about with other people that I mentor, especially younger groups, you know, one, one young gentleman comes to mind who's 18 and he's, you know, eager to jump into the entrepreneurial world. And I remember among many things, we talked about, one of the things I said was just like, grind it out while you can, because as soon as you hit 30, like things change.
And you know, when you're younger, like in your twenties, you think, you think like all like, quote unquote, all that like starts to kick in like late forties, fifties. It's it's like early thirties, mid thirties. And you start having those little hiccups and glitches in your body a lot sooner than you think.
Absolutely. Um, and it's all down to sex hormones. Um, It's not very sexy at all. Uh, but sex hormones pretty much dictate on metabolism and around our metabolism, things like cognitive abilities to focus and concentrate our memory. Um, so after the age of 30 for men, testosterone levels begin to decline by.
Up to 1.6% per year. So within a decade, you could have lost 10% of your testosterone that gives you that drive and determination. Um, and then for, for females, for women, it's a perimenopause and going through the menopause and that decline of estrogen. So they impact heavily on productivity and focus and direction and, and really being connected with who we are as an individual and who we want to be.
So health and wellbeing is, is a huge part of Mack that maintenance of success throughout the thirties to forties, fifties and beyond. Yeah. I think that's a great area of focus for our audience and sort of largely entrepreneurs is, you know, how do you maintain that productivity to maintain the success drive?
So since a lot of it is genetics, you know, what can you do to counterbalance that? In terms of genetics. So when we're talking about genetics, where I'm assuming that you mean, if, if this is incorrect, then, then, then let me know. But genetics is what you're blessed with from your parents and their parents and the bloodline you're from.
So in terms of genetics that do play a part, um, but you can influence that. So I talked to a lot of people who have things like. Cancer in the family, outsiders, diabetes, all of these lifestyle type diseases in the family, and they assume they're going to get it. So genetics plays a big part in your roadmap to your future, but unless you're replicating those habitual lifestyle patterns that state that market to come into your life.
Then you won't necessarily suffer from those things. So a lot of people, I have the word of that in the, in the, in the back of the mind when we're talking about genetics. Yeah. If we're talking about what happens with the human body and how it changes over time, you are completely in control of that thing.
You are completely in control of. Anxiety and stress levels. What you put yourself in front of your weight, um, what you're eating to facilitate energy and, and focus, and again, sleep how much water you drink, how hydrated you are. So in terms of health and wellbeing as a human, you are pretty much, if not a hundred percent in control of your future self, by the decisions you're making along the way.
Um, and it's, it's important to understand that there are ways to get around it. There are ways to boost our hormone levels to give us greater focus, greater cognitive focus, and drive to give us greater energy to reduce stress and anxiety. So we can continue producing work to the best of our ability for sure.
For decades. So in the example where you say, you know, men can lose, I think you said 1.6% per year. So what do you do to kind of, you know, fight that? Like, can you slow that down or do you replace it in other ways to maintain that productivity? In terms of testosterone levels, lifestyle choices will adversely affect testosterone being produced.
So, um, alcohol, uh, poor sleep patterns, increased stress levels, um, will all add to a further acceleration of that decline and as well as nutrition and exercise to help boost that as well. So, um, If we take in each one in turn things, I stress, we're all, we all experienced stress at some points in our lives, but some people get used to or accept that stress is just part of the package.
Um, particularly as entrepreneurs there's that, um, That grind till you get there type mentality. And if like so many people I'm speaking to who are so fed up with their jobs in their thirties, and then begin on the entrepreneurial route late in their thirties, it's about understanding that you can make significant changes to your lifestyle, to increase testosterone and not accept that stress has to be part of it.
So we don't get used to that element of stress in our lives. What about this coffee that I'm drinking right now,
better or worse? For me, they're all worse things out there for you than caffeine. Um, again, it depends on how much caffeine you're using. So like alcohol, if you take yourself back, Daymond's when you first had an alcoholic drink. I can remember that. And I didn't need that much to feel a little bit intoxicated.
And then as we developed that, um, salient to them, we need more to get to the same place. So the same with caffeine. So you have it receptors, caffeine receptors on yourself. So the more you drink, the less effect it has on you, but knowing that caffeine stays in your system for a good six to eight hours, that.
Some people use lots of caffeine. And then there's a strong correlation between lots of caffeine in the day and then alcohol in the evening because alcohol is a great alternative to a sleeping pill. It just knocks out your frontal cortex and you get right off to sleep. So people will say what I drink coffee and all day and I can sleep.
All right. And then we find out they have several glasses yeah. The evening, and that switches off their frontal cortex. And then they'd just pass out. But that impacts on their sleep and their ability to regenerate. And it impacts on your hunger hormones. So the less quality sleep you have, you'll feel hungry or the following day, but you'll get used to that caffeine hit in the morning and it becomes an autonomic process.
And then you back into that cycle of caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, alcohol, sleep, sleep, sleep caffeine. So understanding that they're behind that fog of belief, there is always something brighter. Yeah. You know, we had a guest just the other week named Tom King he's um, he has a product called guy gone Quito.
And so he talked about productivity with like keto diets. And what I liked that you mentioned is, you know, finding the right solution because I've always, I've always been hesitant with people that say, you know, you have to do this diet, this diet for everybody, or this solution for everybody. And I think people blindly walk into those.
Too often because it may work for a lot of people, but it doesn't necessarily mean it works for everybody. And, you know, what's interesting is, is I started keto recently, you know, I'm like 80% there. I haven't got a hundred percent there, but, um, I've been at it long enough now that, um, it's been amazing for me on the energy level, because I didn't do it for weight loss or anything like that.
Like I just. I just wanted to try it right. For something a little bit different. And when I got through giving my body enough time to go, okay, here's the new cycle. It's been awesome. Um, you know, my sleep, my problem is, you know, I'm a dad to kids, lack of sleep, all that. Um, but despite all that, none of that's changed.
I'm still lacking there. But, um, I, I feel way better and it was just, just a slight change for me. And that was the thing that worked for me. So why don't you talk about maybe when people come to you, you know, how do you identify, where do you start? How do you figure out what works for them and, and identify what solutions for sure.
Um, there's, there's very common factors that people come to me that they have. Um, and it's, they feel their bodies are resisting change. So a lot of people have tried diets, um, and they might see some success initially, but then the weight loss slows down and then the frustration kicks in and they'd simply return back to the habits that they were trying to escape from initially, um, knowing how the human body works.
So you can either train your body to get used to the sugars or carbohydrates that you feed it. Or you can train your body to utilize fat reserves more. So the better quality source of energies is body fat. Um, so I don't take people down a cute genic diet, but understanding how the body can switch from being, uh, an expectant sugar burning machine to a fat burning machine is a transition that you can go through by educating people that.
They're resistant to utilizing fat because of what they've done in the past. So you train your body to utilize sugar because of maybe alcohol or the types of foods you've been eating before. Um, so you, when you bring in things like stress or these toxins and stress hormones get stored inside fat cells, and unless you're able to release the, the toxins from fat, then your body won't.
Burn fats as a fuel source very effectively. So Keith, Jenny does it very quickly, but within very strict parameters of, if you want to go full Kito, you've got to take out all carbohydrates and that's taking out one whole food group from your diet. I'm not on that path to take in that out completely, but understanding that you can do it.
Very similar in training your body to transfer from sugar, burning to fat burning without taking a whole food group out by relinquishing toxins from cells cleaning up your inside. It's like a control alt delete reset on your metabolism. Yeah. Very important that people understand what's going on. So they don't feel restricted by a particular box of a diet.
You have to do this to get that. Yeah, cause there's other ways around it. So is when you help people, is the majority of your focus in that space of diet or is it other things as well? It's the majority in that, in that space of diet, um, along with it comes a lot of mindset understanding. So I take people through a lot of mindset work.
I've, I've done a lot of mindset work in the past with, uh, professional athletes and those. There's techniques and those systems work with everybody. So understanding who you are as an individual, what your personality type is. And in order to get success, sometimes we have to reach towards the opposite of what we are to get the results.
So, as an example, if we, if we feel were quite driven by emotions, then understanding that to avoid repeating. Failure as we've done in the past for their health, then be more logical and have more of a logical approach to how you're looking at your health and lifestyle. If you use a logical approach to it, rather than your emotional subconscious thoughts, then you can make a decision very quickly.
And you can put yourself on the path to success repeatedly, get what you want just by pivoting. It's not about changing who you are. It's about pivoting to get success, but ultimately celebrating who you are. You mentioned you'd worked with athletes. Maybe let's talk about your background a little bit, because you did 10 years, you know, being in the UK, the Royal air force, and then you also did physical training.
Um, so. At what point did, like, have you always been health focused or was there like a point in your life where you said I need to start? Did you go through your own journey that brought on this career path? Or was it something that you've always kind of been into? Um, my, I have to put a lot of my sports and enjoyment and, uh, Involvement that I do now all down to my parents, because my dad was is, is okay.
Was very active. He was in the military. Well, so I had a very supportive family unit, which encouraged me to take part in sport. Um, That also came with a downside because while I was enjoying playing football and basketball, I wasn't focusing on education. So I was, I was much happier playing sport. Then, then educating myself at school.
Um, that took me through a little. Dip in my, in my, uh, late teens where I got my first exam results and only pass one. And it was really an eyeopening moment for me that I couldn't just play sport. I had to do something else. Yeah. So my education then continued, but I latched on education with sport and exercise.
Um, and with that came success with education because I was doing something I really loved. I then went through university and then joined the board air force as a physical training instructor, which was absolutely amazing. Um, and people say about character building and being in the military and doing things that builds character.
It really did accelerate me as an individual in terms of maturity, looking through life with a wider lens. Um, Going through the, towards the back end of my 10 years, I had a, I had a really Rocky time with going through a divorce and, um, it was a really emotional time for me and I was using alcohol too much thinking I was enjoying myself when ultimately I wasn't, I was just masking my insecurities and my sadness with the drink.
Um, And I knew I had to leave because the military is very much, it's a drinking culture. Like university is a drinking culture. So you were still in the military during the divorce and the drinking. Yeah. Yeah. So I made the decision to leave too. To cut ties with that. And to, because I knew that if I continued on the same path, that would be, um, it would be faster.
So at this time people were telling me, no, you shouldn't leave. Why are you leaving the military? And this was in 2009, when there was a economic decline in the UK and things were going past shake financially. And everybody I spoke to was saying, why are you leaving? Uh, a stable career to start your own business.
Um, but, uh, my ego wouldn't allow me to tell them about the problems I was going through. So I started my own business and, uh, It went very, very well in terms of gaining clients and building reputation, et cetera, it was in the health space or something else, the businesses in the health space. So I was working as a personal trainer, seeing people once one traveling around my immediate area, I'm still in personal training and injury rehabilitation, which was a specialization.
Um, and I. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Aston Martin racing. So I'd spend the next five years of my fitness career traveling around Europe and around the world, working with professional racing drivers. And it was an amazing experience to be able to a dream because I love motor sport. Yeah, all the time, just building confidence, understanding myself better, utilizing coaching psychology techniques with those guys.
Um, so it's all the way through my life and my initial career, as there's always been sport involved, there's always been that connection to health and wellbeing and wanting to help others. So I'm a helper. So I. I quite often put people first before myself and that's something I've got to work on because unless I'm strong enough, I can't help people better.
And that's something I've realized in the last sort of three, four or five years. So building myself has been a real journey of ups and downs. Um, now I'm at a point where. Five years working in the racing industry and people see me flying all around the world, staying in nice hotels, um, being in the, in the, on the pit lane and people are thinking, wow, and now I'm saying to the same people, I'm leaving this and they're saying, yeah, no.
Why, why, why are you leaving again while you, you just got, you got a fantastic job. You're, you're flying around the world. You're getting paid well for it. And now you want to leave. No the same conversation with being repeated, um, sort of that, that were, that was said when I was leaving the military and it ha how many years later was this between, so you leave the military and Oh, eight Oh nine.
And then how many years, uh, building up your own thing, was it when you start telling people you're going to leave that? So this was around six years. So I left the military and there as spending around six years, building my own personal training, business rehab business, working with racing, drivers, working with some fantastic personal one-to-one clients.
And now I'm saying I'm going to stop again. My ego is like, no, you can't tell anyone why. But I I'm struggling with being away from home all the time. I'm fatigued. I'm just losing interest in my passion because I'm working so hard. Yeah. So I've got to get that back. So now I'm saying to people I'm going to work online, I'm going to create an online business and the same people are saying, how'd, you know, that's going to work.
What are you doing? What you're doing? It looks amazing. So for the second time I leave that and I start a business online against the advice of all those people around me and for the last four years has been the most rewarding and enjoyable, satisfying following my own purpose plans. I've I've had over 20 years.
Um, I now work online with people in a, in a, in an area and a niche of people who are struggling themselves, who also have been through similar things to me who are striving to support families who are, um, wanting a solution, but constantly coming up against the wrong message or incorrect messages for them.
And. Providing that solution for people and seeing them go through that change is a true blessing for me to be able to share someone from being completely frustrated, low self esteem, as it goes through that 12 weeks later and be this is just changed my outlook on life. Yeah. Is that kind of the average timeframe?
Do you have kind of like a general fixed range, like you said, 12 weeks or are, is it a case by case scenario for each individual person you work with? So the program I run is it's 12 week program. Um, some people will accelerate themselves very quickly through that 12 week program. Some people will take much longer than that dependent on whether they are able to see themselves from that 50,000 foot view and accept they're responsible for where they are.
That's probably the hardest thing for people to say. It's my fault. The reason why I'm here and the quicker you can say that and accept that change is requires. To facilitate what you want then acceleration is, is rapidly increased. Um, but it's alive. I like to say Damon, it's a lifestyle choice to be healthier or to be fitter or to be slimmer.
No one has no one's ever. Accidentally put weights on no, one's accidentally gone to bed too late. No, one's accidentally repeated levels of stress. It's done by choice, whether it's a subconscious choice or not. Um, so it's, it's, it's very much individual, but people really do make lifestyle changes for good.
And don't go back. I think you're talking about subconscious, um, is super important because I think it goes beyond just the scope of health. There's so many that even just, you know, me working with other people, um, just, just limiting beliefs, self-doubt things like that. There's so many things where, um, it, it seems like the simplest thing is the cause of the biggest problems and it sounds like it's the same thing in the health space as well.
Yeah. Absolutely. When you, when you understand that 95% of our daily thinking comes from our subconscious and our subconscious thoughts is built from years of programming. That only 5% of our thinking is conscious and conscious thoughts is attached to logic. And when we can make changes based on recognizing subconscious, seeing it being wrapped in emotion, And past behaviors and recognizing it for what it is, and then using a conscious brain to attach logic to it.
You can make so much, uh, you can. You progress, you just accelerated, it's like a catalyst when you understand how the whole process works. It really is. Um, as we get kind of close to wrapping up, I wanted to ask if there's any out of any of the people you work with, and obviously you don't need to give away, you know, personal information, but is there like a, a success story that really stands out as a before and after, you know, maybe more than other people you've worked with something just amazing that was accomplished out of the transformation.
There's. There's several people really. Um, and one really stands out. He is a CEO of his own construction company, um, in his mid fifties and had been struggling with his weight for years and had had, it was getting a lot of earache from his wife. About his eating behaviors about his weight gain. And it was causing him a hell of a lot of stress, which impacted then and his business.
So people say that we don't have business problems. We just have personal problems that leak into our business. So he I'd spoke to him a couple of times and he'd asked to meet me. So we met in a coffee shop and, um, It was one of those really informal sit down. I was just grabbing a flat white and he came and sat down.
Jordan is a lunch break and is in his work and his work here and within the space of 15 minutes of just chatting backwards and forwards, he said, right, I want to, I want you to help me. And I wasn't expecting that. So we were just talking back as a board and he was one of these people that had just accepted his health and fitness was poor and it was going to be poor.
And he was someone who enjoyed exercise. It was always at the back of the group. So he liked mountain biking, used to go out with a group, always at the back. And people saw him as the unfit. One people labeled him as he'll be at the back. So we worked together for three months and, uh, he lost just under three stone.
He was a bit disappointed that he didn't make the streets. Don't Mark. He initially said to me, this is a little bit expensive. I'm not sure about spending this money on health and fitness. I've never done this before. Went through the program. Um, they earache his relationship with his wife, improved tenfold because now he's more energized now he's sleeping better now.
He's um, his communication is better cause he's more alert. This cognitive thinking is better. Now, the things that are causing him, grief in his business, his paperwork, his admin. Um, these office space is now tidy. Um, all of those things that were given in grief for now within his control, he feels now he's in control of those things.
I can mention. He lost his now lost more than three and a half stone. Now, is it the front of the group? When he goes mountain biking? Now his peer group, his friendship, peer groups. See him. As a different person. Now they communicate with him as a different person because he's not at the back. He's not complaining.
He's not using excuses now, is it the front with a smile on his face, really enjoying life. And that energy is feeding out into the group. And he said to me, he said to me at the end, you know, I said at the start that this was a bit expensive, he said, Knowing what I know now, I don't pay you double or three times or four times as much because of what I've experienced now.
And it's not about money. I'm not in the fitness industry to make money. When someone turns around and says to you that they value it so much more than they initially did, because it's brought them so much more than they originally thought. That for me is, is the whole reason why, if I wake up earlier than my body actually wants to get out of it bed, that's why I wake up so early.
That's why I, I sit in my, in my, uh, in my office at home. And that's why I love working with people because the untapped potential, as you know, Damon, is it just behind that fog that people see. Once you, once that folk disappears, then wow. It is a super crazy and just for our audience. So three stones is about 40 pounds.
And so that's, that's a huge success story. And especially in just three months. Uh, but yeah, it's super crazy. And, and, and I've talked about this to, to our listeners before. Sometimes it's hard for me to relate to, and I don't know if it's just coincidence. I've been fortunate to always have like a forward mindset, but not until years, recent years.
Have I realized that. Well, I'm the odd ball. I, you know, to me, it's always like, okay, if you want that thing, I go do that thing. And then everybody else it's like, you know, I'm hesitant to go do that thing. And like you said, it's just, there's a very thin line, a thin fog between, you know, what's stopping you and what your potential is.
And it's, it's a, you know, it's. To a lot of listeners, it probably sounds, um, you know, more simple than it is, but it, it, it really is that simple. Right? You just, you got to see past that little bit of fog and there's so much potential that you're gonna accomplish. Um, how, uh, the last question on, on that gentleman, you just talked about how long between, when he said.
Um, you know, this is expensive before he, you know, maybe he didn't, he didn't literally tell you that now he understands the value, but, but maybe understood, or you were able to interpret the study then understood the value. How long between when he said this is too much between and then, okay, this is what the value.
Okay. So a lot of the time people don't make the decision to change their lifestyle overnight. So people will say to me, I've been thinking about this for years. I've been trying to improve my health and wellbeing for the past five or 10 years, but I've not found the solution. So I'm super proud of being in the health and fitness space, but I'm also a little bit ashamed of it as well, because there's so much BS.
In industry so much of it is about here's your quick fix. You've just got to drink this shake. You've just got to take this pill and that will fix it clearly. It doesn't because diets don't work. Um, he'd been thinking about this for years of, and he got used to being a certain weight, even though it was creeping up and up and up.
So. This guy was 16 stone in weight. When we had that chat in the coffee shop, that's band two, two 25 for our listeners. Okay. Yep. Two 25 pounds. Um, so he, he knew he had to make a decision. We'd had a conversation prior to that, just a, um, a very informal chat. So in passing, I'd seen him before and we, we, we chatted and he, he knows someone I'd worked with before.
So he'd been out to speak to that person as well. Um, he said to me, join that chat in the coffee shop that. If I don't do something now, then I don't think I will do it. Oh, I'm just going to keep beating myself up and I'm going to just go for it. So in that moment he made that decision. So, yeah, and I think this might, I'm not sure that the people who make decisions quickly.
Like that in the moment who've been thinking about it. And then they approach someone who who's got the solution. People who make a decision quickly will do really well. People who see a solution and then back away from that solution and then have to keep coming back and ask questions and then going away and then coming back and ask more questions they don't tend to do as well, because they're not committing to that thing.
Yeah. Even though they know it's going to give them what they want. So yeah, there was, there was some time where, and I couldn't say how long exactly. He'd been thinking about getting these health and wellbeing in order, but, um, yeah, he was on a three month. I've worked with him for three months. Yeah. Well, let's get on him to have the opportunity to recognize that it was kind of now or never.
If he was going to make a change. Well, Stefan, I appreciate your time. I want to give you the last few moments to share with our listeners, how they can get ahold of you or find out more information. Sure. Um, I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find me a Stefan Seder on LinkedIn. We also have a website it's called Vinci pro fitness, and people always ask how you spell been seat?
Uh,vincitprofitness.co.uk. And you'll be able to contact me through there. Um, or on Facebook it's Stefan Taylor. Um, feel free to drop me a message. And I can say to everyone, we can just jump on and have a virtual coffee and have a chat. Yeah. We'll get those links in the show notes, um, and seat profit and associate at UK.
And then we also have your Facebook group on here. It only take 60 days to success. And then as you said, like Dan Stefan Taylor that's S T E F a N. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Pleasure.