Transforming Trauma: Garth Delikan's Secrets to Building a Better Mindset

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today I am joined by Garth the Delegate, better known as the Lifestyle Guy. Garth is a lifestyle and mindset coach, author, speaker, and clinical hypnotherist. Hypnothetist. Yeah, that's right. But um he he knows all too well about starting over. Garth has faced things like divorce, depression, career collapse, and severe anxiety. But what makes Garth's story so powerful is that he never stopped reinventing himself. He's now approaching 70 and he has taken his experiences and he is now helping others to gain confidence, resilience, and a better mindset. So we're going to be talking to the lifestyle guy about his life and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So go on. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Thank you very much. Nice uh nice of you to invite me, Curtis.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Where do you like me to start? Right from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, go here.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Well, uh, okay, let's let's let's start at age 17. I was gifted Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is relevant to my life story and my life journey, so please bear with me if you will. So I was gifted Arnold Schwarzenegger's book, The Education of a Bodybuilder, when I was 17. And that book was it, it was probably the first, my very first powerful kind of spur to move onwards. And Arnold talked about the fact the very first time he touched a barbell, he knew that was his destiny. He knew that he was going to become the best built man in Europe. He wrote down all his goals. I'm gonna be the best built man in Europe. When I'm the best built man in Europe and winning titles over over there, I know that Joe Weeder, who was the trainer of champions in the day, if people are familiar with uh the golden era of bodybuilding and muscle beach in the day, Joe Weeder would invite me over. I would then beat all the Americans at their game. I would make my first million from bodybuilding, I would then get into property development and make more money. I would then actually get into movies and become the number one action movie star in the world, and I'll also get into politics. And lo and behold, did it. I thought this goal setting is marvelous. So I remember and I think I've still got the list somewhere, Curtis, if I had to find it. At 17 years old, I wrote down I would like to be self-employed at 20. I want a Ferrari by 25, I'd like to be married at 30, and literally running my own business from 30 onwards. Now I got married at 21, bought my first Ferrari at 21, and I was running my own businesses from the age of 22. Uh now in 1982, as a graphic designer, because I was a graphic designer in those days, I got a freelance job in a very, well, it was a small advertising agency at the time, but within a very short period of time, it grew to be not necessarily the number one agency, but it was a premier advertising agency in the UK and in the world. And the agency, as it grew, my role as a graphic designer within that within that company grew. And within a space of about five years, I was running two or three companies within the agency as a freelance graphic designer. And I wasn't a graphic designer anymore then. I actually became a I was a manager, manager, a director of manager of people, and I found as I went on that it was my skills in building rapport, in empathy, and management that made me such a good manager. So I was employing 73 people at the time, and I'd been there for 25 years. And I remember coming in one Monday morning, Curtis, and I'll never forget that day because I was freelanced at the time and they said to me, We'd like to have more of your business. They were getting a big chunk of my business anyway, so I was quite happy to negotiate, uh, you know, because it was like a golden goose, really. Uh, but they said, uh, well, no, we don't really want to negotiate, we want to put one of our directors in the company. Don't see, don't see it as a demotion, see it as becoming part of the business. Now, I was I was crestfallen because they were, in effect, moving me sideways and demoting me. And I believed their lies for a year, Curtis. You know, they kept demoting me, taking my responsibilities away. And before I knew it, within a six-month period, I became basically an employee in my own business. Didn't sit well with me, and they were treating me like dirt. They really were. And these were people I knew, liked, loved, and respected. I'd been there 25 years. Why would I not? Anyway, I put it within nonsense for a year, and um, I could see it was going nowhere. And I said, Oh, we we need to have a review with you uh and discuss your way forward. I said, No, we're not having a review. I said, I know my way forward, and it's not with you guys. You basically constructively dismiss me. And if I don't get a settlement off you guys uh in kind, I'll be taking you to court. Now they didn't like this, but they uh they they actually paid they didn't pay me that much money, but it got it got me a get out of jail free cut card uh card courtes, if you know what I mean. So I had six months garden leave, as we call it in the UK, and uh I literally just re-landscaped my garden, and every fibre of my being at the time was telling me to be uh to set up my own gym, set up a gym in London, be a nutritionist, be some kind of consultant, but I didn't I didn't listen to myself because I just remember being there at the time because my son and daughter were five years uh four five years old and four years old, and my wife at the time was sat there, and I just thought, oh my goodness, I've got this massive responsibility. I've got this mortgage, I've got these two small children. I can't just set up a new, I can't just set up a gym. So I set up a multimedia agency in London's Carnaby Street. I went into partnership with um, well, I thought was a friend of mine who was also a financial director of another um agency. Are you still with me, Curtis? Yeah, oh good cook. I just thought I'd double check because I I tend to talk a lot. If you need to interrupt me, please do. So I ran this business, albeit successfully, I thought, for two years, Curtis. And then my then partner went away on six weeks' honeymoon, and in that six-week period, well, the first two weeks actually, I was getting telephone calls and emails just saying, when are you paying this invoice? When are you going to settle this bill? And I kept really, I said, Well, I signed that, I paid that invoice two weeks ago. I I don't quite understand it. Give it another week. Anyway, this went on for three weeks, and in the end, uh, there's alarm bells going in my head. So I got an insolvency practitioner friend of mine to come into the business. He spent the day in the business, and he I still remember to this day, he came up to the top floor and he said, Garth, you better sit down. I said, I'll stop it, stop winding me up. Because honestly, I am not winding you up. Says this is for real. So not only as peers not paid tax no national insurance contributions for you for the last two years, he's not paid it for your 15 employees either. And if you don't close the business today, you could quite easily go to jail. So, as you can imagine, on top of that betrayal of you know, like eight months earlier, I was just absolutely crestfallen. And I thought, well, it can't get much worse. And you you wouldn't think it could, would you, Curtis? Anyway, I picked up the phone to my wife. I'd been married for 28 years at the time to her, and I said, Tracy, you won't believe it. Piers is a crook, uh, blah, blah, blah. She goes, Well, I know it's not the best timing in the world, but I don't want to be married anymore either. And I don't want you to come home tonight. So literally that day, Curtis, was the day my life as I knew it ended. And I very quickly spiraled into clinical depression and anxiety because she didn't want me home. I had nowhere to, I had literally nowhere to go. And I was living in my office uh on the top floor for a good three months and abusing myself with narcotics and alcohol and thinking nobody knew what was happening to me. And then I literally got a call from my mum one morning, six o'clock in the morning, and she said, Garth, me and your brother and your sister know what's going on. We know about the drugs, we know about the drink. Come home, your family love you. I don't honestly, Curtis, I feel like crying now because I just choking up, just thinking, how does my mum know? How do my family know? Anyway, my mum took me in, and as a grown man, I had to live with my mum for about a year, Curtis, because uh I was that broken. I had to heal. And I very quickly spiraled into clinical depression, general anxiety disorder, and I found that I was staying in bed till three o'clock, four o'clock in the afternoon, waking up, still dog tired, falling asleep in a chair till seven or eight o'clock at night, then going to bed. It was just a vicious circle going over and over and round and round again. It was like Grandhog Day, but worse. So my mum more or less forced me to go to the doctor, uh, the physician, as you call it over there. And like all doctors, that this just took me on drugs, said you need this drug, you need that drug, tear these on a regular basis. And I kept them for a week, and I just looked at them all Friday and I thought, there's no way I want to be, I don't want to do drugs. I've just abused myself for six months of my life. I don't want any more drugs in my system. So I flushed them down the down the down the toilet, down the pan. And my mum was panicking. She said, No, what are you gonna do? I said, Well, I'm not sure yet. I said, but I I think I'm gonna become a kickboxing structure mum because I was a black belt kickboxer anyway, Curtis. I've been into fitness and training ever since I'm a Schwarzenegger when I was 17. So I went to this gym in London and I just said to them, Look, I've got this great system, I do it lots of great music, and I've got some funky moves. And they said to me, Great, we'll give you three classes a week starting from Monday. So I went away terrified. I had no system, Curtis. I had no music. So I had to spend the entire weekend designing the program, picking all my music, and long story short, because this is a long story, and I I do beg your pardon. Um, it was a great success. And I found that I've always been a leader, you know, I've always believed leading from the front. I think it's easy to be a leader than it is to be a follower. So in business, I was the same. When I was kickboxing, you know, I'm stood there on one leg chucking out 50 kicks, I'm knocking out 100 push-ups, and people are going, we can't keep up with you. I say, I'll you soon will, don't worry. In a short period of time, the classes I had 50, 70, 100 people in the classes. I'd had people approaching me individually saying, Can you do one-to-one with us? Which I could as a kickboxer. And then I had a few people saying to me, Can you do PT with us? No, I wasn't a qualified PT at the time, so I decided to go back to university. I qualified as a PT, also got a degree in nutrition. And to this day, I don't know where this lady came from. I got a call from a lady called Cottie in Kensington in London, and she was a psych psychotherapist to who's who in London, honestly. She had a top-tier client list in her book. And after six weeks of training her, she said, Darling, I love you so much. I'm going to fix their brains and you fix their bodies. And she literally gifted me this client base around Kensington, Chelsea, Mayfair, Knightsbridge. And I was, I kid you not, I was going into wealthy people's homes, multimillionaires, there's Ferraris in the drive. I'm sat on a Jasper Conrad on sofa. I'd have very well-dressed ladies with diamond rings, or very well-spoken gentlemen telling me how unhappy they were they were with their lives. I thought, oh my goodness, how can you how can you be this unhappy? And there's very little person, there was personal training going on, but it was more about mindset. So again, I felt as though I had the experience to give them advice, but not the qualifications. So again, I did an online university course for uh 18 months, became an advanced life coach, and I set up a lifestyle agency in the Paddington area of London, and I did really well with it. I was having some great results with my clients. But what I found, Curtis, and I don't know whether you agree with me, is that when people are going to therapy, and I know that Americans are big on therapy, I'm not. I think it's got its place. But to me, um, therapy is like opening a wound constantly. So that trauma, those past experiences, if you keep picking at them, it's like a scab that never heals. So I kept thinking there's got to be a more direct way of helping these people in a more powerful way. And I read this book on NLP, which is neurolinguistic programming. Have you heard of that, Curtis?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah, I think I've actually interviewed uh people that have talked about that in the past as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah, and I absolutely love what it said, and it was it's about the it's about the filter, the perceptual filters and your patterns and the brainwaves that you're brought up with, and how it can affect you in later life. But it also talked, and I think it was Zig Ziggler who said it's never too late to have a happy childhood. And they talk about going back to memories in the past while you're still in the present, healing yourself in the past, still retaining that memory, obviously, because you don't want those memories to go anywhere, then coming back to the future. I thought, well, I'm gonna have some of that. So I also qualified as a clinical hypnotherapist at the time as well, advanced clinical hypnotherapist. And honestly, I can't tell you what success I had. It was phenomenal. And um, people just said they were coming into my premises, crestfallen, depressed, crying. And I'm not even making this up. They were literally doing cartwheels going out of the office. I thought this is fabulous, and I just so love helping people and motivating people and inspiring people. And then one of my clients who was um she was still a kickboxing client of mine, but she ran a women's business group in the Canary Wharf in London, and she said to me, 'I love what you do. Can you come and do a talk for my women's group on self-defense?' I said, 'Debbie, I would love to do one on self-defense, but I'm not going to because I don't believe in it.' She said, 'Well, what do you mean? I said, 'Well, self-defense is all about you've got into that situation situation in the first place. I want to teach people about not getting into that situation in the first place. But if you do, I'll teach you a few funky moves which will only buy you just a few seconds to get to a place of safety, nothing more. She says, Oh, I like the sound of that. So I delivered the workshop to 63 women. And during that workshop, I was talking about confidence building and projecting confidence and wearing your confidence as a shield of invincibility. And if you do, nothing bad ever comes towards you. And I had another lady there who worked for AstraZeneca, a huge pharmaceutical company, who said, I love what you talked about on confidence building. Can you come and do a talk on confidence building? So, of course, being ever the entrepreneur, I said, Yes, of course I can. So I put together a workshop on confidence building, delivered that. When I was doing that talk, I was talking about stress and work-life balance. And I had two people come up to you again and said, Can you come and do a talk on work life balance or stress management? And of course, I put those together and I became a public speaker in a very short period of time. Uh, I then moved from London literally about a year before COVID hit. Uh, and as you know, the world closed down significantly. So then I took all my workshops that I've been doing live, I pre-recorded them and put them all online. So I have the Garth Telekan Academy, which is pre-recorded, I've got my online shop, and I literally help people online now, Curtis.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Well, talk about how whenever they build seemed to disappear, how did you manage to not let your circumstances become your identity?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Exactly that. It's it's very difficult. I've always been a strong person, like I said, I've always been a leader, not a follower. So I've always set the bar high for myself, and I despised the fact that I drifted into drugs and alcohol, despised myself completely. I didn't like that person. And there was a book I read, um, which really helped me, uh, especially in my darkest moments, and it was called Living in the Light by Shakti Gawan. And I remember reading this two chapters in particular. One said that one of the reasons you suffer from anxiety is because if you think of your life as a river, the river of life, and the life you previously had, the existence you previously had, you're desperately clinging onto that river bank with your fingertips, hoping that you can cling on to that bank. But the river is trying to drag you in there. However, if you trust your unconscious mind, let go of that riverbank and let the river take you where it's going to flow. It might not take you directly to your destination, but go down that tributary, try that little tributary over there and see what comes up. And I thought that sounds actually scary, but quite exciting. And then the one of the other chapters was when you are in the darkest, blackest, deepest place in your life. And believe me, I was in the darkest pit you could ever imagine. Um, it seemed bottomless, and it was black and it was pitch black. She said, A light will open and you will a trapdoor will open and you will fall into the light. And falling into the light, I've got goosebumps now while I'm speaking to Curtis. It had such a profound effect on my psyche. And that falling into the light moment for me was I'm going to be a kickboxing instructor. And that gave me my purpose, it gave me my direction, it gave me my mojo. And once I latch on to something, I you know, I don't let go. I'm I'm a doer. I believe, you know, momentum is what keeps you going. You know, Rolling Stone gathers no moss, as they say. And I didn't want to be that sad person. I've never been that person. And even when I was running my businesses, you know, when I became a life coach, you have to coach yourself. Uh, and he said, Well, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? So I was watching, I thought, well, you know, my strengths are I'm a really good leader of people. You know, I ran a great business, not because I was a great manager, but because I was a good people empathizer. You know, I I could recognize, even now, when people speak to me, I automatically click into, ah, I know what's what's happening there. So I kind of know. And then also my kickboxing background, I remember, you know, being working in a high-pressured environment, and people were falling around me like flies, having days off sick, days off ill, and just telling me how stressed they were. I never felt that stress, Curtis, because on a daily basis, I would go to the dojo and I could almost feel that my stress was left on the dojo floor. So, you know, once I kind of fell through that trapdoor, I started training again on a daily basis, and I just found my mojo again. It was as simple as that. And it sounds simple, but obviously there were still dark days. But I had to push through those dark days. I had no choice. I had a mission, I had a goal, and I had to achieve it no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Well, I know you talk about how a person's past can shape them without deciding what happens next. So, how can a person break free from the story that they've been telling themselves?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Again, that is easier said than you actually think. Uh, you've first you've got to be willing to want the help. You know, what I say to people is I can't just click my fingers and everything's going to be okay. I can't pull a white rabbit out of the hat if you're not willing to be that white rabbit. So you you've got to be willing to actually go through that pain barrier. You know, Tony Robbins used to speak at length about people get very used to being uncomfortable in their life, and they don't like to break through that being uncomfortable to get to it, you know, they don't like to break through that pain because on they're just scared of pain. But on the other side of that pain or that fear is all the good things that you want in your life. So you've got to get used to being uncomfortable, pushing through being uncomfortable, and just going, Yeah, I'm gonna do this. So, what you can do, you there's some there's a thing called timeline therapy where under supervision and being safe in the in the future here in the present with me, I can take you back to that time, we can deal with ever whatever trauma you dealt with in the past, we can heal you in the past, and we can bring you back to the present completely healed. That memory's still intact, but the intensity of the emotions have been taken out of it, and it works 100 times out of 100 times.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

We talk about what depression and anxiety taught you about yourself, that success never could.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

So rephrase that question slightly.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Basically, what did depression and anxiety teach you that when you were successful you never would have learned if you wouldn't have gone through the depression and anxiety?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, that that I was stronger than I ever knew I could be, and that I had all the tools, techniques, and strategies I ever needed in my life, but I didn't know them at the time. Because when you know, it's it's have you have you got the phrase in America golden handcuffs? When you're in a high-paid job and you're successful, and you you know you're in your prime 20s through to 40s, and you feel invulnerable, you feel fireproof, nothing can nothing can nothing can hurt me. Um, and when it's all taken away from you and you've got no control of it, that's when fear hit comes in, boom. And when the rug is pulled out of you that quickly and you fall into that hole, there's nothing to grab hold of. There's literally the side, the sides are shear, there's nothing to grab hold of. Now you that fall is either going to kill you, it's gonna cripple you, or you're gonna learn from it and you're gonna come back stronger. So for me, I just knew I didn't want to be in that place of darkness, I didn't want to be that person who looked in the mirror and didn't like the look of the person I saw. And you know, the the other guiding factor for me, Kurt, is that the the overriding factor for me was that my children were five and four, six and five when I was coming out of it. Um, on those days when I had my darkest, darkest thoughts, is the fact that my son and daughter were coming to see me on the Saturday morning that stopped me doing anything stupid. My love for them was so intense, so deep. And to this day, they're in their 30s now. They're my they're my best friends, so you know they were. were my they were my anchor they were my my light that always shone on me well let's talk to the list of us about your your book because I know you're an author as well so you know kind of tell us what it inspired you to become an author in a how about your book the book started as a blog believe it or not I was talking about being in the gym and I think I can't remember the first chapter starts with something like there it was another hour of blood sweats and tears over and I was feeling magnificent uh and I that feeling of you know the then that endorphin eye icon the phrase the after bask because I was basking in it after the workout and I I then kind of started to um philosophize about does that lady who's reading that magazine on the excess about exercise bike feel the same as me? Does that guy over there lifting weights feel the same as me? And then it was like I was taken over and all of a sudden my life just spilled out into this blog just I spent the entire weekend writing this book and I literally bured my soul about how the people had betrayed me how I knew loved and trusted these people and I couldn't believe they'd done it so even though I still love people and I will trust people there's a certain amount of radar going out first before I will let them completely into my life uh I'll never stop trusting people ever and I'll never stop loving people but you've just got to be aware so I wrote that book in its first phase probably eight years ago and then it was only last year I decided to turn into a self self-help book. So even though it's very motivational in its sense uh that uh it's my journey and how I reached the pinnacle of my great as I guess would I want a better phrase as a young man, you know, being married uh getting that Ferrari running successful businesses having motorbikes earning lots of money then crashing and burning then having to reinvent myself so like a Phoenix rising out of the ashes I've always got you know I've got what I call my 10 nuggets of wisdom so again I interspersed those into the book I've also got um my pearls of wisdom which I incorporated into the book I've got some diet and nutrition tips I incorporated into the book so I've turned it into a complete 360 degree really self-help book with me being the centerpiece of it the hero of the story for want of a better phrase well I know many people believe in confidence first action second but you believe in taking act action first so do do you believe that taking action can create confidence? Always and the other thing I believe as well Kurt is every morning people wake up right there's two people some people live at cause other people live at effect people who live at cause take responsibility for everyone and everything that happens in their life people blame everybody and everything else that goes wrong in their life now you wake up every morning and you look in that mirror and you have a choice you can either go to point A which is cause and you take responsibility for everything and everyone in your life or you can go to point B which is effect and you blame everything and everyone that is wrong in your life now it takes no more energy to go to point A in the morning so why on earth would you go to point B? I've never been able to figure that one out well I know that um you're approaching 70. Yeah so what have you learned about reinvention that you wish you would have learned when you were 30 or 40 not a lot to be honest with you because you know that my life as I lived it I absolutely loved I wouldn't change a single thing even the dark bits that made me the person I am today and that those life experiences has given me the strength the tools the techniques the knowledge the strength that I would never have dreamed of I would have had I wouldn't have had if that stuff wouldn't have happened because I just would have gone down a different route completely I would have been in those golden handcuffs all my life and I'm not a person to be handcuffed. I'm a free spirit you know I am a child of the universe and I like to run the universe and really explore new things and even now approaching 70 like you said I still work out every day you know I I get told all the time I look many years younger than I actually am and you know I feel it you know I've I've I've I've I've got a nice kind of nice physique because I look after myself I eat healthily uh I've got a good mindset I have a ritual every morning that I follow through uh that I picked up from Hull Elrod's book uh Miracle Morning and I find that that morning routine is is still as effective now as I would have started it 20 years ago well if you could sit down with the Garth that was at rock bottom at that time in your life what would you tell him that he desperately needs to hear and that you wish you would have been told back then when you were at rock bottom believe in yourself love yourself and have faith in your own abilities and bel and have faith and and loving God because God will always look after you well said. So tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of uh at the moment I'm I'm well I'm literally just started this podcast journey which is fabulous uh and I'm looking to set up my own podcast in the next uh few weeks probably the I'll probably wait till after Christmas now because I have a house move coming up I've got a holiday in the Maldives coming up with my partner so there's a lot of things going on uh my online academy I'm pushing at the moment so I I set up an online store about two three months ago and I put my signature programs on there plus my um if you want to chat with Garth uh kind of thing on there uh so the the storefront is what I'm currently pushing the book is on there would people would like to buy it you know my um that yeah and you know maybe getting people enrolled in healthy mind healthy body which is an eight week program on turning your life around I've also got uh change your mindset change your life so yeah all the all the good things you know all those programs are are pre-recorded during COVID are now within my academy well so people can check out that academy and keep up with everything that you're up to absolutely what can they find in it everything they need it's but it my my life stories I've told you the the the experiences that shape me are all within my programs so if you're if if my story resonates with you if my journey strikes a chord with you if you feel an empathy with what I went through and you think this guy could help me reach out to me it never hurts to have a have a conversation do you have a website? I do it's called the lifestyleguyuk all right the lifestyleguy.co that's the one yeah you want me to put in the chat no I got it so close out with some final thoughts maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on any final thoughts you have for the listeners yeah well what what I would say to the you know the thing is is never to listen to pocketbook philosophers or armchair experts you know try to take control of your own life and like I said earlier on in the conversation if you were your confidence like a shield of invincibility and you put out to the universe this is what I want I feel no fear that shield of confidence is is like a shield of invincibility negative things bounce off it and you've got to remember what you put out to the universe is what you get back.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

So if you're putting out there negativity fear oh and what if oh maybe not that's what you're gonna get back if you put out there this is what I want this is how I'm gonna do it that's what's gonna come back to you absolutely ladies and gentlemen and to check out Garth's workshops and for more information on Garth and his book and everything like that visit the lifestyleguy.co the website will be in the show notes share this episode to as many people as possible you never know who needs to hear what Garth has to say and also to keep up with all things living the dream visit www dot curveball337.com share the website and the show to everybody that you know thank you for listening and supporting the show and Garth thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

It's been an absolute pleasure courtesy I really enjoyed and thank you so much for you taking the time to listen to me.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast visit www dot curveball337 dot com. Until next time keep living the dream