#20 | Part 1 Jamie Clements - The Breathwork Specialist - How something simple makes a huge difference!

I had some very challenging experiences in that world because I was very, very good from a position of being genuine and being honest with someone. It was all relationship-led, it was empathy, it was understanding the important pieces the impact that I'm having, the service that I'm giving, the support that I'm giving and the way I can help other people, and that's why I do.

It's Mr Jamie Clements. Thank you so much for coming on. Man, it's Mr Jamie Clements. Thank you so much for coming on, man. For those of you who don't, know we've already spoke to Jamie for a while, but we've got so much to talk about loads on breathwork, a lot on anxiety, your personal journey as well, which we can't wait to get into. Just to start off for the viewers, can you just tell them a bit about you?

a bit about your breathwork story and what you do. For sure, yeah, no, super, super happy to be here and yeah, it's always a pleasure to chat to you guys. So, yeah, I'm the founder of a business called the Breath Space. I'm also a health and wellness advisor and investor and consultant. The work has kind of taken on its own life in the last couple of years, but all of my work is really centered around sharing breath, work as a gateway into helping people better understand themselves, support themselves, take back autonomy, take back freedom over their lives through authenticity, through self-awareness, through understanding their nervous system as well, which I think is a big part of this work. So, yeah, that's kind of the, I guess the mission and the work that I do. Um, breathwork has always been at the core of that um, but there's so much more to it than that, I think, in terms of the layers that live underneath.

How long have you been doing the Breathwork side? Now, I know we briefly talked about it before, but, like fully, full time on it.

How long has that been? So full time has been about three and a half years. So I first started doing Breathwork as an individual, as a kind of consumer customer, about seven years ago and then started the business at the back end of sort of middle of 2019, end of 2019, and then I've been running the business from from kind of there on and then left my last full-time job, um and at the beginning of 2021. So, yeah, kind of three, three years since I left corporate life, since I left my last full-time job and went all in on this stuff. What was the corporate life like for you? Did you enjoy it, or was it a bit like it'd be very easy just to kind of blanket, slag it off and slate it? Um, it wasn't all bad, but it certainly wasn't me, and I think that's probably the kind of crux of it is.

I feel quite fortunate actually that, yeah, I studied economics university and had this very clear idea of finance and corporate finance, investment banking, and then I slightly realized that wasn't for me through some internships and just self-reflection, and then ended up thinking, okay, well, if it's not, I felt very boxed in by this idea of finance and my degree and I was like, well, if it's not, um, corporate finance, investment banking, what is it? Maybe it's private banking, maybe it's relationship management. And I was almost. I was getting like close to what mattered to me in terms of working with people, in terms of authenticity within how I interact with people, and it just still wasn't quite there. So then I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that. What is the next step? And these were all quite, I guess, micro adjustments towards something that felt more like me.

So I then started working in startups, started working in sales, but I had some very challenging experiences in that world, because I was very, very good from a position of being genuine and being honest with someone. If I felt like the product was a good fit, I could sell it to anybody, and if it was actually a good fit, I could sell it to anybody. If it wasn't, I wasn't able to sell it, and so actually, I had some bosses, I had some managers who didn't like that, because you should be actively trying to sell, and what they actually meant was you've got to be trying to persuade these people, pull the wool over their eyes and basically lie, um, or at least over, exaggerate or bend the truth, all of these kind of ways that we talk around the fact of just being disingenuous. And I actually had an experience at one one company I worked at that I actually largely enjoyed my time there, um, um, where I actually I lost a friend to suicide, um, and then in a very short space of time got let go from that company, very much unceremoniously.

I was struggling with my mental health. I just lost a friend and I started really butting heads and I'm not a confrontational person, but butting heads with the head of sales there, um, um, because we were just very, very different people. He was quite, uh, he's incredibly intelligent, but very much cut from that cloth of. This is sales. You do what you've got to do. There's no kind of, there's no emotion in the sales process for him, um, whereas for me, I, it was all emotion led, it was all relationship led it was empathy, it was understanding.

It was the the softer side of it and that served me in a lot of ways.

But actually we then got to a point where it was no longer, um, kind of made sense for us to work together and I ended up getting, you know, three months paid leave off the back of that because they let me go in in a fashion that you know was nobody, there was no malice involved, but it was not very well handled and that really actually I then went on to work somewhere else for about 18 months, but I'd say that was actually quite a big point in my journey because I had three months of paid leave where I tasted what it was like to essentially work for myself. I was working on a couple of businesses with friends of mine, um, and that, I think, was the first step towards me realizing that there was a different way of doing things and a different way of living it's interesting because most people, having been for whatever word, let go from their job, would spend the next three months really feeling sorry for themselves, and especially after losing your friend to suicide.

What was that like for you, having gone through that?

incredibly hard like incredibly confronting.

You know, it's this idea of finding gratitude in the stuff that we wish never happened to us, and obviously I wish I never lost my friend in that way. I wish I never lost that job at the time. But on reflection, you know, all of these things created something in me that has then led me to a much happier life, a much more fulfilled life. So, um, yeah, incredibly, incredibly hard period of my life, but ultimately the catalyst that that kind of moved things forward. It's amazing.

I want to take you back to. You mentioned 1718. Yeah, you actually messaged me on Facebook in 20 it must be 2017 or 2018. I remember mentioning this to you when I was desperate to get him Jamie on. It was it was a while back, wasn't it? And you messaged me on Facebook after I put a Facebook status that when you did those things those days and I was talking about my journey and my sort Of coming out story, and the first person who liked it and messaged me on the back of that was this guy right here and it honestly made me quite emotional looking back at that conversation, because the journey that you've come on since then and my sort of not that I had anything to do with your coming out story, but the message you gave me then that really pushed me on and I want to take you back to then, compared to now and your journey from the 2017 version of you, when you said you were going through these things. Go back to there for me. Tell me what it was like.

Yeah, and I guess I'm feeling the emotion as well, to be totally honest with you, because I remember that very, very clearly, I think from a place of, ultimately, we all want to be seen. We want to be seen for who we are on the inside rather than maybe who we're presenting on the outside. You know, you're much better looking than me, but I say like I say we look, we look similar.

You know, we played a bit of rugby, we trained. You know, dark hair, whatever and I think I just saw like it was almost. This idea of it sounds so stupid as a comparison but, um, like representation in film and on tv I saw someone who looked like me, who did the same things as me. You know, high achiever from the outside, looking in popular from the outside, looking in sharing openly, vulnerably, in a way that I'd argue, people that operated like us in our teens and looked like us in our teens never fucking did.

And I saw you doing that, having been through that myself and shared that myself, and I was like fucking hell, like it wasn't a choice to reach out it was just like I can't not and I think there's always been you know we don't speak very often, right, but I think there's always been over the the last six, seven, eight years that like on understanding and like that unspoken resonance of just like we're coming from a similar place, we've had similar experiences, and I think that is that's healing, that's so healing just to you think about those times where you don't feel like anybody's got your back and like we're not here, like actively bringing each other up. But there's that sense of like. There are people in your life that you know, either that you've met through social media or that you know from your past or you've met in recent times that actually push comes to shove. It doesn't matter if you speak to them or not, they've got your back. Um, so, yeah, like a moment of like, deep like respect and appreciation for that mate, because I remember, like my the first time that I posted about my mental health, like I like through I posted a story on instagram I think was the first place I did it and I like threw my phone across the room and I went out for a walk and I just sat and I was sat by the river I can't even remember where and I was just crying because it was so confronting, but I knew I had to do it. Like it was so petrifying because it is that unfiltered um version of yourself that people are getting to see and it's just. It's those moments.

It's something I talk about a lot with my clients and with my work. It's this idea of surrender and this idea of meeting reality on reality's terms and going. You know, every time you reach a point where you're in so much pain, as I was at that time, but I knew that it would do me good, as uncomfortable as it was, and that it might do other people some good for me to do that uncomfortable thing. If I surrender to that discomfort and just do it, the fear is telling me that I'm I'm gonna like disappear into thin air, that I'm gonna die, that I'm gonna like be cast out, that I'm gonna be, you know, rejected by everyone, like the worst. The catastrophe is there and this is the power of the concept of surrender, because every time you feel that and you let go to that feeling and you do the thing, you come out the other side and not only you're still there, but it's better like it's not worse, even though the fear is telling you it would be um, and that that is a message that I'll always push. You know we get on our soapbox from time to time and kind of preach these messages and I never want to push anything on anyone.

But if there's one thing that I I kind of come back to is the idea of the letting go, of the surrender, of going. You know it's the cliche quote of like everything you want is on the other side of fear. So not really an answer to that question, maybe an indirect answer to that question. But yeah, I think the kind of the me in my early 20s, weirdly I thought was massively disconnected from me as a kid and me growing up. But actually I've always been into human nature, human psychology, understanding myself, understanding others, and I was just a lost version of them I was like almost I don't know who I am anymore because I was trying.

I was still trying to fit in, whilst also having that like friction and tension of knowing that it wasn't quite right, so relatable.

Following on from what you just said, then I guess a bit of a metaphor when you came back from that walk, what did you come back to? Support and love.

That's all it was. How did that feel for you? Overwhelming? Yeah, it is very much Massively overwhelming. I still find that to this day. Like I would say, one thing I struggle with to this day is, I wouldn't say loneliness, but I would say, perhaps sometimes feeling like a bit of a lone wolf like a little bit of an individual, wherever I am.

Yeah, and I think when you feel like that is your default, any support can feel a little bit intense, a little bit like quite sure to do with surprising, like I don't know what to do with this, this outpouring of support and appreciation that I get and I know because I see it through my work, I'm much better at receiving it from a client or a stranger than I am from friends or family Like hearing it from my mates.

I'm like, no, you're just lying, you're telling me that because you're my mate, but actually those are the people you should want to hear it from and be able to hear it from and accept it from. Um, because it is, it's sort of that, yeah, when, when you do receive it, it's it's so important and um impactful and means a lot um, but sometimes it's hard to hear, sometimes you don't want to hear it, and that, I guess, comes back to relationship with self and and self-esteem and and you have to, you know you have I've always had an interesting relationship with arrogance and the idea of arrogance and not wanting to be arrogant, um to the point where I kind of rejected any sense of confidence. I was like I don't want to even get close to arrogance, so I'm just going to stay small.

um, where does that stem from, just out of curiosity great question.

Um, ah, it's a very good question. I think it stems, I initially wanted to say, I think, growing up in spaces where I felt like there was quite a lot of arrogance and actually seeing it and going I don't want that. So what's the opposite of that? And it's to withdraw, it's to be a bit of a wallflower and I also think, maybe a resistance to like the same sort of answer to the other question, I guess a reluctance to be seen in that way, like I don't almost the pressure, um, the pressure of being seen as good, the pressure of being seen as, as you know yeah, which you were on this on service level and, subconsciously, I really wanted to be.

Yeah, you know, all of my life, you know, has ultimately been characterized a little bit by wanting and trying, unconsciously or not, to be good at things. I want to be good at everything that I do because I think even though consciously I know otherwise I think it will get me loved, I think it will get me accepted, I think people will validate me for it and, as for as long as you're not validating yourself, in whatever form, that whole, that void, will never be filled by anything that you achieve. Um, and that's something that I have to kind of come to terms with quite often, because I do think there's something innate and inherent um that alex hormosi, actually of all people, talks about, which is the the three.

You guys heard about three traits of of high performingperforming individuals that hormones I can watch this video so I think he talks about it, I think, with chris williamson, um and three traits of high-performing individuals a superiority complex, so belief that you can achieve anything. An inferiority complex, a belief that you are never good enough. And impulse control. So I have always put myself in this box of being high achiever. You know I've had success in in various different forms and, um, you know, in my work now I would consider myself successful from an external metric perspective. Um, and I think it is. I I do genuinely. You know, everything I do in my work very much unconsciously comes from a place that I could turn my hand to whatever I wanted to and make a go of it.

Yeah.

And then I also have the inferiority piece which is, I think, driving the car. You know, the superiority piece sets the goal, sets the lofty goal, and then the inferiority, complex piece drives the car, because I can set goals, but if I don't feel like it, what's the purpose of the goal if I'm not trying to prove something? And then the impulse control piece kind of isn't always there. I've got some kind of sketchy ADHD type tendencies.

Yeah, it's one of the clubs.

Yeah, we taught that.

So, yeah, I think that's kind of how I've come to terms with, I guess, that side of the insecurity that that has has really always been there and that I've only really opened up about in myself in the last year or so.

Um, and I've reassuringly spoken to a lot of friends of mine who I look at and go fucking hell, they're great. And I speak to them, they're like I'm so insecure, come on in, but actually marrying up, you know, a bit of acceptance I love the concept of acceptance as well and surrender, because that's, you know, I'm grateful for that kind of puzzle of those three things because it has allowed me to do the things that I've done and maybe my life would be very different if I didn't have those things. But it's just having that deeper awareness of what those unconscious drivers are and managing them so that they don't come as a surprise. You know, should I be surprised, if I'm still trying to be successful, that I also still struggle sometimes with feeling insecure and feeling not good enough, because actually, can you have one without the other?

um, yeah, so the insecurity piece? I'm curious on that one because you say it's been recent. How recent, and what was it that brought that to life in you?

I'd say really, really. Um, last couple of years it's been kind of floating around in my awareness, um, and then in the last six months it's become a little bit stronger. Okay, um, I heard of an amazing conversation uh, don't, a guy called jay morton. Um, his xsas was on sas. Who does wins now does stuff climbing, you know, everest and doing challenges.

Yeah, like, he's a very amazing, impressive guy and he recorded a podcast with a friend of mine, mark Whittle, and opened up about that. Exactly that of he's Jay, that was special forces and climbs the mountains but also struggles with feeling not good enough. And I was like, oh, let's talk about feeling seen. I instantly saw a mirror reflecting back at me, going, okay, maybe I've underestimated the presence of my insecurity. Oh, let's talk about feeling seen. I instantly saw a mirror reflecting back at me, going, okay, maybe I've underestimated, you know, the presence of my insecurity, even in and I tell you where it has has showed up and this is an exclusive. No, it has been, has been in my work, okay, actually. Um, you guys read green lights, matthew mcconaughey book, unbelievable book.

One line in that that stuck with me was less impressed, more involved, and he was talking about his work and how it's very easy to just be impressed with what you've done and go yep, shiny, tick, I've done that, it's great and actually just be involved in it, be present, be making impact, like if I think about my work supporting other people, yes, I like. If I think about my work supporting other people, yes, I can, and it's important to celebrate myself and be grateful and proud of what I've done, but actually, the important piece is the impact that I'm having, the service that I'm giving, the, the support that I'm giving and the way I can help other people, and that's why I do it ultimately. And so, actually, you, why am I concerning myself with? You know and there's two sides to this right why am I concerning myself with the opinions of, let's say, celebrities? Why would I rather work with a celebrity than work with a school the kids might use the?

word clout you know it's the, the blue tick piece is the, the external validation piece. Yeah, for me, I know at times can be very much bringing up from that place of insecurity because I'm it's. I see it very much as still wanting to be popular, I still want to be in the cool crowd. At times, um, and sometimes, you know, I'm very fortunate, my work has led me into some of those places, not because I've tried to force it, but because it's taken you of who I am and what I do. Um, and other times I'm trying to force it and actually just coming back to that idea of, like, I want to be more involved, I want to be focused on impact, I want to be doing it because I want to do it all right guys joe here.

Hope you enjoy part one. Don't forget quickly to like and subscribe. Our stuff really, really helps the page massively. Here's what you can expect to find in part two.

Enjoy it feels like it's been a pull rather than a push, like I've been on the path. Doing this, you lose any sense of being on the path at all In the micro. So the day to day, that's where you're making the decisions. So, making the decision to come here, making the decision to wake up, to do this, to do that.