From The Sales Floor To BBC Traitors Final Four |EP23| Andrew Jenkins

Mark Ackers: What's coming up in today's episode? I think lots of people wear different masks all the time, right? The mask at home and mask at work, mask with their friends, but you who wore something very similar to a mask in the sense of a cloak, and instead of carrying quotas, you were carrying a little lantern around the castle. andrew jenkins: It's a BBC programme called the traitors, where there are 22 contestants placed in a castle in Scotland.

Mark Ackers: How having a sales background helped him get to the Final Four? andrew jenkins: He was influencing skills to get people on your side. Otherwise, if you don't, you're gone. Did Mark Ackers: you start to think, okay, look, I'm gonna take all of my learnings and use a strategy.

What was going for andrew jenkins: your head? We're just guessing, but you're just clutching the straws most of the time. You think, oh, you're a trait there. Why are you scratching your nose, or you sneezed, or you're a traitor.

How do you know what these people are like outside the castle? So you don't know if they've changed. Their body language has changed. You know how well they look like outside of the castle?

So you're trying to pick up on little changes in Mark Ackers: behaviour. So you didn't openly admit therefore you had, like, 20 year career in sales, I don't andrew jenkins: think so. No, no, I didn't know. I started lying from day one.

People to say the word sales, and they think it's a naughty word, they say, take the word sales away from here. All you're doing is providing a solution to people's problems. Mark Ackers: I think with sales, there is just that perception of manipulation. Do you think if you would have been quite open an institute that, Hi everyone, I'm Andrew, and I work in sales.

Do you think you would have got as far as you did? Andrew did? You used to be crap at sales. andrew jenkins: I did.

Used to be terrible at sales. Yeah, I applied for a job BEC in Lloyds Bank. I thought it's a good place to start my career. I suppose in Lloyds I was one of the best in the UK.

I went on numerous recognition events in London. I treated my customers as if it was a mother and father, for example, so I could sleep at night. I'd never miss all the product in my Mark Ackers: life. In 1999 before he started in sales, his life changed overnight.

I was driving andrew jenkins: my car on the 20th of August, 1999 I hit a curb on the left hand side, on the passenger side, I flipped the car into the right hand side. Now, why did it happen to me? Why? Why I'm only really in acceptance.

I'm not there fully yet. I don't think, but I'm getting there. I'm much better now than I was a couple of years ago, but I had to work really hard on myself, and what I did. Mark Ackers: Hello and welcome to another episode of The I used to be crap at sales Podcast.

I'm Mark Akers, co founder and Head of Sales here at my sales coach and your host, we call the podcast that because it's true and all of our guests say the same. So who am I joined by today? Well, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know we usually speak to sales leaders, founders, top performing account executives, people in the trenches of SaaS sales and startups. But today's guest, well, let me start by saying they have an incredible story to share.

For over 25 years, they've worked in corporate sales, including 16 years at Lloyds Bank, where they were a top performing sales individual and manager. They sold complex financial products, led large teams, and seen the highs of lows with the pressure cooker targets and relationship driven sales. But in 1999 before he started in sales, his life changed overnight, a horrific car crash left them with a traumatic brain injury, months and months of recovery and a new understanding of what resilience truly means.

Despite all this, you might know them for a different reason. You might know them for donning a cloak, sneaking around a castle, carrying a lantern more than you do carrying a sales quota. That's right. I'm really excited to say this.

My guest is Andrew Jenkins, and he's here today to talk about his career in sales, his journey through trauma, the mindset behind reinvention, and what really goes on in reality TV. Andrew, we normally start the episode with a yes, no question, but I feel we need to give the audience the context as people might not associate you with sales today, but you spent over two decades at it. Give us the high level when it comes to sales, what were you selling and andrew jenkins: where?

Well, for 18 years, I sold financial products in Lloyds Bank. I was a senior manager in Lloyds and then when I left the bank, I went into corporate insurance. I was insuring large businesses for their liability insurance, building stock. So I go to large businesses like stadiums, construction company.

Anybody who had a business, really, you legally have to have insurance. So I did that for eight years then. So now Mark Ackers: we've got that context and rich and long history in sales. Let's start with the yes, no question that we always start the podcast with Andrew, did you used to be crap at sales?

I did. Used to be terrible at sales. Yeah. And how crap are we talking on a scale of one to 1010, so let's get into it.

First of all, how did you get into the world of sales? andrew jenkins: I applied for a job BEC in Lloyds Bank. There was a job being advertised. It was called a personal account manager at the time.

And I thought back, got 25 years ago, probably. I thought, you know, great career. Big company. Lloyd's one of the biggest banks in the in the UK.

And I thought, it's a good, good, good, good place to start my. Career, I suppose, in Lloyds, what were you selling? And who to I sit with lots of like, not enough clients, I suppose, day to day customers and sell financial products. So from any anything, from a credit card to home insurance to loans, savings accounts.

So anything you could think of financial I suppose, really. And then also I'd refer clients on, then to financial advisors to look after their pensions and life cover, and also I'd refer them onto a mortgage arranger, then to discuss their, obviously, their purchasing the houses and Mark Ackers: things. And what kind of salesperson would you say you were? Would you say you were more process, more people, relationships or numbers?

What kind of salesperson were you? So people andrew jenkins: just come with me the problem. I used to solve that problem. So I'm a good listener.

I'm a great people person, and I'm good at building relationships and deepening relationships, because I had hundreds of customers, would only deal with me. They'd follow me around whatever branch I was working. They'd come and deal with me or I was helping them to build something for the future. And I say to people, you know, you're basically providing a solution to somebody's problems, and if you're not, you're Miss selling.

Why would you sell something to somebody who they don't need it? So I've always I'm a people person, my listener. I sit down listen to the person for probably an hour and a two hours first, I wouldn't mention products or anything first, until I listened to them, found out what their goals were, their aspirations and what plans they wanted, also what kept them up at night, what they were stressed about, they were worried about, and at the end that I provide solutions to them problems just Mark Ackers: based on the way you describe that, I can tell you have a deeper understanding of sales than lots of people within that profession, right?

Obviously not. People listen to this podcast, people listening to this podcast, get it and they'll they'll just be nodding along listening to you. But I'm guessing you had to learn that when you first got a sales job, you wouldn't have known that. How did you learn that that was the approach to sales I andrew jenkins: feel like lots of things in life, really, you learn from failed mistakes and mistakes in life you learn from but I'm very good when I don't achieve something in life, or when I don't, know, hit the target.

This world we live in nowadays, where everybody's a winner, there's no failure. I think it's a lot of nonsense. And when I do my talks, for example, I tell people failures is not a bad thing. I said, you learn more from failure.

But I was good at when I didn't achieve something, I used to sit back and think, right, why did I not achieve that? Why did the customer not purchase that item off me? I would never blame a customer ever. I'd always look at myself in the mirror first.

If somebody didn't buy something off me, I think, well, I didn't get them to see that. I didn't make them see the need for that product or service. So I never blame the customer. Lots of people say, Oh, the customer is a terrible customer.

This customer that I said, No, look inwards first to yourself, you they obviously didn't see the need for that product. So I learned from trial and error, I suppose, over many, many Mark Ackers: years. And I think that's the thing, like many, many, many years, it didn't come to you straight away. Did you have someone that sort of put their arm around you and helps you?

Because it sounds like you become that later on your career, I was reading about how you refer to as like an agony aunt, for example. But in those early stages, did you have someone that sort of really put their arm around you and help sorry, andrew jenkins: it was me, a sorry, it was me, a people person. I like talking to people, so I've enjoyed that. So it doesn't matter what sales job I did, it doesn't matter what the end priorities I'm selling, the process is pretty much the same, really, whether that's in insurance, in banking, whatever it was, it's the same sort of process in the end, the end product that can prod at the end.

It didn't matter cars, it doesn't matter, yeah. But I had a lot of mentors. I worked with some good, some bad. Well, I did.

I take the good things from the good people, I implemented myself, and leave the bad stuff behind. So he's taking the good from all the people around me and then using that for my own YouTube, to carve my own craft, I suppose. And told Mark Ackers: you about that, you said you had some good mentors, some not so good mentors. What's the difference for you?

Well, people andrew jenkins: are like as well documented, the PPI scandal was huge in Lloyds Bank, the laws at the bank that cost the bank billions of pounds. And I saw people, you know, ticking boxes on forms the customer didn't know about. Particular the PPR on a credit card. For example, you tick a form, tick, a tick, a box on their form, the application form.

So 99% 95% of the time, a customer didn't know about I suppose so I wouldn't take practices like that, which obviously Miss fraud, I suppose I'm Miss selling. So there was lots of things used to go on. This is like a long, long time ago, because the pressure to perform was massive. To mean, then it was huge.

The pressure put on staff to perform and hit their targets was huge. But I'm lucky. I'm a strong person, so I never buckled to the pressure. I never gave into that, because I'm a quite outspoken person.

I don't I wouldn't do anything. I don't believe in myself. So I didn't believe in something. I wouldn't do it.

Let's stand up for myself as well, whereas a lot of people buckle under the pressure, Mark Ackers: I can tell you got a real strong sense of like, right and wrong, and again, I really like the way you're describing that, but just I probably mumbled my words, but when it comes to you were talking about good mentors and not so good mentors. You know, people would call them coaches, for example. What is it about a good mentor that separates them from not so good the andrew jenkins: not so good ones, they're quite direct, and the feedback is not very constructive.

Whereas the good mentors, they let you come up with the answers, for example. So they'll they'll guide you. They'll ask probing questions, umbrella questions, lots of different types of different types of questions, because every single person has got the answers inside us. We all got the answers inside us.

We just got to find out we need somebody to help and culture us and mentor us and nurture us, for us to come up with our own answers. Whereas the top sales people, they were quite egos. A lot of them had their egos. They were right fixed mindset.

It was their way or no way you do it like they. This is the way you do it. You can't copy somebody else's sale. You can, but it's not authentic.

It's not real. So if you're trying to copy somebody else's sales model or sales process or whatever, it's gonna be hard for you to do that, then eventually. So yeah, it's somebody listening to you. They don't judge you, and they just sit in the trenches with you, and they give you good, constructive feedback, and they ask you more that they ask you more the questions, really not just giving you all the answers all the questions.

It Mark Ackers: feels like, again, I appreciate that's your world now, and we'll get to that. But it feels like having the right coach, someone that has mentored and worked with you, has had a big impact on the success of your career. You said earlier on how you were the top performer there, and you kind of indicated, but I just want to dig into a little bit more. What was it that separated you from, let's say, someone middle of the road.

They had the ability, but they weren't doing it. What? What we what separated you to them, I andrew jenkins: was driven. I suppose I know.

I like hitting targets. I'm very competitive person. I'm sporty, a huge sporting background, and I wanted to be a winner. I want to be the best I could.

And, yeah, and I'm hard working. But also I did things correct. I did things right. So people used to come into the bank, for example, asking to see me.

So I used to do outbound calling. For example, I had to do that every day to bring in the people I wanted to see. But also, I see lots of people coming to me. Recommendations, probably the best referral you can get.

So I used to get their friends, their family, their kids, their grandparents, coming to see me because they liked me, they trusted me, they felt comfortable with me, and they thought, go and see Andrew. Go and see Andrew. Come. Go and see Andrew with his loan.

So it's got lots and lots of people coming to see me off my previous work of referrals from other people, which is the best, best sale you can get. Really, I Mark Ackers: couldn't agree more, and it's just something that we see all the time. Referrals are just the best way to win new business. But so few sales reps ask for them, and I appreciate this was more you were getting them because of the good work that you did.

Here's what I want to ask. I suppose you talk about being really competitive. Love hitting targets, but on the other hand, always selling the right thing, only if they need it, and that can be a real trap for people morally want to do the right thing, but then we've got pressure. We've got targets.

Our jobs do depend on us being successful. How did you battle that? Because there must have been times when you weren't top of the leaderboard that month or that quarter. You could have sold more, but it wasn't the right thing to do.

How did you navigate that? Because that'd be tricky. Yeah, andrew jenkins: cool. I've seen that.

I've got I've seen it so many times, and you know, it is a harder pressure. But like I said, I've got good morals. I've been brought up properly for my parents to do right and wrong. I'd rather not hit my target, but doing a correct way, hitting my target, doing the wrong way, to be honest, I can sleep.

I can sleep at night. I got a conscience and I got morals, and I say I wouldn't. I'd rather have the feedback or the repercussions off my boss. Because I'm strong.

I can take I'm strong, and at the end of the day, I'm still a human doesn't mean I'm a bad person. And then to me, and it's just I was very good also, as well, at seeing the people, the high value ticket people, the one I needed to see, did help me hit my target, because in the branch, in the bank, every product we sold at a points value. So me individually, in the branch had a points target every quarter, no, it was like 800,000 points. And every product we sold in the branch had a product value, a value, points value.

So I was very good at, like, you know, when I did outdoor brown calling, you know, getting the lending, for example, the lending me did was the biggest ticket value, I suppose, or referring people for a mortgage, you get a huge amount of points. If you referred somebody to them your mortgage advisor, they took out a mortgage, you get a week's target, not far off. So why would I want to work harder? Not smart, as I work in smarter, not harder.

I'd refer more people for mortgages, for example. So I'm not doing the work. Then really, I get them to come in, getting to see the need for it, refer them on to somebody else, and they do all the work. And so, because it was that, and also get a lending in, which is good, you know, good points value, you know, people on large credit card bills at 30, 40% APR, when I could do a loan for 5% so it's a no brainer.

I was good at objection handling. I was very good at objection handling people. So I don't want a loan. I don't want a loan.

I said, Well, we don't talk about loans. We go through everything. We'll have a big interview. And so I don't talk about products at the start.

And I say, basically, all you do is lending money, whether it's on a credit card, a store card, car finance. I said, take the label off all of that and just call it debt at the end of the day. But you're borrowing that debt of 30% why wouldn't you borrow that 5% there's a no brainer, really? So, yeah, it's about seeing the clients you want to see to help you hit your target.

Really. Mark Ackers: I think one of the superpowers that it sounds like you've got that you haven't said it out loud, is being able to story tell, being able to bring what you're selling to the level of the prospect in a way in which it makes sense. And I think when it comes to like money in fact, people can be emotionally charged and not make the right decisions, and that's where you've stepped in as that trusted advisor, that consultant, and you've earned that because you've listened well, you've asked the right questions.

You're looking to guide them down the path that they want to go down, and you're just there to help. That makes a lot of sense. Relationship andrew jenkins: build is gaining their trust, then, isn't it? Gaining person's trust, and also relationship building is so important that every job, everything in life, versus we're not just sales.

I think having a good relationship with someone and you're gaining their trust is really important, I think. And yeah, I did most of the time. I taught like I said. I talked to the client when they came in.

I talked to them for about their friends, their family, their grandchildren, their weather, their holidays, just to get to know them. Be. Little bit of a rapport. First of all, it's like when you walk into Curry's, for example, right?

You walk into Curry's, or whatever. You go curry, they call it, and you walk in, and there's little sales guy that tell what we got is television is 10,000 pixels. And I'm looking and thinking, you know, I use that Telly for, you know, if I was me, I come in, I say, No, what are you gonna use? I tell you for, what are you here today for?

What we got? Which room are gonna use? Italian? What are you gonna use it for?

Playing video games, watching films, but not somebody No, somebody comes in. They'll try and sell the most expensive Telly in the world or three piece suite. They don't know you're going to use it for. So you're thinking you're selling something to me.

You're trying to pick you're trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Why not listen to me first and talk to me and find out what I want to use our product first before recommending products. There's so many people recommend a product before you will find out anything about that customer, which you're never Mark Ackers: going to sell. And I tell you why that happens in my experience, and keen to hear if you agree, it's because people rely on their product knowledge, because they're not comfortable having the question, asking sorry, comfortable having the conversation and asking those questions because of fear of losing out and being attached to their targets.

But you're right. You take a step back. What's wrong with your current current tally? Like, why do you even need a new one?

But so, so this, as I say, I think people listening to this podcast is just gonna be nodding along to everything you're saying, because that, you know, they're they they already invested in their careers and doing extracurricular like listening to podcasts. We'll wrap up this section of the podcast, Andrew, I want to understand why actually made you leave the finance world? You know, you're a top performer, you're doing well, you're leading teams. You've got a big relationship network.

What made you leave this world? I didn't andrew jenkins: agree the direction I left the banking world, to be honest, because I didn't agree with the direction the bank was going in. I was there for 88 I think was 18 years roughly, and then I was a good performer. I handed my notice in, and the director came down from Lloyd, the director one of the banks, and so where you go?

And he said, You got a great career every well thought of. And I said, I don't enjoy the direction of bankers go. In the last couple of years, I didn't enjoy my job anymore because I understand why they were doing I'm just a number Lloyds Bank, a huge I'm a nobody in Lloyds Bank, but my boss used to say to me, assuming against the ocean, you're swimming against the tide all the time. I said, Yeah, but I don't agree with it.

You're forcing people to go online. It's when they come into the branch, they have to pay and using a machine, they all want to use internet. But I said my skill is sitting with clients, listening to them deeply in relation. My skill is relationship building.

But the bank didn't want them anymore. And last going off one of my I was with a client. I dealt with this guy for about 10 years. He was in his 70s.

He was a widow. I think sometimes you just come into the bank just he was lonely, I think. But he come in like twice a year. I sit with him.

He had 800,000 pound in various savings accounts in Lloyds. He could have got better interest rates elsewhere, but he liked me, trusted me. I dealt with his wife's bereavement, and he kept his money with us. I was in the room with him.

1000 there for about, I think it was two hours, an hour and a half, two hours. I came up to the room to get a brochure, and my director, my local director, was in the branch, and he said to me, what are you doing in there? I saw, see Mr. Jones, or whatever.

I said. He said, he's an hour and a half. I said, so. I said, it's not an egg timer on the table.

Is there? I said, you know, I don't, I don't work like your hours up now. You got to go now every another don't work like a conveyor belt. I'll sell stay there as long as it takes.

He said, What are you selling him? I don't sell him anything. I said, I'm making sure he got the best. I said, the reason that guy is money is with us is because of me.

So I'll stay in there all day if I got away sex, 800,000 pound, if we got that much in, like, savings, that means you could lend it out the other side as well. So, you know, that guy can get better rates in Halifax, in, you know, principality, but he stays with me. He likes me, he trusts me. So I think I don't, I don't work like that.

I mean, I got, I got a timer. Now, for every customer I saw it on a timer. I can't work like that, so I left the bank to go into insurance. So even though the insurance is heavily regulated by the FCA, it's still quite old school.

So you win a client, you insure their business. And they don't care who you're working for, if you're working for, it don't matter what insurance company you're working for. They like you. They trust you.

To insure their business, to protect their business, and you should take the rugby matches, take him for meals. Go to restaurants as well. That's about relationship building. So I enjoyed that world.

I loved I did enjoy working in insurance. I only left there recently after obviously, I don't know where you're gonna go into but after my short TV stint, I left my insurance world after that, then about 16 months, 17 Mark Ackers: months ago, so we're definitely gonna cover that. What I want to touch upon now, Andrew is definitely a topic that I have not explored the guests before, and I want you to share just what you're comfortable with, really, but you've openly talked about the crash that you had in 1999 I read about it, and you know, it's hard to read about, right?

Is, even though I don't know you, I appreciate we met an event. But can you, just for anyone who's not heard this story before, at a level you're comfortable with. Share with us what what did happen? I was andrew jenkins: driving my car on the 20th of August, 1999 and there was five of us in car, in the car in total.

There was my partner at the time in the passenger seat, one of my friend, my best friend, and his girlfriend in the back, and a girl I used to work with in the back. I hit the curb on the left hand side, on the passenger side, and I flipped the car into the right hand side. So I was out. I went out to the driver's side window, so the door, I went out that door window.

So my top half was out the car, and my legs were in the foot well of the car. So my head and my arm would drop. My arm, as you can see, my arm and my head would drag along the floor for a couple of 100 yards along the tarmac. And when the car stopped sliding, it landed on top of me.

So when the emergency services turned up in the vehicle, they were asking people in the car quite. Questions, and they said, it's too late now we think he's dead, so I'm not a ghost. I didn't die. Don't worry, I'm here.

But I was, I was in a really bad way, so I lost six pints of blood in my body, and we got eight pints of blood. So I lost need all my blood. I had to have two blood transfusions on the side of the road there and then, and the fire brigade had picked the car up to get underneath the car, to get underneath the car, to work on me, because it was on top of me. I went to one hospital in South Wales called the Royal Gwent in Newport, but there was nothing they could do for me there, so I had to have a police escort.

Then now to another hospital in Wales, because that's when neurology was on plastic surgery. At the time, I took the top my head completely off. I had no hair, no skin on top, nothing on top my head at all, and I smashed my skull to pieces. Had a big hole in my skull, about that big, probably.

And the first operation I had that night was take all the bone up my brains. Had a lot of bone embedded deep in my brain. So the surgeon had to take all that way. That was the first operation I had.

I was in a coma then for four weeks. But obviously, while all I was going on, my mother and father got the dreaded knock on the door from the policeman, the one the No parent wants to say, you have to come with us now. Your son's been involved in a road traffic accident and RTA, and they thought his little bump in the car. So so we'll get change.

We'll come with you now. And the policeman said, you haven't got time to get changed. You have to come with us now. Is critical.

So they were they were taken to the first hospital where I was as soon as they got to that hospital, I was on a trial. He came out the hospital be put in the back of an ambulance to be transferred to the second hospital. They weren't allowed to see me go in such a bad way as you can imagine. My head being dragged along with tarmac wasn't a pretty sight.

It's not a great site now, but it's a lot better than it was. Than it was. And then they basically had to follow in a police car, and they were also told that I wouldn't make the trip from one hospital to the other hospital, which is probably about 40 minutes or 35 minutes away. Yeah, so that's what happened, and I was in a coma for four weeks in intensive care.

In fact, given my life, it's Mark Ackers: tough to listen to that. I mean that in the right way, of course, talk to me about the recovery journey, like physically. What did that entail? When I was in my andrew jenkins: coma, my family were called in on a few occasions.

I wouldn't make it through the night. I got three brothers, two older brothers, one younger brother, my mum and dad, obviously. And then when I did start recovering, they said, from the scans we've done on him, he's got severe brain damage. There's lots of shadows on his brain, which means dead tissue.

So he said, You don't think he's gonna wake up. If he does wake up, he's not gonna recognise anyone. He's not gonna walk, talk, use arms and legs ever again, so won't be able to recognise anybody. So I woke up after four weeks in intensive care.

I didn't know where I was or it happened to me. My mother had to explain it to me. She was standing on my bedside, hearing my dad, you know, crying, yeah, I didn't know where they had to explain where I was, what happened and everything. And the doctors came round about three days later and saw four days later and told me I would never walk ever again.

And my first response was, I guarantee I walk in this hospital. He said he won't. And I said, I will. And I argued with the surgeon, and my mother said, it's embarrassing.

You're lying in intensive care with all tubes coming out to everywhere, and a tracheoft in my throat there, and the man is trying to tell you not going to walk again. You know, arguments. I knew will and I did. I proved the doctors wrong.

I learned to walk again. It took me about two weeks. I think it was when I first got to bed was it's quite scary or frightening, I suppose, because I trained for a long time. I trained as 14 years of age, a lot of rugby and train weights and everything.

And I know, I know my muscle memory anything, but when I got out of bed for the first time, I literally couldn't find my leg. I could not remember to walk, and the physio to pick my feet up, put one in front of the other, and after a couple of days, I remember to walk again. Then, so it took me about two weeks, learned to walk again. I wasn't very steady, but I could walk.

It was awful. The physical injury I'm terrible, as you can imagine. My lungs collapsed. They caught MRSA, everything you could think of.

And then my biggest challenge were mental health, unbeknown to me, really. So I struggled with mental health for years, and my life was literally a car crash, excuse the pun, for many, many years afterwards, Mark Ackers: and talking about mentally, what was that process like? Then to recover from that andrew jenkins: disaster? To be honest, I was offered counselling after my accident, or therapy.

They said, Well, you've been through horrendous and I assumed I was a 21 year old, ignorant macho testosterone for a kid, invincible, because I should talk about bringing in a second obviously, I think it's quite related on my upbringing. But so I refuse counselling. I thought I would see somebody in a white coat who judged me, psychoanalyse me and try and get inside my head. And I thought, I'm not seeing them.

I can't relate to they can't relate to me. So I refuse counselling. I didn't see anybody I like my family background quickly. I'll just go into that.

I said, Got three brothers, two older, one younger. My dream, like lots of people in Wales, has played rugby for Wales, and I probably would have done that. So from five years of age to 21 my dreams play rug for Wales. My brothers played rugby professionally.

The three of us, we all played very, very good standard of rugby. So 21 years of age, my dream got taken off me, and I say to people, I said to you know, I talk about toxic masculinity and positive masculinity in my talks now and everything. And I say, I said, growing up, I didn't show any feelings and emotions. For example, I didn't think I could, because a man, as a man, you get told to suppress your feelings and emotions.

Very, very young age, don't cry. Girls cry. Don't be a baby. So I was brought up, but obviously the three brothers, competitive brothers as well, we still show feelings.

I didn't show my vulnerable side at all, and so I didn't talk to my family after the accident either. So we didn't speak about it. For you 20 or 24 years, nobody spoke about it at all. So yeah, it was hard, and so I really struggled.

So I get up every day, go off to work with a shirt and tie on with a big smile on my face, and life and soul of the party behind closed doors, I hated myself. Wish I was dead, wish I won here. Anymore. I hated what I look like in the mirror.

I couldn't accept my scars. Call myself a freak every single day. My mother said it's heartbreaking for her to hear because no when listen to her own son called himself a freak every day. Was heartbreaking when people just come to my parents.

I was to visit my mum and dad. I'd run upstairs and hide in my bedroom. I don't want nobody to see me because I was a freak. I only started wearing short sleeve T shirts for about four or five years ago, I saw a long sleeve shirts or jump but I wouldn't wear I hated my arm, my scar on my arm, and, yeah, I self sabotage.

Anything good happening to me. Yeah, it was a night. I never tried to do anything. I never tried to take my own life.

There's some dark days, and when people tell me they got depression, they haven't, most people haven't got them a bad day, because with depression, this is what I think. I never got diagnosed or anything, but I used to lie in bed some lie in bed someday, looking upstairs, looking up at the sea, and crying my eyes out. To get out of bed was hard work. And physically dragged myself to bed every day.

It was hard. It was a real chore to go to bed. I could easily lay in bed, pull the quilt over me, and stay there for months, to be honest, that'd been so much easier. So it was hard working out of bed, really.

So my life was a disaster for many, many years to be after my crash. Mark Ackers: I mean, again, like, really, really tough to hear that. But it's, it's, it's commendable, how honest you're being and sharing that, because I think people don't hear that side right. And how has that then changed your mindset and outlook in life?

Like, how do you now approach challenges adversity, given what you've gone through, I'm guessing it's given you a whole new perspective. It's andrew jenkins: only the last few years, really. So you know, 15 years after my accident, I went for counselling for the first time ever, because, yeah, I was self sabotaging things. I was upsetting people close to me, loved ones, and pushing people away.

So eventually I went for counselling, and the woman I saw was amazing. So one tip I'll give anybody who's listening to this, if you're struggling, please go and see somebody. You know, there's lots of people out there suicide rates are going up, which are discussing at the moment. I think it's because people, they don't want to open up and talk, especially men.

Bryce, I went for counselling, and it was brilliant. The woman I saw was incredible. And after the first session, she got I know what's wrong with you. I think I know what's wrong with I said, What's that?

PTSD and depression? And she goes, Yeah, you probably got them as well. But no, you're grieving. I said, grieving?

I said, What do you mean grieving? That's when you physically die. And she said to me, young, physically got to die to grieve. She's all grieving is the emotional reaction to the loss of the loss of any kind.

She goes, people, when they're tender for a big project in work that doesn't come off. You know, tender of this project for weeks or months, it doesn't come off, that's grieving. She goes, when you move departments in work, retire from job, have to give up a sport from an injury. So people, even when they have children, grieve, she said, because then they can't go out as much.

Don't worry much money. Now, you grieve in loss of identity. All I heard of you today so far is I used to play rugby. I used to look like this.

You're grieving. You're old Andrew, your old life. She's got so people watching this. I bet every single person on here is grieving at some stage of life.

I don't mean a physical loss. I mean if they've lost a job, retire or change their career, whatever, moved apartments in working, when you lost your friendships, and that so grievance massive. And I was trapped between the seven stages of grief. And I think I was between number two and six.

And number two and six is arguing, bargaining, depression, you know? Why did it happen to me? Why? Why?

And then number seven is acceptance. I'm only really in acceptance. I'm not there fully yet, I don't think, but I'm getting there, and I'm much better now than I was a couple of years ago, but I had to work really hard on myself, and what I did, I held a mirror up to myself. A few years ago, I started working on myself, because most people in life, they don't look at themselves, they don't hold them up to themselves.

They just walk around saying and doing things they're not very self aware. And people say, Oh, that's just the way they are. No, it's not the way they are. They can change.

They want to change. They can change. And I know why people don't do it, because holding a mirror up to yourself is scary. You got to look at your flaws, your triggers, your faults.

But I said until you start doing that, you can't really blame everybody, because in this country, we've got a huge blame culture. We blame the relationship, your job. You blame your kids, your father. Look at yourself first.

Start looking inwards first, before you start looking at everybody. Else. So I started looking at my triggers, my flaws and my faults a couple of years ago, and worked on myself. And it's been tough.

There's been great. It's been enlightening. This is empowering, but I've started looking at that, and I started doing that the last couple of years. So I'm wondering, I'm in a good place now, really, I'm a Mark Ackers: really good place in my life.

Well, I'm really pleased to hear you feel that way. That's great. What was it that made you after all those years, go and see somebody? Hey, sales leaders.

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I wish I andrew jenkins: can give some amazing guru answers, if you have one, like light bulb moment. But there was, it was a combination of lots of small things, really, like pushing people away, I you know. And this thing in this country, right? We get brainwashed right from a young age.

We get brainwashed from a young age. We are in school, five years of age, six years of age. We our self worth and value as a human being. Starts getting judged by the material things and achievements in life.

So if you're in school, if you're an A grade, the teachers love you. If you get an E grade or a D grade get written off, you start getting judged by people in school, the teachers in school go to university. You have to go to university to be successful in life. And you think, I don't go to university, but if I want to be successful, I have to go to university.

Then your parents might start, they might start like conditioning you to fit in with society, or don't do this. Do this. Be a doctor like your mom, be a teacher like your dad. Do this like your brother.

So you start getting compared. So your playful, like when you're a child, you're the most authentic, real, real version yourself. When you're born, you're running around, you're playful. You've got no self esteem issue, no confidence issues.

Then we are conditioned to fit in with society. The teachers do it, your parents do it, and then we find a job, then the biggest salary possible in the corporate world, we're led to believe more money means more happiness, or we go off to university and to study something which is a total waste of time. Be a thought. Well, I got to do that because I want to be successful in life.

So all these little things, and it's only when you get an awakening. I looked in the mirror when I was about 40 odd, and I had everything in life that I was told to make me happy. Because, again, from a young age, we get led to believe that our happiness comes from external things, external achievements, material things. But it's not our happiness starts inside.

It doesn't matter how big your house is, what car you've got, what trainers you're wearing, or if you've got 100 it doesn't matter. You could have as much money as you want, but unless you're happy with yourself, you'll never be happy. So look in the mirror. When I was 40 odd, I had a nice house, a nice car, good job, nice body, attractive girlfriend, bro.

Still felt miserable. I was thinking to myself, I got everything in life that I was told to make me happy from a young age, but I'm still empty. And the reason is, I think you're climbing everybody else's ladder, every else's expectations. Know your own expectation.

They call it the second there's a book called The second mountain. So I'm now at the bottom of my second mountain, and now building my life and do what I want to do, to make me happy, not to keep my parents happy, not to make them proud, not to fit in my social circle or my friends, and do what I want to do now, because I know like three men, for example, in their 40s, who took their own life in the last 12 months, who had very successful careers in in London, I think it's because they got to the top of this ladder.

They earned so much money, and they felt they felt empty, and they lost their purpose in life, but they couldn't go backwards. And they said the only way out for the easiest way to do is, unfortunately, take their own life. They had children, married. Their partners didn't work.

They lived such a lifestyle, high lifestyle. These men probably couldn't tell their partners they were struggling so and they didn't want to take a drop in salary. They couldn't afford to take a drop in sorry. Big mortgages.

Nice holidays, fancy cars. So when you get that state does, it's tough. So people, you know, people do take their own life. So, yeah, a long answer, I know, but I held them up to myself a couple of years ago.

So I work on myself basically. Mark Ackers: Do you know why, though, why a couple of years ago? Why not in five years time? Why not 10 years ago?

What was there a moment where you're like, it's time to pick the mirror up. andrew jenkins: I met the man who saved my life two years ago. I tracked him down on Google, which were creepy. There was lots of little things.

I started working on myself and, you know, studying and reading, learning about myself and trying to find out why, why I was like, I was like, why I was like, why? For why I got triggered by certain thing, why? And then I met the man who say, my life. I tracked him down.

I've always wanted to see the guy, but, you know, people say, Why didn't you see him earlier? I said it wasn't ready. I wasn't in a good place back then, so I felt I'm in a good place about two years ago. So I sent him a long email saying, you probably don't remember who I am.

This guy is really well respected in medicine, so he advised the government, for example. And then I sent him a long email. He replied A few days later, saying, of course, I remember who you are. Your injuries will always stay with me.

So for him to say that, first of all, I thought, wow, that's, that's, he's operated on 1000s of people. So I went to see him. I went to see him where he is, and I walked into his office, and it was a really emotional day. It's not every day you get the chance to meet the man who saved your life or shake his hand.

I walked in and he said, Wow. He said, You're a miracle. You should be dead. You should have died on so many occasions.

I can't be a big and strong you are. It's incredible. So meeting him made me realise I got a second chance at life, and how close I come to death. So I can either walk around for the next 3040, 50 years with a chip on my shoulder, resentful, angry looking back at life, or I can use my trauma for good now to help inspire other people, because I don't want people to struggle like I did for 25 years in silence, like lots of people do, I know I struggle for sighting silence like I only spoke to my mother and father the first time ever about the accident.

Two years ago. It happened. 26 years ago, we bottled it. I didn't talk to anybody about it, nobody really, apart from the counsellor, yeah.

So I wanted to start sharing my story and talking about people, and then talking about my accent and my how I felt and I was and it was funny. The first video I put on social media, on Facebook, I had 1000s of views. I had hundreds of people messaging me, saying, I can't believe you're going through that you always seem a life and soul. You always seem bubbly and fun.

I can't be they felt they had really sorry you're going through. I said, it's fine. You know, they'd be sorry about this. I wouldn't have shown you that side of me anyway.

And if you had offered me help, I probably would have said no. And they said, a lot of people messaged me saying I felt exactly the same as that, because a lot of my friends are gym people, corporates, doormen, body guards, gym people, the worst, toxic rugby people. So lots of people messaging me now, saying, I feel exactly the same as that. As a result of you now I started now talking to my father, my brother, my sisters, my kids.

So rather knock on if it had the effect they wanted, really, Mark Ackers: it certainly sounds that way. If someone is listening and resonate. It's and feels that way. How would you encourage them to pick up the mirror and start it's andrew jenkins: being brave and being courageous and being vulnerable.

In this country, we think vulnerable is a weakness, but it's really not as a strength. And I was vulnerable to millions around the country on television. But yeah, it's being brave. It's having and to be honest, it's about thinking the people around you who really matter.

Okay, they're gonna love you exactly the same, no matter I like I touched earlier on. I know it's all it's very good to achieve things in life and get good grades and win things in life, but if you don't, don't beat yourselves up. Don't think you're a bad person, because you're not. I said the people around you, your parents, your caregivers, your family, your brothers, they're not gonna stop loving you.

If you don't achieve your grade, they're not gonna stop love if you miss your target in work or the people who actually matter, they're gonna love you exactly the same. So be brave and have that conversation. Because in this we build things up in our head like I did for 24 years. I'm not gonna sit here and say it's easy, because it's not.

The research says 85% of all you overthink or worry about never, ever comes true. 12% comes true, or 30% comes true. But nowhere near as bad as we think is something like two or 3% comes true. So there's all this energy and worry we give give this thought never comes true.

Because I said, be brave and courageous. And I said, as soon as you start being open and vulnerable with yourself, your relationships every round you will be much better, because they again the true version of yourself, not some persona putting off it's been it's about being authentic and being true. I took my mask off. People, probably people watching this now wear masks.

Everybody wears a mask. So I wore a mask for pretty much all my life, I suppose. So I took my mask off a couple of years ago and being my true version of myself now. So I say to people, talk to people.

Have a good support network around you, and just make sure you talk to someone really Mark Ackers: So Andrew, it's really interesting, and I've been smiling away because a couple of times you've hinted at your appearance on TV, and there's a nice segue there, you talk about wearing masks, and I spotted you so an event, and had to come and talk to you about it before we get into that. Just for anyone who has been living under a rock for the last three years, tell us all what TV show you're on and how would you describe it?

I can probably andrew jenkins: butcher this, though I probably won't give it the justice it deserves, but I've got a programme called it's a BBC programme called the traitors, where there are 22 contestants placed in a castle in Scotland. Claudia Winkelman is the host. And at the start, we're around a table called a round table. They're all blindfolded.

And then Claudia will pick traitors amongst you. So we don't know how many there is. There could be one that could be up to six or five, I think there was. And then once you take your blindfold off, the rest you are called faithful.

So you got traitors and faithful. The whole point in the game, there's a few things. Every day we have a challenge to win money. And at the end of the game, then is a prize fund, and the winner wins the prize fund.

So every day, you have to a challenge, and then every night, there's something called the round table. And the whole point of the game is to vote out the traitors. So you've got to vote the traitors out. Otherwise there's any traitors left at the end of the game, they win the prize fund.

But also, every night, the traitors get to murder one of the faithful, not really, but they do not literally murder them, but they can murder one of the faithful. So it's a game. It's a really clever game, to be honest, because during the day, to complete your mission, you have to work as a team. So they put you together as a team.

In the day, you're high fiving each other, hugging each other at the end, and then a couple of hours late, they're ripping each other apart the round table. So it's a massive psychological game and a physical game, I suppose. So, yeah, it's a clever game, yeah. So that's it in a nutshell.

That's the that's the game in the Castle in Scotland. Mark Ackers: And I will go as far as to say, in recent years in terms of, I think you'd call it a reality show. It's it's been one of my favourite watches. Like all three series, I've watched the Australian versions the American versions.

I'm big, big fan of the show. I think the show's got some interesting flaws around, like traitors getting to recruit people and faithful. Do they vote each other out? Is that a more sensible strategy?

And like you say, you're working together during the during the day and the night time, and people sometimes vote tactically rather than actually going for traitors. But for all of that, I just think it's incredible TV. And I remember your series, well, I remember you got to the Final Four, didn't you? Yeah, but let's just go back a step.

First of all, again, you've spoken about how it took you a long time to accept who you were, a long time to really show yourself to the world. Talk about going 100 mile an hour. You've gone from, you know, saying that you could just lie in bed all day and not get up and not see anyone, to going on what was arguably the biggest TV show in terms of anticipation. Series One was huge.

Series Two, everyone now wants to watch it, and you put yourself out there, which is incredible. How did you actually get picked, though? Because there's 1000s and 1000s of people who applied, I'm guessing, through the application process, you use some of your sales skills to stand out and to be picked and to work with the producers. How, how did you land one of these 22 spots?

Well, andrew jenkins: initially, I basically, my previous partner made me watch the first series because I don't like reality I don't really watch reality TV. I don't watch a huge amount of Telly, to be honest. But. She kept on.

We always thinking of things to watch in the nights on Netflix, for example. I mean, when, when a series finishes, all we got to watch next. So she kept saying to me, Oh, this is programme of your it is really good, called the trait does I said, I'm not watching reality TV. It's rubbish.

I'm not watching reality TV. So she wore me down, like lots of women do. She wore me down. Wore me down, and I eventually gave in.

So we can watch it, I said, but if it's rubbish, we're turning it off. She's put the first episode on. I'm thinking inside, I'm thinking, it's all right, I don't mind that. I didn't tell her that though.

I said, Yeah, it's okay. I don't mind it. At the end, she got to the first episode. What do you think that's all right?

I don't mind it. So it's not that it's okay. I don't mind if you don't watch the next one. So we binge watched the first series over four three days.

We watched the 12 episode of three days, and the first series on in November or December, somewhere, like the centre of the Christmas it was, and I said, Oh, it's funny. I'd like them. I wouldn't crack or to go with that. And I put in the cosmos, I think so.

And then in March, then the following year, I had a message on my Instagram from a casting director saying, your story looks incredible. You look like a nice person. Do you fancy applying for this show? Because I didn't initially apply.

If I didn't, I didn't apply, I wouldn't have applied for myself. I said to my partner at the time, if I don't care about being recognised in the street or whatever, and I said, but I could get a great profile, a great platform and connections, I'll do what I want to do now. So I wanted to start talking about mental health and things that help people with mental health before the show came along. But I had a couple of followers, not many followers.

I never really use Instagram, so, you know, I didn't really have any, you know, connections or anything. So I only went on the show to get a profile I got now to help more people what I do now. So it had the effect they wanted. So initially, I didn't approach that.

They approached me initially, and then I had to go through the application process. And I think, when you what, I always think, what would they want from somebody on tech? They want somebody the good story. It was nice to watch it.

They don't want somebody on the tell who's boring, because the viewers aren't going to watch that, are they? So I want somebody who's got a good story and just normal, I suppose. Yeah. I went through the process and my story's my story.

I couldn't make my story up. My story's my story, I suppose so. And if you look at all the people in there, most of them have got a good story, like Molly, for example, their limb difference and stoma. There's lots of down.

There's got really good stories and backgrounds. So it was normal people in a castle we know, like, celebre is normal people. We don't know each other from Adam, so, yeah, we just chucked in this castle and thrust in the limelight. And it's a good series.

It's really good. I Mark Ackers: think that's the pill of it to me, in the sense of you are just, as you say, normal people. And I think that's where the the like American version, where it's got celebrities and pre connotations and ideas around who each other are, doesn't quite have the same effect, but so that's interesting. So a producer reached out to you, saw your story, and quite rightly, you identified that as a great way to build a bit of a platform for yourself to do what you really want to do in life and and share the story that you want to share.

I love that. Let's go back to when you got into the castle. Then you've obviously seen series one. You're now in that castle.

Did you have a strategy? And do you feel like your sales skills that you spoke about earlier, building trust, building relationships, empathy, listening, asking the right questions? Did you start to think, okay, look, I'm going to take all of my learnings and use a strategy. What was going for your andrew jenkins: head?

I wish I could, honestly, if you could tell on the telly, I think I wish I could say I did have amazing strategy. I didn't. I've just beat it myself. I thought I get to know everybody.

Be like I say you don't want to say too much, otherwise you get voted off or murdered, but you don't want to say anything at all because you get they look suspicious. So it's about getting that balance. And it's a tough game. He said, it's a numbers game, like sales.

This was a numbers game, isn't it, you gotta get enough people on your side influence. Use influencing skills to get people on your side. Otherwise, if you don't, you're gone. BEC, as soon as the numbers turn against you, like Johnny, for example, it was eight people against him, like so no matter what he said, once they're against you, there's nothing you could do to change their mind.

And you don't know these people from Adam. So I, like, you know, I did, NLP, for example, neuro linguistic practitioners study human behaviours and that. But how do you know these people are like outside the castles? You don't know if they've changed their their body language has changed.

You know how well they look like outside of the castle. So you're, you're trying to pick up on little changes in behaviour, but we're just guessing, but you're just clutching the straws most of the time. You think, Oh, you want to trait that why? Or just scratched your nose.

Are you sneezed or you're a traitor. So you just guessing most of the time. And that's why I think most of the every series so far, the trait has been winning seven one. I think every everybody the trait does a winning eight one.

There's seven wings at the start, you're just guessing it to be to get caught as a trait at the very start you gotta be You're hopeless to get you get caught out at the start as a traitor. When you're a traitor, you can see you're watching that. You're seeing everybody. You're looking at everything that's going on.

So you're playing chess, basically, you're listening to other people. Remember, really got to do a lot. So in Harry one, to be a traitor from the very start is easier than change. I'm not just saying that, but from the start you got one game plan.

You got to say that game the same game plan the whole game. When you got to change halfway through or later on, it's much harder. You're trying to change your game plan. And you also get you feel as you start getting a bit paranoid that everybody's talking about you, you think you've changed.

You probably haven't changed, but you just think you out so like being a traitor from the very start, things easier. And all you're doing when you're a traitor, you listen to people arguing you. And you're just adding fuel to that fire. So if one person goes against the other and tells you, yeah, he's a guy, I agree with you.

I think they're a traitor, and all you'll do is add in fuel to the fire. Because if you watch Harry, he didn't have to say or do a lot, to be honest, he just had to, like, add a bit of fuel to each of the fires. Now you just sat back and watched it, watch it unfold in front of him, really so I don't know if he was really good or everybody else really Mark Ackers: bad. I think the audience would wonder that as well.

He had that key moment, obviously, where he got Paul banished. That was a big moment. But here's a question I'd love to ask you, right? So, and you said at the start, people see sales as a bad word.

I think you use dirty word. I can't remember the exact word, yeah. Did you tell anyone the castle you were a salesman. I andrew jenkins: did an insurance broker.

I think it was an insurance broker. Well, they thought that. I don't know, but insurance broker, I was an insurance broker at the time. I was still doing my insurance Mark Ackers: job.

So you didn't openly admit therefore you had, like, 20 year career in sales, for example, I andrew jenkins: don't think so. No, no, no, I didn't know. I started lying from day one. Do you think that would Mark Ackers: have harmed you?

Because I agree what you said, like, the perception, again, not people listening to this podcast, but the average person on the street, if you were to say a little bit like, when people have gone the show and said that, yeah, they're an actor or an actress, like, straight away, oh, well, that's a true behaviour we saw in the last series. You know. Oh, Doctor by day, murderer by night, people try and take your occupation. But I think, I think with sales, there is just that perception of manipulation, right?

Again, like you say, putting fuel on the fire, but, but really, sounds isn't about that, like sounds is exactly how you described at the start. It's about only doing and helping someone solve a problem, and your job is to ask the right questions and to listen. But that perception is not going to be the reality of 22 people in the castle. Do you think if you would have been quite open an institute that, Hi everyone.

I'm Andrew, and I work in sales. Do you think you would have got as far as andrew jenkins: you did? I think the castle that switched on? Yeah, I probably would have.

I think I don't know. I don't think, I don't know. We just, I think a lot of us just a bit of fun. Things were fun.

We didn't really play a game. Or I think a lot of it's quite surreal. It's hard to say until you get into the castle. It's different.

It's different. You watch it at home, and it's easy to when you watch at home, you think, oh, it's obvious who the traitors are, but obviously they edited it in a way to make it look good for the television. Don't get me wrong, everything you see on the television is exactly like it is in real life. Nothing is nothing is scripted.

They don't tell you what to do, what to say, but obviously the editor, like from day one, you know on the television who the traitors are from the straight from this first episode or second episode. But when you're in the castle, you know you you wouldn't know that, and you don't get to spend a huge amount of time with each other in the castle, to be honest, you because when you're filming, it's such a big place, such a huge, beautiful castle, you can't spend all your time with each other.

So you're like, you got two of you in this room, three. You outside, two. And then you have a couple hours in the morning reality TV or filming, and then all of a sudden you gotta get ready for the mission then, which takes a couple hours of the day. You gotta have your health and safety briefing.

You gotta drive to wherever you're filming. So that takes out a big chunk of your day. And by the time you get back then to the castle after filming your mission, you gotta get ready of your dinner. And then you gotta go to the wrong table then, so you don't get a huge amount of time.

Amount of time. You get bits of time with each other, but not it's not a huge amount of time to try and pick up on different behaviours, and different people say, twisting each other. You don't really get that much time with each other. So it's much harder when you're in the castle.

He Mark Ackers: looks on the telly. So I can well imagine, like you say, it's a 24 hour day, and we get 60 minutes every night, obviously trimmed down, you had to go from faithful to traitor, which, again, I remember that happening because you weren't happy about it, but it was a do or die situation. So if you understand the game, you had to do that. But I think just from everything you shared, just being a trait, wouldn't sit naturally to you, right?

It's deceitful, it's lying. It's manipulating. It's it's doing all the things that you've had a whole career not doing. And again, you don't want to be seen like that.

If you're seeing this as a platform where you can build a bit of a name and a brand for yourself, you don't want to come out as the bad guy. You know, no, no one likes the asshole that was on a reality TV show. So I imagine that was quite difficult for you, but equally, you had no option. You wanted to stand the game and build your profile as long as possible.

But how did you find that going from faithful to traitor and starting to lie overnight? How did you handle that emotional flip? I think if andrew jenkins: you watch the show, you could see I was quite distraught. I wasn't very happy about changing.

I took me. I took a while to think about it, and then once I calmed down, and after the envelope with my chair, I feel like if I, if I didn't join I was gonna get murdered. And that's what they told me. Paul and Harry said to me, you're such a strong, faithful I didn't get any votes around table.

So long any votes around table. And then they said, The only way you're gonna leave is either getting murdered or joining us. So if you didn't join them, I was gonna they would have murdered me the next night, so I did the right thing, and I thought to myself at the end, it's a game. I The whole time I was in there, my feet were firmly on the ground.

I'm not a stupid person. Is a game at the end of the day, it's an intense game, don't get me wrong, but it's a game. I thought my family, they love me exactly the same. I come first or tend a lot.

It doesn't matter where I come. I wanted to stay in. Game, and I thought, people will watch it. I was myself.

I didn't I didn't lose my temper on the television. I didn't shout or cry or make anybody cry, because I thought, after the show, I want to do mental health and talks and that, so I can't very well be making Molly cry shouting at that. And then a couple of weeks later I talk on mental health, then I think, well, that's contradictory while you're on the telly. So I was I come across.

I think I come across quite well. I haven't seen any bad feedback, and everybody said I was true, I was authentic, I was genuine, and that's what I am. I've always been the same. I can't be anything.

I'm not. And when I when people meet me now, they say, you're exactly the same real life as you. I'm gonna tell you, see, what do you expect? I am a normal person.

I'll never change the person I am. Don't care how successful I am, how much money I have, I'll never be that. I'll never change. I'll always be the same person, and I'll treat every single person with the same respect.

I don't care if you're a cleaner or a CEO of a huge company, I'll speak differently depending who I got in front of me, but I'll give them the same respect, and I'll treat them all exactly the same. I come from a council estate in South Wales, so I know where I come from. I've had to work really hard in my life to get what I have, and I've never been given anything in my life. My three brothers would say we all all successful.

Yes, I was. I'm genuine, authentic, and it's a game at the end of the day, but I didn't like because it goes to like it goes against all my Mark Ackers: morals, really, and I can sense that, and I could imagine that it's difficult, but like you say, it is a game. That's exactly what it is and and you've got to see at the table, so to speak. It's interesting what you said earlier.

So I hadn't realised that, but comes back to me, you didn't get a single vote at the round table. And I wonder, was that because you were doing what just subconsciously you've been doing for 20 years, listening to people, asking questions, having empathy, being curious, being interested, to be interesting, making about them, not about you, just enough so you're not completely under the radar and suspicious, but really using your sales skills to build those relationships where you are seen as that trusted person, like, it feels like, Well, you didn't have that strategy.

That's who you are, and it served you really well. Is that andrew jenkins: fair? You hit the nail on the head there, to be honest. I think, yeah, I think everybody liked me, every trusted me.

And yeah, I was listening to I didn't really, like, manipulate anyone, or I didn't really, I didn't spread any gossip or anything. I didn't, I didn't lie at all. Really, I didn't have to lie at all. I didn't really say I just got to know everybody, a little bit of everybody.

I got on with everybody, I think, in there. And yeah, I say, use my sales skill. Like I say, I haven't been known to me. That's what I done.

I've done naturally all my life, I suppose, yeah, like I said, get to know little people, listen to people. And I didn't, yeah, I didn't really. I didn't cause any suspicion towards me, I suppose I didn't like I didn't tell somebody one thing and tell somebody something different. I didn't, I didn't do that.

So, yeah, you hit the nail on the head, I think, to Mark Ackers: be honest, yeah. And when you started wearing a cloak, I imagine that's a lot of fun, though, in a way, right? Like, it's a lot of fun you get to, you get to sneak around the castle doing traitory things, and like, you get more time with the producers, and they'll probably make you feel a little bit more special and make you feel like you're a bigger star in the show. And I imagine it's a lot of fun, but was there a moment where you were having to tell lies and looking people in the face?

And there's a classic phrase, I'm 100% faithful, I promise. Like, were you at any point just really uncomfortable andrew jenkins: with that? Oh, yeah. Back to the cloak.

I've always I've loved Luke Skywalker growing up. So I thought I was a Jedi. So I've always I love Star Wars, Star Wars, my firm where I loved Star Wars, all of the Star Wars films. So putting that cloak on me feel like a Jedi Knight.

So yeah, but one thing I felt really bad for was Ross, because we recruited Ross me, and how you recruited Ross, brought him into the castle, I brought him into the tractors fold, and then we turned against the round table and Ross, I think that was one of the reasons I lost. I could have won that game. I think, personally, I was going under the radar. I was going to start talking to Molly and jazz about Harry, because jazz was 5050, anyway, and Molly, I got on really well.

There I was like, I was like, their dad. I was like, Harry and Molly's dad. They were calling me dad, both of them, and they are younger than my son, actually. So because I was going to approach things towards the end the last few days, whatever.

But then Ross went mental at the round table. He lost his head at the round table because I said the word elusive. So he said, Oh, you called Harry elusive. And looking back, I don't know, I just didn't say yes, because I thought, if I say yes, now Harry, I had quite a lot of people on inside, so if I'd said yes, Harry would have known I was going against him.

So he would have got me murdered or banished the next night. Then. So I thought I said the Ross, I thought I said the Ross. I didn't say that word.

And he went mad, and he changed his vocal round table from Harry, are you? I can't remember jazz or something. He changed to me after that, after that, then everybody was saying to me, Molly, why did he Why did he do that? So I don't know.

I thought, oh god, he's messing my chat. It's suspicious coming on me then. So like, Molly, after the show, said to me, I didn't really suspect up until that point. So, so like Ross, Ross cost me 95,000 pound.

Really, I'm not bitter about it at all. But who needs 95,000 pound? Mark Ackers: Hopefully he's, he's bought you a pint, at least after the after the show. Right now, how stressful was it?

Because, because I, again, it's saying that sit on the sofa, you watch it, and you just think, I don't know if I could live with that stress of constantly either as a faithful not knowing, and I think that would drive me crazy, the not knowing people in the morning, everyone's celebrating, welcome to breakfast. I'm thinking, three of you are just liars. I'd really struggle with that side of it. And I think I'll just, I think the producers have to take me aside and tell.

To calm down, because I'd struggle with that, but on the flip wearing a traitor cloak and just having to constantly think, what have I said? How am I acting? What am I doing? It?

It caused me such anxiety. Like, how stressful was it for you? It was okay andrew jenkins: for me. The hardest bit was the wrong the round table is not nice, but I was fortunate where I didn't really get accused that much at the round table.

So I saw people. Brian, for example, just totally crumbled, and he started muttering and talking to himself. And either what happened in him the round table, he's lost the clock, I think he accused himself at one point of being a traitor. I don't know what happened to him, but I'm a calm guy, a cool guy being a bodyguard for letting down your doorman.

So I keep my calm, and I was okay, but it's not nice when people start accusing you. I was a faithful when I got accused by Diane, I think he was or somebody accused. I can't remember who, even though he's a faithful, I felt you think you get hot inside. You start feeling hot, and you start getting your temperature goes up, your adrenaline kicks in, and it's not nice.

But I guess I've seen people, if you've got 2345, people against you, you're fighting a losing bat like but that's not a nice feeling. I saw like Johnny, for example, I felt so sorry for Johnny because I was gonna vote for him, but by the time he got around to me, he'd already had six or seven votes, and he was a broken man. He just sat there, broken and he's a good he's a great guy. He's a lovely guy.

And I really got a lot of time for Johnny. And I thought, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna kick him or get him anymore. He's a human being the end of the day. And all these people here.

They're human beings. They got real lives. As soon as they leave this show, they got a real life for their friends and families. They're not going to break people or upset people.

But yeah, it is stressful. Round Table is can be quite stressful, but the game itself, and when you change from a faithful to a traitor, that's a bit strange. You just thought myself feeling guilty. It took me a few days to get into that role, I think, as a traitor.

But if the first few days, it looked so obvious on the television. It was so obvious. I think the breakfast, I was like shocked in breakfast, and it was so obvious I was a traitor, genuinely. Mark Ackers: If you've not guessed, I could just do the whole podcast talking to you about the traitors, but keen to move on, because I want to talk about what you're doing now.

But before I do just my last question, what's it like coming out the show with that sun level of attention and recognition, and I appreciate you wouldn't say you're famous today, but equally, I spotted you at show, and I'm like, well, first of all, I was like, I swear I've had a couple of discovery calls with this guy. Like, I didn't know where I knew you from. Then the penny dropped, and I wanted to come say hello to you, right? I'm glad I did, because we sorted out the podcast, even though it cost me 20 quid because I lost a bet.

I was listening. I bet rich Smith, what series you're in. I was wrong. I'm so sure as well.

But what was it like going from, you know, you know, just being a normal person, like you used the word nobody earlier on, which is obviously not a nice phrase, but being a normal person to being recognised, having people follow you on Instagram and Twitter, and people having an opinion of you. What is that like? andrew jenkins: Nobody can prepare you for that, to be honest. Obviously, they're great to their well being.

Studio, Lambert, who produce the tractors, they've really got their well being. It went on for months. The application process goes on for quite a few, quite a while, I suppose. And they tell you all that, and we know, you know, we're gonna get involved in and your media and all this sort of thing.

And people will come out to the woodwork and say, you know, nice things about you. And things about you and doing it, but nobody can actually prepare you to actually happens. And when you're on the show, it's strange. Whenever you leave the show, you've got a different experience, I suppose, and it's hard.

So like Aubrey, for example. So for months and months and months he built up in his head, and he'll be back, and you're on the show, and he gets voted off first. So there's months and months and months of planning. He gets voted off the first day.

So, like, you didn't see Aubrey again then and then, obviously, other end of the scale, and the winner is totally different world he's in now. But I like, for me, I come forth. So I'm quite a recognisable person. I said, I've got a big guy scars, and I quite memorable.

I suppose. I get recognised all the time when I go places. Now, 18 months later, I get asked about it all the time. And about the first couple of months was crazy.

Wherever you go, every in Cardiff or whatever I was I'm sitting with my partner or sitting with my son on a quiet meal, and you got so many coming over to you, coming over to you, constantly coming over with your kind of photo, girl photo, the number of times I left early, whatever I was able to go home. I saw it. I saw overwhelming. It says so much I like talking.

As you can tell. I like talking and meeting people and everybody come up. You had they were all amazing. Lovely feedback.

He was such a great guy. You should have won you the best traitor. Your lovely your lovely story. And so I never any bad feedback.

But it's still sometimes you want a bit of privacy, to sit with your family or sit with somebody. But it's relentless. And you sat on a train coming back from Manchester and people walking past, kind of taking photos or sneaky photos. You on the sly and that, and you can see him doing under their arm or so, taking a photo.

And that is a bit it's funny. But I can't imagine our real celebrities, how they how they manage all that constantly, all the time, all these big celebrities where it's like, everything you say, everything you do, it in the paper straight away, the guy went for a massage, or if I'm going to see a chiropractor, the next day, I posted on my Instagram this, I've been seeing him for a couple of years. I post on my Instagram that day, or internet, in the newspapers and the next day.

This is where Andrew keeps his body in shape. This guy literally the next day from Instagram. The next day, it's all the newspapers in the sun, the Daily Mirror showing us your chiropractor. It's funny, like it's not even good news.

It's rubbish news, to be honest. But yeah, it's funny. Write about. So it's fun.

I just think it's been a fun debate. I enjoy it. And I'm not a celebrity. People, you're famous.

And I said, I'm just a normal guy. I'm not. I'll never change. But there are some negative downsides to her as well.

Other people come out the woodwork, turning lies on you, trying to manipulate and tell lies and sell stories now. So it's not nice. There is stressful as Mark Ackers: well. So I should ask Andrew like because everyone else will be thinking this when you're saying home, watching it back on TV.

I'm guessing it's like five, six months later. What does that feel like? andrew jenkins: Cringy, I hate the sound of my voice. I don't hate I don't hate anything, but the sound you don't sound anything like in real life.

Of I don't think you're doing it's the same. Whenever I talk to people, people say that's what you sound like, though I don't think I sound like that. It's the same as well. When you listen to yourself back, or anybody listens to themselves back.

You don't sound like that. But, and I don't get to see it on the television. I don't get to see it before you, so I'm waiting, the same as everybody else from the country, waiting to watch it like you said. I filmed it five months, six months before, so I can't remember what happened to what I said six months ago.

So sat there thinking, Oh, please don't say but I know I didn't do anything bad anyway. But you can't remember all the stuff we did and said, and it's funny when he walks in the back. So I every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I sat there waiting, watching your family waiting this year. And obviously the editor version is incredible.

It's like a film, to be honest, with the owl everywhere. And it's brilliant. Well, yeah, it's brilliant while you see on the telly, but it's strangely listening to people talking about you. And yeah, you listen to people they said on your back, and things.

And it's quite fun here. But it is funny. It is strange, though it's very strange. Did Mark Ackers: you all have, like, a big Whatsapp group?

We have still got the WhatsApp group. Yeah. And if you don't mind, because I always find like, what's, what's the name of the group? Is anything interesting, other than traitors andrew jenkins: 2024, traitors family.

It's just called no date, just traders family. And Mark Ackers: is every contestant in it. Yeah, good stuff. Work.

So again, you can tell I love the show. I could talk to you about that for the whole podcast, but I really want to talk about now what you're doing since, because that was the aim, right? If I can get on this show, I can build a platform for myself. Can really talk about mental health and drive that awareness.

So after the show, you've come out, you've you've launched Andrew Jenkins coaching. Tell us what, what does that business do? andrew jenkins: My main, my main income stream, or what I would do mainly, what I enjoy that my passion is two things, I suppose, doing the keynote talks, but I call them educational talks. I don't call myself a keynote speaker or a motivational speaker, because they are so boring.

I've seen so many of them over the last 20 odd years in rugby clubs and things I think, yeah, good talk. I am relatable, so I call myself an educational speaker. Or I like them. Call them educational talks because I want the audience to take things away they can implement in their lives, their friends, their families, their work colleagues, for example, because my story is relatable to millions in this country.

So my upbringing was fine and my upbringing was good. We just didn't talk about feelings and emotions and that. So, you know, I talk about failure. You know, I thought failure was a bad thing growing up, and I wouldn't step in my comfort zone.

So I stayed in my comfort zone, or my fixed mindset for many, many years now. The last couple of years, I've stepped massive up my comfort zone, but I enjoy it. I got a growth mindset now. So I talk about that.

I talk about social media. Talk about a lot of social media, which I've been involved in a lot the last year, which is massive at the moment. So I do a lot of talks, and I also like working in schools with the younger generation, because I think if you want to change the culture in this country, we have to educate the next generation, the kids, the children. Because it's all very well me standing up in front of corporate companies women and men in their 30s, 40s, 50s.

But then if you want to have change in this country, we got to talk to the younger generation, talk to them about you know, feelings, emotions, and it's okay to fail. It's not a bad thing. And I say what I think I want. I love going to school and talking to kids, and that's my purpose, I think, in my passion in life, and meeting that doctor who saved my life, he gave me, my purpose in life is what I'm doing now.

I also do lots of workshops as well, around resilience, vulnerability, leadership. So I break my talk down into, like, different, different workshops, really. So what I've been through, what I experienced myself in a corporate world, and it's funny, I tick lots of boxes. I've been in a corporate world for 30 years, successfully.

I was told to never walk ever again. I've been in a coma. I lost my self confidence, my self esteem was nothing and no self esteem. So I talk about that, which is a massive problem at the moment.

Yes, I everything I talk about is things I've experienced or overcome myself, to be honest. So nobody can ever say to me, what do you sell your tax book for five years? What do you know? Well, I know because I've been through myself.

I Mark Ackers: think that leads back to what I labelled for you as a superpower that you didn't mention. Storytelling coming, coming from a place of I've done this and and that's what, that's what lands with people authenticity. This person's walked and lived and breathed the story they're sharing. I've got your workshops in front of me, So in no particular order.

Well, they're all on your website, so maybe there is a particular order, but one's called dare to be real the power of vulnerability in leadership. One is the failure is not final. So cultivating a growth mindset in teams, and then we got the resilience revolution, which is empowering leaders to combat burnout. And then there's thriving minds unleashing the power of mental well being at work, I'm sure you'd say all of them.

But if you had to pick what's your favourite one to deliver and why, I enjoy andrew jenkins: the I like I like them all, but I enjoy the failure one, to be honest, because there's such a stigma out there the failure. Yeah, and I've been through myself in my sales job, I suppose, where leaders used to shame people into performing. I say you're not gonna get the best out of your staff by shaming them your bottom of the league table, the bottom of the KPI. You're at this KPI, and like in the bank years ago, if you did it to target the individual target that day, or you didn't sell your ppi, for example, on a loan, sometimes the manager make you stand up in the morning, huddle in front of the whole branch, tell the branch why the branch in this target yesterday, or why you didn't do your PPI yesterday.

They're trying to make you look you know, shame you I say that's the wrong way of doing things like vulnerable leading is good, and people think vulnerable is like the boss is crying or making sure they're weak. I say it's not about that. It's about humanising yourself, and it creates a much better culture in your workplace, in your environment, in your office. I said, because when you're at the top of the ladder, when you're an employer, what you're looking at these MDS and their CEOs, these large companies, and you're thinking, they're like, God, they're untouchable.

They never make any mistakes. They're perfect. I see the leaders admit to your staff you've made mistakes in the past, but also how you overcome them. And then so people can say, well, I'm making mistakes off it's not a bad thing.

I won't get chastise. I won't get dragged over the coals or made to look stupid if I'm open, honest. Because if you, if you are vulnerable people in your workplace, everybody wants to contribute. Nobody's scared of failing.

Everybody contributes good ideas. It's much innovative, creative company as well. So yes, that's what, that's what I think is really so, Mark Ackers: yeah, so here's what's difficult about the sales world and being vulnerable and failure. And I want to hear what you say to this, but you mentioned right at the start, egos.

I believe everyone in sales. I mean, I believe most people in general, but everyone in sales has an ego to some extent, like it can be really small, really big, but everyone's got a level of ego. It just depends where they are on the scale. So there's ego there, then there's no one really wanted to be in sales.

We all sort of fell into sales, right? Like no no one grows up saying they want to be a salesperson. When you go into schools, I bet no one says to you they want to grow up and be a salesperson, andrew jenkins: especially insurance broker. Nobody ever wants to be an insurance broker, right, exactly.

Mark Ackers: And then you've got the failure. Well, if you fail, you lose your job. And actually, if you fail a couple of quarters in a row, you can lose your job. It can be very hard.

And then, like you say, it's leaderboards, it's KPIs, it's targets, it's about every part of a sales rep is measured on revenue and activity and they're successful, one quarter that's back to zero, and there's that competition, and then you've got the ego side. It's such a cauldron of emotion that you can understand why people are afraid to fail. And here's the biggest problem, when you're afraid to fail in sales, it leads to the wrong behaviours that you push into your prospects.

That's when you start selling the wrong thing. That's when you start acting desperate. That's when you start being pushy. That's when you stop doing what you said.

Why do you even want this product? What is it you wrong with your product today? What room you're gonna watch the TV in? Why are you gonna use it?

Whatever example, whether it's TVs at Curry's, it's finance products at Lloyds or insurance products. But it's really difficult. How can we embrace this as a salesperson failure? How can we embrace this?

And it is tough, and I'm gonna andrew jenkins: say again, I'm gonna sit here. This is easy, because I've been under lots of pressure over the year of many years, I suppose, where I mean, but I think it starts from the top of a company. It does start from the top, but I say to people, normally, nobody really goes to work to do a bad job. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who are sabotage.

That's different conversation altogether. Then. So I think there's a skill issue. Is a will issue, pure of skill and will.

If they got a will issue, that's a different conversation. And if they got a bad attitude or change, they needed that something different. That's a maybe a coaching plan or a PIP or whatever. But they've got a skill issue.

You recruited that person for a reason. You obviously bleeding that person when you recruited them. They got the skills, they got the knowledge, they got the experience. They got the experience.

You obviously like that person. Recruited them, then, you know, coach them, nurture them, give them, give them the right skills and right tools to be able to be successful. You know, not. You know, people go through bad times in life, and you know, outside things in work might be causing that, and people say, don't bring things into work.

We're all human. We all got feelings and emotions. If you go through a divorce or somebody died, course, you're gonna bring into work, you know, in a robot, so at the end of the day, and I used to take my things into work sometimes, but I guess having a good manager to try and know their staff and find out what makes them tick. And when I do my you know, when I was a manager for many years, lots of different branches I worked in, I was trying to treat every member of my staff as individuals, but also found out why they came into work that day, what makes them get up every single day and come into work and come into work every day?

And people saw money? I said, No, it's not money. Everybody can save more money. It's what are you going to do with that money?

Or send my little boy to university, buy my girl her first car? Right? So that's your motivating fact, that's your purpose. And every time you want to stop doing something or do something, remember your purpose, your why.

It's just about treating your employees and find out, you know, treat them all as individuals and actually find out what makes them tick. I suppose we're also coach them and nurture them getting the right skills to be successful. So I think everybody's got the ability to be successful the right with the right coach and the right Mark Ackers: support. I believe that as well wholeheartedly, the challenge is time.

Most people don't get the time that they need to. Be successful and like sports, a really good analogy for that. I can't really talk rugby to you, because you'd find out I don't have a clue about rugby. But when it comes to football, like management is just a great example.

If you're not successful, you can lose your job after six, seven games in sales, it's a couple of quarters. I think what you said is really interesting, though, right? So first of all, let's talk about recruitment, like you say, is it a skill or a will thing? One of the things is really interesting.

So my sales coach, we we provide evaluations where we can evaluate sales people, and we evaluate them against 21 core sales competencies, and it benchmarks them against 2.5 million sales people. Is incredibly detailed, scientific research, proven, validated assessment. But you know, the number one competency, that's the most important is commitment.

If they're not committed, no matter what you do, they are not going to be successful. So I think the commitments there, that's the will thing. Then it comes down to a skill thing. And like you say, you've hired them, you believe in them, but it comes down to now enabling them and coaching them.

Here's the problem in sales, and you've experienced this, good salespeople get promoted because they're good sales people. That doesn't make them a good coach. And you've said yourself, there's good coaches and bad coaches. How do we solve this conundrum in sales?

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andrew jenkins: I see it so many times, if people get promoted in the bank, for example, to management positions because they were good at sales I said, they're two totally different skill sets. They're totally different. I said, you know, sales people got one different you know, I'm not saying they can't be but a lot of the time these good sales people are quite ruthless and they're quickly, they're good sales people, whereas the management are more nurturing people, more empathetic, and they're different skill set all together.

So I know lots of people have been promoted into thrust into a management position, and they fail them because they don't get the right level of support and coaching, they've got the right tools, and they end up failing. They end up feeling vulnerable or failing as a manager. Then, because they weren't given the right skills, they end up on a pip and end up under so much pressure. I said, Well, no, it's the bosses, the people of tops fault for giving that job in the first place, doing them today, anything to prove that a good manager?

No, I was a good salesperson, but I like to think I was a good manager as well, but because I'm a good listener, so that's a really important thing. When you start, you get to know I got to know the customer. I got to know my staff as well. So I could transition between sales and management quite smoothly, to be honest, apart from the compliance, and learn the compliance in the background stuff and but I treat my staff really well as a good listener to my staff as well.

So I always try and find out what's going on at home as well. Try and find out what's going on their lives outside of work as well. You know, it's really important to make that, make that staff and feel valued, and that there was one occasion, for example, where there was one lad, he used to come in late every day, and nobody had taken the time to sit with him or find out why. They always to slag him off and bend his back and that he's a pain.

He's coming in late all the time. So the branch is open at nine o'clock, and they got to be up and running in by nine o'clock. So I say, right, taking emotions out of the situation. I've always learned, if you want to have a difficult conversation, take the emotion out of it based on facts and evidence.

So he's coming late, but I used to make a note to make a note to it for a week or two. When I went to the branch I was working, I made a note to me. I sat him down and said, I know, what time do you have to what's your opening hours in working hours? He said, I gotta be up, alright, so tell me.

Then, why did you come into work 10 past so you can't argue back with her. Then if I had another evidence, I said, you come late? You would have said, No, I'm not. Yeah, I didn't end up an emotional thing.

Emotionally got involved. Then he was a nice guy as well. I say to people, strip the emotion out of the situation and base it on evidence of facts. And nobody can really argue with that then.

So I said, you're telling me, but I dug deep bugs. I'm a firm believer in everything in life, and something called Root Cause Analysis. Get to the root cause of the problem. Peel back the layers of the onion.

There's lots of analogies for it. So I drill drill down, drill down. Basically, his partner was suffering with severe depression. They had two young children, so he was having to try and get the kids ready for school in the morning, look after his partner get to work on time.

So he was stressed to the max, and he carried on for months. So I just said doing right simply, if you is too few things we can do. We could change your working hours from nine to 930 start, and I'm half an hour for lunch, and that's what we did in the end. It changed this guy's life.

Everybody in the branch knew that he started Half past nights. Rather than slagging him off and moving behind his back, they knew he started out by saying, basically, right, he starts half past nine. Now he was half hour for lunch to make up for lunchtime. So like he said to me, nobody has sat to me and taken the time to find that information out.

They all just put me on a pip. They all just said this and said that. They all he was a problem employee, if you like. But I took the time to sit down and drill, and I said, it's really important.

That's why you got to treat all your staff members individually, you know? And I think I said, I don't think he didn't, he wasn't doing it on purpose. There's a reason behind something. And I always try and look at people, I think, right, why are they saying that?

Why are they acting like that? And there's always a reason, most of the times, a reason. In behind it. I think Mark Ackers: there's two sides to that story.

So one, you've done an incredible job of separating emotion to logic and getting to the root cause. So you've done a good job there. But here's the problem that we're not talking about that we have discussed earlier. That individual, let's give them a name like I don't mind if you use a fake name.

What's their name, David. So David is suffering in silence. Why is David not speaking up? And again, this is the world of sales, right?

We we come into to a sales role. We've got pressure, pressure, pressure. Every week. You start back at zero, every month, every quarter, back at zero.

KPIs, tight. But we're human beings, as you mentioned about people in the track, human beings, you're gonna go home or leave the show, whatever, go back to normal lives. And so everyone's got their own shit to be dealing with. When you come into work, we feel like we can't speak up.

We can't say, I need help. Why is this? Why do people feel this way? It's andrew jenkins: fear in it.

I think it's fear, fear of failure, fear scared if they if their manager is not very open, and nobody you know very open about talking about things, you feel scared. You're scared, I suppose, in fear of fear of being dismissed, fear of being sacked, fear of being put on a coaching plan for you, being part of PIP, and nobody wants that's all added stress and pressure. And there's so much pressure out there at the moment, the world in general is just a fearful world. I think every stress, their money is a big problem every at the moment.

And it's a tough, it's a tough world there at the moment, I mean, but I think, I think it's, I think a lot more leaders and managers and team leaders need a lot more coaching and support. I think to, you know, show them the benefits of looking after the employees, well being. Show the tell the manager, if you started doing this, you get x, y and z off the back your employees, like that boy, I had his loyalty that after I did that for him, I could have told him to ask him do anything.

He would have done it for me. He had done it for me, he worked extra hours not being asked because he like I think, he felt listened to, seen and valued, and that's all people want these days, is feel listened to and valued and seen, I suppose. And he did so after just taking that time to have that conversation, and people say, I get it. People don't have a difficult conversation.

I said it doesn't have to be a difficult conversation, you base it on evidence fact, like targets, for example, your target is this, but are you coming at this? They can't argue with that and then, but also then find out, why is it something going on? Why they need more support regarding objection handling? They need more support around telemarketing.

They more say, find out what is, and give that person that support and coaching and to be successful. Because I, when I was a manager, it was my whole team was successful. It wasn't just me on my own being successful. I got a buzz that everybody else in that team being successful, and I was helping coach and nurture them.

I struggled with that for you for a while, actually, to be honest, because I'm I love hitting my own personal targets. I love being the best. And when I was a manager for the first year or two, my boss would say to me, you didn't work till nine o'clock every night, your team have gone over five o'clock. You're doing all the work.

You're doing all the sales. Give them to other people. I say, No, but nobody can do a good a job as me. He said, I know, but you've got to try and coach and sail and help them to be as good as what you are, otherwise you get burned out.

And he says, how good a manager are you? If you're doing more sales and your team. What are they going to think if you're not getting coached or helped or support? Guy was there rushing around, seeing all the customers, and I was busy, and I found it really hard to let go, let go.

I found that really hard to try. And I'd rather do the sales and see the customer myself and help coach other people. I did find it really hard to step or not step away completely, but I found it tough. So I was doing more sales than my sales people I was hitting.

I was doing more times. Doing more. I was hitting more sales than them, every day, every week, every month, for the first year, two years, probably I say my sales matter my management career. Mark Ackers: I think every manager listen to this will resonate, because you've been a top performer, you've been promoted.

You know what success looks like, but now you got across the chasm of helping someone else fill that gap. And you mentioned you got so at least one. How many children have you got? I got one boy.

He's 24 years so did you teach him to ride a bike at some point in his life? Yeah, a little bit like I remember when I taught my son last summer to ride his bike, I had to say to at the very beginning, you are going to fall off. You are going to hurt yourself, you are going to cry, but at the end of this you will be able to ride a bike confidently. But we don't want to let our kids fall off the bike.

We want to do it on grass. When grass is really hard to ride it, you want to ride on the bike. It's really tough, right? Like that analogy of you've got to let them fail.

And I think that's the difficulty that sales leaders have because they've been promoted because they're good at sales, not because they're a good manager and and you've got andrew jenkins: to ego. I think it's back to ego, isn't it? I like being top of the league table. I like being I like hitting targets.

I like being top of the table. I like being the best, to be honest, after being sporty all my life, being a winner, I like to be. I like to be. It is an ego thing as well.

Letting go your ego, which is tough, like you said earlier on, I think not just sales people. Every single person's got some little ego inside them. How big or small that is? I think that's fine, but everybody's got a bit of ego.

Everybody has, Mark Ackers: and social media is, in the last 15 years, done nothing but exaggerate, terrible and that need for approval, etc. Yeah. Yeah, as I say, it comes back down to though your favourite talk to deliver, and I know you like them all, but that failure, right? And that's difficulty, one of the things that you've mentioned a lot, it's almost like you were prompted, even though you was not, is coaching, right?

Like you spoke a lot about the impact of coaching, here's the thing that I know you know to be true, but I just wanna get your hot take on it. Most sales people, most managers, do not get coaching, and if they do, it's not regular, it's infrequent. It's too late. Why do you think that is?

And more importantly, what impact can regular coaching have on sales professionals and managers? It's really important. Coaching is andrew jenkins: so important, than ever. It doesn't matter if you're a top performer.

It doesn't matter like look at all you know, footballers out go back to football. Cristiano, Ronaldo as a coach. He's the best. I think Percy, this is subjective.

I think he's the best player, better than Messi, but that's my opinion. That could cause a massive debate. But I think he is. But well, he hasn't got a coach.

Of course. He's got a coach. Everybody, every sportsman, a boxer, world champion boxer, you sick. He's got a coach.

He's a full belt World World Champion, and he's got a coach. So sales is exactly the same as every now and again. You may get complacent if you've got a growth mindset. I'm always I crave feedback after every talk I do, after every workshop, whatever I do, I say to people, I want feedback.

Good and Bad, the way I'm going to learn and get better is not constructive feedback, because there's some feedback just pointless, and there's other people who can't give feedback. Giving feedback is a skill as well listed as a skill, but some people give feedback, but no, it was. It's not constructive. You can't take nothing from it.

So constructive feedback. How you give the feedback? Make sure you don't damage somebody's confidence, or really back to them. Give them in a right but get that person give you the answers.

Say, how do you think that went? I let them tell you. And normally, if you know if you're in a way person or switched on, but you know if someone hasn't gone right or wrong, you know if it's a sportsman as a salesperson, you know if something's gone wrong. And normally, people come up with their own answers themselves.

So you get rather than you tell him, I think you should learn this. If you tell somebody how to do so in the chances of doing us continuing to do it are slim, but if they come up with the answers themselves, they think they come up the answer themselves. They are. They're going to more likely to do it and carry it on then.

So, yeah, so I think it's really important to listen to Yes, it's really, it's an important skill Mark Ackers: that is, yeah, it certainly is. And look, Andrew, I'm conscious we're coming towards the end of our time together. I've loved so many of the things that we've spoken about today, and I feel like we share a lot of beliefs in terms of what sales is, the importance of coaching Ronaldo being the best. I certainly agree with you there.

I found it a really interesting podcast. Like, we've had some real, like, sobering moments, and I love how much you've shared, but it is. It's been sobering to sit and listen, actually tough as the host, to sit and listen to some of the things that you've gone through and and think, am I asking the right questions? Because most people don't open up like that, and I really applaud you for that, but, but then we've had some real highs, like, I've loved talking about the traitors.

I've loved hearing about how you sold and got into that world. I love what you're doing with your with your life now and and Andrew Jenkin coaching, um, tell us, where can people come to to book you and find you, give us like all your handles, so to speak. andrew jenkins: Oh, here we go. Nobody good at this sort of thing.

It's my my Instagram is at at Andrew Jenkins, official. My LinkedIn is Andrew Jenkins. And then my website is www dot Andrew jenkins.co, but I say my Instagram is more of a fun thing.

I think it's more of a relevancy thing. My ins, my LinkedIn is more professional platform. I've used that for probably 25 years. LinkedIn in banking, insurance.

So LinkedIn is more Yeah, most of the people come to me through LinkedIn, to be honest, your website as well. But um, my website is I don't update it all the time. They're not very good at that sort of thing. So my Instagram, my LinkedIn, get updated all the time with work I'm doing, the things I've done recently.

So you want to see what I'm doing, yeah, but that's they're the most recent ones. I suppose they're the best way to get hold of me. My coaching style, I think, is different. It's like, like you just said, my coaching is more of a storytelling.

Coaches coaching through storytelling. So I get them to tell me story. It's like a general chat, and there's lots of light bulb moments that go off and I share my story. They've experienced so much in my life.

I've experienced more than most people go through their whole lives, to be honest you. So I like getting out and walking and talking. I like out walking in nature is so important. It's so good for my physical and mental health.

So rather than sat in a coffee shop all the time, because I don't I like doing a lot of coffee but when you're helping someone a coach or wants me to talk and open up, I find get out in nature and walk or go for a walk somewhere, is much easier. The person feels it's not so confrontational, standing side by side, walking with someone and just chatting, like chatting with a mate. It is where a sat opposite someone, or even driving the car, for example, is another good thing to do.

You sat off, you know, next to someone. I just chatting, you end up open talking. So my coaching style is, I try and get out to the office and get out somewhere and have a walk around and chat for an hour, or two hours is walking around. And I find people just feel more comfortable out in nature with a victim, indeed, but a serotonin and outside, they feel much better.

Mark Ackers: You sounds like what you've identified is the key is to get people to speak, to start that conversation. Most people don't, and it sounds like you've done that exceptionally well. And I do, I encourage anybody to reach out to you. Try and attend one of your talks, try and come to one of your sessions, and I can confirm you are very responsive on LinkedIn.

You've always replied to me very quickly, and it's been an absolute pleasure, Andrew, having you on the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed coming on, because I imagine this is quite different to the podcast you've been doing since the traitors, right? I imagine it's quite different. So andrew jenkins: it's very good, very, very professional.

Actually, it's very good. And I've enjoyed it. Thoroughly enjoyed you're a nice guy. You've created a safe space for me, which is really important.

That's the problem with people with mental health. People don't talk. Then got a safe space. They feel people, you know, they feel judged or something.

So I think it's really important somebody's struggling with mental health, especially in the workplace. No, be there for that person. Don't walk past them. If you know somebody's struggling and work with it.

They have their target. They're going through a separation or divorce, don't walk past it. And I get why people do. They don't.

They're scared, they want they don't trigger people. But I say to people, I'd rather come I'd rather you talk and I'm awkward conversation now, or you cry and come to your bedside in six months time, or, even worse, your funeral. I'd rather you know, don't walk past it like if you notice Dave, for example, started coming in late every day. He don't have his lunch.

Shortly that he stopped eating his lunch, you think, just say to him, Hey, Dave, I noticed you started coming in late. Is everything okay? Just have that conversation. And a lot of the time when people are struggling, all they want is and you listen to them.

They want somebody to them, they want somebody to sit in the trenches and listen to them. They don't want fixing. They don't want answers. They want something to listen to.

So I say, don't, you know, don't how many, I think a lot of these suicides out there couldn't be prevented if somebody had a safe space. So that's really important. So don't walk past Mark Ackers: anybody who's struggling really. Well, let's make that call to action for everybody listening.

Why don't you just text one person today and ask how they are, right? That's the start point. That would be an amazing place to finish. But I have to ask you one more question, and it's the last one I wrote down second mountain ages ago.

What is your second mountain? And let's end there. Want to andrew jenkins: change the world. I want BEC I want.

I want to close my eyes my deathbed. Hopefully that'll be a long time away knowing I made a difference this planet. I made an impact on the planet. I've saved lives.

I had a message of somebody, a 16 year old boy last week, actually, he said he's thinking to take was thinking of taking his own life. We decided not to do it because you see my videos, and I turn my life around a motivation. So when I get messages like that, and that's quite a regular thing, I get message of people all the time. So you know what?

I'm helping them, and that's what keeps me going. So I'm tired when I'm stressed and feel down, I want to quit, and I've had hard work things like that keep me going. So I just want to help people. BEC, I want to help support you and give back to people.

I want people to struggle in silence like I did for Mark Ackers: 24 years. Really, I've got no doubt you will continue to impact and change many people's lives, and I've loved the chat. I do say this quite regularly on every podcast. Oh, I wish we had more time.

I do. I wish we had more time. There's loads more. But what I'm confident now is I'll probably see you at an event again, like we did in Leeds, and maybe next time we'll grab a beer.

But thanks for coming, and you've been amazing. Thanks. Becca, thank you, mate. You.