Louis Armstrong is a creator, entrepreneur, and the founder of the Creator Club, a platform dedicated to empowering young men to carve out their niches in the digital world by mastering the art of content creation, personal branding, and entrepreneurship.

Starting his journey as a videographer for some of the internet's most influential personalities, Louis's path is one of continuous change.

In this episode, we delve into Louis's path from a party boy to an entrepreneur, athlete and creator. We unpack the lessons learned from his journey of self-improvement, the role of therapy in personal development, and how creating authentic, relatable content has enabled him to connect deeply with his audience and build a loyal community.

Louis also shares insights into the Creator Club, his approach to brand partnerships, and the importance of maintaining creative integrity in a world where authenticity is your greatest asset.

If this video inspires you to rethink your habits, chase your passions, or simply start creating, drop a comment below and share your thoughts!

Connect with Louis

Instagram: @louisarmstrong7
YouTube: @louisarmstrong7

My Socials:

Instagram: Darrenlee.ks
LinkedIn: Darren Lee
Twitter: Darren_ks

(00:00) Preview and Introduction
(01:46) Louis Armstrong Attitude Towards Life
(04:10) Why Your Environment is Important
(10:21) Life in Ibiza
(12:51) What Made Louis Quit Alcohol
(16:53) Life After Quitting Alcohol
(20:41) How To Reinvent Your Life
(23:34) The Importance of Discipline
(28:37) Authenticity in Content Creation
(34:40) Louis’ Introduction to Videography
(37:35) Creator Club Origin Story
(41:40) Why Is Creator Club Different From Other Courses?
(48:56) Can Tracking Data Really Elevate Your Life?
(50:35) Benefits of Realising Your Potential
(53:47) Finding Purpose
(56:23) Louis’ Obsession with Running
(01:00:03) Why Focus is Key To Achieving Success
(01:05:10) Personal Development and Social Accountability
(01:10:46) Personal Reflections on Quitting Alcohol
(01:14:51) The Importance of Environment for Productivity & Creativity
(01:17:11) The Value of Therapy

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Louis Armstrong: 0:00

I was just drinking every day, partying every day, and he said he just called me out in front of everyone. We were literally at a party and I didn't think it was the right time or place to do it. So we had a big fight and he was right.

Darren Lee: 0:11

You don't realize how negatively that can go, but you don't know where you're currently at because you're just used to it, and also maybe even the people you're around in the party scene not your friends, but in the party scene they're also like around you, so you're not really changing and evolving Bro.

Louis Armstrong: 0:24

The therapy for me has literally helped me so much and I think I think every single person, no matter how mentally strong and stable they think- they are.

Darren Lee: 0:34

I think everyone would benefit massively from therapy. See this guy right here. This is Louis Armstrong. He started out as a videographer for top creators like Mike Thurston. After learning from the best, he went on to build his own brand around running, lifting and traveling. He's now the founder of the Creator Club, which helps young men to build a business online and build top level content. This podcast is a deep dive into how you yes, you can change your life from your current existing habits that are holding you back. We look at how to change your life around, how to quit alcohol, how to realign your purpose, passion and vision, and how to create an actual life that you're proud of. If you want to make a difference this year, this podcast right now is for you. Before we start this podcast, I have one little favor to ask you. Can you please hit the subscribe button down below so we can help more people every single week? Thank you, hi man. Let's do this. I'm really excited for this.

Louis Armstrong: 1:28

Let's just have fun with this as well. The thing is well, like I just want to have fun, Like that's. I hope people can learn some stuff from our conversation, but more just so that like I want to get to know you and tell you a little bit about my story, and like I'm sure after, after this, we'll have a really good friendship as well yeah, man, I want to let's start with that.

Darren Lee: 1:46

Like your attitude towards like I don't know, just like life, business is quite like casual and it's chill, and that you bring that energy in. What made you keep that? Because a lot of guys get super serious in their businesses, right in their fucking life yeah, um, that's a good point.

Louis Armstrong: 2:00

I I always say I'm not the hardest worker in the room. I'll just be completely honest with that and like I have been, I've been quite successful without having to like be super disciplined and super like business, like I'm just way more chill. It's just the way I am. I just like to be me. Yeah, I don't give a shit, but I do give a shit, of course, of course.

Louis Armstrong: 2:25

So I don't know, just maybe in me is what has helped me so much and by like I don't know, I can be disciplined when I need to, but I'm just laid back and I trust the process.

Darren Lee: 2:41

I think that's resulted in a lot of people like drawing towards your brand, though, because you have grown like really quickly and just consistently. You know, not even quickly because consistently, but people like really resonate with your work in your story more than likely because you're more honest and like open versus having like a face.

Louis Armstrong: 2:58

Yeah, but that wasn't intentional, right, that's just organic for you yeah, which is one thing that I would say I'm quite lucky. Yeah, because I can't really act, so I can't be anyone else other than who I am. Yeah, and I think that has just benefited me massively. Like when a lot of people ask me now are like how, how have you became so successful? How have you grown such a loyal following? Yeah, and, by the way, when, like, everyone determines success differently and and I for me, success is just changing people's lives, improving people's lives.

Louis Armstrong: 3:30

Like, for example, my YouTube channel, I want people to watch my videos and then go and try something new. Either go and try, go for a run, try and run their first five kilometers, go try travel to a different country, or just experience something new. But I would say, just just, I don't know it's hard, it's I, just because I've done everything so slowly over like five or six years. Like I said, my following isn't the biggest, my YouTube channel isn't the biggest, but I just have the same people who have watched for the last four or five years and they've watched me kind of transform and make a lot of mistakes on the way, and one thing that I've always just been very conscious of is sharing my mistakes If I make a mistake or I do something wrong.

Louis Armstrong: 4:10

People even call me out on my YouTube channel, sometimes in the comments, and I'll argue back with them. And then how does that make you feel? I like being called out. It's good. Why? Well, probably on the first, my dad always called me out when I was young if I was doing something wrong or doing something he didn't like. And then it's funny because I was obviously mike first and he's my best friend, and then along came jewel and then along came george, george armstrong. George armstrong loves calling people out, so like I don't. For example, there's one memory that I have Me and George had a big fight in Ibiza because he said I had so much potential and I was just drinking every day, partying every day, and he said he just called me out in front of everyone, which I didn't think was what.

Louis Armstrong: 4:59

We were literally at a party and I didn't think it was the right time or place to do it. So we had a big fight and he was right. And it's actually funny because it's been almost two years. It was probably in May. It's been almost two years since he said that and now, eventually, I have started to change and, uh, over the last. We'll get into this a little bit later on, but I'm now like 94 days sober and in the three months that I've been sober my life has completely changed and I was kind of a little bit lost and I'd be fair and I kind of, you know, have you seen Nelk Boys?

Darren Lee: 5:32

Yeah, yeah.

Louis Armstrong: 5:33

I thought I was going to try and be like the UK version of that, like just get drunk, get wasted, like do stupid shit, and I was like that was going to be my personal brand. And then thank God I didn't go down that route and get lost down it, because now I'm on a completely different path of being sober, improve my life, self-improvement, running every day, going to the gym every day and trying to bat myself.

Darren Lee: 5:54

So, so interesting to see how, like uh, I always talk about time so the impact of what you do today you don't see it originally, it happens over like a time, so that can happen positively or negatively. So when you stop drinking, you know the first couple days not didn't notice much. 30 days, 60 days, 90 days it returns like asymmetrical, so it increases. Same with the negative stuff, like when you were a party boy in ibiza and like, bear in mind, I had basically had a subscription for dc10, right that like basically you don't realize how negatively that can go, but you don't know. You don't know where you're currently at because you're just used to it, and also maybe even the people you're around in the party scene not your friends, but in the party scene they're also like around you, so you're not really changing and evolving exactly.

Darren Lee: 6:36

But when you said that george called you out, um, remember, a guy called justin welsh says before that whenever you hear like negative comments or whatever, there's usually a tiny bit of truth in it. Whether you agree or not, it's a tiny bit of truth in it and usually your response is negative and they throw your hands up and say fuck you, and so on. But if you can look at it and critically analyze. Yeah, there's probably something you can learn from it. Now you don't always need to do that, but sometimes when it's coming from a friend like george, who's just pretty blunt, yeah it's a good way to view it.

Louis Armstrong: 7:01

No, I like, I like, 100 like it now whenever, honestly it's. This is the thing you have to be careful with on youtube is that people like, for example, my youtube now is doing amazing, like, especially in bali. The content in bali is doing really good. We'll talk about that later. But, like I might get 100 comments and maybe I haven't took the time to reply to them, I do try and reply to them all whenever I get the chance, from sitting on the toilet or whatever it's the moment I reply. But if someone writes a bad comment, I'll instantly reply to that or I'll instantly bite.

Louis Armstrong: 7:32

So now what I try and do is reply to all the good comments and, honestly, casey Neistat said that he always deleted negative comments because negativity leads to negativity. So people read a YouTube comment and then they get that idea in their head and they're like, oh, maybe he's right, even though they could be completely wrong. And I luckily got to experience all of this with Mike's channel when I was helping Mike first and grow his YouTube channel. Um, is, people just used to assume the most random shit ever about me and Mike or Mike alone, and I'd be, and it'd be like it's so insane and then people would latch onto that idea and it would be just completely like obscure and just not true. Suddenly I would just tell Mike, like delete the comments. But if some people, if someone writes a bad comment on my YouTube channel, if they're right or if they have a point, I'll try and listen to it and take it on board and then try and change. So yeah, I think I think when someone tells, like as you said, about the negativity kind of compounding and building up over two years in Ibiza, like when I think about what my life was at the end of those two years, like I bought a brand new car, I drove it straight, literally. I bought a brand new car in Ireland, drove it straight on the ferry to Ibiza and like it just now. It's just well, it's, it's fixed. Now it's in Madrid, um, but my car just got completely destroyed because I was just going around like in Ibiza, just everyday, partying, not worried about anything, not thinking about anything. Like I almost lost my brand deals, like I was losing subscribes on YouTube and I just pretty much didn't care until it got to the point where I was like fuck, if I don't turn this around now I'm going to lose everything. And like, luckily it came to the end of the season was November last year and then me and Cindy were like my girlfriend Cindy. She was like, right, we need to go. And I was like, yeah, I think you're right, we need to go Because, as you said, that negative compound.

Louis Armstrong: 9:23

I just I was like, okay, this is not a good place for me to be anymore. And it's just because people go to a b-fair like the, the difference that I've seen from being in bali compared to a b-fair is mind blown. Everyone goes to a b-fair. They come on a weekend, they arrive, they just want to get completely fucked up. And I'm there living and all my friends or random people on Instagram are just messaging me being like oh, we have, follow you, come party with us, come, come do this. We'll buy you drinks all night, we'll buy you a ticket into Pasha or whatever Like. And I couldn't say no, and I'm. It's. That's a good thing and a bad thing, because I like to say yes to every opportunity, and it was just like these people are doing this for one weekend of their whole year, coming here to get fucked up and have a good time and part in, let loose, but I'm doing this every single day of my life and I'm living here, so there was no escape and it was just extremely detrimental on every level.

Darren Lee: 10:21

Let's walk through that. So when you, when you were kind of going through the two years, was there a part of like your identity? I didn't want to leave Ibiza.

Louis Armstrong: 10:29

Well, this is. This is also another thing. My identity was like, bro, if literally six months ago, I would have had probably three or four beers before even coming on here, I would have had, I would have had beer. That was my identity, like. And it wasn't that I was like drunk and sloppy, it was just that I love to have beers. I loved I don't know, I think alcohol like I've watched. I've watched so many different people's stories on alcohol now and it just gives you a little bit of confidence that you might not quite have, whereas now I don't need it at all. I'm actually 10 times more confident without it and I feel so much stronger and better as a person without it. But I had just this identity like I'm always going to have a beer in my hand. In fact, I'm always going to have two beers in my hand. God give you two hands for two. Like for for a reason, like so have two beers. And that was just. That was just the way I went about my life.

Darren Lee: 11:17

I think, though, honestly, that you have to go through it because, like now, a lot of people ask me do I regret it? Because, like it's been like 600 days for me, maybe 700 days Really, yeah, man, fuck bro.

Louis Armstrong: 11:27

That's so good, so similar, so good bro.

Darren Lee: 11:31

So my last time drinking was amnesia, for Austin's 82. Wow, last day I did seven days in Ibiza. It was seven days straight. It wasn't like a catalyst to make them done, yeah, but I finished it. Then I moved to Singapore. Yeah, and the drink was so expensive I was like I'll do a month. Then it ended up being two months, it ended up being three months and what happened to me was I got to like six months and the question was now when would I drink again? But why would I drink again? Yeah, growing, I was just getting better, right. So then it just kind of kept on flowing and I don't. I'm not against other people drinking, I'm just against me drinking right. I don't know if you're familiar with a guy called rory fair. It's a fair veins, his name is a scottish guy. Company's called one year, no beer.

Louis Armstrong: 12:14

Yeah, I've seen it, I just interviewed him recently he still drinks yeah so he helps people to. It's actually to control your alcohol that's what I, that's what I really want to do so this is really interesting.

Darren Lee: 12:23

So, whereas we can get into this, so my personality is very black or white. I'm like, all in all, out right, very obsessive. Yeah, like. I'm like I was sure I was doing marathons every week during covid. Okay, I was a bodybuilder, right, I was doing marathons every week and then I stopped that, went back to bodybuilding and then I'm either partying I'm not parodying so my kind of view on this and rick rubin's not rick rubin, uh, rich roll, his, his approach on this too, was like you have to go like in or out.

Darren Lee: 12:51

I don't really believe that, but I believe that for myself, I have to be in or out. Yeah, because his approach is actually different. His is you should control it. So he still has like a drink for his um, first baby. Yeah, when he got married. Yeah, when he reached a milestone in the business and he said you have alcohol to celebrate, not to use it as a depressant. Yeah, um, and that would probably kind of fit into your and my vibe anyway. But yeah, like what would you? Why? Where do you think you're going to go next with it?

Louis Armstrong: 13:16

so funny, bro, it's literally so. I think me and you are, first of all, exactly the same, just so, either one extreme or the other. Like bro in a beef hours when I say partying like every day, like hardcore. Like come home at seven in the morning, wake up at 3 pm, go for a run, literally get my run done and just straight on the beers. Same like every day and it was the best like for a while.

Darren Lee: 13:40

I thought this was the best life ever well, see, that's the thing was when you're young, dumb and foolish yeah right it, it's like almost fine. But I guess now I don't compare myself, but I benchmark myself against like other entrepreneurs. Yeah, and these guys are like 19 and they're crushing it, I know, but it's insane.

Darren Lee: 13:53

I'm 28 and you're 30. Yeah, but so I don't like regret that. I think everyone I remember actually you'll actually find this interesting. Yeah, this is very relevant. It's like my my like world growing up was like Joey D and watching Rob. Yeah, I remember when Joey D was at my age, but 27 years younger people always ask him like, are you doing Ibiza this year, this year? And he's like, no, like Ibiza is fucking weird when you're old, and I never got that. And then, as I got older, I realized that and what did it for me you'll find this funny was something that he said. He was like I got to the stage in his life whereby he would wake up and he could be at a session and he'd look around at 6am and he'd be like none of these people I would hang out with when I'm sober. Yeah, so why am I doing it when I'm drunk?

Louis Armstrong: 14:38

But, that's.

Darren Lee: 14:40

that's. The reality is that, and there are old habits that you need to die. And I remember hearing, when I left university and I was a huge, like I was doing those three, four day sessions in university. Yeah, and I remember hearing me like you don't want to make your college habits your life habits and that always stuck with me.

Louis Armstrong: 14:55

I think I think there's a couple of things that we need to cover there. Two things is I did my kind of let loose, go crazy at a much later stage in my life. That's because I was in a relationship for like 10 years and when that ended, then I went off and that was like when I was 28 and just I never had that time where I was in uni going crazy with the boys, or even 23, 24, 25. I didn't go crazy or I didn't get that out. My system, it was obviously in my system and I needed to get out. Like I wanted to go and party. I wanted, like I love music as well, like that's still to this day.

Louis Armstrong: 15:30

Right, that's like I, like I never regret anything. I made so many good friends, I made so many good connections. I'm friends now with loads of DJs who are like my favorite DJs, which is crazy, like so that's. I don't regret any of it, but I needed to get that shit out my system because I had I had never done it, I had never went to a b-fer and partied and went crazy and stayed up till sunrise at parties and all that stuff and like, I made the best memories of my life over those two years. I made so many good connections, I made so many good friends. But now what I'm realizing as well is that I can make it like I always used to think, like, oh, if I go to a party I might meet someone on the vip who's going to be a good connection for me, or whatever. But literally, bro, in two weeks being here on the beach or in the gym, I've already made so many good friends and so many good connections.

Darren Lee: 16:19

So it's partying to make friends and networking 100 isn't, isn't necessarily the best way to do it and you just substitute it with something better, like I know you mentioned about like a run club tomorrow, and I don't even have shoes, man, and if I had shoes I'd come for a run with you. I don't even own shoes, but literally, like that's what you substitute away, right. You like go for a hike in bali, you get into surfing. When I came back here, I got into surfing, surfing quite regularly, and you just do other shit. Now, like when kind of music popped up last week, I tried to get a ticket and it was fucking sold out, right, but I was, so I would have still went and not drank. Yeah, I just drove down, came back.

Darren Lee: 16:53

But I think it's important to like not close a chapter, but to realize when something is like ending, um, and it's like important, right. It's like the guys that look back in university and still think about the days like the good old days, but we're living like this is the fucking good days, yeah, like what we're doing right now and we have to appreciate this because it's fucking sick. It's like friday evening in bali, sun's coming down. We're in like a sick place, you know what I mean, bro.

Louis Armstrong: 17:13

It's the best thing ever. And like you were like oh, I'm sorry for taking up your friday evening, but out there's no place. I'd rather be than doing this right now, fuck man. So I want to say thank you for that for the opportunity.

Louis Armstrong: 17:23

It's funny you say about I know I don't want to talk about alcohol for the whole thing, but it's, I think it's you can see the benefits and it's something that you want to talk so passionately about because you can feel, like I can feel, how positively your experience has been since going sober. But, like what you said about kind music, I was. You asked me when is when am I going to end my sobriety? And it's a question I think about every single day and it honestly consumes my thoughts. Like I have the app that's counting down the days and I'm like, all right, we're getting close to we'll got to 90. And then I was like we're getting close to a hundred. I'm going to like I keep questioning myself Should I just go and have a beer on a hundred on the a hundredth day to see if I can basically control it and see if I can just go and have one beer or two beers or a nice cocktail at sunset on the beach and then go back to being sober? Or should I just keep going until there's an opportunity? Like I know there's going to be opportunities in the summer. Like I'm not saying that I'm never going to be a party boy ever again. Like I'm still going to go to parties and enjoy myself. But, as you said, about kind music for people who don't know who, kind music are there? Free German DJs, probably up there, with one of the best and most popular in the world right now? They were playing in Savaya, which is a sick club here which I've never been to. So, as you said, it was so hard to get tickets. I ended up paying like 400 quid for two tickets, which I didn't really want to do, and then, like organizing a taxi to go down. All my friends are there, all my friends from the UK are here, the whole of BFIT crew is here, and I was so excited and I was like, do you know what? I don't even think I'm going to drink because I haven't hit my 90 days yet and anyway paid some guy like 50 quid to drive us down, wait for us there so we could come, come home or if any moment when I'm sober I could just leave, if I, if it was getting too much.

Louis Armstrong: 19:08

And then, obviously, the morning of the party, I got barley belly and couldn't go and I tried to get in the taxi. I pulled myself together and tried to go and everyone was texting me oh, come on, come on, you have to come. You have to come, just take some Imodium. Blah, blah, blah and I got in the taxi. Me and Cindy were in the taxi about an hour and I was like we need to turn back. I can't do this. Like there's no way, like I'm going to go to this party, we're going to go to a villa before Everyone hasn't seen me.

Louis Armstrong: 19:35

For, like, this is like I talked about this in bad head and I don't want all my friends to see me as this new sober guy who is boring, like I want them to go and see the sober me who is full of energy and who can still have a good time at a party. But I was so sick and I was just like I can't do this and then I was really, really upset about it. I saw all the videos on Instagram looked like the best party ever and then I just told myself it obviously wasn't my time. It's not my time to go back to that that senior to the, to the party senior. So maybe it was a blessing.

Darren Lee: 20:06

Fuck man. Yeah, like cause, it seemed like it was right. It seemed like that it happened sequentially. But again, at the end of the day, you don't need to reserve, you know, your happiness for future, right, it can be something that you want to work towards, right? And I think what's interesting there as you mentioned about being boring, we can finish up on this point on the alcohol, but I remember Pierce Morgan said that, chris Williamson recently being like, oh you know, people who drink beer are seen as more interesting and they're more interesting when they have a beer. And Chris Williamson said, I would argue, people that don't drink are more interesting from what they say. Right, I saw that. It's just like. It's just the way we kind of come together and that's why it's interesting for this conversation.

Darren Lee: 20:41

Is Irish English guy? Right, we're used to this. My question for you, off? That is like a lot of guys are mid-twenties, don't know what to do and don't know how to figure out their life. They're lazy, probably out of shape. How would you advise someone to basically turn their life around? Do you want to launch a podcast for your business but you don't know where to start? Remove the stress, pressure and all the overwhelm that comes with it by working with Podcast University. If you're an ambitious individual who wants to build your influence online, grow your own podcast and also stand out from the crowd, podcast University is for you. We help you with the strategy, equipment, the content, your guests everything you need to create a top tier podcast. If you want to learn more, check out Podcast University and start your podcast journey today.

Louis Armstrong: 21:26

Good question. It's funny I've met so many since I've been on this sober journey. I've met so many positive people. I met a guy in Madrid. I didn't really have any friends. I was living in Madrid before I came here for four months. I didn't have any friends. I met a load of new friends through my run club that I was hosting. I met a guy called Ronaldo, he's 21.

Louis Armstrong: 21:48

Hosting met a guy called ronaldo, he's 21, and bro, this kid is like so switched on, so fit, so healthy, running a marathon, doing well in school, and he's just not interested in, like the party life. So I think I think one thing that young guys I feel like they think that they have to go to a party to get girls. I think that's the the main reason. And what's funny for me in abifa was I was never going to a party to find girls. I was just going to get music, just yeah, literally for the DJ, like I didn't care about the girls, like I was never, ever going out trying to get girls and I think most young guys go out looking to get girls, yeah, and I think that's the reason they party.

Louis Armstrong: 22:21

but for young guys who are, who are stuck now in their life, maybe in their mid twenties or in their their younger twenties I think just discipline and having a good routine I think in a beefers especially, I didn't have, I didn't have routine, didn't have any discipline. And I think, picking something that's difficult to do, like starting running, or set yourself a challenge for in a month, two months I know you did bodybuilding like signing up to a show, like even if you don't have the genetics or you don't think you have the genetics to win, just to go and take part in it, to give you something to stick at and to be disciplined for. Or like what I always like to do is set myself little challenges on YouTube, and I always tell people to do this, even if they don't have a YouTube channel, you can still upload YouTubes to a private channel, to unlisted videos, and just document your life. And I say to people to do like a 30 day challenge. So do try and go to the gym every day for 30 days, or try and track your macros every day for 30 days, or I did run every day for 30 days.

Louis Armstrong: 23:14

I've done all these challenges and those are the challenges that basically ingrain those habits into my lifestyle and make me be like, wow, I've done this for 30 days, days. Now I don't want to give it up. I'm feeling so good after doing this, like 30 days of cold showers. All of these things have kind of compound and now they're all just part of my life. I do them every single day and it's that's what's changed my life.

Darren Lee: 23:34

it's confidence right as a habit, but give confidence. There's a. Sahil bloom writes about the 30 for 30. So do something for 30 minutes a day for 30 days will develop like any habit, so it can be pretty much anything exactly in that way. The challenge with a lot of guys, though, um, especially in like the kind of online world, is that they're comparing and benchmarking continuously against other guys. Yeah, but you've kept that kind of focus on yourself. How come you haven't, like, looked at especially who's in your social circle and basically got like envy or jealousy?

Louis Armstrong: 24:03

I know that's one thing that, again, I'm very fortunate is that I never compare myself. I never, ever, ever, look at anyone and be like how's he got that, I want that, or I'm jealous that he's got that, or I'm gonna hate on him because he's got something that I don't have, never, ever in my life. And like I've probably got one of the biggest influencer social circles in the world, like mike, rob lipset, andre du, like all the boys, have got millions of followers and they're all like my best friends. And it's actually funny, there's me and joel joel's one of my best friends, who I lived with in a bf for two years and he's similar to me, but we've never, ever been jealous of what, what the other guys have, because we know who we are ourselves and we know what we can bring to the table and we also know, like I always say, like, of course, one day I would love to have a Lamborghini.

Louis Armstrong: 24:51

I love cars and I know that I can get a Lamborghini. There's no question that I can't, it's just am I going to be disciplined enough? Am I going to put in the work? Am I going to get out my comfort zone enough? I'm gonna put in the work. I'm gonna get out my comfort zone. I'm gonna do what it what I need to do to get a lamborghini and people like mike, like many people, like, oh, how can you stand next to mike with your top off? Like I don't care. Like that's insecurity on there, yeah, like I don't actually care. Like if mike has mike looks like this because he eats the cleanest diet anyone has ever eaten he goes to the gym every single day consistently for the last 18 years like, and if mike is happy looking like that, that's good for him.

Louis Armstrong: 25:30

But if someone's going to judge me because I don't look like mike, then I don't really care for their opinion. I just don't. I don't care what people think, because I know that I am genuinely a good person. If anyone actually meets me one-on-one, they'll see that I have a good like. I have a good heart, a big heart, and I care about other people. I'm quite empathetic, quite sympathetic and I just I know that I'm a good person. I try and live a good life and make a positive impact on the world. So like, judging people first of all by how they look is just ridiculous. For a start, so I never judge anyone by how they look.

Louis Armstrong: 26:05

And then Mike has so many followers and such a large audience, like on YouTube, because me and Mike used to talk every day on the phone. He was literally in a in a flat in London with a whiteboard making all these nutrition videos, making all these really boring from. I found them boring, but it's the shit that helps people. But I could never have sat in a in an apartment in London and wrote all these how to track your macros, how to cook this many meals for X amount of money, like that's not what I would enjoy doing. But Mike deserves to be where he is because he's put in all that hard work and I know that if I want to get to a certain level, I need to commit to it and I need to put in the work as well. I don't think anyone has got to anywhere because they're, because they've been lucky. I think everyone deserves to be where they are and like people now, like blame the algorithm, like oh that's such bullshit it is bullshit, bro like but you're just not good enough.

Darren Lee: 27:00

Yeah, you know what I mean at that point, and there's nothing wrong with being not being good enough, right, you need if it's not working, you need to find a way to change it and fix it.

Louis Armstrong: 27:07

Like, for example, my instagram hasn't grown at all, it's just, it just stays the same. And I've I know exactly why and it's because now on instagram, everyone is providing so much value. Yeah, when I'm looking, I never used to look at reels, but now I look at reels because I kind of feel like I'll speak for myself. But me and also a few of my friends, influencer friends I'll say Mike as well, because Mike doesn't post reels on Instagram and now he started to do it. Because we're kind of the me, mike, rob and all of them boys, we're kind of the old content creators. Like it used to matter to us to make like a really cinematic youtube video with sick edits, get the best editor, get the best photographer, get the best videographer. Now it's completely changing. It's everything on an iphone with a tripod and just providing some form of value, like knowledge from a book or morning routine or it's. It's much more basic.

Louis Armstrong: 27:59

Like people call themselves content creators now and I see their content and to me, me that is not a content creator. Like that is not. Like putting your phone on a tripod is not hot, that's not content. Like when we used to go out and get the best cameras with 500 different lenses to get all the different angles, go out at sunset, go out at sunrise, wake up in the morning like travel the world to get content. That was a content creator. Now people can literally just like bro. I see people like sitting at their desk and just videoing themselves on the laptop and then they just put like a motivational quote and I'm like that is not content. But but you have to adapt. Like my Instagram isn't grown because I'm not posting content like that, but at the same time.

Darren Lee: 28:37

That's what makes you so unique, the fact that you have that, that old not old style, but that creator style. And I actually wanted to ask you about that because it was Hormozy, that kind of revolutionized that whereby you just sit there in your mom's basement and you just talk fucking about determination or you talk about how to make a funnel right and that stuff works and people want that. But at the same time you're probably familiar with Rory Sutherland, the English guy Met Rory recently and he told me about the counter trend. And English guy met Rory recently and he told me about the counter trend and he was like for every trend that starts as an equal or opposite trend. So when you have AI the way I position that is, you have human connection. When you have talking heads, you should have like your style, which is more like I wouldn't say lifestyle, but more just higher quality edits right, because people it's like refreshing yeah, does that make sense?

Louis Armstrong: 29:21

yeah, well, I think so. For example, my, my content that performs the best is like a 20 minute vlog, like that will always do the best. Yeah, and that's like. I mean, I'll just talk about nothing, like, but people are just interested. I think this is one thing that I would say if someone is really passionate about something, whatever it is, I will watch them because I like to see someone that genuinely cares so much about something, whatever it is, I will watch them because I like to see someone that genuinely cares so much about something. Yeah, so it's interesting to me, it doesn't matter what it is. And also, if you've got, if you can talk to the camera and feel comfortable with the camera, like I've never. Whenever I pick up the camera, I never even think about it, I just talk to it as if I'm actually talking to my audience, and I think now so many people are enjoying it.

Louis Armstrong: 30:05

I think Instagram, in short form, is so different right now to YouTube. Youtube is kind of people now put YouTube on their TV, on in the background, similar to like a podcast. They'll put on a podcast and they'll listen to it in the background, and I think people are doing the same with YouTube videos. They're putting on a YouTube video and it's some guy cleaning his house talking about his routine, but it's just nice to listen to and the videos are slower and more laid back and those kind of super fast cinematic edits don't matter so much anymore. And I think I see so many kind of travel content creators, like the guys Sam Calder and stuff, who were the best in the world They've took like a break. They haven't posted anything in like two or three years and I think that kind of just watching and analyzing the space to see what is actually happening with the content because it's completely, completely changed.

Darren Lee: 30:49

100 so how are you changing to that now?

Louis Armstrong: 30:52

so, so for instagram now, I want to provide value because, I will be honest, I looked at my instagram and it's basically me posing like. For example, just the last two pictures that I posted mean me holding the coconut and just saying how much I love bali, which I mean I don't know who that's providing value to, but people, some people like it, but I want to. Actually, I want people to go on my instagram and I want them to see right, okay, louis knows about x, y and z. I'm going to follow louis because louis is going to give me advice and help me grow my my content creator platform, like who. I'm going to follow louis because he's going to give me advice and help me grow my my content creator platform, like who. I'm going to follow Louie because he's going to help me improve my content, or I'm going to follow Louie because he motivates me to run.

Louis Armstrong: 31:30

I need to basically say and just analyze my Instagram and have go with some direction. I just did 30 days of 30 YouTube videos, um, a daily vlog every single day. That that did really, really well. I just needed to do something to change up my YouTube channel. I think it's so easy, especially when I was in Madrid just making the same videos over and over and over again, like day in the life, full day of eating, like physique update, like all of that stuff, and it's just for me it's not enjoyable to make. I like to go out and do new things and try new challenges. So I think with Instagram, I just need to get out of the comfort zone and start doing things and sitting down and talking about what I actually know, what I can actually offer and what like offer advice to people and hopefully people can learn from my Instagram. Right now, if you go on my Instagram sorry, if you go on my Instagram you're not going to learn anything. You just see pictures of me with a tanned filter. Make myself look a bit more tanned.

Darren Lee: 32:25

But you could probably do a combination right.

Louis Armstrong: 32:27

Yes, that's what I wanted to do.

Darren Lee: 32:28

You could like walk on the beach, you could be like running or some shit. Like a Nick Bear.

Louis Armstrong: 32:32

Yeah, exactly, nick Bear is someone who, like I don't know how how old nick bear is, but he seems like about 10 years older than me. He's that he's so mature in comparison to me. I think I'm very immature. But it's americans though, right, I guess the american guys are just like geared towards that. Yeah, but nick bear is so good, but it's. It's funny because lots of people follow me for my running content, but whenever I post something that's running, specific people don't like it interesting.

Darren Lee: 32:59

So that's like my podcast, right, because, like, we've a podcast business. So to get like business, we need to actually show people that we're not dumbasses. But at the same time, people want the journey but they don't want the tactics. If you're familiar with uh, expert secrets by russell brunson, he says you should all be always be sharing the strategy and not the tactics, because the tactics is what people will actually pay for or they'll come into your community for. But his strategy is just like helpful basically. So it's kind of like how to set up your instagram better or how to create better reels or whatever. That's basically giving them a small bit insight, but it's not showing everything. That's what nick bear kind of does, right? Yeah, because he has his product in the back end. He does talk about like how he produces the product. You know his supplements and shit on his podcast.

Louis Armstrong: 33:38

But nick bear like, for example, nick bear is he's just an absolute beast. Like he ran a sub three hour marathon. Like he's did an ultra, like he is an absolute beast. So his hard work and discipline. Like I always say, I always say I would like to challenge nick bear, like right now I'm in bali. I'm probably gonna enjoy myself for a couple of months, but I would need to take myself somewhere. Like again, I was really focused in Madrid. I was killing it in Madrid. I working, working super hard, training for a marathon, running every day 10 kilometers, 15 kilometers like smashing it in Madrid. Now I'm in Bali. I'm a little bit more distracted, but I would love to go all in on something like how Nick Bear does with running and see, see if I can get to his level, because I I personally believe, like, like once again, I don't look look at Nick Bear and be jealous or anything like that. I think I could get to Nick Bear's level if I put in the work. For sure.

Darren Lee: 34:31

For sure, and it's just time right. So, just like you mentioned about Mike and his videos, when he was there with the fucking whiteboard marker, people were probably calling him a dumbass.

Louis Armstrong: 34:38

And then I'll come eight years later. Right, exactly, bro, because?

Darren Lee: 34:40

it's a small incremental changes and that sounds obvious, but then in practice people are like, oh fuck this, just give me the donut, right. They just they have that short term, instant gratification versus thinking long term. Exactly, talk to me about when you met, when you first, like, were introduced to like videography or even just camera work. Was that like kind of?

Louis Armstrong: 34:58

a spark for you. Uh, so that was casey. Nice that, so I that was tom.

Darren Lee: 35:03

That was um rob too, was it? That was rob's interest. I remember hearing him talking about casey before I even knew casey was I.

Louis Armstrong: 35:12

I remember I just didn't want to watch tv anymore, so I started watching youtube and one thing I always loved about youtube is how you can be so specific about the what you want to watch. Like on tv you can't watch anything too specific. Like I think TV is just complete waste of time. So is Netflix. So Casey Neistat just kept getting pushed by the algorithm, like on my homepage, and I was like who is this guy? And like I had no idea who he is, and he at the time he was doing daily vlogs and I think he did them for like three years consistently, daily, like a daily vlog consistently. And like I'm not talking about like just a random video of him holding the camera, like insane production, him doing everything alone, by himself, and I was like what the fuck?

Darren Lee: 35:51

this is crazy wasn't he homeless as well?

Louis Armstrong: 35:53

yeah, I think, bro, honestly, like he's got the craziest story. Like I had a kid when he was like 17. His wife wife ran away and then he went and found his wife. Like Casey Neistat has the craziest story ever. But he was like flying a drone down the street of New York whilst riding electric skateboard, filming it with a GoPro in his hand and the drone filming him. In the end I was like what the fuck is this Like? So I was like I need to do this, I need to try and do something similar to this. Like I don't know how many people know about this guy, so I literally bought the drone and then I would.

Louis Armstrong: 36:26

I was living in a small town, um, and outside of Belfast at the time, and I would go out on my bike and like try and film myself on the drone and I used to make these videos that were like a copy of Casey and I said, but it was so shit, like literally so shit, I would say. And, bro, I was like 25. So this is only five years ago. They had a whiteboard video.

Louis Armstrong: 36:43

Yeah, bro, and like I remember like asking all my friends from my hometown like, oh, will you like just watch the video so I can get one more view. Like I wasn't even asking them to share it and stuff, and everyone would just be like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? Like, and I was spending all this money on cameras, on drones, and like I was like I need all this stuff, cause if I, if I have the same camera as Casey, if I have the same drone as Casey, if I have all all of Casey's equipment, I can make his style of videos. So I just, I just saw what he was doing and I was like, and then I found Christian Guzman.

Darren Lee: 37:14

Yeah.

Louis Armstrong: 37:15

Nice, steve Cook and I was like, right, if I can do what Casey does and then do a little bit of fitness as well, cause I love the gym. And then, bro, the videos were just so shit. And then I was like, right, I need to learn how to use the camera. So then I started volunteering to do work for like, do promo videos for gyms and like personal trainers. Like bro, I didn't know anyone when I was in Belfast.

Louis Armstrong: 37:35

This is a another thing, which is why I started the creator club, which is my business that I have now, is that I was a photographer, videographer, that had no idea how to do anything and I didn't know anyone to even film, and I was just typing on and literally YouTube taught me everything. Anything I needed to know, just typed it on YouTube and literally that's how I learned how to do photography and video everything through YouTube tutorials, and that's why I always tell people now you can go and learn anything you want on YouTube for free. There is no excuse to learn a new skill or to go down and take your life in a new direction. You can learn how to do everything on YouTube. That's why I love it so much, running everything that I've done in my life over the last five or six years. That's improved my life massively has been from watching YouTube tutorials.

Darren Lee: 38:22

It's the exact same as me. We didn't have money to invest in anything. Exactly bro, now you can pay with your wallet or your time, but, like, until you have the money in your wallet, you can't pay. You can't pay with it, right? So you have to do the time, and that's I mean. That's the reason why it took me so long to make anything meaningful in my podcast.

Louis Armstrong: 38:36

Yeah.

Darren Lee: 38:37

Because it needed to be the four years of bullshit. Man like man, I had this like uh, shitty mic and I was using my laptop camera and I had to stick my phone to the wall and I remember the first person I told that to was rob and he was like no way. My phone was also stuck swear to god, we're like sticking it up and I was recording shit here. It was like humidity, my laptop was like fucked. But man, that's, that's the, that's important shit you need to go through that.

Louis Armstrong: 39:03

I think that's the part that so many people miss now and they don't understand that and they don't do it because of I think it's because of status.

Darren Lee: 39:09

Yeah, they look at people like you there or whatever, and think I can never get to that level. But you actually can't skip phase one, two and three. You have to go through the fish for shit stage.

Louis Armstrong: 39:18

Same with a business exactly, bro, like that's one thing I tell people as well. Like for the first two years I just used a gopro and like if anyone knows anything about cameras, a gopro is a wide angle lens so it's like really not cinematic, it's just used for like sports, making sports videos, or like so I was like trying to record like gym promo videos that should be like cinematic and special, with like a proper camera, with a proper lens, with a GoPro, and they just looked so shit Like but you have to do that shit to learn. Like everyone should be doing that. Like I don't think anyone should skip those steps. Like it's so important. And like even Mike and Rob and all of them boys, like there's so many people now are I can't make YouTube videos cause I don't have an editor or I don't have a videographer me, mike, rob, everyone we all filmed ourselves, we all edited ourselves. It's so important to learn those basic fundamentals 100%.

Darren Lee: 40:08

I edited 100 podcasts on my own first Really 100. And I think that's why our business grew really well, because whenever I brought in a new editor, I could know exactly what we were meant to do Exactly bro I could basically pinpoint it so entire like business cycle.

Darren Lee: 40:23

I've done every single role to the point that when we need to hire, it's already been done, whereas, like you know, not going to tangent but the reason why I think a lot of businesses fail is because they'll start like a coffee shop. Like how the fuck they made the coffee beans? No idea, right, do you get me? Yeah, so they don't know what they're meant to be doing and then the place falls down as a result. That's super interesting, man. Looking at Creator Club, what are the biggest problems people run into? Are you an entrepreneur who wants to build your influence and authority online? You may have tried some of the hacks and tricks, but none of it has worked. And it makes sense.

Darren Lee: 40:54

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Louis Armstrong: 41:40

This is. This is interesting. So with the Creator Club. So the Creator Club I know everyone is making online courses now and it's kind of a negative trend. It gets a lot of hate. Anyone that releases a course gets so much hate. But my, what's different about the Creator Club is that it's a community.

Louis Armstrong: 41:56

So when I first started the Creator Club, I just wanted to make a video course where I talked about all of the questions that I get asked every single day on Instagram. Like, I always get the same questions, I was like right, rather than put this on YouTube, because I don't want to make my YouTube channel about photography and videography and content creation. I want it to be more lifestyle. So I'm going to put everything into a package. I'm going to write down every question that I've ever been asked and I'm going to basically make a package and tell my story about how I got to where I, where I have because I'm not super intelligent. I didn't do well in school Like I'm. I was just like. I am just the most normal guy ever Like. Like I said, I'm not the hardest worker in the room either. So if I can figure out how to do, how to like for me, bro, like just to live this lifestyle, which is wake up whatever time I want in the morning, go and eat wherever I want and not have to worry about how much stuff costs, live in a nice place I think I'll talk about this later as well. Me and Mike always like to live somewhere. I think environment where you live, and especially if you work in film videos, that is so important. But, like, if I can just live this life and be happy, I don't need anything else. I'm, I'm so content and I've done this all by literally buying a camera on my credit card and I've just figured it out.

Louis Armstrong: 43:11

Like, so many people are scared to take risks and just like and so on. The creative club, all these boys, they, they have the fundamentals they have. The thing is, when someone signs up to my course, it's not super expensive, it's 850 euros, but it's the community and it's. I think people just are scared to take risks, they have no confidence and they have all these ideas in their head. Sorry, my voice keeps going. They have all these ideas in their head, but they have no one to share their ideas with.

Louis Armstrong: 43:37

Like, most of these people are from small towns in the UK or Ireland. I've got a load of Irish boys shout out to the Irish boys, by the way, um, they live in a small town where everyone is so kind of just like walking around with a blindfold on, like just they have no idea, like they think that you just need to stay in your small town for your whole life and you need to go and work a normal job nine to five, and like they think that is the only way to to live your life and oh, don't worry, you'll be able to enjoy yourself on the weekend. And most of these people live in that life. Just go out on a friday and saturday night to the pub, get fucked up, and sunday they're hung over and then just like repeat that cycle get out of the.

Louis Armstrong: 44:14

Yeah, so many people are stuck in that. So the creative club is give people confidence. Two is we have a WhatsApp group. We did use Discord, but now we use WhatsApp. It's kind of less informal and it just makes everyone feel better connected and everyone is just sharing. Like if anyone has a good idea, they just write it in the group.

Louis Armstrong: 44:34

So we have a weekly Zoom call where there's 26 boys now in the Creator Club and there's usually at least half of us turn up to the Zoom call and what normally happens is I end up just going off on a rant. It's meant to be an hour but it ends up being two hours and it's the same questions over and over again. Like oh, louis, do you think I should do this? Or how do I approach this client? Or how much should I charge for this video? And like sometimes I'll tell the boys like I don't think you're ready to charge yet for a video, you need to go and do another 10 videos for free until you're like, if you charge 300 euros for a video, like I wouldn't pay 300 euros for that video. So you're going to put so much pressure on yourself to make this video and maybe the client's going to be unhappy and it's just going to ruin the whole process of it. It's much better if you just do it for free, get the experience and then, when you're ready because I've done all this over the last six years and I've took my time doing it I can give the boys good advice on what type of content to make, like approaching their first clients, how to get their first brand deals, sponsorship deals.

Louis Armstrong: 45:33

I've worked with some of the biggest brands in the world BMW, red Bull, land Rover. This is the thing as well. This is why now in Bali, I'm kind of back to my flow. I'm reaching out to brands again and, to be fair, because I was in Spain, it's kind of difficult to get deliveries, to get packages, to work with brands when you're in another country. Uk is good for working with brands, and I think Bali will be too, but I used to literally just every single day. If there was any brands doing anything that I liked, or if they had a good product, I'd message them, reach out to them. Hi, I'm Louie. This is what I do. I'm a photographer, videographer. I can create content for you, just send me the product for free.

Louis Armstrong: 46:10

So many of the boys in my course are like they don't know how to do all of those basic things. And I just figured out how to do all that stuff by getting a load of no's, like lots of people told me no but, and like it comes full circle. Like I remember I messaged, I messaged Gymshark like three or four times. They ignored everyone and then eventually, once I started my running on my YouTube channel, they reached out to me and were like oh, we would like to sponsor you. And like I think there's just so many because when, when I first started, I had to figure it all of all of this out myself. It's kind of like a little cheat code for them. I can give them what I've learned and what I've experienced and as well, bro, it's really good for just brainstorming and sharing ideas.

Darren Lee: 46:50

You get better as a result. Yeah, bro, so when we, when I built, uh, vox or company, I was always fearful without to pull away from my podcast, but actually the opposite actually made me better, because when I was teaching people and coaching people and working on their shows, it made me more intentional. What goes into it? Exactly, bro, the brand stuff is super interesting because, like we do sponsorships for podcasts, yeah, we do a ton of stuff for rob and whatnot.

Darren Lee: 47:11

Um, and what I think is quite interesting could be an opportunity for you is maybe building that network of brands that you could potentially bring to people in the creator network yeah, we did good because we work with some big tech companies and when someone comes into our company, we basically can partner with them and usually they want to go through a louis, versus going through like a random person who doesn't know the process yeah, you know. So that's just an opportunity. Basically, that's really interesting. I would love to do that because we did something similar with huge tech companies and they generally I think actually was funny was the way they described to us is that they're looking for someone who's like a forever learner, basically like educational content. Yeah, so it can be tech, fitness, entrepreneurship and like, yeah, it doesn't really matter as long as the audience is, um, pretty strong and pretty educated basically yeah, well, like as well.

Louis Armstrong: 47:56

This is another thing is there's so many brands, especially in the beginning, like I had to say no to a lot of brands who not like. Sometimes their product was shit or the brand just didn't like or they wanted to script out my entire Instagram posts and I was just like no, I'm sorry. Like, even even even at that beginning stage where I was pretty broke and I needed as much money as I could get, obviously, it's very easy to say yes to every single brand deal, for sure, as much money as I could get. Obviously, it's very easy to say yes to every single brand deal, but I was, I think me turning them down and saying no to certain ones and saying no.

Louis Armstrong: 48:28

If we're going to work together, I need the creative freedom, I need to be able to decide how this photo looks like. Some of them would be like oh, we have to edit it in our style and I'd just be like, no like. And I think that is what has made my personal brand so strong and that's what has built such a loyal audience of followers. Like, I don't have the most followers at all, but my audience is so loyal and whenever I do push a product or promote a product like Whoop, for example, is one of my favorites, because I love tracking data, especially sleep data. Same, I'm a fucking nerd yeah same.

Darren Lee: 48:56

Elise isn't a fan of me tracking data, though I used to have like a shit tone that when she's like that, they say that's not sexy at all. It's not, no, it's not. Well, I've got an apple watch and a whoop on the same wrist, but I literally don't care, bro.

Louis Armstrong: 49:09

I love tracking my data, like, like, I keep getting new fitness trends, like especially when I was training for the marathon, like seeing my vo2 max and stuff, and I literally love that. I'm the same. I eat that shit off. Yeah, bro, it makes a difference. No, bro, and this is the thing as well. Like when you're saying to people on how they can improve their lives if they're stuck in their 20s, like, start tracking things in your life, like start tracking your sleep, start tracking your step count, like all of those little things. If you improve those, if you can see the data, especially on graphs, and see trends and you can see that the little things that you're doing is improving these, it motivates you 100.

Darren Lee: 49:42

It's a number in your bank account, right, exactly. You have to look at it objectively, um, without, like you know, any sort of attachment to say like okay, like we actually have no money or we're making money or so on, and then not get too egotistical because a number like I'm super healthy or whatever, but it's just looking at it as a metric. Just like when you go, go into the gym, you try you should track your weights, check your body weight when you wake up in the morning and you track a few other things, right, but if you don't have an eye on them, you're going in fucking circles. Exactly, bro.

Louis Armstrong: 50:08

And like. Another thing that I want to say as well it's kind of in regard to the alcohol is I just ran a marathon in Barcelona. One of the things over the over the three months that I've been sober, I purposely didn't buy scale so I didn't know my weight. And for I'm 30 now, since I was 16, 17. So basically for 13 years I've been the same weight. I was always 86 kilograms on the dot and now I'm not very.

Louis Armstrong: 50:35

Anyone who watches me and knows me is my diet starts on Monday and just never I've never like I've never I've been good at tracking calories. I've never been shredded, bro, ever I've never had abs, ever. Like and everyone laughs and like some people kind of get frustrated with me that oh, louie's Louie's not meeting his true potential, blah, blah, blah. And now, being sober and not drinking alcohol for 90 days, I feel like I am on track to to reach my true potential. And that's another thing as well that made me kind of turn my life around is Mike sent me a massive message. Good old uncle Mike was like bro, like you have so much potential, like he was. Like you, you can speak on camera so much better than me. Like I think you could. I think you can literally do whatever you want. Like he was like just get out of Ibiza, leave Ibiza and go and sort your life out. And I was like, wow, like imagine I heard David Goggins talking on Joe Rogan saying about if he got to, if he got, if he died and got to heaven when he was like spraying for cockroaches or whatever, and he met God and God showed him who he could have been this guy who was running ultra marathons every week, or this fucking fat guy who was spraying cockroaches and burger joints. And he was like, when I, when I, when I had that vision, it's, that was when I decided to change and that's for me, when I was like, do I want to just be known as this guy who's got a little belly and is nice and tanned and a beefer sitting on the beach drinking beers all day, or do I want to be someone who people actually respect? And I actually started to respect myself because I saw my body changing.

Louis Armstrong: 52:05

I stepped on the scales after three months and I was 79 kilograms. What, yeah, like the lightest I've ever been, pretty much since I was 16, what? And my body was insane. I used to look. This sounds so weird and it's. I'm not. I'm not like a narcissist, or, but like I'd get out the shower and look at myself in the in Madrid and see my body and be like, what the fuck? I've never, ever looked like this in my life and I didn't. I didn't like a bro. I was still eating two bowls, three bowls of cereal a day. Like I didn't change my diet. It's still eating burgers like still worst I ever, but just cutting out the alcohol.

Darren Lee: 52:42

Like out the alcohol, like my body was always just so inflamed and bloated and just unhealthy, bro. But, man, you know what's funny is that, as you talk about the returns and how it scales the right way, or scales the right way right is that, now that you're on this more like, uh, like pad of, like personal development and self-development I hate those words, it's kind of like a fucking american word, but it keeps on going. Basically, right is the fact that I was exact same as you. Like I was making progress for the last couple years, but not really, though, because you're going off the rails and so on. So then, when I cut it out, I got a coach high performance coach, yeah, and we did like a big bulk together, and then we did a massive cuff together, yeah, and then, after doing that kind of cycle, I was like you know what carbs isn't what I enjoy, and I was like it's affecting my work. I was like I'm gonna sleep at 2 pm in the day and I'm super groggy and tired.

Darren Lee: 53:22

So then I took it to the next level, which was like, okay, let's go off carbs, let's go on an animal-based diet. And it was another big increase. And then I was like okay, how do I get better from that? Maybe I want to eat twice a day, maybe not three times a day, four times a day. So it's just small changes. That works the right way. And the opposite then is a debt by a thousand cuts. Right, when you're in ibiza, you go out, you get fucked, they take fucking drugs, whatever, and then it keeps on going, but it's debt by a thousand cuts exactly.

Louis Armstrong: 53:47

Realize that it's happening exactly bro, 100% and like, even like this is one thing that people need to be careful with is you think, you think that you're untouchable, you think that you can just do this forever. But, like, bro, when I get like I realized at the end of my b4 season, second season, I was like I haven't had, like bro, I had so much content on my phone and stuff and like I hadn't ever took the chance to sit down and have peace and quiet and think about what is happening in my life and reflect on what, how I had been behaving. I hadn't, like, I hadn't written down any goals or any targets or anything like that in the last two years and I was like what the fuck? How can I live with no direction, basically, and no purpose? And then, just when I that's the thing I'm probably not going to have a drink when I hit a hundred days because, bro, even just my body, that is enough to make me realize I don't want to have a beer. Because me it sounds weird, right? Because I've never, ever cared about how my body looks and I've always been around people like George, mike, rob Lipset, and they're all super shredded and I I've never been jealous Like they can be shredded and I can be. I have a little belly like I don't care. But now I don't want to lose this, like I'm. I don't want to start drinking again because I don't want to lose this, because I feel so good.

Louis Armstrong: 55:02

And even when I'm running and stuff the Barcelona marathon, I didn't really do any training. I was running. I should have been training but I didn't. But I was running consistently every single day and, like in January I ran I think it was 400 kilometers in a month, so like around 10 K day. So that was really good and just seeing how how much your body can like, bro, I felt amazing, like my body felt good, I didn't feel tired and like I think what you just said about trying different diets and seeing what works, eating two meals a day instead of three, like being so self-aware about stuff like that.

Louis Armstrong: 55:37

I think there's one thing that so many people miss and, like bro, there's been I. I like to fast as well, like intimate fast. So there'll be times where I have a big lunch and I'm at like after the big lunch at two or three o'clock. That's me pretty much fucked for the whole day, like there's no way that I can do anything because I've I've done all the hard work, which is intimate, fast, and then have a big carby meal and then then I'm just completely fucked and I'm like what the why have I done that? You feel so bad? Yeah, bro. So and I think, just I think we're both really lucky to be so self-aware and like like to track, like I think it's a a good thing that we like to track the data. People might call us nerds or obsessive, but if, if it makes you live a better, healthy, more sustainable, like more fulfilling, more productive life, yeah, I think it's. It's good to be obsessed with this stuff.

Darren Lee: 56:23

Anything that leads you to having a better life is okay, once you follow it. Right, if you're doing something like you know it might be, you might be like spiritual, you might be into like meditation, you might be into like religion right? We always talk about this in my podcast the fact that, like whatever it is, if it makes you a better person, just fucking do it Exactly. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter what the vehicle is. You talk about running. A lot of people may not resonate with running, but take the same similarities from jujitsu or boxing or whatnot. Talk to me about running. What is it about running that makes you love it more so?

Louis Armstrong: 56:53

than other sports. I think running changed my life more than anything else in the world. I think running when did you get introduced to it? Coronavirus Same.

Darren Lee: 57:01

Yeah, I was a sprinter before, though, really, yeah, wow, I was a hundred meter sprinter. And then, uh, how many Irish guys you've seen Olympics? Right, not that many. So I moved out of that, but I I just stayed short distance because I I felt like, and then when I, during covid, I just started running half marathons, marathons and man, whatever you do, whatever you work on you're good at, yeah you know, unless it's like fucking astrophysics, right, you can pick up anything, you can be good at it.

Louis Armstrong: 57:29

You get to 80 in six months, but I think I think that's what exactly what you've just said is with running. Most people start running and they're not good at it. Like they struggle to run their first five kilometers without stopping, or they struggle like they don't understand how they can't run without. They like now, all the things that are so easy for me when I run, like thinking about my breath, I'll control my breath or learn how to breathe. When I'm running, I don't even think about it. It's just you like you obviously learn how to do it. Like so many people message my instagram like how do you control your breathing when you're running? I'm like it's actually difficult for me to answer because it happens now, just so, like what's it called Intuition? Yeah, so for me, running.

Louis Armstrong: 58:09

I started running during Corona and I did a YouTube challenge. I was like okay, I went on the treadmill and I tried to run five kilometers and, by the way, treadmill running to run on the road is a little bit different. It's a lot harder on the road, to be honest. But I was like I'm gonna start the treadmill and I'm gonna run every single day five kilometers and see my time. When I ran it the first day was like 35, 35 minutes, which was fine and I was like I want to try and get it down to 20 minutes in a month. So I just, I just I just stayed so disciplined and like, eventually I got shin splints, which is an injury that most people get when they start running, and it's normally because they're running and they're they're hitting.

Louis Armstrong: 58:50

The contact with the floor is with their heel rather than their forefoot, so they're putting so much pressure through their whole shin. This is like this is literally one of the most common questions that I get asked. So I think when people start running, they need to get a good pair of shoes First of all. They need to work on their form, so they need to make sure that the forefoot is landing first, because so many people get injured when they start running and so many people go and try and run 5k every day and then they just destroy themselves and then they hate running. And I think that's the reason why I started running was because I was so bad at it. I was good at the gym, I could go and lift weights, I was quite strong like good genetics, luckily but just running I was so bad at. So I was like I need to and the next, my next challenge is going to be swimming, because I'm so bad at swimming.

Darren Lee: 59:32

I was the same. I got into swimming Really, yeah, I got into, uh, um, like, like, what is it like? 150 meter length pool? Yeah, singapore? Uh, because I didn't. I was far from the beach, yeah, and I was fucking. I was on a massive bulk, I was like 85 kilos and I was like you probably saw me, I was like a fucking whale in the, in, the, in there, but initially I did like half a length and then I did a one length and then I was getting up to like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes and yeah, I fucking loved it. And now, if I'm swimming in the, I actually got a lot more confidence because I used to like you know you're never in the sea, you're not in the UK, right?

Darren Lee: 1:00:03

No, I never had the confidence. Um, and yeah, like for me, I would love to go and do like a triathlon now. But what I always say my coach said it to me, course like I don't want to just put it to the fucking side forever. No, I just feel like that. I just need retarded levels of focus.

Louis Armstrong: 1:00:28

Yeah, for anything to work basically, yeah, I think that's one thing. Like that mean you can be slightly, I think, if you like most people, when they want to go and run an ultra marathon or a marathon, they have a time and so they need to train to get that time, whereas I I would just not really train or and I wouldn't even worry about my time. I just want to go and do the marathon and complete it, like I did an ultra marathon in abifa. It's like 50 kilometers, no training, drinking beers every day for two years, drank like five years. The night before I had four hours sleep, woke up in the morning and just we had to go out and run 55 kilometers and actually on the 52nd kilometer I twisted my ankle so I couldn't do it. So luckily my friend Kevin uh shout out to Kevin Um, who's actually from Ireland as well, from Mayo, he finished the last three kilometers.

Louis Armstrong: 1:01:18

But like that's, that's the thing for you. It's difficult, because if you were going to do an ultra marathon or a triathlon, I can tell by the type of person you are that you are going to be so dedicated to it that you won't be able to concentrate on anything else. So I think it's it's hard, especially in the like sports, like marathon training, ultras, triathlons it's not something that like you can go to the gym now for an hour and also and put all of your focus on your business, whereas if you're training for a triathlon or an ultra, you need to be out training three or four hours a day and like nutrition sleep, fucking, yeah, everything has to be dialed in.

Darren Lee: 1:01:53

One of my mates, um, he sold his business like fucking, like 10 years ago and he took a year out to do an ironman and he moved to lanzarote and he said he spent 24 hours a day working on ironman. He said he spent 12 hours training and 12 hours looking at spreadsheets, did it for a year and he like won the fucking iron man or whatever fuck it was in lanzarote and he moved to the place, to where it was yeah, with his kid, fucked his kid in some spanish school and he said, right, we got a ton of money, let's just work on this for a year, but I think that's the best way to live life.

Louis Armstrong: 1:02:27

Yeah, true, when that's exactly like.

Louis Armstrong: 1:02:29

That's why you should work hard on your business so you can get to that level where you're able to just go and do stuff like that, like I think nick bear is a perfect example of that. He's worked so hard on his youtube, on his business now, that he can literally hire a team to help him with his training to fit like bro. He has like three videographers following him on his runs, like in the morning. Like he, he's worked so hard that he now can put that team in place so that he doesn't have to worry about anything other than just showing up, which is, I think, that's going to be the. The next stage that I want to go to is like mike.

Louis Armstrong: 1:03:02

I know it's when mike hired a team completely changed his life. Mike, actually, it's funny he had a turning point, similar to me now in a before, where he's like right, I'm not gonna come to a before anymore and this I'm, I'm just, I'm just going to go to Dubai now, I'm going to set up a podcast, I'm going to hire a team. And when Mike just went back to Dubai, I remember. I remember him leaving a before in the worst mood ever after doing nothing for a couple of months and he was like, right, I have to get out of here, I have to just go and just go and dial in. And he did. He went and set up the podcast. He hired like five different team members photographer, videographer, editor like, assistant like and it just upped, upped his game in every single way.

Darren Lee: 1:03:40

Yeah so you know the the common story there is like someone who's young, has a child and then therefore, they get rid of all their bad habits because they have the responsibility. I think entrepreneurship is the perfect vehicle for that, because you have to show up for yourself. Like, we have eight full-time people now, wow and the average age is like 21 22, and the main thing I would honestly say that the guys get is just mentorship because, like they're seven, some of them like 18 19. I hired one guy when he was 17. He was in school and we have these like one-to-one calls and he they just learn all the shit that I fucked up for the past 10 years.

Darren Lee: 1:04:13

Yeah, but in doing so, it forces me to be a better person, subconsciously as well as consciously, because the guys still love the parodies, like a few that are moving here and they want it. They're asking me about like villa parodies and stuff, and I was like, yeah, you can go do it, I just won't be there, but you need to set that example. So the first one is like a kid. Third one is like in a relationship. So the biggest thing for me I want to get your thoughts on this too is so we. I travel a lot for a podcast and when I'm on my own I'm usually a little bit lazier than when I'm with Elise, because usually when I'm with Elise I'm much more on the ball and I think it could be subconsciously. I want to be a better person. Therefore, I work a bit harder when it's literally in focal, but when I'm in like dubai, I work a lot, to be fair, but I could just be like on my phone sometimes.

Louis Armstrong: 1:04:56

You get me I don't know why.

Darren Lee: 1:04:57

It's like really weird when someone's not watching you. That's kind of who you are, yeah, and sometimes I'm a lazy prick, yeah which is also fine sometimes, which is the reality of the world right you know people, people can, just I'm not always moving 100 miles an hour.

Louis Armstrong: 1:05:10

Yeah I think you just have to be careful, because I think when you do it's hard Like, for example, when I did the 30 days of 30 YouTube videos I didn't see the result, but now I'm seeing the results which is funny a month later and when I was doing that, it's you, you move it. I didn't have time, like, for example, if Cindy needed help with something with her business or with her work or photos or videos, I actually didn't have time to help Cindy, which was kind of a good thing because it also made Cindy respect me and my time more, whereas before, like, my life is quite funny because I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want whenever I want. But having goals and having folks like doing those 30 days of 30 YouTube videos was so good for my business. Like, I signed up I don't know like five boys in a month on my creator club and that's just because people were seeing my content more. They were seeing me more, they were getting to know who I am, they were getting to know more about the creator club and like, for example, since I've been on the sober journey, I've signed up the most people ever to the creator club. And again, this is another thing. I don't. I try not to promote it because, like I told you, I'm embarrassed about the website and how it looks and it's a little bit unorganized, so I'm not quite ready for a massive influx of people right now. But, as you said me, it's funny because the OG creator club boys they've saw my transition, like they joined when I was in a B for being a party boy and actually one of them. I'll give him a little shout out.

Louis Armstrong: 1:06:34

Joe Martin called me out. He's like oh Lou, I signed up with this creative club and you said we're going to do a zoom call every week. And I wasn't doing that. I just I just like I was basically waiting for there was like three or four boys at the beginning. I was waiting for there to be like 10. And then I was going to start the zoom calls and then he was like no, we need to do it now and I was like fuck. He called me out on an email and I was like I don't even know who this guy is, but he's paid this money for my creative club. So now it's time for me to sort my shit out and level up and ever since he did that, we've done a zoom call pretty much every single week, apart from maybe one or two that we've missed because there wasn't a good amount of people.

Louis Armstrong: 1:07:09

And then the zoom calls on my creative club has been what has been by far the most impactful for everyone Lead by example, exactly, and that is what has been. That's why the creative club is so good, in my opinion, for these zoom calls, for this community, for where we, where we have these group talks for two hours and, like all the boys came to Ibiza, we got a massive villa for three or four days and we did ice baths, we did saunas, we did hikes, we did all the good stuff and we did some parties as well. So, yeah, I'm really proud, but again, I need I need to lead by example and I think, again, being on this sober mission before, I thought I could be, I thought I could lead by being the party boy who can drink the most beers?

Louis Armstrong: 1:07:48

Yeah, like, look at me, I know everyone in the club, I don't have to queue, I can go in the club, I don't have to queue, I can go in the vip. Like I thought that was cool and like pretty sad. To be honest, like I don't want, like I don't want that. Like I thought I was going to build a personal brand on being like that guy and maybe create my own. Yeah, like that's just not who I want to be at all anymore. So I've done like a complete switch and I'm super grateful because all my, all the boys and like even I read a couple of comments, while one comment last night, literally just before I went to bed wow, louis, so happy with you, so happy you're in Bali, so happy for you. And Cindy completely turned your life around. Uh, I have re, I have resubscribed. So, like you know, people, people were kind of falling off when I was, cause we can't really relate to anyone who just parties every day. Like most people don't want to do that. Most people want to improve their lives. So now I'm I'm very conscious of making sure. Like bro, I used to think it was funny to put up stupid videos of Mike or me or Rob or whoever, sometimes get people in a bit of trouble by posting stupid videos on Instagram Because, like, I just like to be real, bro, if we like to go and get fucked up at a party, don't hide it, like. I mean, I have respect, mike and Rob, on their decisions on what they post and what they don't post, but that's why people like me, because I don't hide anything. But I now I understand why they didn't post three days of partying in a row, because people don't respect that Like. That's. People follow Mike, rob to get in good shape, to improve their lives, to learn. So now I'm kind of on that same mission as well, whereas I'm more conscious about what I post. Like, I've been going to the gym twice a day, like in the morning and in the night. I've been eating healthier and I think people I like, I like to post my whole life on Instagram, on Instagram stories.

Louis Armstrong: 1:09:31

People know me for my Instagram stories and I do that because it kind of holds me accountable as well and people watch if, oh like, for example, I used to get the Starbucks drink. Like and call it an everyday bro, like what, jake Paul, you said, and everyone used to message me. And like bro. People were tagging me like 15 stories a day of their Starbucks order, saying it's everyday, bro, and like I, I know that if I live a good life and a healthy life and I'm trying to improve like bro, even posting quotes, I'm reading atomic habits at the minute.

Louis Armstrong: 1:10:00

I'm just getting into reading, so start with that book first. It's the best thing to do, man. Yeah, bro, in the morning it's so good highlight the pages, lie in the sun and even if I post like one page a day on my instagram, everyone's like oh, can you do that again tomorrow? Can you like post little, just highlighted bits in the book and people find that helpful. It's so easy to help other people and I just try to help people open their minds so that they can Think of all the people that are learning from you that are not messaging you.

Darren Lee: 1:10:28

I always think about that man Because it'll be like six months, 12 months from now, someone will send you a screenshot of them leaving their shitty fucking job building their business and it's the intangibles, right. It doesn't actually have to be running business, food or alcohol, it can be all the other stuff. Question for you on that is did you get any negative feedback from quitting alcohol?

Louis Armstrong: 1:10:46

none, absolutely none. I've had so probably the most messages I've ever had in my life like literally the nicest messages ever. Like so many people also doing it themselves, like I. I got an app that tells you how many days since, or whatever, everyone's downloading the app, everyone's sending me screenshots oh look, I just did 30 days, like, but again, this is the. This is the thing that I'm struggling with now, to be honest with you, is that I, I, I'm, I don't know when I'm going to go back or if I am going to go back, but I would like to like uh, I think about an ice cold beer on the beach or after being in the gym or whatever, and I wonder if I'm ever going to be able to get go back to that stage of being able to just enjoy that. Or do I just I don't have to do that anymore, like I'm happy with a protein shake or a acai bowl, like like.

Darren Lee: 1:11:38

Do you know what I mean could be moments of like achievement? Yeah, you know, when I spoke to that guy rory, that's what he was really mentioning about was like you know, you get married, you get engaged, that's when you'd have it. He had it at his wedding and so on, and he was a crazy party boy yeah he's famous for being on daily mirror yeah for sticking his head out the uh out of it, out of a train.

Darren Lee: 1:11:51

His head was out the train and he was videoing himself. It's on the front page of Daily Mirror, of all fucking things, and he's saying this right, so there is a control element. Yeah, and if you enjoy it? So I think this is the difference between me and you. I never enjoyed beer, I just enjoyed drinking a shit ton of gin and just going to DC 10. Right, do you get drink alcohol for the taste?

Darren Lee: 1:12:11

right, and that was my argument to a lot of people too was like uh, whenever I write about it, people say, well, I just like a whiskey, like once a month, and I'm like, yeah, but most young guys don't enjoy the taste of whiskey exactly you know they enjoy what whiskey does for you, yeah, but if you actually genuinely enjoy beer like bintang beer here is actually like really nice, like a local beer um, then you can, then it's fine, right, yeah, but there has to be that kind of line. But the problem is is to control yeah, and exactly what you said.

Louis Armstrong: 1:12:36

Like for me, at any point in my life right now, having one beer is not gonna there's gonna be no positive impact. There's just absolutely no point for me have you?

Darren Lee: 1:12:45

did you watch the podcast with andrew huberman about alcohol? Yeah, yeah, I've never actually watched it, but I've heard about it several times. But yeah, there's technically is technically is no positive impact. There is like it is poison. One consideration I suppose like that you may need to have is like for me it was more, I was drinking when I was partying. So when I was like living in Asia obviously there's fucking Savoy out on the road, but for the most part I wasn't going to clubs.

Louis Armstrong: 1:13:07

Yeah, but if you was an option that's actually nearly more dangerous, exactly, do you get me? And that's another thing that's so good about living in bali. I know, I know I haven't talked about being here, but it's. This place is just so good for healthy living. Like there isn't. I don't like other than savaya, I don't think there's a party scene here really at all. Like everyone is on the healthy, like bro I go to. Like everyone's in the sauna until 10 o'clock doing ice baths, then have a protein shake or a smoothie. Like all the restaurants close at 10 half 10. Everyone goes to bed early, wakes up early, like there isn't what. Again, this is another thing that I want to cover, not going back too much into the alcohol, but environment is just 100, everything, bro.

Louis Armstrong: 1:13:49

The second I got on the ferry with my car and left a Ibiza. I was like, right, this is, this is the change, this is what I need. I'm like bro, I'd wake up and because my apartment was, above all, the bars and restaurants, I just go downstairs at whatever time. Everyone's on the beers, everyone's drinking, everyone's got a cocktail and it was just so normal. Like how it would be weird if I didn't have a beer, because everyone else is, and again, just just so many people.

Louis Armstrong: 1:14:13

And this is another thing that I tell the boys on the creator club is the environment, bro. Like if you're stuck in this small town, like in England, ireland, it rains every single day, it's gray, it's cloudy, you can't go out and film content, and that no, and no one wants to watch content of someone in Manchester in the pouring rain. It's just, it doesn't inspire and inspire anyone. I always said like, even even when I was just getting started, I used to love going on holiday and I love seeing like it's. It sounds stupid, but something so significant just seeing a palm tree and a sunset makes you feel so good gives you such good energy.

Darren Lee: 1:14:46

Yeah, and it's irreplaceable, but um age is the best for that yeah, bro, it's so good.

Louis Armstrong: 1:14:51

So environment, like is just insane. Like, bro, even if you go into any cafe here, everyone's on the laptops, everyone's doing designs, everyone's editing videos, everyone's doing the same type of work building an agency, doing marketing and like you literally gonna ask someone for a wi-fi password and then, and you'll have a little, they're actually interested in what you're doing as well. Like everyone's interested in each other and I'll take my number. We'll go for a coffee. Maybe I can help you, you can help me. Like, I'm sure we'll do lots of work together.

Darren Lee: 1:15:16

Like, I'm actually excited to work on your shit, man same room because I actually I love going like from zero. It's my favorite thing is like zero to one, because, like, where we are, we're like we're a scale-up company. Now I'm just fucking ceo of the company, you know.

Louis Armstrong: 1:15:29

So I love like the nitty-gritty like zero to one shit, and that's the stuff that I'm really have no idea about.

Louis Armstrong: 1:15:34

So that's a creative creativity side right that's why bali is good for someone like you too, because, um, there's not many people that I speak to that have the creative lens that you have, but that's like a huge site to lean into yeah, that's why that's as well like what mike's done by hiring his team is mike is just good at making the videos and sharing his knowledge and like all the other stuff he prefers other people to do, and that's what I kind of just need to do now. Like I'm not good at any of the stuff that you're good at, but I can just pick up a camera so easily and make a video about anything.

Darren Lee: 1:16:05

You have a guy working with you now, though, right, there was a guy that was helping you schedule your content, jake is he was he's on the creative club.

Louis Armstrong: 1:16:14

He's's literally, I think he's 18 and he's actually running a marathon. It's funny, all the boys in the creative club are in marathons this year, which is another thing which I'm so happy about, like subconscious, yeah, like none of the half the people, like no one in there, did any running before now. Everyone's running a marathon. So, again, that's just another another thing I'm so proud of. But jake, he's super organized. He's 18, he's so driven and like he just organizes my life and like sends all my invoices, reaches out to brands, replies to brands, like does all that stuff that I'm just so bad at and don't think about so that's why it's like it's not necessarily expensive to do it.

Darren Lee: 1:16:51

You just need to know what your whole you're plugging exactly you get.

Louis Armstrong: 1:16:54

That's the problem. Like Jake has all my passwords for everything, like, but it's. But I feel so comfortable Like it's. You have to trust someone first of all, and I think once you have the a good experience of trusting someone and letting them handle all that stuff, then you realize okay, wow, this has made my life so much easier. Before we finish up, last minute.

Darren Lee: 1:17:11

Last question I have for you is if you were to change like one thing, what would you have changed for the past like 10 years?

Louis Armstrong: 1:17:19

That's a good one. To change one thing, yeah, what would you change? I'm going to have to find you an answer, but I always say that would change nothing. But let me, it's the right answer, is it? It's the right answer? Yeah, I wouldn't change anything. You guys live with regret, right? Yeah, like everything that has happened, bro, I'm I'm very like. I think you are, as well, very self-aware, like I think about stuff and like I have been. I heard you saying on one of your podcasts that you got therapy. Yeah, we can actually talk about that if you have a bit of time.

Darren Lee: 1:17:49

actually, yeah, and that was actually driven by elise nice, so I actually wanted to bring that up to you. Actually, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Yeah, the reason was for me was the fact that I was like I was working a job that I hated. I was in tech. It was a big company in the uk and I was just working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. I was up to like one o'clock in the morning in asia.

Darren Lee: 1:18:07

Yeah, um, I was like under sleeping, overworking, super stressed, and we were like a proper strained relationship, yeah, and he's just like just go sort it out. So I did better, better help. Yeah, I did it for two months or eight sessions, yeah, and the beauty of it was the fact that they don't judge you. Yeah, I just told her what I was doing and then she kind of stripped it all back and then she was more interested in like why I'm so like driven, basically because, like, I'm always trying to push and she was kind of breaking that down and breaking the ideas behind it and it helped so fucking much like our relationship has completely changed that's four and a half years.

Louis Armstrong: 1:18:41

Nice, I'm really happy for you honestly.

Darren Lee: 1:18:43

You need to have that um awareness where it is right word, but also the lack of ego to say I don't know everything right. Exactly how much guys in our space think that?

Louis Armstrong: 1:18:53

they know everything Exactly, bro. Honestly, like I don't want to. I don't I don't judge anyone, but I know so many of my friends in particular that would benefit so much, like after going to therapy. After going to therapy, I went for two reasons. Well, a number of reasons, but number one it was for myself, especially with the alcohol thing and the I actually well, actually I did. It was when I did a month sober, that's when I started to get in therapy, so I wanted to see if I could do it myself without going to.

Louis Armstrong: 1:19:24

Like I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but again, this is we'll not, we'll spare all those details but I did one month sober and then I started therapy, just so I could be clear on my mind and so that I could go with more direction of what I was talking to the therapist about. So he helped me personally and then he helped me with my relationship with Cindy, cause me and Cindy were having a lot of trouble with our relationship, which we're a lot better now, much better, like I can't believe how much better. But me and Cindy were on the edge of make or break and like I really loved Cindy and I think Cindy really loved me and we basically said the only way we can stay together is if we go to the therapist because, like, we need someone who's going to have mutual like. I have a very good supportive group of friends, but they're always going to take my side and even if I'm telling them stuff outside of me and Cindy, about myself, my friends will kind of tell me what I want to hear. George maybe not so much, but again, george has been here in Bali and I haven't seen him for a while.

Louis Armstrong: 1:20:22

But you need someone who's going to tell you like, not what you want to hear sometimes, and it can be really hard. My therapist has told me so many times no, louis, I'm sorry, you're wrong about that. And I'm like, but how can, how can, how can I be wrong? Like, this is how I've been brought up, this is how my parents brought me up, like this is this is what I know, I can't be wrong. And he'll tell me like, no, you are wrong, like, and you can't behave like that, you can't act like that, or you'll give me a jealous or why I might be insecure about certain things. And I can see how much it's changed the way I think. So now I'm just so much more conscious of it. And now what I try and do which is just before I even react to certain things in life, like with me and Cindy, or even just maybe someone in the gym talking to me bad, like I always now take a moment to really, rather than just reacting, which whenever I would react.

Louis Armstrong: 1:21:17

It was always going to be bad, yeah, and now I just kind of I'm like I write, I do the five minute journal where you write down what you're grateful for, and like daily affirmations every day. And now I want to, I'm trying to work on just being like completely in control of my emotions, which I think will take years. It's never ending.

Darren Lee: 1:21:37

Yeah, but that's for the game.

Darren Lee: 1:21:39

I don't want to be triggered by anyone or anything, so but, bro, the therapy for me has literally helped me so much and I think I think every single person, no matter how mentally strong and stable they think they are, I think everyone would benefit massively from therapy man, and it's the internal state like creates external reality, like whatever you're trying to do externally in the world, whether it's build a business, build a brand, whatever when you're working yourself internally, with the assistance of someone or without the assistance of someone, that's going to be the determining factor do you get what you want outside exactly?

Louis Armstrong: 1:22:11

bro. So so good, and like what you said about changing, I wouldn't change anything. I now know when I think back to certain moments or certain things that have happened in my life. Well, I wish I had behaved like this, and now I know that I've learned from their mistakes and I'm not going to repeat their mistakes.

Darren Lee: 1:22:25

100 and I want to say a massive thank you. Thank you so much bro I, we could do another fucking two hours, but we could 100 go to dinner.

Louis Armstrong: 1:22:33

We've got 100, we'll have go to dinner. We'll just have to do another one. Yeah, man, this was great, though. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, bro. I really appreciate it. Pleasure, man, and hopefully you're nice and relaxed and set up. Honestly, I feel like I just feel so happy man, you gotta do more podcasts. This is the real therapy. Well, darren, thank you so much, I really really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Kickoff Sessions

#214 Louis Armstrong - A Full Guide To Reinvent Your Life

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