Simon Jeffries Ex-Special Forces- How To Forge True Confidence and Live With Purpose

Simon Jeffries, known as "The Natural Edge," is a motivational speaker and coach who helps individuals and teams achieve their full potential. With a focus on mindset, physical fitness, and nutrition, Jeffries believes in taking a holistic approach to personal and professional development.

Simon Jeffries - the natural edge

Simon Jeffries' journey to becoming a motivational speaker and coach began with his own personal transformation.

After struggling with depression and anxiety for many years, he made a commitment to improving his physical and mental health. He started exercising regularly, changed his diet, and focused on developing a positive mindset. As a result, he not only improved his own life but also found a new passion for helping others.

Through his coaching and speaking engagements, Jeffries emphasises the importance of developing a growth mindset. He believes that by adopting a growth mindset, individuals can learn to embrace challenges, see failures as opportunities for growth, and develop a sense of resilience.

Jeffries also emphasises the importance of physical fitness and nutrition in achieving success. He believes that taking care of your body is essential for developing mental clarity, improving energy levels, and reducing stress.

One of Jeffries' signature techniques is "The Natural Edge Method," a three-step process that helps individuals and teams develop the mindset, physical fitness, and nutrition necessary for success. The first step is to create a clear vision of what you want to achieve.

The second step is to develop the mindset necessary to achieve that vision, which includes embracing challenges and learning from failures. Finally, the third step is to take action by committing to a fitness and nutrition plan that supports your goals.

Simon Jeffries has worked with individuals and organisations worldwide, helping them achieve their full potential. His holistic personal and professional development message has resonated with audiences from all walks of life, from athletes to business professionals.

Summary

Simon Jeffries, "The Natural Edge," is a motivational speaker and coach who helps individuals and teams achieve their full potential through a holistic personal and professional development approach. By focusing on mindset, physical fitness, and nutrition, Jeffries teaches individuals to embrace challenges, learn from failures, and develop resilience. His signature technique, "The Natural Edge Method," has helped individuals and organisations succeed worldwide.

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Full transcript below

On the Male Mastery podcast this week, I sit down with Simon Jeffries, Mindset and Performance coach and founder of The Natural Edge coaching company. We discuss what it takes to become an elite performer in life and business, and the common mistakes men make when getting into personal development and the daily habits you can implement to optimise your performance.

Simon, welcome to the male mastery podcast.

Thank you very much for having me on.

I'm going to jump straight in. Because with Male mastery, a lot of the guys that I put a lot of content out with, they always request guests around kind of mindset performance, how they can get out of a rut get focused in their career, their personal life, fitness and things like that, which is why we're so keen to get you on. But I'd like to dig a bit deeper and go into your background before you joined the Royal Marines and became a performance coach. Can you give me a little more detail about your childhood leading up to joining the Marines?

Yeah, so I was fortunate I had. I grew up on a small farm in Worcestershire, so I spent a lot of time outside just running feral in the woods, went through school, played lots of sports, or played rugby, predominantly a few martial arts, college. And then, after college, I spent a year in Canada during the ski season. I cleaned hotel rooms, housekeeping, toilets, showers, and skiing on the weekends. Then I went to university, studied history at Cardiff University, and spent a year in New Zealand after again, just working my way around and travelling. And then I joined the military; I always had the intention to join the military from I was lucky in the sense that from a young age, I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

I had an obvious idea around that, and how that formed, I can't precisely tell you; I've got no family in the military. It was a combination of probably loving outdoor life and activities and watching too many 80s action movies, predator commando and all the rest of it, kind of embedded that view in there. But I've got a picture; I need to find it somewhere of me when I was like 11. And it's kind of, you know, when I leave school, this is what I'm going to do. And mindset when I leave school, I'm going to be a Royal Marines Commando. So even down to joining the Marines. And again, I can't tell you; I must have seen it in a book or something. And it just embedded that idea. But I was I also wanted to experience life a bit and do a few other things before committing to that; I guess I knew in my head that it was a big commitment. And it's not just a job; it's more life and a lifestyle. And so I wanted to do a few other things first. I think retrospectively, looking back, I'm happy I did it that way because joining a little bit older. So I was 24, having that extra life experience and that social or separate life outside of the military, different friends, ship group, etc. I think that was relatively healthy mentally and stood me in good stead when I was in and also upon leaving, as opposed to having joined at 16—and only having or predominantly having that kind of military life and connections.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Because I know many guys that have been in the military, some of them well, others have done relatively poorly, or, you know, respectfully to them. But again, you would you've done the whole thing when he was going out, you know, on ski season, but also he was over in New Zealand. So you did have some life experience and life skills before you went into the military. I would have thought that would have helped. Hugely, because a lot of people, I think there's this misconception of a lot of people going into the Army as a last resort. They didn't do well in school; they haven't done well socially. And it's like I'm going to go in the Army and learn a little bit of discipline get fit, it's a job and things like that. But then, I suppose there are various degrees to the forces. Now, you ended up in the Royal Marines, which I believe is, you know, certainly levels up from just essential from the basic kind of army regimen. So you went in at 24. In terms of you going in, were there many other people that have done what you did in terms of winning at a slightly later age? How were you accepted in the end? Did you go straight into the Marines?

Yeah, so I went straight into the Marines. There was a brought yes, good point that you make. There is a broad range, and that's what I love about the military the thing that you'll always get from anyone that's served when they've left, and you ask them what a mess, it's always the people. And what I found one of the best things is such an eclectic mix in the military; you get everything from like just To the fairest guy in my training, I mentioned the names like proper rough and tumble from Manchester done a couple of armed robberies in his time, and a few other bits and pieces. But you know, brilliant bloke, he just kind of grown up in that environment and got taken down that path, but pulled himself out of it through to, like there was an officer on selection is probably the poshest guy I've ever met in my life, who knows casual dress going out will be wearing a Corvette. And although everyone comes from all these different backgrounds and experiences, that core ethos brings everyone together. And, you know, for me, the trip that I went to into the Marines, there's probably a handful of us that were kind of later 20s, most people were on the type of 19 to 24, I'd say age group, and then there are a couple of were younger. Still, it doesn't; I think being a little bit older gives you that bit of life experience, you know; I take my hat off to anyone that goes in 16 1718 because it is hard, and you plunged into a very intense environment. Back to your previous point, you said in the beginning that people have been through the military, and it's been great, and they've had a good time and achieved a lot. And those who haven't. This probably applies to life. But the military is one of those environments where one of the first things our troop sergeant told us that advice he gave us is when you pass out of basic training, actively manage your career. Steer yourself basically, to what you want to get out of it is one of those places where what you put in, you will get out you can quite easily just coast and you'll basically be given ship drafts ship jobs, and you'll hate it and just spend the whole time moaning and complaining about the system. Or you actively pursue the avenues you want and fight to go down those routes. And it makes such a difference to your experience. Whether you do that?

Yeah. Well, I guess that's like any profession, whether or not you are a builder. Whether or not you're a car mechanic or any industry be that a state agency, they'd be that in banking is that you can go into banking, and work at Lloyds Bank, and be a checking Clark or you can go in and work for Morgan Stanley and be an investment banker and earn millions of pounds, an estate agent, you can work for your move and sell shitty little flats in an undesirable part. Or you can sell multimillion-pound mansions. And I guess that's pretty similar with the forces because you've got guys going in there and not respecting what opportunities the parties can provide. And they're going in there with no fundamental understanding or idea of the avenue they want to pursue When they leave. Hence I know guys that have come out of the Army, and they're working as labourers on building sites. Whereas I know other people who have gone in and specialised in Communication Engineering, they've come out. They've been working in very, very well-paid jobs since leaving the military. And they're doing massively well. And I think you ended up in a management consultancy when you went as well.

Yeah, do you know I'll just since we are talking about mindset, I'll call you up on one thing just and is that, and this is just so indicative of how we view things in society. And that is, we place what we determine as success or whatever it is still on job sites. And it's bullshit. Other reason? And I had this conversation a lot. And it's so even within the military or anything in life; it doesn't matter except for are you finding happiness, satisfaction, and fulfilment in what you're doing? It doesn't matter if you sell shitty flats in Brixton or multimillion pound ones in Canary Wharf, whether you're a bank, Clark teller, or you work in an investment bank. It comes down to are you finding happiness and satisfaction; you know if you take two people and they end their lives, and you've got one who worked on a building site, and loved the work he was doing and had good relationships with Sophia vital social work or strong relationship with his wife, his family, whatever it is, or husband, whatever the situation, versus the CEO of a massive institution, he's got the house in salary, the flat in London, x and the bank. His fucking miserable has worked his whole life without finding satisfaction, high-stress levels, and dysfunctional relationships. Well, who's one like who it doesn't matter when we get to the end of our lives? All that matters is usually, and if you look at studies with palliative care, people who have worked in palliative care and look at the kind of regrets or wishes that the dying, it always comes back to the quality of your relationships and experiences you've had predominantly. No one cares about anything else. No one cares what job you do. And even that really, you We talk about what we perceive as assessors' successful careers, no one cares. We're all wrapped up in our lives if you dig into it. No one cares what you do. No one cares how much money you have if you're happy and content. And a lot of this, we can dig into this to go through it comes down to mindset and how we approach life. That is what's important. Like what, you know, I ended up in special forces. But it's no more critical than my role as the medic or the guiding logistics; it's just the route I chose that aligned with my identity. And I find a lot of happiness and satisfaction with that. For now, if I was chatting to a guy yesterday, we're running an event soon. And he's got medical, he's going to us, and he's just talking about this guy. And he's like; he's talking about how good he is with attractive women. And he said the part is that he's not the best-looking guy, but he is entirely self-confident. He is a brilliant medic like he knows the other stuff. And he's got no interest in Grand selection; special forces could care less about any of that stuff. He knows he's very good at his job and loves what he does. And just that complete, being at ease with yourself, that's where that True Confidence comes from again. So it's just to kind of just since we're on this podcast, where it's always interesting, you can see it, like the language. I do it myself, you know; we all slip into the language we fall into because of how society is set up and how we view things. These are constructed like artificial constructs of what we believe is success or not success. And most of it, you know, is bullshit, most of it. It distracts us that can be damaging because when you get caught up in that, it can take you down the path of someone you don't want to be or how you want to live because you think you need to do these things to be happy or to be successful.

Well, I'm glad you've touched upon that. And there are a couple of points that I'd like to make. And you're entirely correct; it's something that I speak quite a lot about in terms of your happiness isn't necessarily a reflection of where you sit in a society like you say you can own a million-pound house or earn a million pounds a year and be unhappy, you can sit down and make 20 grand a year and be very fulfilled and happy. I think the thing that I was touching upon in terms of when people go into the forces. Then they came out that many people go into the details and have almost just ended up in the troops, as opposed to necessarily specifically saying, right, I'm going to go into the forces with this intent. Some people I know have gone into the details with no sense, and it's almost like life has happened to them, rather than they have narrated their path in the forces. And when you come out, it's elementary to fall into a job as a banker's Clark, a bog standard estate agent, or a bog standard, whatever bog standard PT. But it's the people that have some understanding and an idea of precisely what they want and what the path looks like to get there. You're not just going to fall into the job and be a managing director of Barclays Capital or Morgan Stanley. And I think that's more that I was touching upon because you went in and had a specific route you wanted to take within the military. And you pursued that. So when that's enabled you to pursue a career, you don't just fall into a management consultancy role, do you?

Yeah, that's, that's such an excellent point to raise because it's the I think it's the broader point. And most people fall into this. It's not it is, but not so much of knowing what you want to do is knowing who you are, who you are, and how you want to live and actually, so entirely valid for the military. Still, it's wider life; most of the people that I work with now, it's the first time that they've stopped and asked the questions of them, like, who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I want my life to look? As you said, most people go through life and fall into things, or just things happen. And then they retrospectively use that to assign it to who they are, as opposed to going, This is who I am. And I proactively make choices and actions to fulfil that to live in line with it as opposed to, like you said, life just happening to me and reacting to it. And it's a pretty subtle difference when you say it on the surface, but the effects of fat on the quality of your life and how happy and satisfied you are is massive. It's night and day whether you choose to live in a certain way or things just happen to you, and you are always on. You feel like you're constantly reacting to them.

I like the reference; I forget who I heard it from. But your life narrative and the direction of your life can be like hitting it, Alfonso; it's only the difference between sometimes a couple of millimetres, half an inch, half a centimetre, to you going on course, or completely off path. And I think that can be pretty relevant to life in general, is that if you're just right, okay, I'm just going to, you know, wing it and see what happens, that potentially is okay. But even in business or life, you have to have some direction. And it understands who you are as a person, what you don't want, and what you do want. And what you're willing to put up with. And what you're not ready to put up with really defines you as an individual; you touched upon that medic that was very, very self-confident, you know, I would always turn around and say that self-confidence, or should I say, a lack of self-worth, is probably one of the biggest hindrances that men face is because if you don't have self-worth, that can have a knock-on effect for your career, how you act from, you know, financial perspective relationships, and your outlook in life. So you went into the Marines? Was there an exit route? Did you know how long you wanted to go in? Is it something that you directed and dictated yourself? How did that end?

I had; I knew that I didn't want to do the entire 22 years, in the same way, that I knew I wanted to do the military; I knew that I didn't want to do it for the whole time. And, again, I can't explain why I'd already embedded that. What I didn't know is the O's had the goal in mind of going on selection for special forces. And one side ticked that box and spent a few years working in that environment, the kind of trigger to look to going outside was really about taking back control of my life as in, because you're so busy all the time, you're away a lot, and you miss a lot of things. And so once I ticked off those boxes of the stuff I wanted to do, I just asked myself, if I leave now, will I regret not doing anything? And some things would have been nice to do. But they weren't critical to me staying, and also because of the nature of that role, you know, they could have happened in one year or would have had to wait five years. And I wanted to leave in my early 30s, as opposed to later. And I also think another sort of trigger with it was the understanding of myself that I like having a big goal or challenge to work towards. So passing selection was one of those. And even after I'd done that almost immediately, even though I still enjoyed the role and had a great time, I was practically already thinking about, okay, well, what's the next big challenge I can work towards? And I didn't know what that would be when I moved to go outside. It was almost just taking that leap with the faith and, you know, self-belief coming back to that that I will figure out. And work out what that is.

So for any of our listeners that aren't that familiar with the hierarchy and levels within the forces within the Army, am I right in saying that Royal Marine sits? And again, maybe you'll correct me on this, but in terms of levels at Royal Marine, you would go in an entry-level army. The next tier up would be Royal Marine, and another tier up from that saps in terms of a basic overview. Am I right in saying that?

A little bit, so slightly different. So anyone can join any service in the military bar to one special force, so you can't join? Well, you can do the reserves of them. But they're not. It's not the same role. There are a couple of others for SES, SBS, and SR. Pathfinders and a few other tier-two are sitting just below it. So you can join the Royal Marines and the parachute regiment straight off the street. They're generally regarded in terms of infantry soldiering to be harder to get into than a general infantry regiment. Because the training is so, I think General infantry soldier is 15 weeks basic training, whereas Royal Marines have powers of 32 weeks. So it's over double the amount of time you spend in training. And it's so you've just put through slightly more arduous testing or tasks to go through that, and then once you're in, you can then apply for Special Forces, you then use for SES SBS, Sr,

did you ever want to use yourself?

So I did so. I was fit; Just my career was SBS. Oh, you did? Okay. So I saw I was in Royal Marines. And then, I went through the selection for as well as SSPs. It's the same select Yeah, you just choose. So you go through the same selection process. And then you either go Marines go to SPS army predominantly to SES, although there is some crossover with it. Now,

you have heard some of the middles turns and who's the one or the other guy, Billy. Billy is on it. That's the guys. And I heard and I know that you have a bit of banter about SBS and shs and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I thoroughly enjoy it. But it doesn't surprise me that you ended up there because you seem pretty intense and purposeful with where you wanted your career to end. And by no means, I mean, there, I think the Special Forces in the UK are deemed probably one of if not the best outfit in the world, if I'm not mistaken, indeed hold that prestige. In terms of the critical skills that you learn in the forces coming out into civilian life, what would you say? Were the three main points for you? What were the most important life lessons you learned in the forces?

Yes, good question. So I think one of the biggest ones is the growth mindset; Sophia, in terms of psychological terms, it's a growth mindset. So there's the famous study done by a lady or psychologist, Carol Dweck. And she assigned two mindsets growth mindset and a fixed mindset. And essentially, a fixed mindset. You see yourself as a set. So you concentrate on the result and less on the process. And you see your traits or as you are as something that's relatively fixed. So your intellectual level is set, or your fitness level physical levels, whatever it is, as opposed to with growth mindset, it's the understanding that, yes, we will have base personality traits like. Genetics, I'm not going to play in the NBA. However, we don't know how far we can go without putting in tremendous effort. So take, for example, if you and I decided today, for the next year, for eight hours a day, we're going to learn chess, well, who knows how good we could get at it? We're not going to do that. But the point is that most people are right off, like, Oh, I'm no good at that. It's like, well, you've got no idea how could you maybe it's something if you put in the corresponding effort, probably the best example to illustrate it is the study around it. And it's an exciting example of how we speak to our kids. And basically, they gave two sets of children puzzles to complete. And one group, they praised for their effort to how hard they tried. And one step they praised for being intelligent, being clever, you know, well done, how, look how smart, you must be to have completed this puzzle. And then, they gave them progressively more challenging puzzles; they found that the group praised for the effort was far more likely to continue as it got more complex than those honoured as bright. Because of the ones who were honoured as just being intelligent. Once things got hard, they didn't see any point in continuing one because they'd hit their ceiling. So it's like, Oh, this must have hit my level of intelligence. And two, they placed their self-worth with the results that they've got. And therefore if they continued and failed, then that self-worth is taken away, that praise is taken away. And they didn't want that to happen. Whereas with a growth mindset, they link their worth with effort. And you kind of see this in life. And it's a lot of repercussions you see with adults, you know, if you ever find yourself in for anyone listening, approaching a target, you know, whether that's trying a new sport, or doing something at work. You have that fear of failing; it's often because we're approaching it with a fixed mindset where we don't want to die, as opposed to seeing it as an opportunity to learn and improve. And it's kind of like, it's easy to slip into a mindset where you see failure and success as two separate parts, you either have one or the other, as opposed to the truth, which is that they are linked, you can't divorce the two of them, the more success you want, the more failure you need to embrace. But we're not very good at that in society. You know, we're always praising success, looking for the wins and success stories, and glossing over the process and effort to get there. The good thing in the military is that the military kind of embeds a phrase that's often thrown around, which is no cuff too harsh. And essentially, what that is, or translate says, even when you don't have the tools or necessary skills at that point, you'll still give it a go and find a way. Everyone has this view from the outside that Special Forces mainly is this very smooth, efficient machine where everything goes according to plan. And it couldn't be further from the truth, like, stuff always goes wrong. And you are occasionally using masking tape to keep the kit together and just completely bodging stuff to make it work. But you're still effective and get the job done because you take that attitude of well, shits going to happen, that's just life. And you just find ways to roll with it and get past that obstacle, and resourceful, it's no different. Suppose you see obstacles as a pass-fail test instead of a challenge to be worked at. In that case, that difference will have a massive impact on your stress levels, your satisfaction, and just how fulfilling life is,

as was highlighted in Ryan's holiday book, The obstacle is the way. Exactly. So what was the transition like for leaving the forces into civilian life?

Were you prepared? Yes, because I've made that decision. So I decided that that was the right decision and carefully thought it through. It was I still had especially looking back, that kind of FOMO-filled feeling for the first year where you, you think you're missing out on everything back in that old environment that you do quickly realise that we speak to guys that it's the same old stuff, nothing's changing. I think the most challenging part of the transition for me was that I got a role as a management consultant in London, mainly because my partner at the time got a job in London. So we moved there. And I knew immediately that it wasn't right in the first week or two. And it was nothing wrong with the firm. It was good firms, company, and people there, but it was so out of line with who I was, my identity, that I saw the repercussions. So the symptoms are a lack of consistency in my diet and exercise for the first time, you know, and I've always loved the training. So that was a significant warning sign. More arguments in my relationship, feeling stressed about stuff for the first time, which I've never had, and the entirety of my military career. And so the symptoms were just repercussions more profound, out of alignment with my identity. And that's when I put myself on the path of, I guess, figuring out what it was going forward. I kind of had for what a lot of people, you know, I was lucky when I was growing up that I knew I wanted to go into the military. And for the first time, I had that kind of experience of not knowing, which I see a lot of people have for a lot of their early life and perhaps ongoing. And I just made it an active process. So I carried a notepad around with me. And I was just constantly reading books, reading articles, asking myself, What job do I want to do? What do I enjoy? Where would I want to live, treating it as a playful exercise without boundaries and just to spitball and brainstorm? And after about a month of that. And I can tell you the exact moment I sat on a bus going to work. And I was reading Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Workweek; I was reading that book. And it was the epiphany moment of online business that that's it that ticks all the boxes for my online business. And that provides geographical freedom. And that is scalable, so it's not directly time for money. I was like, Yeah, that's it. That's the path. I didn't know what the business would be. But I knew as strongly as I knew about joining the military that that was the path forward. As soon as I had that, everything else became more manageable because I had that precise purpose and direction again. So how long? Yeah, so that set me on this path.

Sorry. How long were you doing the consultancy role?

I did it for two years. So even after I made that decision around a business that became a kind of side hustle of exploring what that might look like, I stayed in that job for two years overall.

Yeah, so I want to read to the listeners something that I pulled up off your website, and you're about-page bio states after leaving the Special Forces, I worked for a management consultancy in London. I looked successful, but I couldn't switch off and be present. I compared myself to others and despaired at the results. I like True Confidence, constantly second-guessing and analysing things. My consistency with training drops off a cliff I become a shadow of my former self. I lost my Mojo, and it's pretty interesting because I then went back and saw my similarities. When I was working in the city, this was on my website. This is my bio. In 2005, I worked for an investment firm in the city, living the ultimate lifestyle. To the outside world, I was the epitome of what a successful man Intel six-figure salary penthouse, top-of-the-range cars closed, yadda, yadda, massive ego and a very high opinion of myself. Externally. I was an overachiever and hugely successful by societal standards, yet internally, I was unhappy, unfulfilled and disillusioned with life. So I asked myself a simple question, would more of what I already had truly made me happy? And I think that is such a commonality for many hugely successful guys working in the city, whether in London or across the UK, is that you are trying to live up to what you feel society deems successful. Still, you're not necessarily pleased with yourself. And that touches upon what you mentioned earlier, about fulfilment and success. So since then, you've set up the natural edge, a very successful mindset and performance coaching company. How did that come about? And why did you do well? I think I already know why you've moved into that field because there are a lot of transferable skills. But tell me a little bit more about the business setup.

Thank you for tuning in to the Male Mastery podcast show

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