Bad Days, Good Days & Staying Resilient - Sonny Webster - #114

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh yes, hello friends. Welcome back to the show. I'm joined by old time guest and long time friend, Sonny Webster. Today, we are catching up about what's been going on in his life over the last year since we were together. Since then, a lot has changed, not least that he is now on the opposite side of the planet in Australia, but we discuss an awful lot. Principally, his approach to resilience in life. And I have to say that this gets at the heart of one of the things that I think is making Sonny such an effective business professional and such a robust personality online, that he is capable of dealing with setbacks, whether they be normal day to day things or huge life changes, he's able to roll through them. So getting that insight is really interesting and hopefully going to be of massive benefit to some of you today. Also expect to learn about a gym that he's building in Africa, I think, in Kenya perhaps somewhere. What else has he got going on? Some updates about the Sonny Webster Academy, some principles for lifting, all of that good stuff and we have a great laugh as well. Sonny, you're a gent, thank you very much for coming on. For now, please welcome Sonny Webster. I managed to get him all the way from the other side of the planet. It's Sonny Webster. Hiya, mate.

**Sonny Webster** (1:33)
Hey, Chris. How are you doing, brother?

**Chris Williamson** (1:34)
Yeah, good to see you, man. How's life in the future? Because you're in the future right now.

**Sonny Webster** (1:39)
I'm not being funny, mate. This is a long overdue chat. When was the last time I was on the podcast?

**Chris Williamson** (1:46)
Over a year ago now. So it was that same weekend that we did... Was it the same weekend we did Elro? Which was also...

**Sonny Webster** (1:57)
Last years of my life that weekend.

**Chris Williamson** (1:59)
Coincidentally the last time that I drank in the UK. So it's been like 18...

**Sonny Webster** (2:04)
Really?

**Chris Williamson** (2:05)
Yeah, man, that was the last time that I drank in the UK. So it'll be like, what, 14 months or something now since then. I'm not saying that going out with you like cursed drinking.

**Sonny Webster** (2:17)
I think I've done that to a few people though. So you wouldn't be the first.

**Chris Williamson** (2:21)
You are, like, before we even start talking about anything, can we discuss about your ability to drink? Because I've never met anyone who is able to go out, like, on the on the lash the way you are, and then get up the next morning and just go and do a teacher seminar in Scotland or something. You got up at like 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. I didn't surface until like the middle of the afternoon. By the time that I'd got out of bed, you'd done a seminar in Glasgow or something.

**Sonny Webster** (2:50)
Do you know what? I think it's a thing with weightlifters. It's part of like the growing up, is you have to be able to drink. You will never become a great weightlifter if you can't drink. I remember right back from a young age, I must have been 14 years old going on weightlifting training camps, and the more senior athletes would say to you, you're right, on a Friday night after training, you're coming to the pub with us and you're having a drink. You don't really have a choice. You do as you're told, because they're much bigger and much stronger than you, and you want to fit in. It becomes part of the nature of being a weightlifter, especially the way that we go about competition. You would train really hard for like six weeks, seven weeks, maybe up to six months on end for a competition, and you won't drink at all, so then you blow out, so your ability at binge drinking becomes extremely good.

**Chris Williamson** (3:43)
Yeah, it's definitely something that you're capable of. I suppose as well, like, weightlifters, there's a lot of muscle mass in there that can probably metabolise their alcohol pretty quick, and they're competitive. You're literally bred to be competitive, so competitive drinking, I can imagine, is pretty bad. But what else is going on, man? Because like, so the last time that the listeners will have seen you, you were in the UK, you were, yeah, I don't think you'd even started like, the Sonny Webster Academy by then, so like, catch us up over the last year.

**Sonny Webster** (4:15)
What's happened? Yeah. Well, I guess before I saw you end of last year, I was just sort of planning my tour to Australia. I mean, I was definitely going through a period of the time after we last chatted of not feeling completely settled in the UK. It took me a long time to really realize that because I was continually going on these trips to Doha, going on these trips to Europe to do seminars. And as much as I was enjoying traveling, every time I came back, the next seminar seemed to act almost as an escape away from being in the UK. And it wasn't until I'd actually left the UK that I began to realize that.