{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Unapologetic Man Podcast: Gay Man's Coaching & Personal Development","title":"Anthony Dunford: The Best I'd Been Isn't the Best I Could Be","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1792,"description":"Anthony Dunford has been with Keegan for six years, since before GMC was called GMC and back when the weekly call sometimes had two people on it. He's one of three clients still standing from that first cohort.\nIn 2019 Anthony was 47, a teacher who had been in the same school for over twenty years, still closeted, with a career that had stalled and a mum who had just started with dementia. Then he paid off his mortgage. He talks here about opening the letter on a grey October afternoon and feeling nothing at all, no glitter, nobody in the house, just a line from Death of a Salesman going round his head about spending twenty five years paying for a place with nobody left to live in it. That was the moment he thought the rest of his life was going to be spent on the sofa.\nHe's 53 now. New job after three decades in the same building, a promotion to senior teacher at a sixth form college, a Pride badge on his lapel and a beach holiday booked for August. The thing he wouldn't have booked before.\nKeegan and Anthony go back through how that actually happened, and Anthony is honest that most of it came down to two things: deciding to be deliberate rather than passive, and eventually working out that a room full of GMC members is not a room he needs to escape from. He describes scanning the first London event for a seat by the window so he could flip the chair and be out through it before anyone noticed.\nWhat's covered:\nThe moment paying off a mortgage felt like an ending rather than an achievement\nWhy being deliberate matters more than being motivated\nThe interview Anthony talked himself into by saying \"you deserve this\" in a bathroom mirror\nWhy the ceiling you think you've hit is usually just the highest point you've reached so far\nWhat Anthony would say to guys who don't think they're a community person\nTaking what you need from GMC and leaving the rest, the room of requirements approach\nWhat he's still working on at 53\nThe Cornwall retreat is coming up in August and...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/r_WUT-qaLB6-xYZX-LSYmEDoJM6Bo0CJD_Um0E-G5gA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xYjJh/MTE5NTRjNjI5M2Jm/YjM1NzJmNWZiNzUz/NzJiOS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}