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Authentic gay conversations on personal development, life coaching, and mental health. Join Keegan Hirst (founder of The Unapologetic Man and Gay Man's Coaching) a former professional rugby player, for weekly real talk about gay lifestyle, coming out, relationships, business, and authentic living. Deep, honest conversations that help gay men build confidence, find community, and create vibrant, unapologetic lives.
00:00
Hello everybody and welcome to Akiki with Keegs, your weekly catch up with me. I hope we are good. I hope we are feeling festive. I've certainly been feeling a little bit more festive this week. I think after getting all the events out of the way that we've had over the last couple of weeks has alleviated some of the pressure and I'm ahead of with Christmas shopping and things. So feeling good. Where are you at with it?
00:31
Um, just before I get into this kiki we keys, I want to talk about, um, killing yourself and not literally, uh, but finish to try and finish the year perfectly. And like really going all in and burning yourself out. And cause I see this happen all the time and I want to talk about that. The perils of it and actually what happens when we do it. But first I just want to, I just got a couple of mentions. Number one.
01:00
I love doing it every year and I hope you can join us next Wednesday evening at 7pm. We have got the Christmas quiz. would have been a bit of confusion about it. We put the wrong week up and then someone had said Thursday it is Wednesday. Wednesday the 17th of December at 7pm. So get yourself on there. Bring your friends, bring your family, bring your partners, bring a drink.
01:29
Whether it's a warm one, a cold one, an alcoholic one, a non-alcoholic one. There's a prize. There's top three prizes and I love hosting it. I always have a bottle of champagne while we do it because it reminds me of where GMC started, was well, GMC technically me coaching started before lockdown, but it all kind of took off during lockdown. We had lots of quizzes and things like that. used to do a quiz. I think they used to do everyone.
01:59
week uh because people were craving connection but now you know we just do the Christmas quiz and I love doing it I genuinely love doing it so looking forward to hosting that this year last year we did it and it was way too hard so don't worry it's not too hard this time it's gonna be very competitive I'm looking forward to that and I would be remiss not to mention the massive action day that we had last weekend so we had our staff review
02:29
which went really, really, really well. It's so lovely to get the insights. We were able to discuss client feedback. We were able to bring in some actionable things that we're be bringing in the new year straight away off the back of that. And just getting everybody really bought into what we're about. We've had a lot of changes over this last year with staff changes and systems changes and lots has been going on personally for me.
02:56
I'll probably talk about that next week. I'll do a little bit of a reflection Kiki with Keegs. it's, you know, that went really, really well. Then we had went for dinner. It was so great to see everybody and bowling. The format worked really, really, really well with a massive action day. And it was great to see people, meeting people, connecting with people. It was fantastic. And then we were into the day proper on Saturday. We had 40 odd people there.
03:25
which was wonderful. Everybody got to speak to everybody, everybody got to share, to connect, and to learn and be inspired by other people from the guys doing the power talks, the Hall of Famers, people who gave shares. Then we had, everybody did their personal audit for the year so they know where they're at, what they're looking for in 2026, and how they're gonna go about staying on track. And we're gonna cement that.
03:55
when we do our virtual kickoff event which is on the third of January, it's Saturday, it's 1 p.m. Please get there, please get there. You're not gonna be working, you're not gonna be having anything on, you're gonna have finished with all your Christmas festivities, there's no reason, it's not an in-person event, there's no reason for you not to be there. Unless you're on the other side of the planet and it's the middle of the night, I can kind of forgive you for that.
04:21
But, you know, if you're in the US, get up early. If you're in the UK, clear after, it's gonna be an hour, an hour and a half max. And it's gonna set you up. So please do get yourself on there. Please make sure that you've checked the hub for dates and things like that. So you're gonna check in as usual this weekend. Then there will be like a mini check in on Thursday, that you'll do on Thursday morning.
04:52
so that you've got an accurate reflection of where you're at pre-Christmas. And then obviously coming back after Christmas, your first check-in will either be the fourth or fifth of January, it depends if you check in on Sundays or Mondays with your coach. But just, I realise I'm a lot at you there, but I wanna make sure all that's clear. As I said, I wanted to chat about people who are like sprint finishing to finish the year perfectly, to get everything done.
05:21
Because some of you are about that sprint finish life into December and it's like as if you're going to win a medal for productivity and you don't. I get that there's this idea that we have this ideal more than an idea that we can get everything wrapped up with a nice bow on it and when we come back in January
05:48
everything will be great, we'll be able to start fresh, there'll be no stress, there'll be no hassle and what have you. And I know part of the reason is because you go, well, I know that I did it, so I'll be able to switch off over Christmas. And that's great, but don't kill yourself in the process. People do things because they look good, whether it's to a colleague or it looks good that they've cleared their to-do list, but sometimes they don't even matter. You don't need the perfect inbox. You don't need...
06:17
the perfect anything before January the first. What actually matters as you go into the Christmas holidays and finish work is your energy because if you completely deplete yourself going into that you're going to eat crap, you're going to feel crap, you're not going to move much and that's going to compound and you're going to feel worse going into January then you're not going to wake up motivated, you're not going to wake up ready to go because we tell ourselves that that's what's going to happen and it's not. um
06:47
you will have one or two high impact priorities and they should be focused. When you are looking at the jobs that you need to get done, just filter it by asking yourself this, will this still matter in February? some of the costs, some of the tasks will still matter in February, but a lot of them, the vast majority of them, the vast majority get swept under the rug, they get lost, people go, oh, it didn't actually matter.
07:16
there's because there's a lot of doing for the sake of doing at the end of December especially if there's targets and there's things like that and obviously we want to hit things but please do use that filter will they still matter in February because anybody can work harder anybody can work harder 99.9 % of the time the answer is not to work harder it's to get clear on what's important what
07:45
what matters because the hardest step isn't finishing something. You can all run yourself into the ground. can all, I'm doing air quotes, work harder, but it's about working smarter. It's about dropping the things that needs to be dropped. know, stop chasing gold star, a gold star for your efforts in things that don't even matter that you don't care about. And I know that part of work is there's going to be things that you don't care about.
08:14
But I can guarantee if you don't care about it, somebody else probably doesn't care about it. And there's so many things that get put on the agenda for the sake of doing them. Meetings for the sake of meetings, forms filled in for the sake of forms filled in. It happens all the time. So don't be afraid to question like, do we really need to do this? Does this really matter? Is this going to matter in February? Because the last thing that we actually want is for you to start.
08:43
2026 exhausted because if you go into breaking up for Christmas exhausted and absolutely done in you are not you are not going to be able to have a restorative time off and that's something that I'm going to be touching on on the uh tough love Tuesday on Tuesday this last week coming up
09:10
is I'm going be doing like a little workshop on how to actually reset and be rejuvenated throughout Christmas. So I'm really looking forward to delivering that something slightly different to what we normally do. But I think there's going to be some things in there that are really important because like I said, I don't want you to start 2026 exhausted. I want you to start prepared. I want you to start fresh and ready because I feel like there's been like a big shift.
09:39
over 2025 you know people hopefully I feel a start I'm seeing this on social media where people are starting to move away from you know the perfect influencer where everything has to be perfect the shot has to be perfect and we see people just kind of embrace imperfection and just getting things done and I'm hoping that that is the vibe that we're all going to take into 2026 that's something that I'm certainly going to be
10:06
um trying to take into 2026. So I think, know, just a warning shot across the bowels as we go into this last week, don't kill yourself. And remember, like the worst thing that you can do is put yourself down your priority list for these things that we're told matter. You know, don't skip a gym session. Don't, you know,
10:35
Pooh-pooh your goals and kind of abandon that future vision of yourself to get some fucking forms filled in and you know, have a meeting about a meeting about a meeting. Please don't do that. Stick up for yourself. Stick up for your goals. Stick up for the, because that's how you become that person. don't, you're not just gonna wake up one day and be that person. You have to start doing it now and now is a great opportunity. Also, people forget that you did that because you've got two weeks off. So.
11:04
Guys, please, please, please don't throw yourself into the fire, know, sacrifice yourself on the altar of work at the expense of your own, you know, wellbeing because wellbeing is the rock that we fall back on. If you get a bit of a bug, if things go south, if it's emotionally draining over Christmas, your wellbeing is the rock that you fall back on. And I don't want you to have not looked after that, come when you need it. Okay.
11:33
So please don't burn yourself out. Please don't try killing yourself by finishing the year perfectly. Monday, get yourself checked in these next two times this weekend and then on Thursday morning. Thursday morning will be a slightly different check-in. It'll just be really short, just so you can go bam bam bam bam. It's literally just about getting your stats in so they're nice and accurate and we can track them over Christmas. Make sure that you have a plan with your coach.
12:00
What is the plan over the next few weeks? If you do not have a plan, that is your responsibility. It's not your coaches. You are a grown man. If you, if you haven't, you know, communicated with your coach, that's on you. Of course they're there and they're going to try and help, but putting a plan together that you can actually stick to is a two way street. And your coach can just say, Oh, this is your plan. This is your plan. Do this, do this. If you don't actually believe in it or want to do it, or you're going to find it difficult, you're not going to stick to it. It's going to cause friction. So you must.
12:30
communicate with your coach and if you can't do it let them know it's their job to make it work. So um let's finish the year on our terms all of us so that we can be rested and restored please jump on the call on Tuesday I hope to see you on the quiz on Wednesday and I'll speak to you through the week but thank you very much
12:57
ah Look after yourself, stay safe and don't eat and drink and behave at the expense of how you want to look and feel and I'll speak to you soon.