You won’t hear many life stories like this.

Jerzy Gregorek’s life spans teenage alcoholism and suicidal thoughts, elite Olympic-level weightlifting, political exile from communist Poland, serious injury and paralysis, underground resistance work, and the long, unglamorous process of starting again in a new country. More than once.

What makes this episode different is that Jerzy doesn’t romanticise any of it. He speaks plainly about the cost of bad choices, the patience required to rebuild, and the quiet discipline that slowly turns chaos into stability.

Out of that lived experience comes a principle Jerzy is known for, and one that keeps resurfacing throughout this conversation:

Hard choices, easy life.
Easy choices, hard life.

We talk about what that really looks like over decades, not weeks:

• how small, daily decisions quietly compound over time, for better or worse
• why discipline isn’t punishment, but a way out
• how men lose themselves when they chase comfort instead of progress
• why strength, learning, and mentors matter more than motivation
• and why it’s never too late to choose a harder path that leads somewhere better.

Alongside his own journey, Jerzy has spent decades working with others in the US through writing, poetry, and physical training. Through his gym and his book The Happy Body, he brings together strength, philosophy, and lived experience, helping people understand how the body, mind, and daily discipline shape each other over time. This work isn’t theoretical; it’s an extension of the life he’s lived and the principles he’s tested on himself first.

This isn’t a story about quick fixes or overnight transformations. It’s about playing the long game, physically, mentally, and morally, and accepting that meaningful change usually comes from doing difficult things consistently, when no one is watching.

If you want to learn more about Jerzy and his work, visit thehappybody.com.

What happens when you grow up in chaos and just learn to get on with it?

In this episode, I talk with filmmaker and speaker Lee Greenhough about growing up around loss, addiction, and instability and how those early years quietly shape the choices men make later in life. Lee shares what it’s like to carry things you never dealt with, how that weight can surface through drinking, anger, or restlessness, and why change rarely comes from big moments or sudden insight.

Instead, this conversation is about responsibility, momentum, and the small decisions that slowly pull a life back on track, even when no one ever showed you how.

Lee talks candidly about losing his father at a young age, growing up with an alcoholic parent, and how unprocessed grief and trauma followed him into adulthood. He reflects on the years where drinking became the release valve, and the risk, and how close he came to losing the life he was quietly building.

Rather than presenting himself as “fixed”, Lee is clear about what actually helped: taking responsibility, putting himself in better environments, committing to work, movement, and creative outlets, and learning to challenge the constant negative voice in his own head. He explains why therapy didn’t give him the answers he needed, and why momentum, not motivation, became the thing that changed everything.

The conversation also explores creativity as a survival tool. Lee shares how writing and filmmaking became a way to process what he couldn’t talk about and why so many men abandon creative instincts they had earlier in life, often without realising the cost to their mental health.

This episode will resonate with men who:

• Grew up fast with little guidance.
• Feel functional but not settled.
• Rely on distraction, work, or alcohol to keep things contained.
• Know something needs to change, but don’t relate to advice or slogans.

There are no hacks here. No reinvention story. Just an honest account of how small decisions, repeated over time, can stop a life drifting off course, even when the starting point was far from ideal.

If you want to find out more about Lee’s films, visit his website www.greenhoughfilms.co.uk and to find out more about his speaking work, visit https://www.speakingwithlee.co.uk.

A lot of men don’t think they have a problem with intimacy. They just feel a bit distant. A bit shut down. Less connected than they used to be to their partner, to sex, or to themselves. This episode goes right into that space.

I’m joined by Dr. Dan Sneider. Dan is a therapist; however, this isn’t a lecture or a list of techniques. It’s a conversation grounded in his own lived experience and how he learned early on to shut parts of himself down, how that showed up in his relationships, and what it actually took for him to stay present instead of withdrawing when things got uncomfortable.

We talk about how intimacy doesn’t usually disappear overnight. It fades quietly. How many men default to pulling away rather than risking saying the wrong thing. And how habits that look like “sex issues” are often really about safety, control, and not knowing how to stay emotionally exposed without feeling weak or overwhelmed.

Dan shares what he’s learned, first in his own life, then through years of working alongside men, including:

• why emotional closeness can feel threatening, even in good relationships
• how shame and self-protection show up as silence, distraction, or distance
• why midlife often brings intimacy problems to the surface
• and how connection starts with honesty, not performance or confidence

This episode is for men who care about their relationships but don’t always know how to talk about what’s going on inside them. Men who haven’t “checked out”, but who feel something has shifted and don’t want to lose what matters.

It’s not about fixing yourself. It’s about understanding why intimacy feels hard and what actually helps.

If you want to find out more about Dan’s work, visit his website where you can also download his free guide: https://www.growthandgratitudetherapy.com/the-intimacy-shift.