This week I’m delighted to speak with Rick Cooper, speaker and men’s retreat facilitator.

If you were to Rick now you’d think he had the ideal life and had it all together but as the saying goes ‘Don’t judge my story based on the chapter you walked in on.’ To do so would be to undermine the immense journey he has been through and the challenges he faced.

Growing up he was witness to a lot of domestic violence, which thankfully did not transfer into his adult relationships. Although there were some unconscious insecurities that he had taken on.

At a young age he took up rugby and showed promise early on. An opportunity to channel and release some inner aggression. He dedicated himself to the craft, receiving praise and attention from his father he pursued a professional career. At 16 he signed for local pro team Saracens as the youngest member of their U21 academy.

His career was cut short by a broken spine and multiple slipped discs. He was deemed too great an insurance risk and was sent home with partial mobility. He had to wait 16 months for surgery and doctors only gave him 67% chance of walking again but Rick chose to focus on the 33%. At 20 years of age he wasn’t about to accept this fate he had been given.

As soon as he could walk again he would walk 3 miles to the pool and not leave until he had completed 30 laps. Everyday increasing the number of lengths. He was mentally forcing his body to go to places he had been told it would never be able to.

The next few years were a dark time for Rick, losing his dad, being evicted with his family and struggling to make ends meet. Coupled with his own low self-esteem and not knowing what he wanted to do with his life.

Over the next few years he was always searching for the next thing, the next goal, the next achievement all of which only gave a short reprieve from his feelings until he would need to find the next pursuit. It wasn’t until the birth of his son that is all got put into perspective.

Eventually after many years of serving the ego he started to look within for meaning. For the first time in his life what anyone else thought or how he looked no longer mattered. The only approval he was looking for was his own.

Rick then took himself on a self-mastery and self-development journey. This has had a profound effect on him. He now knows that life is to be enjoyed for what it is now, in this moment, chasing doesn’t bring happiness. He has stripped back all the layers. He now enjoys a simple life based around cold immersion, movement, coffee and breakfasts with loved ones and careful choice of who he gives his energy and time to.

Rick regularly speaks publicly on the topics of self mastery, discipline over motivation, triumph over adversity and using it as a catalyst to extreme growth. He works with small businesses in relation to health & wellness and adopting a holistic approach to staff welfare, he coaches teenagers through depression & anxiety and leads men’s retreats to help them heal the wounded child within to become the fully actualised men that they were born to be.

 If you’d like to follow up on Rick you can find him on instagram @rick__cooper and his website will be released in the near future. 

 Leave me a comment and let me know what stood out for you. 

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