Ascent with Tom Foxley

Are your meditation sessions, journaling habits, or cold showers actually driving the transformation you seek? Or are you just guessing?

Drawing from his own experiences and years of coaching, Tom shares the powerful framework he uses to help clients track their growth across two vital paths: attainment and actualisation.

You'll learn actionable strategies to measure your progress, refine your goals, and keep moving forward—on both paths. 

In this episode, we dive deep into an incredible story of instinct, intuition, and the underestimated power of emotions. 

Emotions hold a hidden intelligence that, when recognised, can guide us toward personal growth, resilience, and fulfilment. Too often, we’re taught to dismiss our emotional reactions as unreliable. Yet, as you’ll hear in today’s episode, shutting them out can leave us disconnected from life’s true richness.

Learn how to move beyond simply managing emotions to truly mastering them as powerful guides. Embrace the wisdom of your emotional mind, and discover what you’ve been missing. 

In this episode, we break down why shifting your focus from mental health to mental fitness can transform your life. While mental health aims to keep you free from illness, mental fitness equips you to meet life’s challenges head-on, helping you not just survive, but thrive. 

We dive deep into the pitfalls of our culture’s obsession with mental health and how it unintentionally holds high-achievers back. By aiming solely for mental health, we risk capping our potential. Instead, building mental fitness opens up your capacity to take on stress, fear, and obstacles without being overwhelmed. It’s about training resilience, cultivating clarity, and developing your character to become the best version of yourself.

Learn how training your mental fitness shifts your perspective from seeing challenges as threats to seeing them as opportunities for growth. With the right mindset and practice, you can boost your ability to achieve success in business, personal development, and relationships, all while building a protective buffer against life’s inevitable hardships.

In this conversation, Michael Norton discusses his journey with the Enneagram, a tool for self-awareness and personal growth. He explains how the Enneagram can enhance collaboration and communication in both personal and professional settings. The discussion covers the importance of self-awareness in leadership, the process of identifying one's Enneagram type, and the significance of acceptance in personal development. Norton also provides insights into the nine Enneagram types and their characteristics, emphasising the journey of self-discovery and the need to let go of rigid identities.

Michael coaches teams and leaders from a range of industries using somatic, vocal, improvisational, and consciousness tools. He reliably balances depth and humor, drawing clients to his warmth, compassion, and willingness to be with even the most uncomfortable experiences.

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In the blistering heat of Western Australia, a small group of weary soldiers faced an unexpected enemy. Armed with 10,000 rounds each and every ounce of determination they could muster, they were tasked with taking down an invasion force of 20,000. But their adversaries weren’t elite special forces—they were emus. Yes, emus. In this episode, we dive into the tale of the Great Emu War of 1932, an infamous campaign where Australian troops found themselves outwitted and outmaneuvered by a flock of massive, flightless birds. The operation became a public embarrassment, exposing critical flaws in strategy, communication, and clarity.

Using this surreal story as a springboard, we explore how lack of clear goals, vision, and alignment can doom even the most well-equipped efforts. Just like these soldiers found themselves lost and overwhelmed, many entrepreneurs struggle to set meaningful goals and find direction in their work. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Tune in to learn how setting clear, purposeful goals can transform your business and life, saving you from your own version of the “Great Emu War.” And don’t miss the chance to read more on this at TomFoxley.me/blog, where you’ll find practical tips to align your goals, avoid wasted effort, and create the success you’re looking for.

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If you’re feeling lost in your business or questioning why you’re still pushing through, this episode is for you. We’ll dive deep into finding clarity, silencing that distracting mental chatter, and aligning your goals with what you truly want from life—not just in business, but in every aspect.

Too often, we get caught up in the hustle, following a path that feels inauthentic, chasing a version of success that isn’t really ours. In this episode, I’ll help you break free from that cycle by exploring the four key "freedom currencies" that every entrepreneur should aim for—financial, geographical, time, and personal freedom. These currencies are the pillars of living a life by your design, not one dictated by the mainstream.

We’ll ask the tough questions: How free do you feel right now, truly? Are you living the life you want, or just spinning plates, chained to your business? You’ll discover how to re-engineer your life, reverse the grind, and design a future where freedom is the norm, not the exception.

If you’re ready to escape the noise, clarify your path, and unlock the personal freedom that empowers everything else, this episode is your roadmap. Tune in to learn how to start living life on your terms.

In this conversation, Tom and Mark explore the transformative power of journaling as a tool for self-discovery and emotional intelligence.

Welcome to The Freedom Project Podcast, In this episode, we challenge the hustle and grind mentality that dominates today’s business culture.

Laura’s journey defies the traditional narrative of endless sacrifice. She set aggressive goals, balanced work with life, and created financial, geographical, and time freedom—on her own terms. Her story is a powerful reminder that freedom isn’t just for the Elon Musks of the world; it’s within reach for you, too.

I’ll share the five key mindset shifts that helped Laura achieve her remarkable success, and how you can apply them to your own life to create the freedom you crave.

Head over to TomFoxley.me/post/laura for my full breakdown.

Get ready to rethink how you approach success and start building your own path to true freedom.

Blog Link: https://www.tomfoxley.me/post/laura

In this episode, we dive deep into Parkinson's Law—a principle that can transform your productivity and skyrocket your results. Whether you’re a business owner racing to meet deadlines or simply trying to squeeze more out of your day, this concept could be the game-changer you need. I’ll break down how to leverage time constraints, obliterate excuses, and multiply your output, all by understanding how this law works.

Want more? Head over to my blog at TomFoxley.me to read my article Stop Wasting Your Life and take your productivity to the next level.

Blog Link: https://www.tomfoxley.me/post/stop-wasting-your-life-the-power-of-parkinson-s-law-for-achieving-more-with-less 

Today I'm joined by Don Lesar.

IBEX Project Instagram: @ibex_project

Don's Instagram: @moutainathletephysio