The New Mind

This week, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome back one of my favourite guests, the brilliant Emmanuel Sonubi, for his THIRD appearance on The New Mind Podcast.

Emmanuel is one of the most exciting comedians in the world right now. A stand up comedian, writer & storyteller whose honesty, intelligence, warmth, & razor sharp humour have earned him a devoted following across the globe. 

Having toured the UK, Australia, & New Zealand with his hugely successful Life After Near Death tour, he’s now taking the show across Europe, continuing to captivate audiences wherever he goes!!

Every time Emmanuel joins me, I know we’re going to laugh, but what continually surprises me is just how much depth sits beneath the comedy. 

Whilst he’s undoubtedly one of the funniest people you’ll ever listen to, he’s also one of the most thoughtful, insightful, & emotionally intelligent people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

Following a near death experience that profoundly changed his perspective on life, Emmanuel brings a wisdom, humanity, & authenticity that makes every conversation with him unforgettable. He has a remarkable ability to find meaning in life’s most difficult moments, transforming adversity into something that not only inspires others but encourages us to look at ourselves a little differently too.

In this episode, we explore life, death, resilience, purpose, fear, gratitude, success, connection, & what it truly means to be alive. It’s a conversation filled with laughter, honesty, vulnerability, perspective, & those rare moments that make you stop for a second & reflect on the things that really matter.

Emmanuel possesses an extraordinary gift. He can have you crying with laughter one moment & quietly contemplating life’s biggest questions the next, often without you even realising the shift has happened.

This isn’t simply a conversation with a comedian. It’s a conversation with someone who’s walked through one of life’s most profound experiences & returned with a deeper appreciation for living, loving, laughing, & making the most of the time we’re given.

I adore this man, I always leave our conversations feeling inspired, & I genuinely think this might be our best episode yet.

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with Emmanuel: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRT33jjj79jsigfwn9dS3rA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmanuelstandup/?hl=en

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@emmanuelstandup

Website - Tour Tickets: https://www.emmanuelstandup.com

This week on The New Mind, I sit with Big Nick Collins….

In one of the most emotional and powerful episodes of The New Mind Podcast, Nick opens up on the devastating loss of his soulmate and the mother of their children, Beth.

Beth tragically died from a brain aneurysm at just 36 years old.

Nick shares the raw reality of grief, the moment his world changed forever, and what it’s really like to navigate unimaginable heartbreak while trying to remain strong for his children. With remarkable honesty and vulnerability, he opens up about love, trauma, loss, resilience, mental health, fatherhood and the lessons that emerge when life forces you to rebuild from the ground up.

This is a conversation about far more than grief. It’s about the human capacity to survive the unthinkable. It’s about carrying love after loss. It’s about finding purpose in pain and learning how to keep moving forward when every part of you wants to stand still.

If you’ve ever experienced bereavement, loss, trauma, heartbreak, anxiety, depression, or the fear of losing someone you love, this conversation will stay with you.

Nick’s courage, honesty and vulnerability are extraordinary. His story is heartbreaking, inspiring and profoundly human.

What happens when grief, masculinity, pain, purpose, and identity collide in one human being?

In this deeply powerful episode, I sit down with Aaron Ashton, one of the most resilient and emotionally raw voices emerging from British combat sports.

Aaron’s story isn’t just about fighting….

It’s about survival and it’s about loss.

It’s about what happens to the human mind and body when life pushes you beyond what should be possible.

From brutal setbacks and painful defeats to becoming one of the most talked about names in bare knuckle boxing, Aaron’s journey has been anything but ordinary. 

But in February 2026, the world witnessed something far bigger than sport.

Just hours after losing his father, after spending days sitting beside his hospital bed, Aaron stepped into the ring at BKB 51: Heavy Lies The Crown at The O2 Arena.

What happened next stunned the combat sports world!!

Carrying unimaginable grief, Aaron delivered the performance of his life, stopping heavily favoured opponent Brad Donovan.

The moment went viral worldwide.

But behind the knockout was something much deeper.

In this conversation we explore:

* Grief and masculine identity

* Trauma, emotional suppression, and resilience

* What fighting teaches you about the human psyche

* The psychology of pain and pressure

* Mental strength versus emotional avoidance

* The reality behind combat sports

* Fatherhood, loyalty, discipline, and loss

* What happens when life strips everything back

This is one of the most honest, emotional, and psychologically revealing conversations we’ve had on the podcast.

If you’ve ever battled pain silently, questioned yourself, fought through grief, or tried to stay standing while life was breaking you internally, this episode will stay with you.

Watch until the end.

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

In this gripping episode of The New Mind Podcast, I sit down with one of Britain’s most infamous nightclub enforcers……a man who survived decades of violence, organised crime, revenge threats, shootings, and chaos on the doors of some of the UK’s roughest clubs and pubs.

Bullied relentlessly as a child growing up near Ramsgate, he transformed pain into power through boxing, eventually becoming one of the most feared and respected doormen in Southern England.

For over 40 years, he lived in a world most people never see.

Violence. Gangsters. Knives.

Guns.

He shares stories from thousands of brutal confrontations, brushes with death, underworld connections, and the psychological toll of living in constant hypervigilance.

This is not just a story about fighting…..It’s a story about trauma, identity, masculinity, survival, and what happens when a human being decides they will never be powerless again.

Inside this episode:

• The psychology of violence and dominance

• Growing up with bullying and humiliation

• Life as a nightclub doorman in Britain’s most dangerous era

• Encounters with gangsters and organised crime

• The hidden trauma behind aggression

• Hypervigilance, fear, and survival psychology

• Masculinity, power, and emotional suppression

• What decades of violence does to the nervous system

• Escaping death and living to tell the tale

• The truth about strength, respect, and fear

This is a raw and moving & intense conversation!!

Watch until the end.

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

This is one of the most difficult, yet important conversations we’ve ever had on The New Mind Podcast.

This episode explores the reality of abuse within the home, the psychological impact of prolonged trauma, and what it takes to survive something that should never happen.

This is not shared for shock.

It is shared for awareness, understanding, and truth.

Because silence protects harm.

And truth is where healing begins.

If this conversation resonates with you, or you know someone who needs to hear it, share it.

You are not alone.

⸻

⚠️ Viewer discretion advised. This episode discusses themes of abuse and trauma.

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with Stace: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stace_don/

Web: https://thelifeofstacedon.wordpress.com/

Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-launch-safe-seen-heard-across-the-uk?utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp20_t2&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&lang=en_GB

My Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1915306868?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_J1TN76VS2Q7X59SC06YR&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_J1TN76VS2Q7X59SC06YR&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_J1TN76VS2Q7X59SC06YR&bestFormat=true

This week’s compilation episode of The New Mind brings together three men who have witnessed and lived through experiences most people will never encounter.

Their stories move between shock, pain, heartbreak, and unexpected moments of humour, offering a rare and deeply human insight into resilience, survival, and the complexity of the mind.

This is not just something you listen to. It is something you feel.

If you are drawn to understanding human behaviour, trauma, and the hidden layers of lived experience, this episode will stay with you long after it ends.

Listen/watch now and explore the depths of the human experience.

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with my guests: 

Kevin Lane: https://www.instagram.com/fittedupandfightingback/

Yammy B: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWvjCWaeyUWQ2CKLRtc2hOg

Ben Hatchett: https://www.tiktok.com/@ben_hatchett_official

What happens when three men sit down and tell the truth, without filters, without performance, and without hiding behind the versions of themselves they once needed to survive…

This episode focuses on three powerful minds for conversations that go far beyond surface level insight.

We explore the reality of addiction, not just as behaviour, but as a response to pain that has not yet been metabolised.

We unpack abuse and narcissistic dynamics, looking at how they shape identity, attachment, and the nervous system.

We move into growth, what it actually takes to face yourself, to dismantle patterns, and to rebuild from a place of awareness rather than survival.

And we speak about love….the grounded, honest, sometimes uncomfortable truth of what it means to give and receive it in a healthy way.

This is real, reflective, and at times confronting.

If you have ever struggled with patterns you can’t seem to break.

If you have questioned your relationships, your past, or your identity.

If you are on a path of growth and want to understand yourself at a deeper level….This episode will meet you where you are.

Listen with openness…Take what resonates.

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with my guests: 

Richard Grannon: https://www.instagram.com/richard.grannon/

Josh Connolly: https://www.instagram.com/josh_ffw/

James O’Keefe: https://www.instagram.com/jamesokeefenrg/

Before Lola Massingham was selling luxury homes and appearing on Netflix, her life looked very different.

She grew up around domestic violence, and the man responsible later took his own life.

Most people would spend years just trying to recover from experiences like that.

But by the tender age of 24 Lola had stepped into one of the most competitive industries in the world, working within the world of exclusive prime property.”

Today we’re talking about resilience, reinvention, and how someone rebuilds their life when their beginning looked nothing like their future.

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with Lola: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/primecoastalproperty

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildmachines/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lola-may-massingham-a341aa212/?originalSubdomain=uk

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PrimeCoastalProperty

Web: https://www.primecoastalproperty.co.uk/

Danny Harkins was convicted of serious criminal offences involving coercion, intimidation, kidnapping and violence. This episode doesn’t excuse or justify that reality….

What happened in prison changed Danny….

Punishment didn’t change him….Reading did.

While in prison, Danny turned to literature, specifically the novels of Emily Brontë and Charlotte Brontë.

The Brontë sisters wrote about obsession, moral consequence, unchecked power, violence and the cost of uncontained desire. 

Reading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre in a prison cell becomes an encounter with the self, not an escape from it.

We explore:

• the psychology of serious criminality and identity collapse,

• how Victorian literature can awaken conscience,

• why reading can force moral reckoning where authority cannot,

This episode is about criminal psychology, conscience formation, literature as moral confrontation, and the uncomfortable truth that real change begins internally or not at all.

This is not a redemption story…..It is a reckoning.

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with Danny: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dannyharkins1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dannyharkins

Web: https://koboxingcompany.co.uk/

In this episode of The New Mind, I sit down with my friend, THE BRILLIANT Emmanuel Sonubi!

Emmanuel is stand up comedian whose life was abruptly interrupted when he suffered near fatal heart failure on stage during a comedy performance in Dubai.

What begins as a conversation about humour and performance unfolds into an exploration of life, identity, and the cost of living in survival mode for too long. 

Emmanuel shares his personal account of years of pressure, addiction driven coping strategies, physical warning signs that were minimised, and the moment his body forced a reckoning he could no longer ignore.

Together, we explore how and why the body always keeps the score when the mind pushes through.

This episode is HILARIOUS, honest, deeply human and essential!!

This is The New Mind. Where truth meets the human story… Enjoy! 

Subscribe to The New Mind podcast for more uplifting and insightful conversations that explore the depths of mental health, personal growth, and inspiring stories of individuals making a difference in the world.

Thank you

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellamccrystal 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellamccrystalhypno   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ella_mccrystal

Web: https://www.ellamccrystal.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EllaMcCrystal

Connect with Emmanuel: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmanuelstandup

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emmanuelstandup

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-sonubi-77004156/   

Web: https://www.emmanuelstandup.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@emmanuelstandup