Minter Dialogue with Nicol Kindness

For this 602nd episode, I chat with Nicol Kindness, a former British Army officer turned podcaster living in the Swiss Alps. We explore his journey from a struggling youth to finding purpose in the military, and how that shaped his approach to life and leadership. Nicol shares insights from his podcast, “Mr. Kindness,” where he interviews ordinary people with extraordinary stories. We discuss the importance of embracing risk, listening to intuition, and the transformative power of solitude. Nicol’s story of a carpenter’s spiritual awakening in the Norwegian mountains serves as a powerful metaphor for personal growth and overcoming inner obstacles. This conversation offers a unique perspective on conscious living and the pursuit of meaningful experiences.

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Nicol Kindness:

• Check out his Mister Kindness podcast here
• Find/follow Nicol Kindness on LinkedIn
• Find/follow Nicol on X (formerly Twitter)
• Or on his Instagram account @MisterKindness_pod
• Or finally his Youtube channel

Other mentions/podcasts:

• Check out Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast here
• The Joe Rogan Experience podcast here (via Spotify)
• Tin Foil Hat podcast (via Spotify)

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes. Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: Nico. Kindness. Well, it’s great to have you on the show. I, I kind of, I learned about you the funniest ways possible. I, I bumped into you, if you will, by interrupting you in the middle of a, of a podcast with our mutual friend Don Almond. And, and then lo and behold, I came to understand that you are a fascinating creature. So, let’s start with you in your own words. Nico, who is you?

Nicol Kindness: Who is me? Hi, Minter. Feels like we’ve just been speaking about a week ago, which is pretty much what we did. Who am I? I’m. I’m a Scottish guy, born in Scotland. I live in Switzerland, I live in the Alps. And I was in the army for nine years. I was an army officer and then I was working on oil rigs and then I was a consultant and had a ski school at the same time in Switzerland. And then I was a stay-at-home dad. And now I’m, I do a bit of real estate and I do podcasts. But the podcasts are my hobby that I get to speak to people like yourself and many others. And it’s a great hobby to have. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that’s the structure of my life So, far, pretty much, yeah.

Minter Dial: Let’s say there’s more to you than there is. So, Nico, let’s start with the army story. Nine years. It always fascinates me, people who have done service for the country. What stimulated you to do that and what’s your takeaway from your nine years?

Nicol Kindness: Well, my takeaway from the outset, I would have to say that for me personally, it was a, it was fantastic for my life trajectory and I’ll explain why as well as I go through, but when I was younger, I had the idea to join the Marines, Royal Marines first in the UK, which I did a few of their, you know, you do these courses, you go and visit them and they decide if, if you guys like each other, if we like each other, and then you can progress. And I also at the same time did a visit with the army because I had a, a great uncle who was a very heavily decorated war hero in World War II. So, I used to see him in the uniforms. It was, you know, you see these things and you see the movies on tv and it’s all about glory and honour and this and that and the other, the, the glory side of it. Never, I can’t really say was what attracted to me, attractive to me, but saying that it probably was. But the, the honour the discipline, the camaraderie, the challenge, all that was. I think that was probably the main thing. And I was also, at the time when I was. Got serious about it, I was having a. Probably the lowest point in my life. So, it was, it was something I had to do because it was just getting out of control. My life was not very happy and I, I just felt I was wasting away. And then I had this opportunity which, you know, it’s not easy to get through the, the, the selection process. There’s two selection processes you have to do and you have to do them. Yeah. If you, you got to. They either like it or you don’t, or they don’t. And I have a friend whose father was the most senior general in the British military and he didn’t get in and, you know, I got in.

Minter Dial: You mean your friend didn’t.

Nicol Kindness: He didn’t get in, no. So, it just shows you that it doesn’t matter who your parents are, or it might if you’re a royal, but you know, it’s merit based, let’s call it that. It’s kind of a buzzword again nowadays. So, to that extent that was the reason why I wanted to do it. And, and I had a feeling in me, intuition, I’m going to call it intuition, which I was pushing me hard to do this and So, I did it and I managed to get through. I went to the Sandhurst, which is the, the British equivalent of West Point is an officer school, which was tough but fun and I learned a lot there because you’re with some very, very impressive people and you could have an, you could have a bit of an ego about yourself from before you got there, about your fitness or your capabilities. But then you meet some extremely fit and extremely capable people, which is great because it makes you, you have to improve yourself. So, that suited me down the ground. I’m that kind of guy. I like to, I don’t like to be shown up by somebody else I know. Call it pride, a little competitive. Competitive, yes, yes, pride, whatever you want to call it, one of the dead, all these deadly sins. But, and it gave me, it gave me a great grounding, I think, afterwards in life because I was comfortable with all aspects, all strata of society. So, that was what basically has put me on the track to where I am now in my life. And I, when I say I was going. My life was going nowhere, it really was going nowhere. And I struggle to think what I’d be doing now if that was the case. So. And then by being able to or being a, having this. I mean it’s discipline. It’s, it’s enforced discipline. It’s not really self-discipline, it’s mostly forced discipline. But being able to achieve things that you never thought you were going to achieve is very good for your, for your confidence and you’re, and especially being in the army, you, because a lot of the things you have to do are it’s, it’s a lot of off the cuff stuff because nothing, nope as we say, or Mike Tyson said it best is everyone’s got a plan to get a smack in the mouth. And there was a lot of that was going on in the Army. That was the plan was there but it very rarely went to, to plan. So, we had to improvise and come up with things. And then after that, you know, nothing can really phase you too much after that because you, you know that you can figure out a way to get things done. So, that was very good for my life. And I still get phased, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely get phased by things. But when it comes to, you know, just handling yourself in life, you know that you can dig yourself out of whatever hole you’re in.

Minter Dial: Let me, let me just interrupt you a second. First of all, we’re publishing this right after the discovery of the fact that Gene Hackman died and how he admitted while in filming the French Connection that hitting somebody wasn’t his gig. But once you hit enough people, then you start figuring out, you know, how to do it. That was just a repel of that. But the notion of choosing the Marines over the army in the United States, in any event, the Marines are knowing are really considered the, the toughest of the tough. That’s how sort of that’s what their motto is. And your decision to choose the army versus the Marines, was that really down to your, your uncle? Because that, that he was the one who inspired you and everything he did. Because I mean, you know, these are you. At the end of the day, they do make big choice, big impact because it’s the people you’re hanging out with that end up being these guys and this brigade or this, you know, whatever group you have with you. But talk us through the difference between army and Marines. Royal Marines, yeah.

Nicol Kindness: So, I was very much attracted to because the selection process is very tough for the Royal Marines. And that was what I wanted, I thought, I wanted to do. I thought, and you know, there’s probably that scared little boy inside me saying, I’ll show these people, they’ve been mocking me, you know, that kind of things that you think about when you’re a kid.

Minter Dial: Bravado.

Nicol Kindness: Well, it’s. Yeah, there’s bravado, but you have to, you know, you have to back it up. And actually going to do that is. It takes some balls to go and do that in the first place.

Minter Dial: Well, that’s the gap between the bravado and the actual…

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. As I used to say in the military, you either or you get off the pot. And that’s an apt phrase for it. So, I. I went to. I mean, I went to do a few visits with the Marines or one visit with the Marines. We were up in the Scottish Highlands, up and down mountains all day, which was really fun and very challenging because I was, I don’t know, 19, 20, 20, 21, early 20s, anyway. And so, this is my first, shall we say, introduction to that sort of level of physical. Physical activity. I’d done mountain. Mountaineering and stuff before, but not to that level. And I really enjoyed it. And then I went to visit the army and I thought, this is. I felt more at home, shall we say. And then when I actually wanted to, when I sat down and thought about it, there seemed to be a lot more opportunities to go and do things at that time, for sure, that joining the army had a lot more. There’s a lot more going on for the army people than there was for the Royal Marines. So, for instance, they were not doing very much. They were doing back and forth to Northern Ireland. They weren’t doing the same. Didn’t have the same reach, shall we say, that the army did. Yeah. And so, yeah, So, I ended up doing bunch because I joined at the. The right or the wrong time in the late 90s, and I was based in Germany and I was an armoured brigade, So, we were sent everywhere. So, I went on all the operations that were going on, or. It was an exciting time. It was an exciting time and it was a good time to join the army.

Minter Dial: So, that’s why I wanted to go back to this sort of the young kid that you were and struggling in life and such as. I understand it, making choices. When you struggle like that, it sometimes becomes very difficult because you’re never sure of yourself. You’re. Everything’s difficult. It’s sort of dark and dour. I mean, I’m thinking that that’s the situation. What was it? A lightning bolt, a feeling of lightness and joy? How did it become the thing that you stepped into? Was it a meeting? A person that just said, oh, God, this guy. I Really, I really admire. What was it that allowed you to say, snap out of it into this decision?

Nicol Kindness: Well, I’d hit rock bottom, basically. I wasn’t, I was very unhappy and I wasn’t enjoying life and I, I just had this feeling inside me the whole time and I think everyone gets it, is that I’ve got more to give, I’ve got more to do in my life and you know, I was drinking too much. Drugs, you know, hookup culture even back then, which are, offer temporary solutions but at the end of the day it doesn’t bring anything. It brings you a hangover or, you know, some nasty disease or something like that. But it’s not what you, it’s not how I, when I say it was my intuition, it was like I had this, I have to do this. I was desperate and when I say I hit rock bottom, I was, you know, I was thoroughly miserable and I thought if I, I have to do this because I don’t want everyone to think I’m a loser again. It’s probably that little boy thing coming out again is I’ve got a lot to give. I just need to be put on. I need to be put in the right position to be able to, to excel at something. And, and luckily I’m not saying that with the army was that, but it was. Certainly got me to where I needed to be. And I don’t know if you remember and we’re showing our age a bit here, Minter, but the movie Officer and a Gentleman when Richard Gere is doing the push ups in the rain because he’s been caught stealing stuff and he’s trying to get him to quit and I had that too when I was there and he’s just shouting, I’ve got nowhere else to go. And I had nowhere else to go. So, that resonated. I remember thinking that it’s like there’s no way they’re going to, that I’m not getting through this So, you can throw whatever you want at me. I’m, I’m not going to give up because I’ve got, I have nowhere else to go. This is my, my last, I felt it at the time, was my last shot to do something with my life. So, that was a powerful motivator when you’re, you know.

Minter Dial: The image I have comes from another sort of scene where the, I think the sergeant major is saying, rather be marching up and down the yard, would you? I think you’ll know where I mean they’re coming from. Yeah, certain John Cleese. I want to just to pick up a few words you used because I feel you talk about these in a positive term. These specific terms. You say it was tough but fun and it was enforced discipline. You’re also being of service to your country. If I put those three things together I feel like in 2025 none of those apply to the way we are doing things and raising our children and as a society growing.

Nicol Kindness: Well I would just go back to what I just said by that one needs to be put into or find themselves or get themselves and get themselves into a position that they find something that they want they really want to do. And I think that’s fundamentally I wouldn’t say it’s missing right now because I think the opportunities are out there not necessarily going in the military. Just FYI I’m very anti war nowadays So, I’ve gone a bit full circle. But once you I think once you find something you want to do you can eat any amount of crap if you really are motivated to do it. And you know I’ve taken the verbal abuse, not necessarily physical abuse but it is physical abuse when they make you do all the punishment exercises but they’re not beating you up although I’m sure they wanted to several times and I’m sure I deserved it but and then one. Well, another thing is I figured out as well is that the whole thing was a game and you were just basically playing a game. You just kept a smile on your face and just kept going. That’s all you really had to do and that’s all they really wanted to see that you were capable and that you weren’t going to give up and that you had a bit of backbone to you. So, you know there’s. I remember when I was a when I was really young there was an A load of the army the like scout masters or boys brigade masters or people like that were had been in they did done national service when that was mandatory. You have to do two years in national service up until you probably know late 60s maybe, I’m not sure but you know they all said it was great best thing they ever did because it taught them self-reliance and self-reliance. That’s what I was trying to say before that’s what the word the phrase I was looking for is I think it’s very important to have and it’s nowadays I it’s difficult to say but we came from a different era when you weren’t Molly coddled to the extent I think is what’s happening now and I’m not being disrespectful to the, to young people who are listening to.

Minter Dial: This at all or the Molly Coddlers.

Nicol Kindness: Or the Morley Coddlers. I understand there’s, you know, there’s perceived notion of crime everywhere and I’ve stayed in a bunch of places around the world and nothing’s ever really happened to me. Nothing major, you know, So, it’s, I don’t know if there’s, it’s this fear culture we live in. The media are pumping out fear and politicians are pumping out fear non-stop. So, I don’t blame today’s youth, the modern culture. I think it’s, it’s almost like a, a propaganda that people must be afraid at all times and that didn’t really exist when I was a kid.

Minter Dial: Well, let me, let me just clear the record. I’m not blaming kids for the way they are. I’m far more pointing the finger at the people who are raising the kids and running society and governments and So, on. And I’m far from needing war, wanting wool. However, I’m focusing on the words you use, tough, enforced discipline. And, and it strikes me that this is all about building self-reliance and resiliency and, and learning how to get up while you are soaked in sweat and covered in mud in terrible conditions like in life. And my observation is that we have gotten away from this type of old fashioned stiff upper lip stuff and it’s all, we’ve thrown out the proverbial baby with the bath water and said well we need to mollycoddle as you put it. And, and So, you’re nine years in the army. What did it teach you about life? And, and how has it really helped you develop into the Mr. Kindness that we know today.

Nicol Kindness: Teaches you a lot of things. And I mean obviously I was put into a leadership role So, that’s the whole point of where we were. When you do the officer training Sandhurst. Yeah. So, you do that and that’s, you’re drilled into it. You’re a leader of men. This is how you’d be a good leader. And the reason the, our training was much tougher than the soldiers training is because they wanted, you can’t be seen. I mean of course when you get to your regiment there’s going to be guys in your platoon who are fitter than you. That’s just life. You know these, you get freaks of nature who can just run and run and run but on the whole you need to be the fittest, the smartest, etc, you know, that kind of Thing. The other aspect is what I learned was about teamwork and, and how to gain respect from your. From your men and women. There was a few in our infant. I was in the infantry, if you’re listening. And that means it’s almost all men. Well, it was in those days. I think it’s a bit different now. But how do you gain respect? And there are, you know, people would say that my style was. I was too friendly with the soldiers. But that’s, you know, you’re supposed to maintain a level of aloofness. But that’s not. I can’t really. That’s not really my style. And. And when I. I see people who talk about leadership and they tell you, you. They say this is what you need to do. This is. These are the qualities of a good leader. I think it’s extremely or very individualised. Yes, those principles do work. But, you know, there’s certain things. You got to bring your personality into it as well. You know, you have to have your own way of motivating people. And they say, you know, the officers never, ever complain. I used to complain to the soldiers all the time about my up. My higher ups always joking about it and, you know. But you still had to do it, right? But I was told that was a big no, no. But we had a. We’d laugh about it because they were the hierarchy. Of course, you’re not supposed to. Yeah, well, you know, you’re not supposed to belittle the ones of, you know.

Minter Dial: What I’m trying to break into command.

Nicol Kindness: Break. Yeah. So, that was, you know, but I would make light of it and we’d laugh about it and, you know, they are complaining as well. They don’t want to come and complain to me. But then, you know, we just used to sit and we used to call them shimp sessions. And when you sit, the guys would just give you all their grievances, which is pretty much every day. And so, there’s different forms of leadership styles. So, learning my own way of leadership, not saying it was the best way, it worked for me. And I’m still very good friends with a lot of my soldiers who were still called and text each other quite often, you know, and I go and see them. I also learned that I could operate across the broad spectrum of society and, you know, there were royals there when I was there, landed gentry, people from very, very wealthy families, Middle Eastern, what were they called? Shakes. Chicks, you know, with endless amounts of money. But you can. We. I learned. You learn to get on with everyone and you Know, you develop a, I’m not sure you’ve developed a personality for it, but you, you certainly recognise the social cues. You know, if that’s, and that’s done me very well because now I, I, I can, like I say I can. I’m pretty comfortable with most, almost everyone, really. And what else did it give me? It, you know, what did the biggest thing, I think it was it opened my, my life to this world of possibilities that I had absolutely no idea existed. And when you, when you put a bunch of motivated people together and then you make them eat, they, you improve them. And then. So, we would go when we got leave, we. I’d like to ski, I like to do, I’d like to climb. And sailing, whatever it was, if it was interesting and exciting, I was in. And that happened. I used to get. Because of these guys, well, I can sail. We’re going rent a yacht and we’ll sail around some of the islands in the Mediterranean, no worries. Or we go climbing for a week or we go skiing for a week. And that sort of, that was a thing I really missed growing up. I thought that this, that life wasn’t for me, I would never achieve that life. But then, and I’m not saying we’re making, we’re making pennies really, when you think about it going back, but there was also enough money to do that kind of stuff and, and the army encouraged it as well. So, we’re encouraged to go and do these fun things. So. Things that I never would have expected growing up. It just opened my eyes to the possibilities. And I’m not going to say it’s limitless, but certainly now, and that’s what I try to instil in my kids, is that there is a big world out there, there’s a lot of fun things to do and it’s up to you to go and actually do it. And I think that’s very useful. So, there we go. That’s going back to what you’re talking about, the youth of today or the modern society, rather.

Minter Dial: So, the thing I take away from what you just talked about, Nico, is the fact that you had the sheikhs and the royals and the rich. The reason why I say that is that it’s rather reassuring at some level that those folks think that Sandhurst is a good place for them to go, actually put their nose in the dirt, do 100 push ups, sweat, oil, suffer, freeze. Yeah, freeze. Always cold, as opposed to silver spoon up my arse kind of approach to life. And, and I find that very Wholesome. In the, in the other thing you mentioned, which is something that is a regular topic for me, is this idea of the taste for risk. And, and you talked about self-reliance. You also have the, the adventures and you know, doing mountain climbing. And then of course there’s a little bit of a risk going and serving for your country when there might be people popping you off or, or not overly happy with you. But the, the notion of risk, how, how did it architect or inform your. Or is it just because you’re a ski instructor or something that likes to know how to do helicopters?

Nicol Kindness: No, I be honest with you, it started for me young. So, my parents stood up when I was five, excuse me. And so, my mom was working, So, I was the typical 80s latchkey kid, as you could call it. You’d come home from school and we all lived in a pretty small town. So, your friends were all nearby, up in Scotland. Up in Scotland, yes.

Minter Dial: And bonny wee Scotland.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. We just go out, come home from school, take off our school uniforms and disappear until our bellies started to rumble. And then we come home and eat. And then if it was light enough, we’d go back out and play again. And we used to get up to all sorts of stuff. And that is for me, that is, I think really important for a child nowadays is to, or not just nowadays in all forever is to go and find, get into trouble, get into fights, get your nose bloodied, bloody somebody else’s nose, you know, come home with blood pouring out of a wound because you’d fell, getting screamed at by your, by your parents, playing sports, just doing all this stuff which you alluded to before. Well, you didn’t allude, you said it before. Is missing. Nowadays we don’t have that. It just isn’t the trust, the societal trust that there was, I think when we were younger, when I was younger for sure and I lived in a pretty rural place, very, very safe, you know, murder and was just unheard of. Right country.

Minter Dial: The risk wasn’t murder, but the risk could have been falling over, scraping, breaking.

Nicol Kindness: A leg, whatever, falling in the river and drowning. But again, none of that happened and we were all doing it. You know, you watch out for that river, you might drown. There wasn’t even a single story in our town of people drowning. So, it’s, I think it’s. And I’m doing it with my children now because we live in a pretty rural place, as you know. Dad, can I go and do this? Yep. Back at this time. And I don’t have my Friends asked me, do you have trackers on your children? You know those Apple trackers that you can. I said, absolutely not. You imagine if you’re. How angry you’d have been if your parents did that to you.

Minter Dial: Oh, my gosh. By the way, I. I have. My father had one on him recently. Oh, my gosh. But before we get. I want to talk about your podcast for the. For the remainder. But before we do you, I want to just circle back on this thing of ski school skiing, Verbier, and, And how you’ve ended up. Why did you choose Verbier? Why did you choose. It chose you. How did that happen?

Nicol Kindness: How did you let the weights go that way?

Minter Dial: Because it’s not a bad place to choose you.

Nicol Kindness: No, no. So, that’s a. It’s quite an amusing story. So, I, I grew up. We used to go skiing in Scotland. We’re talking about risk again. We used to go on school ski holidays. We take a bus, I think 24 hours to Austria. It’s a long way to Austria on a bus. This is before EasyJet.

Minter Dial: And I thought you were skiing in Scotland.

Nicol Kindness: No, no, we used to ski in Scotland at the weekends and then we’d once, one week a year, we’d go to the Alps, to Austria, and we were just left alone, you know, a bunch of 14, 15 year old guys just building jumps in the off piste and trying to see who could jump the furthest. And so, that’s. I always had that and I. I really love that aspect of things and I, I just had. I just loved. I think I just like mountains and I like the snow and I like the blue skies and there’s not much wind.

Minter Dial: Well, there’s. The freedom of the wind is just blowing down without a helmet in those days, going down, doing helicopters, bump, bump, bump, falling over, getting up, laughing backflips and all that.

Nicol Kindness: So, yeah, talking. That’s the, the risk element again. Coming into it is. I always kind of like risky things. I need. I need a bit of. I like the adrenaline to get going, you know, not too much, but enough. So, I ended up here because I was. When I joined the army and my cv, I’d written in my CV because I had a. I had to pad it out because I’d basically done nothing and I. And it was. I was in my school ski team, which is technically true, but we never raced because they went. Every time we were going to race. The weather was too bad, right. And so, ended up. I got a phone call when I was still at training from one of the senior captains in my regiment, saying, Nico, I hear you can ski. And I said, yeah, I can. He goes, and you used to race? And I said, oh, how did you, how did you know that? And he said, it’s in your cv. And I thought, okay, yeah, I can, I can, I can brazen this out. That’s not a problem. I can, yeah. So, I, I blagged it, as we say. And so, and he said, and I thought it was actually I was getting hazed, I thought it was. I was just, I was going to turn up at the regiment and they were just going to laugh at me until they said, because the questions were. I said, well, where do we go? And he says, place called Verbier in Switzerland. I said, okay, I’ve heard of it. And you know, are we on, are we in uniform, are we living in a barracks, are we doing gate sentries? All the boring nonsense. I said, no, no, no, it’s all civilian. We, we’ve been, we get, we rent an apartment. And you know, and they said, well, we ski every day from 8:30 to 4:30, apart from Sundays. And I said, what about the evenings? Do what you want, go to the pub.

Minter Dial: Well, I was thinking you’re asking whether on Sundays you had to go to church.

Nicol Kindness: No, no, they were just telling us it was. We had a Sunday off, which meant that Saturday night choose to go nuclear. Right. And so. And it was £600, that’s what was going to cost me for six weeks. And he said, and if you qualify, if you get into our race team, then you go to France and then you do a couple of weeks racing there and then if you do, we do well there, we go to another place in France for the army championships. So, you’re maybe away for two months. Okay, this is too good to be true. But, but this is it. I turn up and my first night here, I just had this feeling that I was, this is where I was meant to be. And that’s. You can’t ignore those feelings, Minter. You know, when you get that feeling of something like this feels right, you have to, you have to investigate. And it took me a good few years to actually move here, but I did eventually.

Minter Dial: Well, your intuition spoke again. And of course. Yeah, and last question, really, which is, you know, your whole philosophy of life, you move to Verbier, you have kids, you also have to onboard your spouse in that whole story. What words of wisdom do you have in this element? Because at the end of the day, if it’s not a happy full family, it doesn’t work for everybody.

Nicol Kindness: No. Well, you must. You have to be careful of who you choose as a spouse, that you have to have alignment when it comes to things you like to do.

Minter Dial: Well, I like things like sending the kids off without a helmet and doing risky stories, stuff like that.

Nicol Kindness: My wife’s a Swede, So, she’s. They, they work. They. I can’t do that. I have to. The kids have to wear helmets, So, that’s fair enough.

Minter Dial: I’m only kidding about that helmet story. But the idea of sending them to allow them to do risky stuff.

Nicol Kindness: Oh, I do, yeah. And I’m sure they. I have a good relationship with my son. He’s older. The younger One’s only four, So, he’s 10. And so, it’s, it’s. We have a good relationship that if he gets in trouble, he’ll come to me and tell me and I’ll help him out if necessary. So, I’m, I’m quite good like that. And because I told, then I tell him all the daft stuff I used to do as a kid and then he’s like, what? Yeah, he’s. I’m not even perfect. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s alignment of what your passions are in life. And I, and it’s not necessarily just skiing. I like sports. I like to, I mean. And I’ll even play golf. I used to play a lot of golf when I was younger. Yeah, I know. I don’t play it anymore So, much, you know, whatever, really. But I like skiing. I lived in the mountains. I lived in a great place. She came and she came here and she really liked it too. And I had to go skiing with her just to test, just to make sure that if she was absolutely hopeless, then this, this is, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work. So, we did that and she was quite keen. She’s a very good horsewoman. She did a lot of jumping and she played polo and I think, you know, things like that. Yes.

Minter Dial: That’s serious.

Nicol Kindness: That’s pretty hardcore.

Minter Dial: University was a 10-goal player, So, I’m fairly, fairly familiar with polo.

Nicol Kindness: Not that that’s a dangerous sport.

Minter Dial: It is, and actually very dangerous and horses in general. But let’s, let’s now focus the last part of our chat on your podcast. So, ordinary people with extraordinary stories. What made you start Your podcast, the Mr. Kindness podcast? And how’s the journey of conscious growth evolved since it began?

Nicol Kindness: Yeah, well, again, it was an intuition thing. This overwhelming feeling was to just start something to. It’s the creativity aspect of life. I think creativity is very important. Not saying everyone has to start a podcast, but doing creative things is, I think, very important for. Excuse me, for a good life. And especially when you get why, why, why? Because the, I think the, the creative nature of us as humans is. It’s basically squashed out of us as kids. But art, that’s for girls, you know, poetry. What are you, some sort of, you know, insert slur here? Yeah, but very. So, you move away from that aspect of creativity as a kid in. And then we, we almost lose it and you become a. You become a worker. Right. You become a drone, a slave to the system. But that’s also fun too. And it could be also very, very creative. And the army was very creative. You had to be very creative. And they actually. You were praised for showing a bit of creativity and imagination and what you did and a bit of flair, a bit of dash, bit of panache. So. Oh, gosh, I’ve just completely. Oh, yeah. So, the podcast. So, that was. I think when you mentioned the creativity, you threw me out.

Minter Dial: That’s sort of what I do.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. So, as a stay at home dad, you spend a lot of time with kids and I was basically starving for intellectual conversations. And so, I got. I actually started listening to the podcasts that was good 10 years ago. And I found a lot that I like, some I still listen to. And I took inspiration from many different ones.

Minter Dial: Give us a few. Give us a couple of examples that turned you.

Nicol Kindness: Oh, okay. Dan Carlin. Hardcore Histories is excellent. Do you know Dan Carlin? Of course I do. That’s. He’s amazing. I. I like to dip in and out of Joe Rogan if there’s a guest on there who I’m interested in. And he gets a lot of really great guests, So, he’s obvious. That’s why he’s number one at that. There’s one called Tinfoil Hat, which I really enjoy. It’s a conspiracy one. I enjoy all that sort of stuff. T. Foil Hat, it’s called. And it’s. He’s pretty. He’s a comedian, but it’s. It’s pretty nuts. And he gets all sorts of whack jobs on there, but, you know, anyway. And a lot of the historical ones. But the point being is that I, I thought to myself, look, I can, if I do this, I can speak to people like, we are doing eye to eye. I know we’re not physically eye to eye, but through a screen at least, and have a conversation for an hour. And I mean, there’s no way on earth I said this to Don Armand. We were just saying that you would have. If I said to you can I just have a FaceTime with you for an hour? And you. Who is this guy? But I managed to persuade enough people to come on and, and talk about things I find interesting. And that’s basically all it was. And, and I’m not really necessarily interested in getting superstars on ordinary people, as they say, just regular folks. Regular folks who’ve done something really cool and interesting and. And it’s brought me a level of. Without sounding like a total dick. Spiritual ascension. I’ve started to learn how things work. And to be honest, I think everyone knows how it works. It’s just a lot of we ignore it. I think what I would say. But how the story is tends to go the same way. It’s life is going okay and then suddenly something happens and you’re plunged into a pit of despair. And it’s how you deal with that pit of despair, your low point in your life where people, you know, talk. I’ve talked to people who are not only had contemplated suicide but had bought the gun, the bullets and the time and date they were going to do it. Right. And that’s also a fascinating story is how what happened to stop them killing themselves, for instance. And that’s an extreme example of course but. And in the. The other side of that hole you come out of is Leads to a better life. And it’s a part of the, the difficulty and hardship that we put ourselves through is how you deal with it. And can you. At the very least you’re going to come out of it a wiser person. And just some really fascinating stories. People who are going to the North Pole, people who got a guy who got attacked by two great white sharks at the same time while surfing in South Africa. Yeah. Crazy. The crazier the story, the better for me. And. But the, the theme always seemed to be the same. It’s just, you know, I, you know, I’m not saying and surf next to.

Minter Dial: Great whites, but if, if possible with two. Because they probably get distracted by one another.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. And it just you, you hear over and over again the similar. It’s not the same context, it’s not the same, but it’s the same subject. And you’ve got people who then go on and do quite incredible things because they’ve a bit like myself either been in a state of desperation and a yearning to improve themselves. You know, I’m talking divorced with three kids, young twins and an older husband buggers off. And now she’s a very famous and well respected polar explorer. You know, things, you know, that’s from being a housewife to going and doing that is. That’s an interesting story. Right. And so, that’s, that’s what I like to do. And I like to get a broad range of people because I don’t really. I don’t really think I have. I mean, I haven’t really got an expertise in anything. And. And if I do, it’s, it’s very narrow and we get quite boring for me after a while talking about the same thing over and over again. So, that’s why I like to get a wide range of guests to come on and basically talk shit.

Minter Dial: I love it. I, I want to just circle back on one thing you said and disagree with you, which is I think you. Well, the way I heard it was that you say everyone gets it gets this idea of conscious growth. I, I would. And you say some people sort of ignore it. I actually don’t believe that people. Everyone’s aware of it. And I think that a lot of people just surf through life, you know, live through life. For example, people in deep hardship, in sweat or a sort of a slum in Mumbai, they have. This is not, this is not at all on their plate. Then there’s a whole raft of people who think that it’s all about me and, and I get to live. I should be allowed to live forever. I deserve to be immortal. Oh my gosh. So, I don’t think the. Either of these is really ignoring it. I think neither of those examples actually knows about conscious growth and the power of being egoless and being of service to some bigger cause. Neither of them really have to do it. One has to get food on the plate for this evening, otherwise we die. And the other is really all about me and how big an ego can I satisfy and feed.

Nicol Kindness: Yep, I agree. I agree. But I would also. I’m going to give you a caveat. I. Based on where I live, it’s, it’s quite a. It’s. A lot of wealthy people come here and says skiing is that has got that image. I suppose you’d say.

Minter Dial: My father lived in Stad, by the way, for 20.

Nicol Kindness: Well, there you go. That’s the, the most expensive.

Minter Dial: I kind of know a little bit about those type of places.

Nicol Kindness: I saw that. I think I saw that today. It’s the most highly concentrated concentration of wealth in the world. Yeah.

Minter Dial: 1600 billionaires is the number that sticks in my mind.

Nicol Kindness: Well, holy moly. So, yeah, but you see it. I see it. The children of some of these people. And these people, some of them, I’m not talking about billionaires, but people with, With a bit of money, who they’re using pleasure. The pleasure is what we. Where we’re going to go, which restaurant we going to be at, what. How much am I going to spend on wine tonight? Am I going to drop 20 grand in a bottle of wine or something stupid like that? And it’s all about that is illegal. But do you not think that you get. People get to a certain point in their life that this is. They find it just completely boring and pointless?

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, I think that there are two. Two typical examples. The first one wakes up having almost died and then all of a sudden they switch on and. Oh my God. Actually, everything I’ve been thinking about, my fourth house in Gaucheville isn’t actually the most important thing in life. And the second one is you get older and you actually determine that you only have a couple years left and then working 60, 80 hours and, and slagging off waiters in restaurants and being nasty to your spouse and having a couple of mistresses isn’t actually the most noble and beautiful thing. So, I would. There, there, there are ways that people finally come around to it. But I find if, if, if 65% of employees are disengaged at work, if mental health is skyrocketingly poor, I would argue that as a society, we are far from actually getting it right.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. But there is a crisis. I think there’s an existential. You can feel it in the world right now. It’s almost like there’s an existential consciousness crisis.

Minter Dial: Yep, absolutely.

Nicol Kindness: Going on and people are cracking and there are mental health issues and you know, I, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even dare to say that. You know, pull up your socks, go and get cold and wet in the mountains, running around is.

Minter Dial: Is run off to Sandhurst.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. It’s not the. That might not. That probably isn’t the answer, but it’s just. There’s a. It’s almost like a collective despair that people have that how is it that things have got So, bad and it’s So, corrupt and there’s these absolutely pointless wars going on that I’m not surprised, I’m really not surprised that we’re in a situation as it is.

Minter Dial: I may, though, I mean, there is war, sure, but there aren’t So, many of us who are actually on the front line dealing with bullets.

Nicol Kindness: Right.

Minter Dial: So, there is war out there. We want to appropriate it. I would even call it cultural misappropriation at some level. We want to say, oh, look at. My gosh, look at this war. It’s terrible. You know, from my sofa. Gosh, you know, that’s really bad. Let me. Serve me another drink, please. And oh, my gosh. But, you know, worry about my broken finger, worry about stuff out there, but actually disengaged from my true reality. I want to finish with one last question for Nico because, you know, I don’t mean to overstay. You’ve had some great people on your show, from Nick Stevenson, Nick Sir, Nick Borton, Chance Garton, Charlie Stewart, lots of really interesting people. Of all the stories you’ve heard, and this is a choice factor which has been the most memorable and impactful for you personally.

Nicol Kindness: That’s. It’s an almost impossible question to answer, naturally.

Minter Dial: Well, I. I want to be a.

Nicol Kindness: Little bit tough, but I. I’ve listened to, like I said, I’ve done 129, I think now.

Minter Dial: Nice.

Nicol Kindness: I did one recently and that. His name is Ben Ward, and he’s a guy who went to Norway with his girlfriend and up in the fjord somewhere up north, about halfway up Norway, but that’s still very, very far north, near the Arctic, not far away. And he’s on the. The longest inland fjord in, I think, in the world or something like that. And he went there with his girlfriend. They were going to buy a property and renovated, but they wanted to get away if they wanted to go into the more into the nature. That didn’t work out, that relationship. So, he bought a farm and he had that feeling. We were talking about this, this gut feeling that this, I belong here. I. This is something I have to do. And it’s almost like you’ve got a virus in your head that doesn’t matter what you can’t get out of your head until you’ve made this decision. And that’s, you know, I could say and haven’t done all these podcasts. When I say this, I can say this because other people have told it to me. It’s this incessant voice in your head and, you know, call it what you want, call it intuition, your guardian angel. God, I don’t really care. You can’t really ignore that, that message. But he. So, he bought this old farm with the intention to renovate it, and then he couldn’t get the money because he was.

Minter Dial: I assume this farm is in Norway.

Nicol Kindness: Oh, it’s in 60, hasn’t it. Yeah. On the side of a mountain with a very narrow track. You can’t. You can only get up there on a quad bike. It freezes over in the winter, it gets rock slides in the summer and it has to go and clear it manually. That the farm hadn’t been inhabited for 60 years and he had no money and he was doing everything and he went into a. It was a. And he. He’s a house builder by trade, a carpenter or whatever you want to. He works with wood and he’s very good. Good at it. And so, he actually went into the. The despair of having just everywhere you look, you see a thousand jobs you have to do, which is a good metaphor for life in general. Right. And he. And. But the loneliness was getting him and to the point that he was drinking too much. And he actually, when he bought that farm, he didn’t realise that further up the side of the mountain, on the top of the mountain was a cabin which came with it. He didn’t even know when he bought it. He didn’t know about it. So, he would leave. Oh, yeah. And so, he’s up there on his own, right, Doing everything on. On his own running water, but no or very little electricity. No. At the start, he had no running water and lived in a tiny, tiny cabin like the size of a shed, right? And he went up to the top of the mountain, this cat, he said, this is too much here. I’m just going to go up there with food, I’m not going to bring any alcohol and I’m going to go up there and just be on my own. Which is kind of ironic because he’s already on his own. But it was just to get himself away from the stressor. The stressor being the project. And he went up the top of this mountain that was his happiest happy place, even more remote, no phone signal, nothing. So, it’s completely alone. And he just. He said, all I did was just sit there and think. And he would stare at a candle in the dark or the fire and meditate and he’d. He. He had a breakthrough. He had a, you know, Jesus in the desert type of moment, you know, when you suddenly.

Minter Dial: Jesus the carpenter.

Nicol Kindness: Jesus the carpenter. Ben the carpenter and Jesus. And he was up there and he figured out, and I call that podcast, cracking the code, because he’s cracked the code. And he came to realise that there were three voices in his head. There was his. The negative, the ego side, shall we say, and his intuition. We’ll go. We’ll go with that. So, you got his own mind, his ego and intuition. He puts it slightly differently, but that’s how I can reconcile it in my head and that the ego. And it’s not. You know, when I talk about ego, we’re not talking about how you look in the mirror. It’s what you’ve been built up through. It’s your shield. You built up through your life, which is there to protect you. And that’s very difficult to get out of that shield.

Minter Dial: It serves a purpose.

Nicol Kindness: It serves a purpose, but it’s also. It’s a hindrance. It’s a big hindrance. So, I. We’re all trying to. Should be trying to shed that ego. And he. So, he realised that the ego is trying to keep him in the same place and his intuition is trying to get him to the next level. And so, what happened was he had the negative voice and the. The negative voice was keeping him where he was and the positive voice was trying to push him on. And then. So, he learned to recognise the negative voice whenever he saw it, whenever he heard it, I mean, and then he would concentrate on his. Just on. On the positive aspect of things. And I’m not. Again, if it’s not. I’m not going to tell you. It’s just about thinking positive because there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s actually, you have to recognise the negative voices 100% and then. But also recognise the. The positive voices. There’s that polarity in us and. But you can choose to listen to either or. And most people will probably do a bit of both. But the challenge would be to only go listening to the positive voices. Do you see the difference? I mean, I’m not talking about living in positive positivity all the time. No.

Minter Dial: I think I would argue that they both live there and oftentimes we create a narrative that that’s the way I am. I live in the negative. I live in the positive and that’s the only way there is. And when, as soon as the. Something comes up that destructures or pushes you off balance, you. You can break down. But like stoics say, it’s really how you deal with the. That it counts.

Nicol Kindness: So, that’s what he had to rewire. Yeah, So, that’s what he learned. He learned stoicism. And I. I mentioned in the podcast that by staring into the candle, I think that was Rudolf Steiner, one of his techniques for getting into an altered state of mind was in a dark room staring at a candle.

Minter Dial: My. Mine is a dose of LSD, but, you know.

Nicol Kindness: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, or you could do that. He didn’t have any LSD. I’m sure he would have done if he had it.

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, frankly, looking at the stars is the same, but.

Nicol Kindness: No, yeah, exactly. So, top of the mountain. Yes. And so, that was, for me was a real eye opener and it basically, it made a lot of things clear because the questions I’ve always had and I always ask people who seem to figure things out and they, you know, said the answers aren’t outside you, they’re within you. And I said, yeah, okay, but how do I find them? And then he really quite eloquently explained how, how it works and you can’t really get your answers from anywhere else. And I guess that’s the, the lesson that I took from, from him. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not some virtuous man who makes no mistakes. I’m very much, despite your lovely last name, I am a mere mortal Minter. I’m, and like everyone else, I, I, it’s, I, I, I have a path, but it’s quite meandering. But I, I have a goal in mind. So, it meanders between good and bad. Of course it does, but everyone does, you know, and it takes, and I, I saw something other day or read something other day which was talking about if you’ve come to the realisation that there is a path to nirvana, whatever you want to call it, your spiritual growth or whatever it is you want to. Yeah, spiritual growth, let’s call it consciousness Raising your consciousness is once you’ve realised that, that you want to do that, that’s the first step is, and that’s when you start to realise that it’s not, it’s not some easy path, is actually a very, very, very rocky road. And to, because you have to unlearn a lot of things that you thought you was, were facts were true. And so, that’s one thing. Another thing I’ve taken from the podcast. So, I mean, that’s a podcast on its own, that very subject.

Minter Dial: Well, I love it. I, I was on a mountain on the northwest of Norway called Grytoya. And it’s a pretty rugged environment and you can learn a lot by actually feeling the ruggers, the rigour of, of nature as well and coming to grips with how small we are on this little old planet that we live on. So, lovely stuff. So, tell us how we can follow you, track down, get on your pod, find your podcast first of all.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah, find the podcast. Well, it’s the podcast is the Mr. Kindness podcast. That’s M I S T E R kindness. That is Mr. Kindness underscore pod on Instagram which I need to get more active on. I’m my friend Ben, Ben the carpenter. He’s very good at it now all.

Minter Dial: The way up in his mountain, up.

Nicol Kindness: In the side of his mountain inside of the fjord and I’m at Mr. Kindness on X.

Minter Dial: And where else am I on LinkedIn?

Nicol Kindness: LinkedIn @ Mr. Kindness on YouTube. So, all these, you can see Minter on there. He’ll be on there later on this evening or tomorrow morning and yeah, or mrkindness.com M I S T-E-R kindness.com for all the episodes. I know my website is really very basic but I’ve got other things going on in my life but I need to get that sorted out.

Minter Dial: It’s all beautiful. It’s a work in progress life. It is multi. Thanks. I’ve been pleasured having you on chatting and thanks for the honesty of your conversation. Hopefully some fun, enlightenment and light for those who are struggling and, and, and for others who aren’t having on having on the path a little wake up call to go out and find your path, find your Verbier.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah. And I think it’s. And I was always one of the reasons that that was holding me back, ego again about starting a podcast was who do I think I am? Who do I think? Who do you think you are? My friends would say who do you think you are? Thinking that people want to listen to you and everything. I thought about it, that they give me a hard time and call me a dick and all that sort of stupid stuff. None of it’s happened. I mean it’s probably going on behind my back but it’s not to my face, which is a nice thing.

Minter Dial: Overwhelmingly if everyone loves you, then you know you’re doing something wrong.

Nicol Kindness: Yeah, well, but overwhelmingly the pod, the feedback has been positive. I get, you know, good constructive criticism mainly from my wife. But it’s just that is one of the things that holds people back from being creative and if you, you know, just pick up the brush or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. I just, it’s, it’s hard to tell people what to do. You have to know what you want to do yourself and you have to listen to what your, your intuition tells you. So, I mean if that helps anyone and if you want to come on, if you want to come and talk about it, come and come on and let me know. We can discuss the journey.

Minter Dial: Many thanks, Nico.

Nicol Kindness: All right, well, thank you So, much, Minter, and we’ll stay in touch. You’re a fun guy to hang out with online, and I’d like to meet you in person. So, that’d be fun. One of you guys. Sure. All right.