The Unapologetic Man Podcast: Gay Man's Coaching & Personal Development

Keegan Hirst, Gay Men's Coach & Former Rugby Player
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Society & Culture

Authentic gay conversations on personal development, life coaching, and mental health. Join Keegan Hirst (founder of The Unapologetic Man and Gay Man's Coaching) a former professional rugby player, for weekly real talk about gay lifestyle, coming out, relationships, business, and authentic living. Deep, honest conversations that help gay men build confidence, find community, and create vibrant, unapologetic lives.

  1. 13h ago

    Playing to win or playing not to lose?

    Most high achieving gay men play to win at work. They take the initiative, make quick calls and get up fast when something knocks them. Then they leave work and switch to playing not to lose everywhere else. In this episode I break down the two mindsets everyone is running, usually without choosing them, and why that gap is the reason life can look great from the outside and feel flat once the meetings stop. In this episode: • The two games everyone plays, and how to spot which one you’re playing • What I learned about attack and defence from 330 games of professional rugby league • How playing not to lose shows up in your body, your relationship, your friendships and your time • Why defence keeps you in the game but never wins one for you • How the “sensible” choice disguises fear as wisdom Your action this week: pick the area of your life where playing defence is costing you most. Name what you’re protecting there, and take one small attacking action you’ve been avoiding. 🎟️ FREE LIVE WEBINAR: Get the Body and Confidence to Match Your Job Title Thursday 12 November, 7pm UK / 2pm ET / 11am PT  For high achieving gay men whose identity has become their job. We’ll look at why you’re confident at work and not outside it, what that gap is costing you, and how to start closing it. It’s free and live, and there’s no replay. Save your seat: https://go.the-unapologeticman.com/webinar-registration Get in touch: keegan@the-unapologeticman.com Instagram: @keeganhirst | @unapologeticmancoaching If this landed, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and follow the show so you don’t miss the next one. Take your place. Don’t earn it.

  2. Oct 28

    The Disappointment Threshold: How Much of Your Life Is Actually Yours

    Plenty of successful gay men can say no all day at work and still fold the moment a certain friend or family member pushes back. They say yes, lie awake at 2am asking why, and slowly build resentment until they quietly drift out of the friendship rather than have the conversation. Keegan calls this the disappointment threshold, one of the five areas he works on with clients in Unapologetic Man. He traces it back to growing up feeling you had to keep the peace to stay safe, and explains why that old framework keeps running the show long after you’ve built the career and the house. His argument is that your attention is the only resource you really have, and how much you can let people down decides how much of it you get to keep. He shares a client who went from always staying behind to stack the chairs to walking out without a flicker of guilt, talks about stepping back from his relationship with his mum, and finishes with one small exercise to start building the muscle this week. What’s covered: Why saying no means little if you can’t hold the no when someone pushes backKeeping the peace as a survival strategy, and why it outlives its usefulnessResentment, 2am overthinking and relationships held together by gratitude“If I change, what else has to change?” and why that question keeps people stuckThe five areas Keegan works on with clients, from reclaiming your no to living it publiclyAttention as the one resource you can’t get backTraining your disappointment threshold like a muscle under loadWhere selfish ends and self-respecting begins, and whose voice you hear when you call yourself selfishOne plain no this week, with no reasons and no hedgingIf this is something you want help with, Keegan’s email is in the show notes. Find and connect with Keegan and the GMC Community:InstagramGMC InstagramEmail: keegan@gmanscoaching.comClick here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletterFor more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  3. Oct 21

    Confidence Is Competence: How to Be the Same Man in Every Room

    Plenty of the men Keegan coaches can lead a team and have the hard conversation nobody else wants to have. Then they walk into a party or onto a date and become someone else. The joker. The helper. The quiet one in the corner. They go home drained and decide they must be an introvert. In this episode Keegan argues that confidence is competence, and competence comes from reps. You’ve done thousands at work and almost none anywhere else, so it makes sense that you feel like a beginner. He talks about going from rugby captain to a newly out gay man with no dating experience, from dreading his first public speaking gig to TED Talks and stages at Manchester United, Microsoft and Barclays, and about a client who stepped up to CEO without a second thought but was terrified of setting up a dating profile. He finishes with a challenge for the week: pick one room where you shrink, drop the act and start small. What’s covered: Why being brilliant at work and shy everywhere else isn’t a confidence problemThe personas we fall into outside work: the joker, the helper, the quiet oneWhy social exhaustion gets mistaken for introversionHow only feeling competent at work throws your work-life balance outImposter syndrome as insecurity plus a lack of experienceLowering the bar: small, specific actions with a name, a time and a done-by dayWhy avoidance is a habit you’ve reinforced and can breakHow a cohort of clients hit their six-month goals in fourOne small action to take this week, and why you should tell someone about itKeegan is running a workshop soon on being as confident away from work as you are in it. DM him the word WORKSHOP on Instagram or Facebook to get the link. Find and connect with Keegan and the GMC Community:InstagramGMC InstagramEmail: keegan@gmanscoaching.comClick here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletterFor more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  4. Sep 23

    You're Allowed to Want More

    You're Allowed to Want More Most of us learned early that asking for more is greedy. Ungrateful. Selfish. So we soften every statement about what we actually want. We apologise for our own lives. We compare ourselves down to people who have it worse, and we use that as a reason to stay small. The result: we spend years in situations we hate, we don't ask for what we need, and we feel disconnected from our own lives. In this episode, Keegan challenges the idea that gratitude and wanting more are opposites. He talks through why comparison is a device people use to silence themselves, where the belief that you shouldn't want anything comes from, and what it costs you to keep pushing that beach ball under the water. He also gives you three things to do this week that will show you exactly that you can be grateful and want things. What's covered: Why "someone else has it worse" is not evidence that you're okayThe difference between comfort zones and familiarityWhere you learned that asking for more is a bad thingWho benefits from you staying smallThe cost of not speaking what you want (and where it comes out instead)An audit to notice how often you soften your own truthTwo lists that prove gratitude and desire aren't oppositesFind and connect with Keegan and the GMC Community:InstagramGMC InstagramEmail: keegan@gmanscoaching.comClick here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletterFor more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  5. Sep 10

    The Only Three Choices You Have (and the One Most People Pick)

    My pick is the first. It follows the same "concept: why it matters" shape as the Achievement vs Success episode, and it tells the listener exactly what they'll walk away with. The second is the stronger line for a clip. Description Nobody Keegan speaks to has room on their plate. Work, relationships, family, the news, a phone that never stops. On top of that, most of us are carrying situations that have dragged on for years because putting up with them feels easier than dealing with the discomfort of changing them. In this episode Keegan shares the filter he uses himself and passes on to clients whenever they're stuck. Any situation, problem or frustration comes down to three options: change it, accept it, or leave it. There's a fourth that most people default to without realising, which is doing nothing, and Keegan makes the case that it's never a neutral choice. He talks through a client who spent five years on the fence about his job without ever asking to reduce his hours, why gay men so often fear getting it wrong, and why clever, articulate men are usually the best at talking themselves out of action. What's covered: The three choices you have in any situation, and the false fourth oneWhy doing nothing sends a message to other people and to yourself"Better the devil you know" as a red flagBest little boy in the world syndrome and the fear of being seen to failWhy smart people struggle to get out of their own wayAcceptance as an active choice rather than giving upWhy nobody needs more information, they need implementationFind and connect with Keegan and the GMC Community:Instagram GMC Instagram Email: keegan@gmanscoaching.com Click here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletter For more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  6. Aug 26

    Achievement vs Success: Why You Keep Winning and Still Feel Empty

    Keegan breaks down the difference between achievement and success, and why so many men who look like they've made it still feel stuck. He explains the jackpot problem: hitting every marker you were told would make you happy (the job, the house, the body, the partner) and still waiting to feel it. Achievement is external and tickable. Success is internal, and it's the thing nobody can hand you or take away. Keegan shares his own experience of lurching from goal to goal, plus what changed after his heart diagnosis. He sets a challenge for listeners: write down everything you've achieved in the last ten years, then everything you've actually enjoyed, and look at how little the two lists overlap. If you've ever answered "how are you doing?" with a list of accomplishments instead of how you actually feel, this one's for you. Find and connect with Keegan:  Instagram GMC Instagram Email: keegan@gmanscoaching.com  Click here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletter For more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  7. Aug 12

    What It Means to Be an Unapologetic Man

    Keegan Hirst opens the podcast by defining the thing it's named after. Being unapologetic isn't about never saying sorry, and it isn't about being rude. It's about the man you are behind closed doors being the same man you present to the world. In this first episode Keegan walks through the five arenas where men apologise for themselves: the body, the voice, the want, the no, and the mask. Then he lays out the path out of it, starting with an honest audit of where you actually are and ending with visibility. He also makes the case that none of this gets solved by thinking harder. Most of the men Keegan works with are business owners, C-suite leaders, people with real intelligence and a real work ethic. Being smart has never once fixed a doing problem. Identity shifts through action, not analysis. Your action step this week: subscribe, and block out the time you're going to listen. Car journey, dog walk, wherever it fits. Find and connect with Keegan:  Instagram GMC Instagram Email: keegan@gmanscoaching.com  Click here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletter For more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

  8. Jul 27

    Anthony Dunford: The Best I'd Been Isn't the Best I Could Be

    Anthony Dunford has been with Keegan for six years, since before GMC was called GMC and back when the weekly call sometimes had two people on it. He's one of three clients still standing from that first cohort. In 2019 Anthony was 47, a teacher who had been in the same school for over twenty years, still closeted, with a career that had stalled and a mum who had just started with dementia. Then he paid off his mortgage. He talks here about opening the letter on a grey October afternoon and feeling nothing at all, no glitter, nobody in the house, just a line from Death of a Salesman going round his head about spending twenty five years paying for a place with nobody left to live in it. That was the moment he thought the rest of his life was going to be spent on the sofa. He's 53 now. New job after three decades in the same building, a promotion to senior teacher at a sixth form college, a Pride badge on his lapel and a beach holiday booked for August. The thing he wouldn't have booked before. Keegan and Anthony go back through how that actually happened, and Anthony is honest that most of it came down to two things: deciding to be deliberate rather than passive, and eventually working out that a room full of GMC members is not a room he needs to escape from. He describes scanning the first London event for a seat by the window so he could flip the chair and be out through it before anyone noticed. What's covered: The moment paying off a mortgage felt like an ending rather than an achievementWhy being deliberate matters more than being motivatedThe interview Anthony talked himself into by saying "you deserve this" in a bathroom mirrorWhy the ceiling you think you've hit is usually just the highest point you've reached so farWhat Anthony would say to guys who don't think they're a community personTaking what you need from GMC and leaving the rest, the room of requirements approachWhat he's still working on at 53The Cornwall retreat is coming up in August and there are still a small number of spots. Three nights, breathwork, yoga, training outdoors, a private chef and twenty other men doing similar work on themselves. If you've been sat on the fence about it, this episode is a decent argument for getting off it. Email support@gmanscoaching.com Find and connect with Keegan and the GMC Community:  Instagram GMC Instagram Email: keegan@gmanscoaching.com  Click here to subscribe to Keegan's weekly newsletter For more behind the scenes content about Keegan and GMC, watch him on YouTube

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5
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About

Authentic gay conversations on personal development, life coaching, and mental health. Join Keegan Hirst (founder of The Unapologetic Man and Gay Man's Coaching) a former professional rugby player, for weekly real talk about gay lifestyle, coming out, relationships, business, and authentic living. Deep, honest conversations that help gay men build confidence, find community, and create vibrant, unapologetic lives.

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