Why Not? & What If?

S2E5 – Paul Cashmore from Channel 4’s Hunted: Fame, Ego and the Man Behind the Hunter (Part 1)

• Siobhan & Andy • Season 2 • Episode 5

Share episode

Send us a text

We got caught – properly.

In this episode of Why Not? & What If?, Siobhán Godden and Andy Cracknell sit down with someone most of us know as “that bloke off the telly” – Paul Cashmore, one of the original Hunters from Channel 4’s hit series Hunted and Celebrity Hunted.

But this isn’t just fan chat. It’s the story of what happens behind the persona – and what being in the public eye really does to how we see ourselves and each other.

From a 15-year-old kid who just wanted to be on TV, to a police officer writing scripts in his spare time, to finally landing his dream on Channel 4 at 40, Paul shares the near-misses, rejections and sheer refusal to give up that got him there.

Along the way, we dig into:

  • What fame, ego and social media really do to your sense of self
  • How the “Hunter” persona was created – and the human being underneath it
  • When self-care and fitness tip into obsession and harm
  • Why teenagers now feel celebrity-level pressure without celebrity-level support
  • The power of authenticity – and why it might be the highest “vibration” of all
  • Paul’s simple first step if you’re on the edge of stress or anxiety: reach out

We also meet the calmer side of the man behind the Hunter: the grounded, quietly powerful energy that makes Paul such an effective coach – and, as Andy dubs him, the “NLP Ninja”.

👀 This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation with Paul. In Part 2, we go deeper into his work in mental and physical health, NLP and performance coaching – and the tools he uses to help people reset, rebuild and move forward.

🔗 Connect with Paul
Web: www.paulcashmore.co.uk
Email: paul@paulcashmore.co.uk

💬 Got a story or a view on fame, ego or mental health? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
– we might do a follow-up episode with your take.

If you’re a Hunted fan, a coach, or someone who’s ever wondered what chasing external validation is doing to your head and heart – this one’s for you.


Got a story or a view? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
— we might do a follow-up episode with your takes.

Siobhan:

Welcome to Why Not and What If. And I'm Siobhan Godden, a HR consultant, coach, and the one who listens through the noise to what really matters. Think of me as the calm to Andy's creative storm. Hi. This is Andy Cracknell, a creative whirlwind, disruptor of dull thinking and allergic to doing things the usual way.

Andy:

Thanks, Siobhan. I'm also a marketing and communications consultant.

Siobhan:

And this is the podcast where we explore the messy, magical intersection of life, work, leadership, and all the bits we're not supposed to talk about. Let's get into it.

Andy:

Morning, Siobhan. Good morning. Another episode. We get we're cracking through these at quite a rate of knots.

Speaker 1:

We are.

Speaker 5:

So most of you will know him as one of the hunters on Channel 4's Hunted. Paul, what's it you did series one, two, three?

Speaker 2:

All of them.

Speaker 5:

You've done all of them. Every single one. He is Paul Cashmall, and we've asked him on today because well, for a number of reasons really, but one is that he's now in the health and well-being space, and his journey to that career is fascinating to listen to and to kind of get into. But the other reason, which was more for me, is that one of the things that I've learned over the last 10 years is how our perceptions of people in the media are based on ego and actually insecurity in our needs. So the primary or the first point we're going to kick off with, Paul, I'm going to get you to introduce yourself in a minute, but actually is to say to people that know Paul from the TV series, is just to bear in mind that Paul is a lot more than a hunter on the television. So, Paul, thanks for joining us. It's good to have you on. Thanks for having me. What I'll tell you what, let's kick off with this one. So that so for anyone who does know you from Hunted, how do you introduce yourself these days?

Speaker 3:

Paul Cashmore off the telly. Nice to meet you. I've been, do you know what? I've been called recently. I got called a therapist. I thought that's pretty cool. But to fit, I don't know, I was like, okay, I can I like that. Put it down as a performance coach. I will I basically introduce myself. So like I'm an NLP coach, but I've developed my own coaching technique and I've combined my meditation base and my my background in PT with NLP. So if they ask me, I just say performance coach because a lot of people, there's a can be a stigma around therapy, but most people will come to me under that umbrella. So I just say performance coach, because that's really kind of how it goes in and an NLP practitioner.

Siobhan:

But I'm gonna roll with therapists if that's what people I think for me what I like about coach is it's quite forward thinking, isn't it? It's about moving on and how you want to be. Whereas therapy can sometimes be a bit retrospective and it's good work to do on yourself, but depending on where you are in your journey, I think coaching and the coach kind of way is very formative for about how you want to be, which is quite positive.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so that there's obviously different there's different needs for people, there's different sources of help. For example, counselling cannot give you, offer you a solution that is for you to have a safe space to be able to talk to somebody, which is great. There is NLP, which is not technically identified by the NHS, although there has been some training with NHS nurses. There is CBT, very similar, and obviously other forms of therapy, but then there's there's coaching. But I think for someone to say there's still a little bit of kind of reservation if someone says, I'm going for therapy. So I've kind of stepped away from that. Because people like you, there's coaches out there, like you know, I mean Tony Robbins is like the pinnacle, isn't he? But he's not a therapist, but he can hone in and he trained in NLP sort of, I think it was back in the early 80s, and I've read I'm like a total just bookworm who will go in and read, and that really was the one that benefited me. So I'm I'm like a human guinea pig for all this stuff, whether it's meditation, whether it's gut health, whether it's trialing something else, whether it's looking into CBT NLP. I've looked at all of them and I just found that work suits me and my style, what worked for the people. Yet I do think in this space it's about your compatibility with the person you're you're with. So I could go and and and try CBT with, say, 10 different people, but I may gel and feel safe and have more rapport with one of them. And that's really where you're gonna click and it's gonna work and get the benefit from it. Yeah, I'd say I was I'd say, well, I'm actually technically on my certification a master NLP practitioner.

Speaker 2:

Woohoo! I know, right?

Speaker 3:

Love that.

Siobhan:

Looking at your background and some of your and we we talked a bit offline about some of the, you know, talking about warriors and things like that. You need to have bring something like that into it. You need to be like a, I don't know, a ninja coach or something. I don't know.

Speaker 3:

Do you know? I'd love that. I'd love to do that. Probably what I had to go, is he is he wearing black all the time?

Speaker 5:

There's a guy, there's a guy on LinkedIn, and I'm just looking him up at the moment. He works in the print space. Oh, that's it, and he calls himself Print Lord. So we should call you NLP Ninja. That's it. NLP Ninja? I love that NLP Ninja. Yeah, go on. You heard it here first. If we rewind time a bit, what did you think your life was going to end up being? So go back to the early days of Paul joining the police service. And where did you think you were going to end up?

Speaker 3:

So I'm gonna I don't did you know that I, when I was employed in that career, that I was writing scripts and pitching film scripts and TV scripts. I didn't know that, no. Ah isn't it exclusive for you then? Here we go. Come on, then got a bit of a backstory. Yeah, go through it. So I believe, and I didn't clock onto it until I was given a book called The Secret and how all this kind of works, right? And quantum physics and all that. So I go off there. I am I fully appreciate the ADHD brain. My brain just goes, I'm either hyper focused and I'm gonna figure this out. So when I looked into when I read that book, I will I might bounce around as well, right? So when I when I had the gun incident, we'll cover that, I'll I'll mention that later, is I was given a book around the similar time called The Secret, and I read it and I was like, I need to know more. So it was like quantum physics, everything else, and I found out. So I was like, well, how is this how does this work? So I played games with it. But when I was 15 years old, I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be on TV. I just wanted to be an actor, didn't know how to do it. There's no mobile phones and everything else, and I tried and I learned and I went to acting classes when I was at school. I was like two different people at school. I was captain of the school rugby team doing all this kind of you know, adrenaline stuff, and yet I was in all the school plays and it didn't match, and people were like, Oh, you can't do this or this. And I'm like, but I want to do that. So it's two different people, and I'm like, I'm gonna do that. I didn't know how to do it. I ended up going to college, joined the Met to basically prove a point because I still like the adrenaline, but through circumstance, you can call it sliding doors, you can call it coincidence, you can call it meeting the people who will take you on your journey if you're not ready. And then I just met someone else, met someone who bought some cameras, met someone needed someone to play a policeman in a short film. I did that role. He then wrote another short film for me, when actually you're a good actor, as oh thank you. So wrote another one for a character called Roman, which is subsequently my youngest son's name. Did that. He then taught me how to film, how to edit, what colour grading was, framing, rule of thurs. I then downloaded final draft. I started writing scripts. I wrote a TV sitcom that I sent to the BBC, which they liked, which didn't quite fit at the time. I wrote a sitcom that I sent to Channel 4. I was shooting music videos, I just had this insane belief, and I set up a company, and it was just me in a shed in my garden. Getting told, no, not quite there yet. We like it, but not quite. I then wrote a feature film script, a comedy gangster one, and I'd wrote this character, and I pictured Vass Blackwood who plays Rory Breaker in Lockstock.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I wrote this character for him, and I thought, I'm gonna get hold of him. So I messaged him on Twitter, met him for lunch. Wow. He loved it. And we were pitching this script, and I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna be like directing a film. I've done this kind of stuff, but I just insane belief of going, I can pull it off, and if I can't do it, I don't know something, I'll just find the right people and bring them in and we'll make it happen. And we're doing this, and and we were almost getting it, and we almost got the backing to do it. This, the, the the backer had invested in another film which had Michael Madsen at the time. I can't remember what what the name of the film was, but they ran over budget and we couldn't do it. But I was like, I was like all this close, and then I ended up producing a uh a massive, we had a stage, a massive stage at LC Studios, and shot this game show. Well, celebs come in. Oh my gosh, the presenter. It will go come to me, and we shot this, and I remember my mate's office, it was my mate's my mate's company, and then and I was producing it, and I'm learning along the way, and I'm I'm doing courses on PACT, which is the Producers Association Cinema and Television, and I'm learning all this stuff, and we're like, how are we gonna get it pitched? And I went, I don't know. I'll hit channel five. So I've hit channel five up and email them, got email with the commissioning editors at channel five.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And it was almost, almost, almost, almost. I've had this almost, almost, almost, almost, almost. Just this insane belief and refusal to give up until the email came in, which I'll I'll I'll tell you how I got cast in in hunting. But from a 15-year-old kid, I was doing stuff all along the way, getting rejections, but I was learning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Learning all the way. I was meeting someone else, I was getting taught something else. It didn't happen. It took me till I was 40 years old to be cast onto channel 4, which is now on Prime. I think my face is on someone found it on Prime TV for the series. Series is me in the car. And I'm like, it doesn't seem it almost seems like it doesn't seem real because I'm like just I just I like my friends and my close friends and everything else, and I kind of retreat from it. But then you go, that guy that's face who's on Prime and has just been on channel four or you know, a week or so ago, that was a 15-year-old boy's dream there.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But a refusal to give up. And I want to say to any young person out there now, if you've got a dream and you want to have a go, is just give it a go. Just try. No is not the end, no is not definite. There's no such thing as no, and there's no such thing as failure. Failure is just the expectation not being met at this time. You can pivot, you can move, you can relearn, you can come back and try something else and meet the right people and surround yourself with those people who lift you up and are excited for you and just keep going and keep going and keep going.

Speaker 5:

How did you how do you feel now if you meet famous people? And how did you feel back then when you know you met that actor? Because that must have been quite an important moment for you because that was an opportunity.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, ballsy. I just think you know, sometimes it's like give it a go. I will answer your question, but I gave I I gave this to somebody else who the day was. What is the worst that can happen? Someone can say no. We we put we can put people on a pedestal sometimes, and sometimes people put them on a pedestal, but they're not seeing who they are, they're just seeing a persona and and you meet them and you think, actually, you know what? Some people are really lovely, some people not so much.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

But that's in every walk of life. If I was to probably have met Muhammad Ali, or if I was to meet Sylvester Stallone, because I I d I've told the Stallone kind of story of when I was a kid in numerous times, would I be starstruck? Probably, in a sense of I've he had a big impact bizarre as a kid on my life as a kid. And even reading his story of his life. But I've never actually been starstruck. I've got admiration for anyone who's pursued that dream and has been relentless in pursuit, whether that's a performer, an actor, a TV personality. But in my eyes, nobody's any different to someone who's, say, a single mum who's working four jobs and has to clean and work in a bar on a night. I've got massive admiration. I used to, when I was working late in London, I'd see people who were cleaning the streets and and and road sweeping. And I just look at them and going, You're out here cleaning this street for probably very little pay. And I would just look at them and think, and I've just got the absolute utmost respect for you to do that. They're they're the people that I admire, they're the ones that are the ones that are bounced back, the ones that get up at four in the morning and work a job and come home to look after their family.

Speaker 5:

They're the ones that I got, you know, what you're the these are the kind of real heroes, and you know, it's a powerful point that because I mean having you on the podcast, it's of course to talk about the health and well-being stuff, but I think there's another important thing here, and that is effectively, and forgive me for being so blunt, but people on the TV are human, they eat, sleep, and go to the toilet the same way everyone else does, and actually, quite often they have a huge backstory, which we're finding out with you, the conversations we're having. There's stuff that you're talking about that you've never shared on social media, and I and I get why completely. Maybe it's it's a sense of injustice, but it almost I look back at the early days of hunting. I'd put you and all the others on this pedestal, and then I'm taking the Mickey girl, oh look, Paul's pouting again, look at him standing by that bloody Volvo, and you know, all the other hunters jumping in and taking the piss and all the rest of it. What did that do to you, that experience?

Speaker 3:

We do get um, we had uh someone come out. China TV are very good at when anyone joins about the effects of social media. You know, we've all seen what happens when when the press, I don't get that much, it's quite nice. Did get a quite a bit when my relationship ended. That was I was always I was all over the red tops and kind of talked about in magazines and things. That was that's hard. Initially, to begin with, it's probably a bit of an ego boost, let's not lie, it's sugarcoat it, it's like it's great. And fairly lucky, really, kind of it been in around the life of playing rugby and and things, and you can have that kind of tongue-in-cheek banter, and it's all about that. I still get the pout now, and even I'm like I'm almost touching 51, and I'm still kind of like trying to hoike myself over a fence and do the pout, and everyone's like, show me how to do it. I'm like, guys, you're taking years to perfect this. I may um I may kind of you know perfect the blue skill one day. And it's kind of nice because you get a you get a you get a hit from it, you get a high from it, but it can become if you see social media, one of the things to say to look out for is the over I say publication, put it on social media, of the selfies, because you can see sometimes that that person isn't in a good place, but they're looking for validation from strangers or the people to say, Oh, you look great, you look amazing, you look beautiful, you look hot, or whatever people may comment on these things, but that's short-lived, and then that crashes, and then you might find that someone may suffer with body dysmorphia or eating, or there's an expectation now, and I used to be able to go to to to major extremes. I could kind of go, I need to get bigger now, and I need to like kind of lift more weights and eat more calories and more protein, etc. And then I can go to a total extreme where I'd be kind of boxing training, and I've seen pictures where I'd hit like 12 and a half stone, but I'm hyper fit, aerobically fit, but I've pushed myself to such extremes where I may be sick during training and then I'd carry on. That's not that's not healthy. That's that's that's not a good place to be in. And I'd look back and is it upsetting? I did see a picture actually today. I was like, oh my god, it's actually quite upsetting to look at. I was so gone. Yeah, I thought, well, I was hyper fit, but probably not healthy. Fit, not healthy though. But there's a balance, and I'm becoming obsessed with my food, and I did get obsessed a little bit because there's certain foods that may trigger my eczema, or for example, I eat cut out. But I it you can go to two extremes and and then we just kind of go, I've got to maintain this image, I've got to maintain what I've now built. And then they say everyone's got two personas, haven't they? They've got that public person, the one that's at home, and we can be very different. And I'm I can I can still be a joker and stuff, everything else, but I'm I still like my I like peace and quiet and that serenity and low circle.

Siobhan:

It's interesting you're saying that, because what I'm thinking about uh because you're absolutely right, and you see it with celebrities all the time where you can look at them and think you you don't look particularly well and it's the pressure of keeping that persona up. They've created a they've created something that they've now got to maintain, and the pressure of that must be quite intense. But you're seeing it now with kids, aren't you, that they're not celebrities, but because of social media, yes, it's the same sort of outcome, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of pressure on young people with social media, how they look. I do go in and give talks, I was running some coaching and mentoring programs with young people, I did some boxing as well with them, and both males and females experience the same level of it. And that's really quite sad.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And but it's very it's very difficult in this modern era of if you haven't got social media, you are you then ostracized. Yeah, you haven't got this certain things, are you are you are you a target for bullying? But equally so, there should be this drive to say you need to celebrate difference, you just celebrate individuality, celebrate who you are, be authentic. My son once said it to me, he said, Oh dad, you know, I want to do boxing or I want to do something else. I'm like, guys, you don't need to be me. You don't need to emulate me. You need to be you. I'll always be proud of you and love you, and if you're just happy is being you, be you and embrace who you are. And they they you know the diagram of vibration you can see, I can't remember the actual name of it. Down there, and the lowest form is kind of anger and hatred and jealousy. At the top is obviously love is say at the top, but they say the highest form is authenticity. So when you're authentic and you're a true authentic self, you've basically hit enlightenment, you've hit the the jackpot of life if you're authentic, basically. I mean, you found that balance. I did like it. I do did probably still have times when the ego kind of comes out. We've all got one. We've all got one.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

And we need a bit of ego to drive us, but ego can also prevent us from doing stuff because we don't want to see as a failure, or we don't want to see anything, so we might not do it. We might not try that business, we might not try that stuff. But equally when I was posting, that might be pictures, or there'd be a pout, or I'd get compliments on you know how I look or dress or something. And even if I get compliments now in person, I can get quite uncomfortable with it. And not maybe a little bit embarrassed, and I've learned someone said to me, you need to just kind of acknowledge it and say thank you, and I say, So do you, you look incredible. Or it's a re is to bounce that compliment back. But like everyone, you know, it's it's nice to get a compliment and I think to compliment others on achievements or how they look or how they are, but not to be so superficial. It goes with the territory, doesn't it?

Siobhan:

If if someone thinks you've got a a power owning. Own the power. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think I think you're right. I think it's I think the difference is you taking a compliment and looking after yourself is different to look striving for the compliment. That's the the compliment is not the outcome you're looking for. No. That's an almost like a nice byproduct, I suppose.

Speaker 5:

So was there a point where you reached that enough is enough and you almost did that review where you said, like, I need to change what I'm doing? Or did that happen naturally where you filtered naturally?

Speaker 3:

I had a bit of love-hate relationship with social media. It might be I'm sure it was 2022, 2023, I think a couple of years or so ago. I was this close of just closing everything. I actually binned off LinkedIn at one point. I I've just re-emerged on it not that long ago. Facebook, I've got it now, it's very small, don't really use it. Insta uh Twitter went and Instagram I can't remember if I actually did it, but then you've got 30 days to reactivate it. I was like, um you don't people don't need to know what I'm doing, I don't need to document my life. This is not a diary, this is not for me to keep telling you what I'm doing with my life, because then moments are then not special with if I'm going out for dinner, if I'm doing something. Why do I need to be at dinner taking pictures and uploading it to Instagram with somebody when I can be sharing that moment with this person at dinner? If I'm with having an enjoyable time with my children, I could potentially use my phone to take a picture as a memory, but do I need to share this with everybody on a social media platform? No. There are elements that you keep private. So I had a big call of images and stuff that was on my social media on Instagram, kept two, got a beautiful picture of there of me and my boys. I love. It's actually on one of my it's actually on my office. My office walls covered with I've got photographs. Obviously, I love photography and love imagery and capturing those moments, so I still still do that. I still have those photographs, I still take photographs, and they're mine, they are they they are mine or my family, and that stays private as a beautiful moment that I can keep, I don't need to share it. So then I analyse my insta my my social media and really it so I've gone from it being all ego and posting a picture, you know. I think the last one was me sitting in front of a heli. But it's gonna slowly transition from Instagram's really kind of probably hunted related. LinkedIn is probably more towards where I'm navigating my career. Yeah. It should be really what do I want social media for? I want it to boost my ego. So I don't I don't have comments on. I don't have comments on, likes, there's none of that kind of stuff there. I post it because it's it's a it's a searchable commodity for Google.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

We're all very personable and people may post stories and and like you reached out, you know, back then and and and engage with people because that's that's a a nice marketing tool, and it's not kind of well, you know, thank you for everyone to engage and and watch the series. It's great, it's it's been built up. I've been, you know, extremely lucky, blessed. I've done done it since 2015, I've done them all. And and still going, and the series is still going strong, and it's still Channel 4 was the the the it was the highest rated show for 16 to 24 year olds, apart from live stream. Yeah. And you know, and pulling in the ratings, and that's that's for a for a series that's running like that, and it's been running for 10 years, is phenomenal.

Speaker 5:

That's a big hit because a lot of reality shows die after three or four.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Now it would be remiss of me to close this one down without asking a couple of hunted questions, so forgive me.

Speaker 3:

Ah, go on, fire away.

Speaker 5:

Okay, so you got 24 hours as a fugitive, so this is you.

Speaker 3:

Me, as a fugitive.

Speaker 5:

Yep. Where do you go first and what's your one luxury item?

Speaker 3:

I joked about this, I talked about this. Go home. Really? Yeah, go home.

Siobhan:

Because people wouldn't look there?

Speaker 3:

They've done it, they they not necessarily, but I'd go home and I would have preempted and set traps.

Speaker 2:

Cool.

Speaker 3:

And then I'll watch it from a vantage point and I'll rig it with cameras. Nice. And what luxury item would you? Evil that, isn't it? I'd twist it out. Because then they'd they'd hate me. They'd be I'd be the number one target.

Speaker 5:

They know what's gonna happen next though, don't you?

Speaker 3:

Live stream it as well.

Speaker 5:

Someone's gonna do that.

Speaker 3:

Someone will do well, you and Thomas did, didn't they? You set traps up in the garage.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

He did it. So I'm kinda I'm almost kind of nicking his idea a little bit.

Speaker 5:

What's your uh luxury item you'd take?

Speaker 3:

Luxury item? A luxury item would be Do you know what? I went back and forth on this. Is uh some music I some music I can play on my headphones.

Speaker 2:

Ah, that's a good one.

Speaker 3:

I I'm a bit headphone obsessed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I like to be able to listen things, and I think if ever there was a time that I need to disassociate, because there's times when noise becomes too much for me, I need to think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I would have my luxury item would be headphones and an audio player of some description, obviously not a phone.

Speaker 5:

But what's the biggest myth about Hunted you'd like to clear up?

Speaker 3:

No, we're not scripted, it's not all those investigations you see are real. Yeah. All those investigations when I go in and interrogate someone is real. People forget to delete things, people will have something, and I'm going round and I can ask you a question that I know to be true, and I'm look so I like the human interaction with people. You see that when you're interviewing like relatives and stuff, yeah, so I'm I'm reading you all the time. I'm looking for micro expressions on you, and I'm going through your phone, and I can find something. It wasn't shown the Jackson Feely one, the dad. I found a drop pin in York. That simple. Right? So I ask him. Now I can see there's a slight change in there. I'm like, okay, I'm I'm holding on to that, but I don't let you know now about now you're mass this is massively on my radar. I played. Very, very calm and very then I find something else, and then it'll be a text message about they've been on a boat a year ago, and then I'll find something else, and then I'll see an almost it's called a duper smile or something else, or there will be an element of shift or panic. It can be very, very slight, but you might they start they the the the camera team will cross-shoot, so they'll get us, and they'll get the person being interrogated. So we get those reactions, and I'm and I'm gonna go, well, I've got you now. I've got you. I know this is gonna come up. I know now that York or Leeds or this is going to be a place of interest. So we can go down and we can rig cameras up and put a sentry cam on it, or we can monitor this, or we find out who owns it, and now you become a target, you become under our you you you're you're now on our radar. So this gets fed in to all the HQ and all the tech guys, they do all their bit. And I'll go through someone's phone, or we'll find somewhere, and I'm look we spend hours at people's houses interrogating them, hours, and I'm looking for anything. The bins get searched, receipts get searched, everything gets scrutinized when we're there, and you're looking for that one tiny little chink in someone's story, and I've got you. I've done it for you. I love it. I'm obsessed with body language, I'm obsessed with reading people, and I'm gonna find out. And if then for the camera I can make you feel uncomfortable, and I've got you, I'll then change it down, I'll then won't break eye contact with you, I'll try and make you feel as uncomfortable as possible for the cameras, obviously, because it'll make it feel good.

Speaker 5:

And you're throwing that out as well while you're doing it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it'd be nice and do that. And sometimes it's just we have that little bit of of look of when I caught the guy who had a puncture under his tyre on on the canal back in one of the other old series. There's a heli, and there's another hunter, and I and I'm watching them, and I'm on my own with the camera with with the cameraman because my my my my um co-pilot's in the heli, and I'm and I'm watching the movement, and I'm just thinking, well, I'm gonna go there, that's the canal. And I and I went there and I'm and I'm lazy with HQ, and I get out, and he feels he's got a puncher as I've gone into the canal and I've chased and caught him, and he's got a load, he's got a diary of everything that searched, searched. So all this stuff is real, a little bit of luck, a little bit of luck with the ex on on the last series at the port when when Marie turns up, she took a wrong turn. There was a little bit there's incredibly bad timing for her, great timing for us, we made it, and I'm and I'm literally I'm looking everywhere, same as in Frampo the the the farmer and the quad bike chase that's just been on. I can I just clock something out of the corner of my eye and it's carnage and it's off. And HQ are going, networks here, networks here, okay. Let's bottom out there. But what you don't see is we've just gone here, we've gone there, we've gone there, we've gone here. Like searching, we now we now hit this guy who's cropped up. His kit's here. We must then know he's loc is somewhere local because his kit's now in this car. HQ going, try this one, okay. Great, try this one. And as we turn up, he's now bolted it and luckily got on a quad bike, and I'm running after sprinting after him, and and he escaped on a quad bike, which is great TV, but you can't the editors can't show you every single piece of investigation you've got. It's hours and hours and hours of footage. Yeah, it's impossible, it's a monumental task for the producers and the editors to pull out to make sure it matches and the story unfolds in each episode. That's just they deserve, oh my gosh, I I I can't I have so much respect for the producers and the editors to be able to piece that together because we've given them you think five, was it five or six Hunter cars, pairs, ten fugitives, cameras and mics, and HQ. That's just imagine the hours and hours and hours of footage trying to piece that together. So it might look on camera people think, oh, that never happened and anything else. It did, but what you don't see is the hours and hours and hours beforehand. We have to give you and make it entertaining and exciting for you to enjoy the series, but you don't it's pointless putting three hours worth of on it. Show's only 50 minutes anyway.

Speaker 5:

Is it 28 days they're on the run, I think, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

It's reduced now. Was it was to begin with, yeah. It's 21 now.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

We shot that in May, June, and it's just finished now. So they they had a few months to to put that together.

Speaker 5:

So you've got a team of editors and the producers that are sitting there going through 10 times 21 days worth of footage. That that's a phenomenal task that is just, yeah, I mean it's mind-blowing. Yeah, just to close up from my if someone listening is right at the edge of stress or anxiety, what's the very first step you'd love them to take?

Speaker 3:

Is reach out. Reach out. Doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't have to be me, it doesn't have to be someone like just reach out. And if everyone has probably got that one person they can reach out, they can tell them good news, they can tell them bad news. And one of the the tactics to use someone struggling with anxiety or the feeling down is call that friend and ask them just to talk to you about anything. They talk to you. So it's not you talking to them and rehashing how you're feeling, if you're feeling anxious about something or feeling down, yes, it is good to get that off your chest. However, what we do is to need to scramble the thoughts in your head and and and engage in a conversation about anything. Anything. Chat about anything.

Speaker 5:

There's one contrary to that. If during the next filming process for Hunted, as a as a fugitive, you're feeling anxious, don't reach out to Paul.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Feel free to do that. By all means. Email me with your location, where you are, how you're feeling. I'm there for you.

Siobhan:

My reflection on on our discussions is I think, and I don't I'm interested to know actually if this is a learnt behaviour or if this is a natural you, Paul, but you're very calming. And I imagine as a coach, this is an amazing superpower. But also as a as a hunter, it's very disarming, I imagine, for people when you're interrogating them. So has is that something you've learned, or is that just your natural way?

Speaker 3:

Thank you for Shiban. That's Shiban. That's that's very kind. I I Peter say that. No, I think I've always had that quite a I am two different people, I'm very calm. Someone says like bat Dr. Banner and Hulk. Someone someone said that the other day. I was laughing, and you're like, you're Dr. Banner and Hulk is like Dr. Banner's he is very calm, he's doing this kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then the other side comes out, which is the one who's just playing rugby or going screaming at you and terrifying people. But I love the fact that people would think I've got a calm persona and and and they can feel that energy, and there is no no stress, and I like to make people feel calm around me. And I certainly I'm like that 99% of the time anyway, nothing really kind of phases me. If something happens, I'll fix it. If something goes wrong with a car and we're stuck, I'll fix it. If someone needs help, don't worry, we'll fix it. I say this phrase of going, if I don't know, I can't fix it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

If you tell me, we'll fix it. I even used to say to my boys, guys, it doesn't matter if you've made a mistake, you've done something wrong, what I will promise you is I will never get cross if you tell me and we can fix it. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone does something, don't hold on to it. People should listen to this should take that away as well, going, we all make mistakes. But if we own it and we acknowledge it, we can avoid anxiety, we can avoid avoid repercussions on these on anything. I do take that persona in there, I will be a little bit of a smiling assassin. I do go in and kind of match, I will do the sneaky little NLP things, I'll match your body language, so I need to disarm you, I need to disarm you to get you talking, and I'll compliment and I'll be like, if they've got a dog, great. There is a very, very famous celebrity who I interrogated on the news series who has a dog, and the dog came and sat with me and sat by my feet.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Totally in there. Someone's pet their dog, if their dog likes you, great. You've got it. So I do use that. I use either smiling assassin going in there, being nice, calm persona, keep that energy down. Once I've found it, then I'm basically gonna tell you that you're all all over my raid, and you're gonna be the reason that they get caught and make them feel terrible.

Speaker 5:

I have got one more question. I don't know whether it's been announced or if it's going to be announced, so I I know nothing and I'm not asking you to give anything away. But if there is another series of hunted and if you happen to be on that as a hunter, what's your message for the next lot of fugitives?

Speaker 3:

If they if I'm blessed to do it again, it's not gonna be easy for you if you think you've got the challenge, if you if you think you're up for it, if you think you've uh can outsmart us, you can try. But it's not gonna work.

Speaker 5:

Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

It's been a joy, guys. You've been lovely.

Speaker 5:

So, yeah, so from police through to hunted and on to NLP. What was it we came up with for him? The Ninja NLP Ninja, wasn't it? NLP Ninja, that's been Paul Cashmore. If you've got any questions or you want to get in touch, it's Paul at paulcashmore.co.uk. And uh yeah, we'll be back next week. Well that's it for this episode of Why Not and What If, where the conversations get messy, magical, and a little bit rebellious. If it made you think, laugh, or rage text your mates, job done. That's all we're here for. Got a topic you think we should dive into? Drop us a line at let's talk at why notwatif.com. Seriously, your ideas fuel this chaos. And don't forget to follow, subscribe, shout about in your WhatsApp group on LinkedIn, and come back next week for more brutally honest, occasionally unhinged and always human conversations. See you next time!

Head Shot

Andy Cracknell

Co-host
Head Shot

Siobhan Godden

Co-host