"You just told me in 30 minutes what a counsellor couldn't work out in nine months."
GavBusiness owner, dad of 3
About Jonnie Jensen
I am a family man with a business, not the other way around
Founder and head coach, the High Value Man Project
Falling in love, getting married, starting the business, having children. Those were my primary life goals. I wanted it all, and I thought I had created it.
Coaching men since 2018
195+ podcast episodes
Based in Kent
Then it started to slip through my fingers
And I did not know what to do.
I made poor choices. I could not get my wife on board. I felt alone. I panicked. And I had no idea my physical, mental and emotional health was being hit, because I thought I could just work hard, be available, and get us through it.
The day you find yourself typing "am I burnt out" into Google, the answer is already yes.
Then, as most men eventually find out, it is the unexpected thing that takes you out. For some it is health. For others it is money. Sometimes the wife drops the divorce bombshell.
In my case it was my little brother's death by suicide.
The thing nobody tells you
Putting everyone else first is upside down thinking
We do it to provide, and to feel like the man we are supposed to be. The children, the wife, the business. Look after all of that, and surely we will be alright.
It is an incredible gamble. You are betting that you will hold, right up until the moment you do not, and by then everything was depending on you holding.
What we see in the world today is that gamble not paying off for a great many men. It did not pay off for me.
That is why the High Value Man Project exists.
I had already watched it happen once
I saw my dad struggle after my mum died. A widowed business owning dad, 42 with two sons, a daughter from his first marriage and 40+ staff all relying on him. I watched him remarry twice and get divorced twice. And then I found myself in an almost identical experience thirty years later.
Why listen to me
I had read all the books. It still fell apart.
My passion for personal development started in 1998 with Susan Jeffers and Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. It opened my mind in ways I did not expect. I went from feeling that life was happening to me, to understanding that I had control over my own thoughts and my own experience.
From there it was Tony Robbins, and then working backwards. Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Wayne Dyer, Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale. The Bible, the Stoics, ikigai. Landmark Education in 2006, and the firewalking community after it. Two hundred books, and enough events and weekends to start seeing the same few truths underneath all of it.
And I thought knowing it was enough.
What I got wrong
To know and not to do is not really to know
By 2014 I had it on paper. The marriage, two children, a growing company, a team of six. A career in marketing behind me, agencies in London and Amsterdam, then digital for international businesses.
When it unravelled I lost clarity on who I was and what I wanted. I compromised far too many times. My wife was ill and I was frightened of losing her the way I had lost my mum.
It was not that I did not talk to people. I just never really let them in.
The gap nobody warns you about
Knowing is not doing. I had all the information and it did not save me, because I was trying to do it on my own, and I would not say out loud what was actually going on.
The way back
Nobody hands a man a system for this
Then the divorce, my mental health, and four years of family court to get to fifty-fifty with my children. I did the repair the long way. Counselling, medication for a year, fitness, and a few good friends who did not go anywhere.
Putting myself back together showed me exactly what had been missing, and it was never information. It was order, and it was other people.
That rebuild became the High Value Man System for Living, the burnout ladder, the 3XC Formula and the FIRE CODE. Not theories I liked the sound of. The order I actually went in, written down so the next man does not take four years over it.
"You can't lead your family, business, or life until you lead yourself."
Where this came from
A blizzard, a rope, and a notebook
September 2016. I was on Austria's highest peak with my best friend, tied together by ten metres of rope, crossing a crevasse when a blizzard came in.
I should have been concentrating. Instead all I could think about was how far I had come, how long it had taken, and how many other men were somewhere back down the mountain where I had been.
By the time the hostel appeared I only wanted one thing, which was a pen and some paper. Men need a programme and the support to get through this. I had come a long way, but it was hard and it took too long.
It took until 2019 to actually start, because I could not break free of the work I was already doing and I was afraid it would not work. The same thing that stops every man making the jump.
Nineteen years of the same idea
I first sketched out The Lodge, a place for men to reconnect with what they actually want, in 2007. This is not a pivot into the men's market. It is the thing I have been pointing at for nearly two decades, and it finally has a system behind it.
Where I am now
I would not ask a man to do anything I have not done
At 52 I am fitter, calmer and more present than I was at 35.
- My kids are thriving, and I get on with their mum
- My relationship is full of passion and laughter
- I compete in Hyrox, and I am a certified firewalking instructor
- I have coached men one to one since 2018, and led groups, workshops and events on burnout, identity, relationships and rebuilding after divorce
- I host The Jonnie Jensen Show, 195 episodes and counting, and I have been a guest on sixteen other shows
- I hold a UK mental health first response qualification
I live in Maidstone, Kent, I consider Chicago my second home, and I am dad to Jago and Rose. The business is Hero Education Limited, trading as the High Value Man Project.
The men
What happens when a man does the work
"I have proved to myself I can do what I say I am going to do. This is not a phase anymore, it is how I live now."
Pete BElite 1:1
"Life is good. I do less but have more. Business, exercise, time with the children, social life. 2026 has been the best year of my life."
Jimi ClarkeElite 1:1
What I do now
I help business owning dads create as much success at home as they have at work
Too many men put themselves through this, and it is not necessary. Our wives and children, and frankly the future of our world, need men to thrive. Need men to be the man and dad they want to be.
Not because men are better or need to be in control, but because a man who is leading his own life creates the space for everyone around him to be the best version of themselves.
One system, three ways in. Have a look at how it works, or pick up the phone and we will talk about where you are.