‘THE LOWDOWN’
Oli Pluck is a visionary entrepreneur and trailblazer in the fields of mindfulness, mental health, and holistic well-being. His pioneering work in addiction recovery, emotional healing, and personal transformation is redefining the path to wellness. Through The Renaissance Sanctuary, a one-of-a-kind one-on-one retreat, Oli delivers a deeply personalized, client-centered experience rooted in three core pillars of support and his proprietary ‘Mind Identification’ method, empowering individuals to heal, awaken, and transform from the inside out.
OLI IN HIS OWN WORDS
After 20 years in the high-octane world of hospitality, consulting, creating, and operating at the top of my game, I reached what most would call the pinnacle of success. I had built, launched, and owned one of the top 10 cocktail bars in the UK, single-handedly, and worked behind the scenes at some of the most prestigious events on the planet, helping shape experiences for royalty, celebrities, and high-flyers alike.
And yet, standing on the summit of it all... I felt absolutely nothing.
The applause was silent. Jealousy from peers was high. And the recognition I had longed for and desired was as lost as I was. The empire I was building on the outside was rapidly destroying me on the inside. What most people didn’t see was the slow burn happening behind the scenes: the mental health struggles, the pressure to perform, the inner voice that never shuts off. I saw it everywhere in the industry, there were the masks, the burnout, the quiet coping mechanisms we all silently agreed not to talk about.
Thanks to the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Heston Blumenthal, the door was opened to speak about mental health with vulnerability and without shame. Much like them, I did what most of us do. I pushed through, performed, and perfected.
But eventually, I stopped running from the question and turned toward it:
Why?
Why did I say that?
Why did I think that?
Why did I DO that?
While living in Australia, I was lucky enough to work with a mental health psychologist who helped me unravel some of the noise. But that meant facing some unsettling memories, trials, and tribulations. It wasn’t therapy that changed me. It was self-awareness. It was the realization that I wasn’t broken. I was being challenged by my mind every minute of every day, with little to no awareness, constantly, without fail.
Every tiny fear or negative experience I had encountered since childhood had been shaping my future and influencing my direction subconsciously. Every single trauma, emotion, and unresolved feeling had been stored in me. No one had ever taught me how to process, address, or deal with them. They never left me. Their toxic energy built up inside me, and I had no idea.
Below: Oli climbing over the Chola pass in Nepal on the way to Everest base camp, during the filming of the documentary Metanoia. Five days after this shot was taken, he was airlifted off the mountain due to health complications.
That moment lit the fuse…
I returned to studying modern applied psychology and coaching, not to chase letters after my name, but to understand what makes us tick before things fall apart. What I realized is that most of us are trying to change the wrong thing. We obsess over the behavior, the addiction, the habit... instead of looking at who we became and why we became that person.
Let’s not forget that every action has a reaction. Now, couple that with the concept of the Butterfly Effect. Then magnify and multiply that across hundreds of thousands, even millions, of moments.
So when I returned to the UK, I found a beautiful converted barn in the countryside and did something unexpected: I invited people to come live with me for a few days at a time.
No therapy rooms.
No clinical checklists.
Just honest, human conversation and deep exploration.
I wasn’t interested in fixing symptoms. I wanted to get to the root cause and the driver. Here’s what I’ve come to believe:
We’re not just one person….
WE ARE TWO!
The Mind and The Brain.
Two operating systems within one person.
The Brain is the version of us we were born with. It is instinctive, joyful, and intuitive. It keeps us alive and our motor skills constant, all while allowing us to appreciate ourselves, others, and most importantly, the ability to process love. The brain and the heart are a beautiful duo that work together in perfect harmony to fulfil this.
The Mind is different. We are not born with a mind. It kicks in post-infancy to keep us safe. It is built and conditioned over time, running on fear, shame, perfectionism, unprocessed emotions, trauma, and negative experiences.
The Mind isn’t bad, it’s just highly protective and highly progressive. It is a process that slowly erodes the concept of ‘self,’ undermining agency, self-efficacy, and autonomy.
But here’s the truth: It’s not you!
The moment you begin to separate The Mind and The Brain, everything finally starts to make more sense. It is like receiving a cheat sheet for a Rubik's Cube, or a limitless pill to shift the perception and lens of life, adopting the viewpoint of the observer instead of the participant. This is a change that happens almost immediately, both profoundly and spiritually.
The work I do now is intimate, immersive, and personal. It’s not therapy and it’s not coaching as you know it. It’s a conversation with the part of you that got left behind. The part of you that’s still waiting to be seen, heard, and reclaimed. My twenty-plus years in hospitality mean I am able to work with people in a carefully curated space that feels like you are staying at an old friend’s house.
And here’s something I’ll be honest about:
You can’t do this alone. I mean, you can try. You can sit with a journal and a cup of tea and ask, “Who is my mind?”
But here’s the twist:
Who’s going to answer that question?
Is it you?
Or is it... Your mind?
That’s where the work begins. That’s where The MET Group/ The Renaissance Sanctuary steps in. Whether through The Renaissance Sanctuary, Head Game Elite, or our Corporate Creativity & Wellbeing programmes. My role is to be with you, truly present, for hours and days. Listening to the spaces between your words and learning your story, asking the right questions at the right time. Gently uncovering who is answering... and why?
This isn’t about workbooks or textbooks. We build your instruction manual from scratch. By the time we’re done, you’ll know how your mind is wired. You’ll see its personality, its preferences, its fears. And you’ll no longer mistake it for your truth. From that place, we help your heart and brain reconnect—so the version of you that shines through is not the one shaped by fear, but the one aligned with everything you love. That’s when real clarity begins. That’s when your story starts to make sense. Finally understanding who you are...And why are you here?
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