The Journey of Personal Growth

DLL: So there's a lot of debate at the moment with the what seems like accelerating spl splintering and radicalization of all these different areas of politics, faith, you name it. It seems like there used to be two groups, for example, now there's 25, and they're all getting more extremes in their beliefs. And then from the 25 they're like all splinter and then there's a hundred and fifty. And Each one of those splints is a more vocal and more extreme in what they believe, and everyone's getting pulled further apart from one another and everyone's wrapped up in emotion and no one's thinking critically it it seems like. And I'm not saying I'm the one that is thinking critically and everyone else isn't. But from what I see and what I hear when I talk to people is that Everyone's kind of confused about what brings purpose and what makes people happy and what's enough and what should they be striving for? And how do I just be happy and live like how my grandparents lived that were just seemed to be happy and they didn't have a whole lot. May maybe yours did. And I can't speak to a lot of situations or a lot of different people's scenarios, but I can only speak to mine. And as a thirty-five-year-old male with my background of the fitness industry and being a professional CrossFit athlete and chasing that for a long time and growing up in a small town, starting as a trade, a personal trainer, and the views that I used to have versus the views that I have now and The journey that I had to have to hold the views that I have now is really interesting because a lot of the views that I hold now, ten years ago, I would have laughed at myself now for holding the views that have now. In terms of what I What I look for and what I'm striving for every day, what I want to generate wealth for, what brings me purpose, and what is my duty? What was I put here for? Right? Like, why am I here? Why do I have my skill set? Why? Like that's a question that a lot of people ask. Why? and You know, I used to, probably as a lot of young people do, I just wanted to go and explore and find what was best for me. The best place to live, with the nicest weather, with the people I like to be around, the job that I wanted to have, the money that I wanted to have, to let me live the lifestyle I wanted to have and just train and try and make the CrossFit games without really having to work too hard and I mean You know, that's that's what most people want, right? but a lot of the things that I had to learn, I had to learn for myself and say in what I'm saying that is I never had Someone who was setting the path for me of like, okay, this is what it means to be a husband, a father, a man in your twenties and your thirties as a teenager. This is how you develop discipline. This is how you work on your routines. This is how you achieve excellence. This is how hard it's gonna be. This is how much I'm gonna push you. out of your comfort zone because I love you and I want to see you become that person you want to be and the person that you need to be. I had various role models that I sought out, but pretty much from the time I was 19, I left home. I wanted more, like most people do. I wanted everything that I wanted. And I didn't have anyone to guide me through that process. So I made a lot of mistakes on the way. I could have gotten to where I am now a lot quicker, but it's the old head on young shoulders scenario, right? Power of hindsight. If I didn't go through everything the way I went through it, I wouldn't be who I am now. So you can sit there and say, if I did went back and do it again, I'd do it this way and that way. But if you went back and did it again and you did it that way and that way, would you still be the person you are today? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, I'm grateful for my journey and where I am because where I sit now and I like my perspective and I am confident in the way that I view things. And I think that For men. Men need a role model. They need a father figure. Who In the moment, can be the person who you hate most, who in the moment where you are as a young kid, teenager, young man, are in an experience that you haven't had before, and your emotions are running at ten out of ten, and you're scared. And you don't know what the next step is, and all you want to do is quit. You need somebody with a calming, authoritative position to hold you there and say, there's not turning back. You need to push through and come out the other side. And There's a lot of different writings about this, quotes about this. Like, if you're going through hell, keep going. People quit too easy. there's too many opportunities to quit and restart. And that's not always a bad thing. But in terms of building character, something that I really feel that's missing for men is that person. Or that group, that community, to Sit with you to hold the safe space for you, work out your plan, and then hold you accountable. And when inevitably that moment comes up where you are in a situation that you didn't account for, but the mentor knew that the young you didn't expect, when that comes up. And all you want to do is tuck tail and run. You need that person to hold the space and say, I know you're in it. But you don't get to quit. And when you push through and come out the other side, we're gonna have a conversation with your newfound perspective about why it was so important that you continued. And that growth is gonna be embedded so deeply into that person, that younger you, that you would have if you could go back and not go through that. half time, you would go through it again because You're now this new thing that could walk through that situation again. You have this understanding, this newfound calmness, confidence, however you want to say it. So the next time that a situation like that arises, you can now be that person in the room in that situation who now holds that. Safe sp that safe space for the person who's freaking out. And this evolution, it's like doing an apprenticeship, right? You start an apprenticeship in something, and you go in with pretty much no knowledge of the craft that you are trying to become skilled in. And you you show up. It's less about writing stuff down and more about showing up and doing it and making mistakes and having somewhere to someone there to guide you. It's very similar relationship that somebody has with a good coach in in sport, where you have a plan, you get into a situation where you Did or did not expect to be, you're in more pain than you were expecting. Feels like you're not as fit as you were, your game plan's falling apart. You don't think you can stay on the plan that you just set. For example, like for me when I was competing and you'd have your workouts, right? Say, for example, the open workouts would come up. You had time to strategize. Sometimes you even had time to look at other athletes' videos. Set a plan, you try to follow it. You get into the workout and you realize, fuck, I can't stay on it. I can't stay on the pace. I can't keep breaking up the reps like I planned to hit these targets. And the difference a lot of the time between a great athlete and a good athlete is the ability to shut that down and stick to the plan when you don't want to. And when the plan needs to change in the moment, being able to do that without falling apart. But that comes from going through it. And that's like I said, a good coach. Knows that, holds that space, and if they're there in person with you, guides that athlete through the process, like a class workout, a competition, whatever it may be, they guide you through. And often you come out the other side of that, and you're very thankful for that person for holding you in a space where you didn't want to be, because you come out with and you're a different person, and it's A lading, you get a dopamine hit from doing it. Where only 30 seconds ago, all you were thinking in your head, and sometimes verbally it comes out, is I fucking shut up, coach. Like you don't fucking you don't know. Stop pushing me. All this stuff goes through your head, right? After when this when they hold you to it. Thank you. Like, I'm sorry. I was emotional. You're the best. It's a complete 180. And at least for men, like this is an evolution of going from a child to becoming a man and the leader of a family. And I say leader of family because that is the first and most important thing that any man does, right? Is go through this process of. Child, teenager, adolescent, young man, husband, father, leader of the family, leader of the community, leader of the business, whatever it is they're they're doing. The man should aspire to be the leader. And some people might get triggered by that. But In saying to be the leader doesn't mean to be the boss so much. It means being the person who can hold the space when everything's falling apart, who can hold accountability on somebody when they know that that person needs to go through it, who can change. The plan when it needs to be changed without everything falling apart. And that is, I mean, if you're religious, that is essentially what the Bible asks of man is to for the wife to follow the man in the relationship and for the man to lead the family and the wife and to love. The wife and the family, as Jesus loved the church, which means that they are more important than you. It is your duty to shelter, to love, to guide, and to lead in front of your own personal interests. And That is what every man I feel should aspire to become. So if you are taking that view of how to raise somebody to be a leader. You know that person needs to go through how many different tough situations. Like if you were to sit down and write on paper, I want to create, let's use a hypothetical, the leader of the president of the United States. I've got a five-year-old kid. I want them to be president of the United States. How much pressure and how many skills would you put that person through? So you could confidently say when they are put in the position of president, this person can walk into this scenario, this scenario, this scenario, this scenario, and Calmly not be drawn into the moment. They can hold the safe space, they can hold people accountable, they can see the bigger picture, they can change the plan when necessary, but not emotionally react and change the plan. They can hold space for themselves to say, I need X amount of time before I respond or deliver an answer. Or an outcome because I need to not be drawn into this emotional event, and I need to validate all the different reasons, and I'll get back to you with a response. This is something that I I feel like is drastically missing for the development of young men. And you can Do it by yourself. But there's a better way. And I don't necessarily know what the better way is. But The one thing that I think Churches have Let me I say. One thing I think Christianity has is that there are a lot of these Tests, outcomes, teachings written over and over and over again about the battle of men rising above a higher purpose and seeking first for themselves, and how quickly that falls apart. They take examples of very powerful people, the smartest people in the world at the time, the strongest people in the world at the time, and their ascension to these positions of power, and then how quickly it falls apart when they stop serving a greater purpose and stop acting like a leader and start serving their own ego. And there's a There's a quote when it comes To this leadership that I like, and it's First Corinthians 16:13, and it says, Be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, and do everything in love. Now If you are reading that as a man, given everything that we've just spoken about. Firstly, to break it down to do everything in love. Well, when we talk about love, love is to place importance above yourself of other things. The Bible calls in marriage of a man to love the wife like Jesus loved the church. So if we use the same connection of doing everything in love, like you love your wife, it is to put other people and their safety and providing for other people before you are putting your own personal desires first. Now, this doesn't mean that you should kowtow and not invest in yourself and be a yes man. It's the opposite. Because to provide, to lead, to shelter and protect, you need to work extremely hard on yourself in all aspects of your life. You need to be physically fit, mentally capable, you need to be continuously growing as a person. There are I mean, you need to have income, you need to have emotional control, you need to show up for the family, you need to be across a lot of different things and continuously striving to be better at all of them in order to love that way. So this quote is asking you to do everything that way. Okay. So You need to be courageous, you need to be strong. You need to be on guard and you need to stand firm in the faith. Again. This quote is asking you telling you to Be wary. Be constantly looking and evaluating what is happening around you. And be prepared for it. Be on guard. There are going to be Multiple things that try and derail you and your family from where you want to be, whether it's maliciousness from somebody or just shit happening, illness, accidents, whatever it is, you need to be aware of it, you need to stand firm in the face of it. Okay. So again, when that situation arises, whether it's planned for or not planned for, it's gonna come. You can't be the leader and proclaim all of these things. And in the terms of a business or marriage. Tell your employees, or tell, let's even say, as a personal trainer, as a coach, or tell your wife that I'm a leader, you need to follow me. I promise you all these things. I vow to you all these things. And then this situation happens and you shit the bed and you panic. And it all falls apart and you start putting pressure on. and blame on other people. That's not a leader. So Standing firm in the faith. You need to have a higher guiding principle. That day is going to come, that situation is going to come, these everyday events are going to come. You're going to be tested daily, weekly, however regularly you want to have a newborn child hourly, you'll be tested. And this doesn't have to mean a biblical test placed upon you that you're waiting for a light to come out of the sky and be tested. You didn't get enough sleep because you were woken up six times last night. Now you gotta go to work. You've got to be working on your relationship. You've got to be nice to people, you've got to go to the gym, you gotta do normal life. That's a test. You're being tested, your energy is being tested, your patience is being tested, yeah, etc etc. Gotta stick to your diet, your will's being tested, gotta go to the gym, your motivation's being tested. You test it all the time. Standing strong in the faith is what are these whys that are bigger than me? What are this the bigger purpose that I'm serving here? So no matter what comes up, I'm holding myself accountable, not to my emotional state and my current. place of being but to this and that's how I'm gonna act and that doesn't mean I need to I only slept three hours last night I still need to do everything perfectly go to the gym hit a P V blah blah blah blah it just means that I'm not getting derailed and I'm not all of a sudden gonna turn into a different person and start throwing accusations, become emotional and just change. I'm going to say okay This is where I'm at. I didn't get enough sleep last night last night. My wife needs more help. The the business has got three people sick. I need to cover. I'm gonna skip the gym today. I'm gonna do this, X, Y, and Z. I develop a plan to serve the bigger purpose other than myself. And I'm gonna make sure that I'm back early rather than going to the gym or golfing with the boys to help my wife out with the kids. Whatever that looks like, it is that takes being courageous to do that. So you are standing in a position that is serving the bigger purpose. And When we talk about courageousness, it's it doesn't have to be the person who goes out and fights the enemy, kills the best battle person on the battlefield, the bravest soldier at war. It's courageous to Be the person who holds the space for everybody else when all you want to do is have a sleep, tell that person to fuck off and fire that person and blame that person because this went wrong and go to the gym or go to the beer pub and have a beer with the boys. It's courageous to say I'm getting pulled. in all of these different directions in my head. And all of these Pulled all these directions aren't being pulled, they go in the opposite direction of the bigger picture here. I choose to say no. I choose to stand in faith, in service of the bigger picture, act out of love and be courageous in doing so. And that's a long winded way to break down this one passage. But I think for me that's how I view it and I think it's very important to have whether it's this passage or Christianity or a different religion or however it is that you develop these bigger reasons that you can fall back on. That takes the pressure off when the shit's not going right. It is, this is the baseline, and if nothing I do ever is anything more than this, this is good. Everything on top of this is extra. So, as a man, if I get to my deathbed and I look back. And I know that for my whole family first, I held that space. No matter what came up, I provided, I sheltered, I did everything from a place of love. That way outweighs having a VO2 max of fifty-seven for twenty years, or being ten percent body fat, or making ten billion dollars and having a yacht. That's more important. So if I achieve that and I can do that, that will bring me Peace. That will bring me contentness, happiness. Everything above that, great. I go to the gym, I work on myself, I set the standards for how I want to look, how I want to feel. That's great. How much money I want to make, that's great. And they should all serve the bigger purpose. And that's how I've got my life set up at 35. Is that Here's what I want to achieve. So I've talked about the brands in my previous videos and what I want to do there. I also am still very connected to the fitness world. I don't own gyms or anything anymore, or supplement company, or anything. I don't compete. But I want to build a lot of wealth. But firstly, not so I can buy this and that. I want to build a lot of wealth so that I can create opportunities. Firstly. Opportunities to Pay my mum and dad a wage for the rest of their lives so they don't have to take the pension. Like, I want to be able to put them on 200 grand a year, 100 grand a year. So they can retire and still live a good life. Buy a new house, whatever they need want to do. I want to create enough wealth that I can put. Five million dollars into a family trust that pays off everybody's home loans, and that my family can only work if they want to work or go after the careers that they're passionate about, not have to be working night shift when they've got kids just to pay the bills and be stressed about what they can and can't do. Can we do this? Can we can't do that? I want to build wealth. To insulate my family from the same thing. to give time back to our family so we can raise kids the way that I want to raise them. I want to build a business that my I can bring my children into and teach them about business. I want to have enough wealth that I can buy a large parcel of property and give ten acres to every one of my family members, they can all live on the same piece of property. I want to create enough wealth that I can open a gym in every major city and it'd be free. Be a world-class gym that has classes and all the best equipment, but it's no membership. But because I've generated wealth somewhere else, it doesn't need to make money. I want I there's a lot of things that I want to do, which is why I want to make a lot of money. I care about creating those opportunities and providing opportunities to other people. And I try and do it from a place of love. And I try and be courageous in staying true to my vision, even if no one else understands that vision. And if all of that falls away, And I can just be on my deathbed, that person who did everything the best I could for my family and guided them and guided my children, protected my wife and my kids from whatever was going on in our lives. created that space for the emotion and provided a solution. then it's okay. Everything else is just on top. And I'll keep working towards that. But People really need to dig deeper into what their standards are and why they are going about doing what they are doing and what is going to make the biggest difference to everybody around them when they're gone and while they're here every day. It's not about you as a man. It's about showing up and being that person That you may or may not have had when you were younger. You are now that person. So you need to act accordingly.