101. The Frequency Of Frequencies

Welcome to another episode of Build Up Building podcast. This is Al, your host, and in today's episode, the frequency of frequencies, not as a bit of a play on words, but ultimately looking at how often you do things and then asking the question, what am I doing and why, how does that move the needle forward in my life from point A to point B, and knowing that there is a sweet spot, I need you guys to understand, know this as we dive into this episode. There is always a sweet spot in a range from which you can move towards becoming a high performance father and have optimal performance in what you do. We evolve. We continue to evolve and grow. Like everything in life, you're either growing or dying. And that works at a fundamental level of our cellular makeup and biology. Doesn't matter if you're 75 with wrinkles, you're still in a state of either expanding to grow or contracting, retracting, restricting yourself to die. And whilst we will face the ebbs and cycles, the rhythms and flow of the universe that ultimately degenerates us in the physical body, this doesn't just hold true with our cellular makeup in regenerating so we can continue to move forward with the blueprint of life, but at a ultimately a mental level. And even if you want to go into that area with say, a spiritual level, what I'm talking about is you, Your consciousness, your belief system, how you feel about yourself, how you turn up, like your feelings, thoughts, emotions, all that sort of stuff. Yes, there'll be some sort of scientist that tries to carve out a logical path to show that this is the brain. And I read a book on neuroscience which is quite interesting because it had a great flow of all the science. But then at the end it said, well, what's in your heart and what's in your brain, your thoughts and feelings, your consciousness, that's the big mystery. But ultimately it isn't a mystery because your brain is literally creating this for you. And to that, my argument is, well, hang on a minute, maybe your consciousness is creating the brain that's creating it. You know what I mean? It's very interesting. I could see, and it was a wonderful book, was really good, but I could just see how there was just such an instant, quick dismissal of what is ultimately the greatest fucking mystery in life, of consciousness and where it comes from. It really is. And you know, this, this is the point of everything that we do. I'm here to influence you in a positive light because me, at a fundamental level is building fathers to have championship habits. Sort your shit out, get your shit together and get your habits in place. Because if you've got the right habits in place, you will buy back time. You'll have more time and freedom. You'll have a better connection with your wife, with your family, with yourself. How you turn up, you'll have more performance. You'll have a better level and energy system inside of you, as well as rewinding the body clock to have the body that ultimately is going to serve you. It's nothing to do with being on the stage. Mr. Olympia, you are using the physical body as a vessel to channel life through. How do we get that in peak performance for you? So I'm here to influence you on that, to change your belief systems, to get you out of your own way at times. But a lot of the time it comes down to a series of processes that we can really dial in. They're simple, but hard. The hardest things are the simple ones. We overcomplicate things and create a whole whirlwind inside of our life to justify the reasons why we can't, why we shouldn't, why we don't. The end. One of the RDM principles, the patterns of performance. Patterns of performance. So a pattern is a sequence, right? And sequential order is one thing, one after the other after the other. But there is a sequence to your life which is determining and dictating who you are and what you currently do and what you will do. Predictive as well, right? So when I'm looking at this, the pattern of performance, when we're talking about RDM to create autonomy in your. Your Life, which is 91% of your life, which we want to control and leverage to serve you to have a rich and fulfilling life is systems, behaviors, frequencies and habits. When we're looking at frequencies in today's episode, we're going to peel the layer back on this one and have a look at it in a little bit more depth. Because all of these influence each other. Even though system is the order in which you do things, there is no particular order in which one of those four I just mentioned to create better patterns in your life. System, behavior, frequency, habit. There is no particular order on which one will influence you the most. Because if you don't have the right behavior, the right mental attitude and you're turning up the right way, it doesn't matter what system you have in place or what amount of time or frequency or amount of reps you put into it, you're fucked. Won't work, mate. I won't have the outcome that you Desire, same thing. You could have an amazing behavior. So your mental approach, your turn up, you're optimistic, you're ready to go. You're planning the work, got your actions in place. Frequency. You're hitting reps. Hitting reps. Habit. It becomes a part of your belief system. It's autonomous for you, it's who you are. But if you're doing it in the wrong order, mate, there's chaos all over the place. You can go and train it at 7 o' clock at night while the family's having dinner and the wife needs your help to bath the kids, put them to bed and whatnot. Great. How's that turning out for you? I'm sure your body's going very well, but how's the rest of your life? Because you didn't do it in the right order. So sometimes it's the system, sometimes it's the behavior. In this episode, we're talking about frequency. When we look up the definition of frequency, it goes something like this. I mean, I've written it down, but obviously there's multiple sources to get the definition. The rate at which something occurs over a particular period of time. Very important, that last bit. Particular period of time. Because how can you measure the frequency of what you do? It must be over time. Can't not be over time. You know, that's one of the core elements that you create. You are the master of. Whether you think it right now or not. You are. You know, when I talk about having a thousand minutes a day, you have that thousand minutes because you're alive. There is no big grandfather time. There's no big man holding a clock going, hey, I'm giving you a thousand minutes today. No, no, you fucking get that? That's. That's a privilege. Of course we're alive, but that's yours. You're alive because of you. Because of your consciousness. The end. So when I'm looking at this, you know the rate at which something occurs over a particular period of time, there's another definition which says happening often. I don't agree with that. You know, you can have a very low frequency rate. You can train one time a week. You can train once a week and go to the gym once a week for 30 years. That'll do fuck all. Like, it may do something compared to if you did nothing. But it's all relative. And this is my point. When we're talking about frequency, it must be relative, man. You must always look and measure. And how do you measure? Well, you look at past, present and future. What are the elements or the metrics you use to measure that. Well, the energy, the output, the effort, so to speak, across time. Like the past, that's a measurement of time. The now, that's a measurement of time. Future, that's a measurement or a perspective or a viewpoint or a lens of time in that period of who you are, the version of who you are in that moment, if you want to use those words, time moments, when we're looking at this happening, often is not true. Like frequency is not. It's, you know, how often is it happening? Is probably a better way to put it right. You know, when we're looking at this, and we'll break down some examples, you may be doing something on a very low or small frequency and it's not moving you forward in your life. You stagnated. You've hit a roadblock. But on the flip side, like I said, there is a range or a sweet spot. You could be doing something too frequently and that's going to screw you up, man. You could train six, seven days a week, but if you don't have things lined up, if you don't have a background history of being an elite athlete, if the other areas of your life crack, creating chaos and stress, if that time for six to seven hours a week, three to four hours of that could be better nurtured towards your relationships with your wife, creating time blocks and planning your work so you've got your shit together in that respects of your business so you can follow through and have more time for your family or for yourself or you're not just pumping weights in the gym. You can have that three hours a week to create some space for yourself, be still, dive deeper into who you are, spend some time in nature and just slow down the world and be present, you're ultimately looking at the efficacy, like, how efficient am I? What am I following through with this time that I have to create the right frequency? Or am I training six days a week for a reason that someone else has put inside of my head that I need to do because I'm having a midlife crisis and all of a sudden, yeah, I may have got my body back on track, but I'm falling apart. I've got all these niggling injuries. I'm spending less time away from the kids. The reason why RDM is and must be the pathway for fathers, and I'm very happy to go against the grain on this, I'm not a conventional man, is the bullshit that gets dished up on why you should do one thing above the other and not recognizing the cost of what that will mean to you and your family. The reason why what we do is successful, and you cannot argue it, is because a. Because of the set of principles, one which we're diving and peeling the layers back on patterns of performance today being a great one. But some of the fundamentals and foundational principles of RDM include the circles of significance, family, self and service. Like if you follow through on that to the nth degree, you can't miss, you can't fail. That doesn't work because you're not neglecting your family, you're not neglecting your business, you're not neglecting yourself. You can't. It doesn't make sense. Whilst balance doesn't exist. It's a balancing act, right? And some of these circles, you know, when we're juggling them like balls, sometimes they are glass. Don't drop them. You can't drop them for this period of time, man. Sometimes they're rubber. I'm going to drop, it's going to bounce back up. And sometimes it's just a sack of sand or, you know, a heat pack. You drop it and it'll stay down there and then you can't see it anymore. And it's like, okay, it's not broken, but where is it? I don't even know where it is or who I am right now. I can't see it. I can't see myself, I can't see my family or what role they play because you're just looking straight ahead, juggling two balls now. So this is where we look at ultimately creating context for you, creating some understanding around this and helping you comprehend and understand it really like this. This is important with the fundamental principles that we have in place. When I'm talking about frequency, you should not be training six, seven days a week. That doesn't make sense. You're in the second half now. You've got family, self and service that you need to look after. That's going to bring you the highest level of, yes, significance, but the highest level of meaning and fulfillment, achievement, contribution and legacy like that. That's the byproduct of feeling and driving significance through your actions and through your emotions. When you recognize and understand that, you then start to see the relevance of what one thing can play in your life and how it should be applied. I don't train six days a week. I've got a great body, I'm in great shape. I've got a phenomenal amount of energy. Why would I train more it doesn't make sense. A lot of the athletes, Even being a CrossFit athlete competing internationally, my best results came from training less. Go figure. So when we're looking at this, let's dive into a couple of quick examples and we'll wrap this up. There's a short, sharp piece. And when we're looking at frequency, a lot of the time the midpoint of the week, I don't talk about hump days and all that sort of bullshit. I refuse to conform to what society deems should be a standard or an acceptance of how you interpret something. Fuck that. I'll create my own terms, thank you. But when we're looking at the midpoint of what a week may be, if you're looking to have downtime on the weekend and Wednesday's the day when you're ripping in between Monday and Friday. Awesome. Use that construct. What we need to recognize is the patterns that you can create that ultimately come down when you don't have the frequency inside of the pattern running optimally. What do you mean now? What I mean is you might come out firing Monday, Tuesday, but then Wednesday starts to wane, Thursday is a write off, and Fridays, like, thank God it's the weekend you've lost in the area of frequency. You haven't held yourself together and followed through and executed properly. And properly means the right order systems, the right mental approach, behavior, the right volume frequency, the right belief in making it a part of who you are, habit, habits. Example, you can exercise once a week. That'll give you 50 sessions a year. Remember, it's all relative. You are version A. If version minus A hasn't trained for 10 years, mate, that's a win. Because version A to version B moves you away from version minus A, where it was nothing, to version B. Whereas 50 times. I trained 50 times this year. Al, that's awesome, mate. Well done. We can't be gluttonous one way or neglecting the other though. Could you have done more? Probably. I mean, once a week. Seven thousand minutes a week. A thousand minutes a day. Seven thousand minutes. You train for, let's say you trained. Just to make it really easy, you trained for 70 minutes. Awesome. You know, you trained for an hour and 10 minutes, including warm up, cool down and whatnot. Beautiful. If we're gonna make this a very easy example, 7,000 minutes a week. You've trained for 70 minutes. Awesome. You've applied 1% to your life. Can you see how funny it is when we start to look at relevancy? Well done, mate. Pat Yourself on the back. You've gone from doing nothing for 10 years to training 50 times a week. But let's not rest on our laurels and sit on our hands just there and just yet maybe we can squeeze a little bit more out. What about three times a week? It's sort of like day on, day off. That's good. I'm keeping a rhythm. As humans, we have a good cadence. Generally the cadence is weekly. Awesome. Three times a week. Or you could do seven times a fortnight, every second day. Great. That's 150 sessions a year. That's pretty solid, man. That's looking pretty sound. Now if we triple the amount of times you've trained. Let's have a look at the relevance of life. It's still only 3%. And yes, I get it. You've got to brush your teeth, you've got to have a shower. Things take time. You're moving your body. You're moving your body from the bedroom to the kitchen to the car to your office. Yes, I understand that thousand minutes absolutely can be chewed up. We'll dive in other examples to expose some of the clear facts in your life a little bit and where you could be fucking around and wasting time. Don't worry about that. That's 3%. Okay. I trained six times a week, Al. 300 sessions a year. Relevance? I went from doing nothing, Al. So point A was nothing, point B is 300. Point minus A was nothing. Or I was an old athlete. How do you think your body's going to handle that? How do you think you'll cope? 300 training sessions, that's a lot, man. I don't think I've trained 300 times in a year ever. And I was an elite athlete for 15 years between rugby league and CrossFit at a very, very high level in both fringe. First grade with rugby league and with CrossFit. Competed on the international stage three times as the fittest man in the world. For my size, like There was no one. 110 kilos, 6 foot 4, doing handstand walks, muscle ups and all the crazy shit I was doing. So that's not to promote myself. That's saying that was a big toll on my body, man. Doing pull ups and muscle ups and moving my body as far as it needed to move with the weight I was carrying. That was a lot of stress on the body. I didn't even train 300 times and I got those results. So finding your sweet spot must be relative to who you are now, who you'll be if you don't do something but who you can become. And then asking yourself a series of questions. What am I doing? What's the type of training you are doing? What am I doing and why? What did I used to do and what do I need to do and what's the plan? Can you see how we overcomplicate things? Like it's so simple, man. We complicate things so much it's crazy. Like that's what chews up. You want to look at the most wasted resource on this planet? It's not food, it's you. It's energy. It's time that you spend on things that aren't serving you human beings. The amount of energy. When you look at what human beings have created and you look at potential and you measure what's currently happening versus the potential of the output we can have as human beings, that is the largest waste, hands down. All we need to do is ask a series of questions. Very simple. What am I doing? Why? What did I used to do? What's my background in history like? We go through all this with our members. We don't just throw them in the deep end. Here's your training. We need to understand, you know, the history. Learning from the past, not living there, learning from there. Okay, cool. Let's, let's get our eyes set on where we come from, where we are now, where we need to go. What do we need to do then? Awesome. Let's plan that out. What does that plan look like in family? Self and service? Across the three areas of your life. You got a thousand minutes, but minutes fast, a minute moves quick. You've only got a thousand minutes as well. You see the double, the double edged sword, two sides of the same coin, right? Wasting time. That thousand minutes gone, gone, gone. Applied with the right folks and effort, man, you got a lot of time, you got a lot of power, a lot of potential. Nutrition. 21 meals a week. Let's say you eat three square meals a day. Sometimes you fast, sometimes you eat more frequently, sometimes you snack and graze. For argument's sake of keeping this simple, 21 meals, three meals a day, seven weeks, seven days in a week. All right, awesome. 21 meals. 15 are shit. That's your frequency, like your frequency is eating 15 shit meals. The pattern of that is when you do it, your mental approach to it, how often you do it, and the autonomy of the belief system, that is who you are and they're the meals that you eat. You could have 18 really good meals. That's great. Frequency. And three meals could be a write off, though. Really, really bad relevancy range. Sweet spot. See, everything has a different effect as well. And different level of effect to your life. If those three meals are really bad, man, those 18 mean nothing. Same with the training. You train six days a week. Three sessions could be good. The fifth session could fuck you up. You get injured. That writes off the other three, doesn't it? Well done. So when we're looking at our nutrition. Okay, who am I now? What have I learned from the past? Where will I go if I don't do something? Where do I need to go? Why? And what's the plan look like? Connection with your wife. I call it honey and handsome time. Don't call it date night. That's a conditioning. That's bullshit. Another stress point on society. Honey and handsome time. Okay, you might have honey and handsome time once a month. Well, we used to do it once every three months out. It's just crazy in Kotak with the kids, man. So we're blessed that we can at least catch up once a month, mate. Great. Kudos to you. The point with everything I'm saying here and these examples are, you can't just sit on that. Okay? Once a month. That's awesome, man. And that doesn't mean you keep going until. Okay, Al. I eventually want to make it 30 times a month. It's not about that where you continuously grow. It's finding the sweet spot for your life and then building quality into that sweet spot as well. Well, you know, the goal would be 10 times a month, mate. If it could, like twice a week, it'd be awesome. Three times a week. You know, that the kids are okay. We can have it when they go to bed. And then, you know, once every two weeks, we can get a babysitter or some family to look after kids. And we can actually go out and leave the house. Awesome. What am I doing? Why? What did I used to do? What do I need to do? This is where it comes down to being smart and strategic in your approach and not trying to just go it alone. You can't. You'll need to communicate with your wife. You'll need to talk to her and go, okay, what is it that you want to do? What do you want to feel like? Talk to me. Do you want to just feel free and relax and lay back? Does that look like, you know, instead of us polishing off bottles of wine and escaping into the night, why don't we just share a glass each and do some painting? We can look at some online classes, and it's pretty cool. There's one that I did, which Pino and Picasso, during COVID That was awesome. Had a great time with Kryn. I didn't drink the wine, but, you know, it was great. It was an online class. We set up the. The iPad and watch, and we had our own little canvases. They set out. They sent out the entire pack. This isn't giving them a. Well, it's giving them a rap, but it's certainly not giving them a plug. I don't know who the owners are, but it was awesome. We had a great time. We painted the. The Aurora borealis, the northern lights, and it was very cool. I argue that mine was better than Kryn's, but it was an amazing night. Like, that's great. Well done. Like, you've got to be smart and strategic in your approach. You can't just go, all right, cool, we're just going to kiss and cuddle and then have sex like honey and handsome time. 10 times a month. Beautiful. Let's. Let's dial that in. What does that need to look like? Let's make that plan. Let's communicate openly when it's not just you. You're not the only one in control. Awesome. Let's communicate and have that transparency and let's build together when it comes to time. Checking your phone 40 hours a week is probably a standard. You're probably doing even more. Like I was doing 35 hours a week. Yes. I use my phone a lot for work, and it was really controlled. And when I looked at it, I was like, shit, man, that's good. That's crazy. Now stripped back to 15 hours a week, like two hours a day. Strictly for work. A little bit of our socials. And when I say social, I'm actually talking more about RDM and our community and our personal apps that we use. Awesome. Great. I'm happy to give that time because that's productive. It's got purpose. There's a reason behind it. It's moving from version A to version B. When you're looking, you're on your phone for 40 hours a week, plus you're watching TV two to three hours a night. All of a sudden, 60 hours out of 160 hours of the week. You're looking at 40% of your time in front of a screen and technology all of a sudden. Yeah, I don't have time to exercise two times a week. Out. Yeah, Bullshit. Me and my wife, we just collapse. We watch a little bit of tv. It's the only time we get together. Fucking well done mate. You proud of that? Let's spend time together by not talking to each other and looking at a TV screen or laughing and having a few jokes at some reality shows of what other people are doing instead of investing in our own lives and being present in I'm not a cold hearted man. I'm very empathetic and loving. But I've got to give you the facts and the truth man, because the truth always wins. I live an eggshell free life. You must recognize that that is the truth. When you're looking at technology and screens and phones, you are immersing and diving into other environments. Some of these environments are on the other side of the world and more often than not, if that's not an investment in yourself to grow and become more in you, the investment in that environment, that immersion into that environment, is coming at the cost of your current environment and the people, places and things around that, including your relationships, including yourself, including your children. Patterns of Performance Frequency this is a big one. What am I doing? How often and why? What do I need to do? Why? And then how do I go about that? The hows is generally not the hardest part. I think the hardest part is opening up your eyes and seeing that hey you know what? If you want to use the word problem you can. But hey you know what, I've got a problem here. Or hey you know what? I've got a situation, I've got a circumstance, I've got an area in my life that I'm currently exposed to and exposing myself to. You know, like I'm all for problems and failures and success and certain terminology just to spark a different line of thinking. But yes, if it is a problem, great. Own that. But you are the solution as well. Own that too. If you're going to give yourself some shit for the things you're doing you're not proud of, give yourself a pat on the back for the great things you are doing. Don't just wallow in self pity or wallow on and then focus on the problem because you continue to feed energy into the problem and the problem will become a bigger problem. Instead of taking your focus off what you can actively apply your attention to which gives you control which will help you move your life forward. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Frequency the frequency of frequencies. Like how often are you doing something? Is it too much? Is it too little? What do I need? Like when you start, the hardest part is the driver behind what you desire. Point A to Point B. Okay, cool. You know, people say, what's your. Why cool. Use that if you want. For me, it's what's asking. What drives you, man? Like, life isn't about how long you live for, it's what you live for. What are you living for? Are you living just to exist? That's not really living to me. Are you living just to survive? Are you living to compete? Probably. Or are you living to win? What does win look like for you? What does success look like for you? Because when we look at the RDM quadrant, exist, survive and thrive, which is the back end of the two competing and winning. We aim to win, which means at best we're winning, at worst we are competing and we're holding that high level of excellence, that standard. And we do that. Yes, through the systems, the order in how we go about it. Yes. Through the mental approach and the behaviors, which obviously this is having influence in you right now as well. Yes. In the habits. Let's make something a belief system. It's autonomous, it's part of our makeup. It's an agreed upon state of. This is our way of operating inside of you. But one of the greatest links or chains to connect all of that is the frequency of how many times you do something. The frequency of things, the frequency of your behaviors, the frequency of your systems, the frequency of your habits to make it a real habit, not just a silver bullet or a shiny object. But that doesn't mean more is better as well. Please listen and understand what I'm saying here. So you train six times a week. That'll fuck you up. You may train three times a week and walk four times a week. So you're active, you're moving your body seven times a week. Beautiful. Two of those include the dogs, one includes the kids and one includes the wife. Beautiful, mate. Well done. And then you've got your timeout for you three times a week, 30 to 45 minute session, home body weight program. Or you join a gym or you cycle, or you run or you swim. Mate. Fantastic. Well done. Not saying train three days a week and then just sit down for the. Yeah. For the other 140 odd hours of the week or 120 odd hours of the week when you take sleep away. No, no, not at all. But it's got to be relative. It's got to speak to you and have purpose towards you. Hope you enjoyed this episode above all else. Like I always say, take this and apply action to do a quick order on yourself. Okay, well, how often am I watching tv? Beautiful. Five days out of seven. All right, cool. Do I need to? Why am I doing that? What's the alternative? If I keep doing it, what can I do? What does that look like? Well, I really love these shows with the kids and the family. Beautiful two days a week. Strip it back now. I've just gifted myself six hours. What can I do with that? And reorganize yourself like a stereo mixer, where you're bumping up the levels that serve you best, you're pulling down the ones that don't, and you're finding the pathway for you to win family, self service above all else. Like I always say, don't just heed the call. Yes, I'll do it, Al. Great session, Al. And then do nothing. This is a call to action. Apply exactly what I spoke about today to do a self order on the frequency of your life and what you're currently doing, how many times you're doing it, what you desire and what you need to do, and the how's about that? Those two come down to mentors, coaches, finding someone, an expert in the field, someone who's done it, someone who's doing it, someone who has what you want or someone who's done what you want to do. You must do that. Otherwise you just keep in your own company. How are you ever going to make a breakthrough? The creativity comes from a scope of various perspectives which comes from various people, various lines of history. Do that, invest in that. Find the pathway for you to move forward and create better frequencies from which your patterns of performance become one that bring that achievement, that significance, that fulfillment, and ultimately legacy because you are contributing to the next generation. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Tune in for more episodes soon. And like I said, take this now, run with it. Create changes, implement the actions, review the actions and keep moving forward.