103. Lose Control To Get Control

Welcome to another episode of Real Dad Movement podcast. This is your host, Al. And in this episode we talk about losing control to get control. What I want to share in this episode is a bit of a contrast between the old owl and the current owl. And being a high performance father in life, there are three key things that you must square away. To have fulfillment, meaning and reward in your life. To ultimately make sure that you mattered, that you have legacy, and that when you and me are dead, when you're dead, when I'm dead. We live on through our children in the values, the principles, the beliefs, the mannerisms, the behaviors, and ultimately the way they think, the way they feel. Not in a controlling way, but influencing as a leader as they move on throughout their journey and create their legacy. That's something I never had. This is what every high performance father has. And you must have this. You're not here just to make fucking money. You're not here just to have a great body. You're not here just to be for the family and use them as a crutch to lean on, to bandage the other areas of your life that are bullshit because you don't stand up and be a true leader in yourself and your energy levels or in your business and how you handle yourself with other people. It's all of them. You must have all of them. You can have all of them. And it is possible. That's what we do. That's what I do. That's what I am. But I wasn't always. And that's what I want to share with you about control. See, it was a very interesting thing. When I was overweight, obese, and ultimately living through big periods of depression and getting bullied when I was younger, for a large period of my life between 8 and 16, I found that I had no control. And what I was seeking and trying to gain was control externally over things, people, places and things that I ultimately couldn't. And you can't. It's not possible. Like, you can influence them, sure. You can try and overpower them, sure. But that's borrowed. That's borrowed certainty. That's a borrowed level of significance as well. And it doesn't justify who you are on the inside. But. But unfortunately, a large portion of the world still uses that as a means to cover up and hide the bullshit that they live in denial with. And they don't bring up to the surface to own and face and look in the mirror and go, yeah, you know what, I need to change. I need to stand up, I need to be More unfortunately, what that led into. And fortunately, I mean, look, I had a lot of different successes through trying to prove myself to people, including professional sport, competing internationally in two different sports. But the unfortunate part is you're left hollow. Shadow of a man. When you look over your life and go, wow, I actually didn't really define who I wanted to be on my terms from the inside out. And nothing brought this up more through everything I just explained to you than actually becoming a father for the first time. This is what I mean about losing control. Because what happens is we build patterns and we build behaviors. The way that we see things, our mental approach and attitude towards circumstances, towards people, towards assumptions and expectations. And then you're assuming that, yes, it should be this way instead of having an open mind. And when Stella was born, my firstborn, obviously, if you're a father listening to this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Doesn't matter how good or bad they sleep. Like the chaos and the stress in your life becomes real. And you thought you had your shit together. You thought you didn't waste time. You thought you valued time. You thought you could perform well. Welcome to the real world. Nothing brings up the mirror more than fatherhood. Hardest, but the greatest thing ever. And ultimately, when Stella was born, we had a lot of trouble with her for years. It took three and a half years. And I'm sure there's people who've got it worse. But for me and what I was trying to do at the time and who I was and trying to expand who I was, not being able to sleep for nearly four years was pretty challenging. And yes, I've got other kids now and I haven't slept for more years than that. But this was traumatic. Like, we're talking about waking up many, many, many, many times. Not. Oh, yeah, they wake up once at 2:30 and they're unsettled for half an hour. It was a fucking nightmare. Nearly led to my divorce. Definitely led to my body breaking down, my business breaking down, and me who I was. And I'm sitting back going, what the fuck's going on here? Like, this is bullshit. This is not how it should be. I need to train. I need to do this. I've got a competition coming up. This is what I need to do. Corinne needs to give me time. She needs to show me affection. You know, she's being selfish by just focusing on the baby. The baby will be okay. What about me? And all of a sudden. And I'm naturally a pretty empathetic and giving man, but it's just, it just highlights the understanding that you know what it is. Your life, mate, like every single person in the world is living individual experiences. You and me may be having an experience right now together, but you are having an individual experience in yourself through receiving what I'm sharing with you right now. And I'm having an individual experience in myself through sharing what I'm going through, my stories, what I've been through, and going from point A to point B to become a high performance father. So ultimately, whilst we're sharing this right here and now, even if I haven't met you and you're not on the inside of hpf, it's an understanding of this is your life, this is what you're going through, and you shouldn't suppress that either. That's the hard part. Mothers and fathers, we suppress these feelings, these emotions that are natural. They are natural as a human being through our genetics and our heritage. Yes, there's an area of us that must be isolated, alone and seek comfort inside of us and have that solitary in that solitude of who you are. There's also the other side. It's a yin yang, man. Where we are social creatures, we need that, we thrive on that, we crave that, that's our environment that influences us. So without sharing this, I suppressed it, I became bitter, I became resentful, but still had a belief system that I needed to control things. I'm sure if you're a father listening to this right now, you've been through the exact same, and you might be going through the exact same right now. You know exactly how that feels and what that unfolds to become. Breakdown, lacking connection, a lack of seeing through the eyes, of how you should see through the eyes of a man who's a true leader in family, self and service, who could look after himself, get his shit together, build the right habits, prioritize his time, not waste fucking 40 hours a week scrolling through his phone or 15 hours a week watching television, like really getting your shit together to go. What's important in my life, I'm on my deathbed, I'm looking in my children's eyes. What am I proud of? Am I proud of watching all those fucking series on Netflix and having that little hit of dopamine and that little bit of sedation. And when I get off the lounge, I feel fucked because I've just binge watched all this television and I feel like I've been drugged. And then I fall into bed, then roll out of bed and here we go, another day in the grinder, waking up feeling bashed? Or do you pull yourself together to go, hey, hang on a minute. How about I lose control over certain things that I'm trying to control and I regain control over what matters. Me, You. So what happened was Stella comes into the world and there's this pattern which we all have, right? Because there's no rule book on life and no one really gears us towards how we should operate and how we should build and develop ourselves. It's obviously why I'm here. I'm here to help you turn into a high performance father. This is how you fucking think, man. This is how you operate. This is how you move. But before that, this is what you were doing or what you might be doing right now. This is definitely what I was doing. She wouldn't sleep. It's like, well, fuck, come on, why don't you just go to sleep? And it's not about the physical control. It's. It's trying to gain control mentally. And it's this battle in your head where I'm justifying the feelings and the resentment and what I have towards my daughter, going, just go to sleep. Why can't you sleep? Like, I'm not talking about physical control. Hey, I hold her and, and I shook her or any of that sort of crazy shit. But you do hear stories of that stuff. You can see how people can go down that. Down that rabbit hole of like, no, I just. I need a physical outlet, which is dangerous, man. Like, that's not. That is not a good thing. And I'm not judging people if they've felt that need or that inclination or people who may have done it. But that's pretty fucking scary in my eyes to see that that could. That could happen or be caused to a child. But for me, it was the mental battle. I was like, fuck, this is bullshit. She should sleep. I've sung to you, I've played your music, I've rocked you. I've given you a bottle of milk. Like, why aren't you sleeping? And then that will go into food. We're sitting at dinner table throwing shit everywhere. She starts to get a little bit older. Not eating properly, closing your mouth, turning away. And I'm like, man, you need this food. I'm here to give this. Listen to what I'm saying. Do what I tell you to do. And you know that would then roll out into repeated behaviors and behavioral patterns where she'd go and she'd play up and she'd do something I already told her not to do. And she kept doing it. And I'm like, fuck, man, this is just, this is sucking the life out of me, you know? And I had this belief system that I needed to control her and have a control over what she should be doing. Oh yeah, I'll let her do whatever she wants just as long as I'm happy with how she's doing it. And then when she doesn't do it, I was like, no, no, no, you need to do this. And I feel personally that I err on the side of caution with this. But I still have my moments, make no mistake. Whereas other people, yes, you're to be seen and not heard like that sort of old school bullshit, turning their children into fucking robots. What a nightmare. What an absolute. You think technology disconnects people? No, no, no, it's the fucking household, mate. That's what's disconnecting the modern world, not technology. It's the application and use through a lack of connection from which they are hiding and finding alternative environments through technology to hide away, escape or ultimately find a different level of low level connection because they have nothing at home. This was my issue and problem. So what do you think that meant? Ah, of course I dish it out on Corinne, then I should be able to control my wife, I should be able to control the members in my gym, I should be able to control this, control that, control that. Instead of looking inside and go, hang on a minute, how about I just control my fucking attitude and control how I turn up and understand that, you know what? Whilst this might be Al's world, through Al's perspective and Al's reality, Al's world, perspective and reality is comprised of, well, essentially billions of people. But in my immediate reality, many others. Family, friends, workers, colleagues and customers. Where it's like, well, hang on a minute, mate, you're not the only one and you're not the only one who's been through this. This was a big moment for me, like, like this really, when I talk about bringing up the mirror, this really was like, hey man, this is it. You're either going to leave your wife, you're going to have a divorce, your business is already starting to implode, so that'll implode further if you don't save it. Your body's starting to turn to shit. I was competing as an elite athlete in CrossFit at the time and that was starting to wane and fall down. You're not feeling connected to anything. You're certainly not loving or respecting yourself at the moment. Your energy's Going down, the coffee's going up. How do you think this is going to turn out, Al? What's the outcome, mate? Or what's the possibility? Now whilst it might have been a flick of a switch, it was very fucking hard work, man. Like it's taken me years and multiple children now to forge myself into a high performance father. And I'm very proud of that. It's not easy, it's hard work. It is possible. But ultimately that's what we do, that's what I do. We help you sort your shit out, get your habits in order, the right way for yourself, to get time back, rewind your body clock to have the energy you should to be able to perform at a high level for family, self and service, which means you've got more connection to your family, to your wife, to your children, to yourself, to your business, to those you serve. And whilst it's hard, this is what I do, this is what I specialize in, you know, and it's something that I'm very proud of because the opposite, the positive alternative of what I've just shared with you, of where I was going heavy and fast, ultimately, when you think about it, has become someone who's learned the value of investing himself and looking in the mirror through the first child, learned the value of time and prioritizing that through the second child and absolutely learned the value of energy and being a high performance father through my third child. They're the three greatest lessons I've ever learned from my children and I continue to learn from them daily. It's funny, Stella the other day said to me, because she's learning to count, she's like, daddy, oh, she's good at counting but really high end stuff now for her things she hasn't dived into like hundreds and thousands and all that sort of stuff. And she's like, daddy, how do you count to 100, baby? You start with one. I didn't have to think. It wasn't a mindset thing, it wasn't trying to carve out some sort of technical thing. It's very simple. Go simple, go deep, start with 1 and then add 1 and add 1, that's 2, that's 3, that's 4. When you reach 10, you've still got the 1 there, but then it's 11, it's 12, it's 13, that is 21, 22, 23. And this is, this is what I mean, mate. Like it's a step, it's a process, it's a journey, that's what we do. You know, obviously with the pathway from A to B. But the biggest lesson I learned from being who I was before, individually, as a man, as a father, to becoming a high performance father was going, hey, let's, let's let go of some of that stuff. Yes, I'll influence. Yes, I'll create guidelines, I'll create structure, and I'll create areas to be modeled by leading my family through my words, through my actions, through my emotions, through my connection, through my eyes, through my body language, through my presence, I will lead the family and influence them and show them key things that they can apply to their life, to become better, to become more. And not because I'm older. Age means fuck all. It's not the years in your life, it's the life in your years. It's what you live for, not how long you live for. But ultimately, because I've had this experience, this awareness, and I'm dialed into this quite heavily, it gives me the opportunity now to turn around and go, hang on a minute. I'm not trying to control Stella or Lillian or Roman or Crin. What I'm trying to do is ultimately establish a level of leadership inside of myself to provide a platform that connects me in a greater way to that which I'm connected to outside of me, my family. And that's the hard part, man. Especially with your children, like, understand with your wife, but with your children, it's something you are so invested and connected to because they are your blood. Like they are a part of you, but they're outside of you. So I get it, man. It's very hard, it's very challenging. But ultimately, you must let go of the control that you feel you need to have over external people, places and things, and channel that focus, that energy, that mental capacity, that time, that investment of you into you. Because when you do that, guess what happens? Funnily enough, the irony of it all, everything else around you fucking flourishes. Isn't that funny? And then all of a sudden, instead of a fear of failure and control and manipulation, it becomes a love for greatness and leadership and love and legacy. That is exactly what happens. I'm not just churning out words and hyping you up or motivating. That's exactly what happens, mate. What does love mean to you? What does legacy mean to you? What does leadership mean to you? You know, I've never said to Stella, because I said, so, do what I say, not what I do. What the fuck does that even mean? Who do you think you are, being a hypocrite? To your children thinking that they're going to turn out to become reasonable adults, to form into society, form their own family structure, and to be winning. You're planting a bad seed, man. There's going to be some rotten fruit on that tree when it grows. Don't you worry about that. Now. Understand that certain times and certain ages, our children don't have the mental capacity to understand. We're in the lolly aisle. Daddy, I want some lollies. We can't have lollies. Why not? I'm not going to stand there talking about the mitochondria and the cells and our carbohydrates and insulin and how that can affect them and affect their energy levels and crash and affect their chemical and hormonal balances. What I'm going to do is provide a level of leadership and apply three different things, which is what you can influence and empower through yourself as a leader to help those that you care about without trying to control them. It's environment, that's thoughts, that's emotions. What's the environmental shift, setup or adjustment you can create to influence yourself to influence them, to create the outcome that you may know has a higher outcome or better chance of success for them than they may know because they're not in a position that you were. Just like me with the fathers, right, that I work with. Let's shift the environment to create possibilities that they may not know exists, just like they have possibilities that I might not know exist. Which is why I love our coaching sessions. What we do, the data, how we collect it, how we track it. All the fathers inside the group show me with continuity exactly what they need. That's a beautiful thing. Otherwise, all I'm doing is NLP courses and fucking high performance habits courses and all these different courses. And I'm telling what they should be doing with this vanilla approach instead of listening and going, wow, thank you. That's fucking exactly what you need. Let's remold that, let's restructure that and give you the perspective that I know you need. Now, that's a very powerful skill. It's obviously something that I do at a phenomenal level. Not to toot my own horn, but because that's all I've dived into for so long now. Shift the environment, shift the thoughts, shift the emotions. I'm not saying to immediately distract them or to play games or wizardry or. Or become the mentalist. But what I'm saying is when you face yourself with situations where you want to create influence over the outcomes. What are the thought patterns that you're creating, influencing or trying to apply to your children, to yourself, to your wife? What are the emotions you're tying into that to have a heavy level of investment of A being a better choice than B, or this is the pathway, or this might have a better outcome. Or how about we look at this and you need to do this for yourself too. Make no mistake, when I'm talking about losing control, you apply this to yourself first. It's why with Easter and all that sort of shit, I gave away all our Easter egg. My wife doesn't know it. She thinks I stored them at the office. I'm sure she won't listen to this episode. Yeah, I gave them all away. Gave them away as presents to everyone else in our office building. I can't have that shit in my environment. You don't need self control. You don't need discipline at a higher level than you think you do. But what you certainly need is a shift in environment or an environmental setup for yourself, for your family, where you have a high level of influence, self control and power through you that you can be the true leader that you can be. So how about we don't walk down that lollyhole, eh? How's that for a start? Remove the environment, Change the environment, thoughts and emotions. Shifting the thought process to think about the outcome, the alternative, the options at hand and the possibilities. The emotions tying in the why, the purpose behind that, the investment in that. They're very powerful things. You can think methodically, like left and right brain, right. You can have the creative side, you can have the thought processing side and analyze things. You need both. Both are very important. The greatest gift in all of this though, mate, and what I learned in my life is losing control. To get control comes down to ultimately those three areas. Nourishing and nurturing that from the inside out. What's the environment look like for you? What's your personal environment? What's your family environment? How do you transition between environments? What's your thought process in these certain environments? What triggers you? When we're talking about the pattern of performance, that's one of our principles and when we're discussing this, the patterns of performance is the systems, the order in how you do things, the behavior, your mental approach and how you turn up the frequency so how often you do certain thing and the understanding and belief to turn it into a habit. It's autonomous, it's part of who you are. That's a very powerful thing that you can apply to your Environment to your thoughts and to your emotions to drive you to then look inside of yourself instead of looking outside of yourself to go, no, no, this is what the family needs and this is what I need to do for them. That's what they need for themselves. Instead of going, well, hang on, okay? And trust me, I'm half Italian. I get it, man, all right? I'm doing this and this and this and this for the family. Like, yeah, they're getting an outcome. But fuck, man, have I stopped to think about it? Have I stopped to feel it out and make sure it's actually the way that I want it to be and the way that they want it to be? Like, is it serving me? Trust me, you're not being selfish. Is it serving me? Is this the right place to be? Like, is this environment important? And my kids are going to be going through sports and they're already doing that sort of stuff. And different environments that I don't completely control. And there's different parents and different dynamics where, yeah, you know, the values may not align with mine and that's okay, but I'll always speak my fucking mind, man. I won't be holding that back. Don't worry. I live in eggshell free life and I'm not a cold man. I'm very empathetic. But the truth is very important. It always wins. Otherwise, there's bitterness, there's resentment, there's confusion, there's hidden deals. Hang on a minute. I put up with all this for so long, what about this now? And the other person's like, well, I didn't even know that you wanted that. Or I didn't even know that you're feeling that way. My Nonna is a perfect example. My Italian grandmother, give and give and give. Massive feast, cook for the family, did everything, busted her ass, man, and fell apart and throw her hands in the air going, all right, everyone look after me now. It's like, well, fuck, hang on a minute, we didn't ask you for that. These hidden agreements, these hidden deals, slide them, slide them under the table. It's fucking amazing, man. It makes me laugh. I see it so often, so often, like these hidden deals under the table. The hard part is the other person didn't know the deal was being made. Bloody hell, man. What do you think you're doing by doing that to your children? So take a step back, look at your life and go, hang on, hang on, hang on. I think I'm being selfless, but I'm being a more selfish because ultimately, at the cost of myself in an expedient manner. Like, I'm going downhill. Like, this is detrimental. Like, Even if it's 10 years, that's fast. I think about when you're in high school, out of high school, first child, second child, if you have one. Like, 10 years is quick, man. You think it's slow. 10 years is fast. So at an expedient rate, your life is in fucking pieces. Between 35 and 45. Have a look at that and go, well, hang on a minute. Am I being selfless by giving it to the family at the cost of myself giving him 30%? I'm giving them 100% of 30L. Yeah, well done. Or are you being selfish because you're giving them that? Instead of focusing on, okay, I'm going to influence, guide, create structures. Yes, some boundaries when it comes to life and death and safety, of course. But I don't apply that safety through worry, through fear of death and through fear in general. It's caution, it's concern at times. Of course, my kids have all had operations. Shit's hard to go through. My wife and I have had several operations. I had nine operations. So there's never a guarantee when you go under that you're coming out, looking at that, going, yeah, of course there's safety and elements that you need to put the foot down. But as a whole, okay, we create structure and guide. But what am I doing for me, let's control me first. Let's apply that mental capacity, that focus, that attention bang on me on the inside. Not in a selfish, hey, fucking vanity. And I'm looking in the mirror training four hours a day. Let's focus on doing what I can do so I can turn up and be even more selfless for the family. Because I've got the big fucking gas tank to look after them, to perform for them, to look after my wife, to organize some honey and handsome time. You know, the new age date nights. Don't use date night. That's a shit term. Your wife won't enjoy it. Use honey and handsome. We're gonna have some honey and handsome time this week. We're going out, the kids are sorted. This is what we're doing, organizing that, having the mental energy and capacity and the physical energy and capacity to follow through, and then ultimately turning up for your business, for your employees, for your clients, to serve them the right way because of your serving yourself, because you are serving ultimately the greatest vessel that can help everything around you, that you love you. Like, if you love everything around you that's connected to you? How about you serve yourself first, the right way, and have that control that you can then transfer? That's what I learned. I hope you enjoyed this episode and got some big takeaways from this. In looking at, hey, this is who you might be right now. This is who you can be. And that's a little share on my life when Stella was born. Through sleep, through food, through repeated behaviors, through how I handled Corrine and ultimately trying to gain control over other things. Because guess what? I didn't have my shit together. I didn't look in the mirror and go, hey, what the fuck are you doing now? What are you doing to become better? What are you doing to become more? Instead of trying to pull all these levers and pulleys to leverage my own family, my employees, my business, how about I leverage myself first so I can be more for them? And when you do that, mate, when you let go of that, just release it. Just let it go, like I said. Yes. Structure, boundaries, caution, safety. Yeah, there's elements depending on the age of your children, depending on the situation and circumstances, but across the board, bored. All right, Autonomously, subconsciously, day in, day out, the 90%, just let it go, let it go, it'll be okay. Like, you think crafting special words is going to change your children's life or woo your wife? How about you fucking stand up as a leader first, Become a high performance father and create championship habits. And then you know what? Those actions alone, nothing is more attractive, man. Whether you talk about getting hot and heavy with your wife or your kids seeing you as a superhero. My kids look up at me, I'm like, man, that look in their eye, that shit is never going to change. Yes, I can throw them around in the air and all that sort of stuff, but when they look at me and I'm 70 and they're 40, they're going to look at me and go, wow. Yeah, he's. Fuck, he's. Man, that guy just doesn't stop, look at what he's doing. That is so attractive, mate. You have no idea how attractive that is and the doors that that opens and the opportunities that comes with that. By controlling what you can control first and being a true leader, showing, not telling through your own right in how you stand up as a man, as a father, as a husband, in family, self and service. To win the second half, create a true legacy and get in front, but stay in front of. Because the systems you now have, the pattern of performance is part of who you are.