106. The Path Of Least Resistance

Foreign. Welcome to another episode of Real Dad Movement podcast. This is your host, Al. And in today's episode, we are diving into least resistance. The title of today's episode, the path of least Resistance. Very interesting one. I hope you're strapped in for a bumper session which is ultimately going to peel back some layers inside of your life on a personal, professional level with you, with your family and with your business and the value add to the world in seeing that the patterns you've created and forged are one that we all have inside of us, but also subconsciously, maybe consciously, but definitely in an unaware state. You are always adopting the path of least resistance. But there's a catch. There's a kicker. It's definitely like my last episode. If you dived into that, there is definitely a trade off when you are taking the path of least resistance without continually stopping, having a sip of water, looking at your surroundings, checking your bearings on where you're actually going, and then using all of what I just mentioned as your guide, as your rod and staff, as your compass to go. Yeah, well, no, this is. This is actually. This path of least resistance doesn't necessarily lead to the outcome. L. That's right, it doesn't. Actually, it rarely does because the path constantly changes. And here's the big thing. It's not about a fork in the road. There are defining moments, and they're defining moments because what they are, they're defined by you, not the actual moment itself. It's how you'll handle it, for sure. I get that. But there's rarely a massive fork in the road. You may have that half a dozen times in your life. You know, there's ultimately a lot of deviations. But the crazy part is if you don't listen, if you're not aware, if you're not building the right habits and principles inside of your life, these slight deviations, man, you walk one degree, of course, over a thousand miles, you'll end up in different countries, you know, and that just is what it is. And that's not a specific measurement. Maybe it's 3,000 miles, but you get my point. Like, this is what will happen in your life. You'll look back, you go, fuck, look at this, Al. I don't even know where I am, who I am, or what I'm actually doing. Because ultimately I'm not where I want to be. Isn't that funny? We are where you are now. Please explain. This is the hard part. With the chaos and the stress that engulfs all of our lives as fathers in the modern world that ultimately takes our focus, takes our eyeballs off not only the prize, but what we're doing now to move towards the prize. The prize being control, freedom and experiences in life more often than not on our terms, which is a rarity. I need you to know and understand that as well. Mate, you're listening to this podcast whether you're on the inside or not. It's an absolute rarity in the world today of people who actually have a life where they do have fulfillment, they have achieved, they have become high performance fathers in their life and living life on their terms more often than not. And that's a hard thing because when you're exposing yourself to the environments where that's the accepted norm or the status or the standard, it influences you to ultimately question your own hunger, drive and wanting more. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not that you're not happy. It's not that you're not enough. I love my life. I'm incredibly happy. It doesn't mean I have hardships I don't get. People literally try and punch me in the face, but I get punches in the face from all different directions in life where ultimately there's dodging, diving, weaving, hitting back, blocking. It's part of life and that's great. I'm a very strong, powerful fighter, very resilient for it. But I'm not in life just to fight. It's not what it's about. It's about building the pathway that is ultimately going to be the path of least resistance. And when I talk, I just want to shed light here as well and talk about settling. You are either growing or dying. You need to realize that. Don't waffle on in other areas going, nah, nah, this is okay. It's just a step to the side. And you can call it a step to the side. That's all right. And you might sacrifice a little bit of life to have a greater leap forward. I understand. I get that as well. The rate in which you are dying or growing changes. It varies. I'm willing to die 10% if it means I'm going to grow 30% through the actions and the sacrifices that I currently undertake. Totally get that. That's a normal part of life, that should be part of your life. There is no continual growth. There's a consistent striving for growth and a consistent hunger to be more 100%. That's what gets you up every day, right? That's what makes it worth it. But ultimately, when I'm talking about Settling and growing or dying, you are either growing or dying. So when people take the path of least resistance, they're not taking the least resistance in going, hey, I'm going to push through the pain, the discomfort, the hardships now so I can have an easier tomorrow. You know, I can suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. As old Ali said back in the day, no, no, no. You're taking the path of least resistance which is leading to the greatest regret, trauma and pain later in your life. You can't settle, don't settle it. Is growing or dying the end? When you do that, when you continuously stay in one spot and do that, you are dying. So when people settle, and this is the thing, it comes down to your belief system, your values. When people are settling in life and things seem good, yeah, awesome, they'll never be great, right? You think they're good, no worries, you can settle it. What you're doing is you're slowly dying. We look at the RDM quadrant. Exist, survive, compete and win. You must live in the compete zone. You must and you constantly push to get into that win zone and stay there as long as possible. That's our standard, that is a minimum. Do not apply or come in if you're not willing to drive or have the hunger to grow to that stage. That's not a power play. You can all have that. It's a choice. Anyone can have that. It's not a gift, it's not genetics, trust me. They're skill sets. Majority of your life is skill based. What have you applied yourself and invested yourself and immersed yourself in to develop who you are? Life is a skill. 100% it's a skill. So when you're settling, what you're ultimately doing is dying very, very, very slowly. Whether you settle at 15, 25, 35, 45, when you stop and go, that's enough. I just want to sit here and do this the rest of my life. You're slowly dying. You are in the survival or the existing zone. And when you stay there, you and I both know when you stay there too long, let alone decades, let alone the back end, or the second half of your life, you are fucked. Because you'll be like everyone else, nursing home or not, that looks back over the would of, should, ofs, could ofs and gunners. And ultimately, because you took the path of what you thought was least resistance, because was most familiar to you, which is coming into the main point of this episode, it's ultimately become your own downfall, your self sabotage and not valuing yourself or believing you are worthy. Please understand this, you are worthy. Don't let anyone tell you you're not. Above all else, don't let that fucking bullshit version of the little voice inside of you tell you you're not. Because when I'm talking about the last episode, trades and trade offs and virtually every single episode that I've done so far, all of it comes down to you, your belief system, and how much you actually value yourself and believe you are worthy. People may laugh at Real Dad Movement. People may have laughed at me as an elite athlete, or laughed at me when I ran my gyms or my businesses. Awesome. Great. Good for them. They can do that, no worries. People are always trying to elevate their own position through an illusion of pulling you down underneath their position in fear of their own trauma and internal securities. I get that. That's a natural part of life. You don't need to be that way though. You don't need to hold onto that either. So don't let other people tell you you're not worthy and don't tell yourself you're not worthy. Here's the hard part. When we're talking about the path of least resistance, it's a dangerous one because ultimately that's what we want, right? That's what anyone should want. Like I go for the quick kills, the easy wins, the low hanging fruit. I do all that. I don't cut corners. I don't create silver bullets inside of our high performance father program or shiny objects or quick fixes or band aids. No, I'm not talking about that. But fuck man, why wouldn't you take the path of least resistance? It's understanding what that means though. See, if the path of least resistance is me getting in the gym and exerting force and going to failure and repetitions on bench press and squats and other moving parts in a safe and controlled environment, that's pushing and challenging myself. That is the path of least resistance. Because you know what? The path of most resistance is in my spirit, my soul, my psyche, who I am mentally, physically, emotionally, in my heart. The harder path is looking back over my life and going, fuck, man, I wish I did all of this. And having regret. That's the hard path. So when I compare this, and this is what I mean about first identifying and defining what this means, the path of least resistance is, hey, I am going to fucking liberate my life. I am the master and commander of my ship. This is my life. And as much as I can control myself and What I can control inside myself, I will express outside of myself the life that I desire, deserve, and deem possible for me to live. This is the low hanging fruit. We should all. You should always be looking for the path of least resistance. Here's the kicker though. First, we've defined it. Least resistance. The path of least resistance is a relative measure across the span of your entire life. So when you're doing something, ask yourself, is this a fucking shortcut that's going to hurt me later on? Or is this actually taking me down the path of least resistance over the long haul of my life? Because guess what? It's going to forge me into a stronger, more powerful human being. Father, man, business owner, lover, husband. Which then creates such an easier back end of the second half where I'm stronger, more powerful, more competent, and a greater leader to myself and those around me. I'll tell you what, I'll take that 10 times out of 10. If that means initial discomfort, initial sacrifice perceived. It's not really sacrifice, is it? When you talk about the back end of your life being filled with regrets, that to me is a sacrifice. Fucking a man, like that's the go, right? So we've identified that. But here's the kicker. Path of least resistance. It's a metric that you gauge across your entire life, which means you consistently ask questions. Is this a shortcut? Is this improving me? Is this killing me? Am I growing or dying as a result of this? These are key questions you need to ask because here is the kicker that I want to share with you. The path of least resistance. And I need you to listen right here and now and understand this. This is going to be a big breakthrough for yourself. The path of least resistance is always the one that's most familiar. Isn't that crazy, right? You wouldn't think it, but when you think about it, it's so simple. Creatures, a habit. Life is habits like we form. We forge championship habits to create a championship life for our fathers on the inside. That's what we do. It's what we're known for in a specific and relevant way. For the man entering the second half getting his shit together, isn't it crazy? All the chaos, the whirlwind of life. We quickly forget that the path of least resistance is always the one that's most familiar. That's the kicker. When we're looking at the options, the choices, the decisions that you make inside of your life, what you need to ask yourself is not so much the resistance, the technicalities behind it, the actions you Take or even what's familiar. It's none of that. It's just taking one step back. Third person yourself, get in third view, have a look at yourself, get an overview, get a bird's eye view. Where's this path going? That's what you need to ask yourself. Like when I'm talking about path of least resistance, it's the actions, hey, Turning up your actions, turning them into the habits, which is a belief system, it's a part of who you are, your identity, and then setting that in stone. It's a dangerous thing, man. Like there are some foundational values of me and who I am. Legacy, freedom, growth, truth, inspiration, leadership, leadership, honesty, respect, excellence. Like they're, They're a series of values that define who I am to the core. They'll never change their solids. They're. They're ours. Absolutes. They are my absolutes. The actions, right? The path. Where is that path going? This is what you need to ask yourself. Not where's the quick kill, where's the low hanging fruit? Why? Why is that? The low hanging fruit, where is it taking me? Where am I going with this? If I do these actions off enough, if I do them often enough, where will they take me? If I do them frequently, where's the outcome? Where does the path lead? This is the hard part when it comes to fatherhood. All the different hats that you're wearing and trying staying on top of the whirlwind of life whilst you're building out your most important things. We call them mitts. Setting up your weekly tabs. Targets, action version. Who will you become? What are the actions you need to take? And what is the actual target? What's the outcome you desire when you're squaring all that away? We've got our championship journal. We do that all the time inside of our group. Beautiful. You're focused, you still have hurdles, roadblocks. They try and knock you off your perch, they try and destabilize you, try and steal your focus, draw your attention, distract and interrupt you. Always. Always. So when you define what the path of least resistance is, it's generally actually growth. And seeking that growth through initial discomfort or unfamiliarity or unknowns to create knowns. The problem is though, if you don't take one step back and question this, what you're ultimately doing is staying stuck in a rut. Just like tractors, right? Or just like you look at a herd of goats or cows, there's the feeding trough and you have a look at a bird's eye view. There's a whole bunch of grass everywhere. But then there's just a trail, there's a track. They all follow the track, they all get in the rut. This is the rut. I just work through, I walk through, I move through. This is it. This is the path. You'll be stuck in that position and before you know it, you're 55 and you're looking at all the chaos that keeps building in your life, the unfulfillment, the identity that's lost with yourself, with your marriage, with your business. And you go, what happened here? What happened is you didn't continuously ask questions. And this is what pisses me off as well. There's people out there, voodoo wizards and fucking life coaches. They're like, you know, how often are you questioning yourself? It's like, well, hang on a minute. Like it, what do you mean? What do you mean questioning yourself? Who you are, your actions, what you're doing, like you're some taskmaster beating yourself up. It doesn't have to be a detrimental affair. It doesn't have to be something from a negative light where you're castrating or judging yourself for the actions that have come and then gone. This is life, man. It's hard. You will not execute 100% of the time. Rarely. And when you do it for a very short period of time, that's a culmination of the 80 to 95 percenters that you've consistently dialed in to reach the peak or the culmination of that experience that you've built up towards to execute and win that situation or circumstance. So when people are saying, how often do you question yourself? And blah, it's not about that. It's stepping back outside of yourself and getting out of your own way and just questioning the path. It's not you, it's not your identity, it's your actions. Like, you're not a weak man when you fuck up and drop the ball. Your actions were weak. You're not a weak man. You can be powerful, you can be strong, you can be anything. Identity is very simple. Like when you want it, when you, when you want to choose who you are and then reinforce that with truth in the, in the real world, to take it from the inside reality in your head and heart to the outside reality in the physical world. That's identity. It's very simple. You can change your identity like that. Who are you? I'm this person. And now I'm going to reinforce that as truth through action out in the real world. Done. That's your Identity done, past is gone. So don't ask questions of yourself. Ask questions of the actions that you've committed yourself to and where they're moving you as a person, as a human being, and your experiences forward and who you want to become. That's the approach, man. Hard part is if you're familiar and stuck in your ways and the. The path of least resistance is always the one that's most familiar. You'll rarely question it because it's comfy, right? It's cozy. You're still alive, you're still breathing. So I guess it's gotten you through 2010, 2015, 2020. So far, 2021. Nearly half the year's gone. I guess so far it's. It's got me here. I'm still breathing now. You know, things could be worse. Maybe they will get worse. Who knows, right? What will you do then? You won't be on any path then. There'll be no path. How do we. And I can probably get a feel for a lot of you listening to this then. Because for me, it's never about just pointing the finger. There's definitely no judgment. For me, it's finding the bright spots. It's isolating and pinpointing areas of your life. Might as well. We're all the same. We all have the same patterns and hardships to a degree, and going well. Okay, we've peeled the COVID back on that. Let's have a look at it. I don't need to be here knowing about what trauma you went through as a four year old to try and help you understand all that bullshit. No, no, you're here now in the not too distant past. This is the pattern. This is what's led you to hear so you can understand and learn. Yeah, I get that. Where are we going, though? Where are we going? Where are you going with this, Al? And I can see you asking this question. Okay, all right, well, fair enough. Path of least resistance. I get that, Al. It's the one that's most familiar. All right, cool. So that's my habits, that's my routines, rituals, systems, behaviors, the rhythm, the cadence. Pick whatever word you want. They've all got slightly different meanings, but, yeah, it's almost the same thing. Okay, what do we do then now? How do we change this, mate? And I'm not going to be somebody who just stands back and goes, action, just take action. I mean, what the fuck does that even mean? What we must do is pinpoint and couple. This is coupling, right? We must couple what we've identified with a specific relevant solution. The greatest way to break out of familiarity, the greatest way to break out of the rut, the greatest way to break out of the current position you find yourself in mentally is one to change your physical environment. These are if you want to take notes or write this down and remember all this again, this is the answer. One physical environment, an environment that is a larger energy source than you. Because this is what happens. And this is why I talk about creating space, which is my second point. When we create space inside of RDM in these high performance fathers, when I talk about principles, this is rdm, this is the entire movement. Then we apply these principles to building high performance fathers. When we talk about creating space inside rdm, what we're talking about is immersing yourself in the natural environment. Because when you do this, not if, but when you do this, whether it's the beach, the ocean, going for a swim, walking along the sand, getting out, doing a trail walk, getting out with nature, with trees, or even out on a park, on an oval, when you're seeing life and birds fly around and chirp and all that sort of stuff, when you are doing that, you are immersing yourself in a different environment from the current ruts that you find yourself in. So this changes you, this changes state, changes perspective, but also you're investing in an environment that is a much larger energy source than you. What does this mean? Now what this means is you are surrounded by significance. There's a huge. Like when you go out in the ocean, you see the waves, you see, you know, the sand, you see the structure of the cliffs, the cliff faces, and you see shits just move. And there's energy in action, man. There is energy in motion. When you see all this, you can't help but be blown away. Which is why I love nature, by the significance and the power. Look how big this is. Look how large this is. Look how amazing this is. Look at the miracle that this is. It's unbelievable. Which means, guess what? In an automated reflective state of comparison, it makes your bullshit look like fuck all. Which then helps you pull back and go, yeah, I guess maybe that problem that I'm harping on about or worrying about isn't actually that big. Because no matter the size of the problem, and I need you to understand this as well, the biggest problems that you will ever face in your life. Guess what the crazy part is about life? The solution is very, very small. It's super small. It's micro. It's why you see all these books, Tiny habits Atomic habits. And all these habits and performance books, they're all about small, right? Small shifts, increments, 1%. You hear that all the time. 1% every day, getting better. Doesn't matter how big your problem is, the solution is always super small. So small. So as you're listening to this episode, as we start to wrap it up, we're talking about path of least resistance, familiarity, which is ultimately the path that you're taking is taking down a desired outcome or a non desired outcome, one or the other. You can then start to step back and go, okay, what can I do about it? It's only a small shift, very small shift. Change your environment. Number one, two, create space. So it's not just, okay, I'm going to go for a drive and see the countryside. Yeah, I'm going to go see the three sisters out west in the blue mountains. No, no, it's about you shifting your environment and then creating space. What I mean by this is getting creative and conscious. You are here. You are now, you are slowing down the world, being still and being present. And then the third is just asking quality questions of yourself and not who you are, but of what you desire. Perfect example. I'll go out and I'll go, okay, I'm going out for a walk. I'm going to walk. I live near the ocean. I'm going to walk along the ocean. Beautiful. Sometimes I take the dogs, sometimes I don't. Put some nice music on, some headphones, listen to 432Hz relaxation music. Sometimes it'll be Hans Zimmer's pretty good. So it'll be stuff from Gladiator soundtrack, all that sort of stuff. Very, very good. And it slows me down. I slow down these questions. I'm telling you, man, it's not a series of questions. They will come to you. But I look at the three areas, the circles of significance inside of my life. Family, self and service. When you build these patterns, you naturally find the questions to ask. You don't need to prod and poke or sit down or have a brainstorming session with a whiteboard in a business room. You don't need to do that. Change your environment. You're investing in yourself here. Change your environment. Take time out to create space and slow down. Use the senses. Touch, sight, sound, smell, taste, sometimes. Change your environment, create space. Slow the world down. Get in a nice groove and rhythm of just being still. And then from there, family, self and service. What's important to me? What would I love to change? What am I currently not happy with or not enjoying. What's the habit that I need to break down? It's a solid right now. Make it a liquid, make it a gas, disperse it and get rid of it. What's the habit that I'd like to build? You want to sharpen up your body. Don't throw ten things at once. I'm going to do lunch and I'm going to win lunch this week. Five wins. I'm going to make sure my lunch is healthy. It's bang on, it's on the money, it's precise, it's going to serve me, it's going to nourish me for the back end of the day. Five wins there and I'm going to do that twice. I'm going to get 10 wins over the next 14 days and then I'm actually going to throw in three walks. So I'm going to get 10 wins in the nutrition department and I'm going to get six wins in the walking department for the back end. There's a month gone. May, done. Awesome. Fucking well done, man. What have you gotten? You got 10 wins in the first fortnight and you got another 10 in the second fortnight. Plus your six from the walks. Mate. Well done. You've got 26 to 30 depending on how much you do it. 26 to 30 wins. Outstanding work. Well done. When you start to deliver this to yourself through changing your environment, creating space and slowing down, having this process of thinking what it then? And this is how we'll finish this up as well because this will provide value for you. I'm talking about creative, right? Creative and conscious. What about the chaos and bullshit and stress? Yes, that's right. When you do this, this is going to start to reinforce and build a pattern inside of you of continuously finding like water with more of an understanding control. Right? Not just hitting the rock and becoming part of the stream and the flow of the river or lake. No, no, this is you like water finding a path, your path of least resistance. So how do we handle that hour when we're in damage control though you've spoken well about familiar can hurt us. Let's create new familiars. Let's open up the scope, our perspective, our lens, how we see things. By getting creative and conscious, by slowing down the changing our environment, creating space, taking time out, searching for the questions and answers that will naturally come because we've slowed down the world. That's cool. What do we do in the chaos though? And I'll move through quickly on this only because it's Part of my makeup of what I've been currently experiencing with our little man in lots of hospital visits and illness and supporting him and my wife and obviously our other two children and helping them because it's for me. Right. You know, if I have a family falling down and breaking and falling apart, it does no good to Al. Obviously, that's an important part. Family self and service. When you have damage control, you need to ask yourself again, what am I doing that's familiar to me, that's serving me and why? You know, I've just had. And we have one of our dads go through this, and he's. He's just had his second daughter. Sorry, he's second child. He's got a son now. He's got a daughter. And I asked him, I said, how often do you train? Four to five times a week. Okay, cool. And when you collect the information, I won't go too much into that. I'll just give you a nice example that you can apply to your own life when you collect the information, and then I'll provide mine. You can then start to see the current actions. So this is your energy management, what you're spending your time on, and the effort that you're applying in the time that you're using for that. Okay, while I'm doing this, why are you doing it and where is it taking you? It's taking me here and here. Okay, cool. Situation's changed. My son, he's sick. He's going to hospital frequently. Okay, no worries. Al, I can't. You know, I can't do this anymore. I can't train this amount of times. It's hard. I can't get the structure, the schedule together too much. Right, okay. No, this is what we'll do for you, mate. This is why you're doing these things. Why don't you do this and then you can replace. So not to talk about one of our members, I'll talk about myself now, my little man. Being in hospital frequently, going through challenges. All right. I currently train four to five times a week. That's what I currently do. I try and walk two to three times a week. You know, I do meal preps. I do all sorts of different moving parts that makes ours life. Ours life at the moment where I keep it all together. Family, self and service, they're all nurtured, they're nourished. I'm growing, I'm moving forward. Great. Now, when this happens and my wife has a massive ganglion cyst on her wrist that needs to get Cut out, which is a fucking three month, three month recovery. I couldn't believe it, but it was the size of a golf ball. So yeah, fair play. Like nerves, ligaments, everything's very sensitive at the moment when she has that. What I need to do is look at my life and go, okay, I'm not going to sacrifice and give up all of me. And this will be another episode where I talk about energy management because it's never the same. Like I spend more time on everyone else than myself. But I prioritize time for myself as much as I can first because I know if I'm turning up better, I can handle all the other shit. So if I only need to spend eight hours a week on alternative and the other 160 minus sleep can be in family and service. Game on, man. If I got that eight hours, I am humming. I'm 100%, I can give 100%. So this is what happens when Corinne has her operation and we've got the little men going out of hospital and we've got the girls who are frequently sick, in and out with illnesses because that's just daycare. And it is what it is and I understand. I get that. Beautiful. Well, I'm not going to train four to five times a week anymore. I'm not going to get up 4:30. This is what I need to do. I'm going to increase my walking. I'm going to take the kids because that's batching the way that I can deliver on family and self. I'm going to go for a walk, create some space, take the kids as well. That gives Corinne a break. I'm going to make sure that I stay. I stay up a little bit more in the nighttime and have a sleep in when Corinne's going to do it and vice versa. I get up early, I look after the kids. She can sleep until 8 o'. Clock. I take the little man, Roman, when he's unsettled at night because he's having breathing issues. I take him away two nights a week so Corinne can get some sleep in time. When I go to the gym, I communicate with Karine clearly. This is when I need to go to the gym and this is what we're going to do. I'm going to go to the gym today at 12 o' clock when I finish. You come to the gym. You go and get some creating space for yourself, get an outlet physically and mentally for yourself. I'm going to take the kids for 40 minutes. It doesn't matter that I need to drive an extra 20 minutes to work today. It's worth it to me that you have time out physically and mentally and I can take the kids off your hand and help your wrist have a rest as well. Awesome. She'll meet me there and I'll go there. So instead of training at 4:30 in the morning, I'm training at midday now, which is changing my entire day. But I'm structuring control so I can set the kids up for breakfast in the morning. I can go to work like I am right now and fucking crush what I need to do. Making sure it's clear and specific, not waffling on another bullshit. Get the podcast done, get the rest of what I need to do in upgrading our gold coaching team, which is fucking amazing. Get that done. Make sure they're clear on what they need to do. Execute on the other areas of my TAV targets, action and version. Go and do your gym session, change over with Corinne, give her some time out, look after the kids, spend some time with the kids, give them back to the Corrine and then come back to work and then execute on what I need to do to finish the day. This is what I needed to do and I'm currently doing right now. On some days of the week. On other days of the week, I don't. My whole point in this episode and that, trust me, that's another episode we're going to dive into called energy management and fluid management, control and influence, impact and importance. So that's, that's a different. And I may do a video session on that too to give you guys an understanding on YouTube so you can watch it. What I'm talking about there though, that is my path. That's my new path of least resistance. Because if I don't do that and I stay stuck in my ways in familiarity, I'm going to get fucked up because my wife's going to break down, she won't have any time for herself. My children are going to break down because they're going to be high stress and they're not going to be able to exert and express their energy because I can handle them. I can wrestle, run with them, play them, I can outplay because I'm very fit and strong, which means I can help them process the energy that they need to regulate themselves for the day so they can go to bed on time instead of staying up till 9, 10 o' clock at night crying and screaming, which means everyone gets nurtured and looked after. If I get my shit together with My championship journal and dial in my tabs and then work my mitts. My most important thing in family, self and service. I can organise when I'm going to go to work, when I'm going to perform here, what I'm going to do, why it's important. And I can keep moving forward and winning. Can you see, as we wrap this up, the importance and value here of continuously taking time out? Because I did and I slowed down on the weekend to create space, slow down the world. Get that bird's eye, that eagle eye. Get that eagle vision. Have a look. Okay, where are we? All right. What's important? Okay. I want to be lean and strong and healthy. No worries. Do I need to train five times a week right now? Is training five times a week right now at the cost and detriment of my family worth the reward of me maintaining a routine? That's the routine I want to maintain. When the routine of every other area of my life with my family wasn't the same. Right. That's changed, but I'm not changing. See, people want to change their circumstances, but they're not willing to change themselves. And that's just fucking baffling. Like, that's that. That to me is ultimately, you know, that's when people talk about that definition of insanity. But you want to change your circumstances, but you're unwilling to change yourself. I'm not talking about just your identity, I'm talking about your systems. The order in how you do things, your behavior, your mental approach and turn up. This is our pattern of performance. It's a principle. Your frequencies, how often you're doing it. Do I need to train five times a week right now? Maybe two. Maybe two. And some walking. Walking with the kids, walking with Corinne. You know, like it's figuring out one, how you can batch things. Yeah, that's good. That works. That does work. Yeah. Batching. I got to train yesterday and we had an event catch up with some of our members on the central coast here. Awesome. So self and service, two birds, one stone. Amazing. Don't. Don't do that and dilute the value, though. You can't do that all the time. You must be willing to adapt and change, to get familiar with new processes and get familiar with a new way in family. Self and service, that's going to continually serve you to grow. That's what I mean. In path of least resistance, it changes. Don't just stay in the same place. Don't just stay with what's familiar. Find the path that will serve the current situation. At hand and how that's going to serve you moving forward off the back of reviewing and analyzing that to make sure that you're aware. Don't just do shit blindly. There are a lot, and I'll leave that at that because obviously I'll talk quickly through the example of myself, my personal life as I flow. But there are so many examples like that where I've had to pivot. And you will need to do that. You'll need to, you know, improvise, adapt, overcome. And this innovation is a part of life. It doesn't take me away from my long term path. I'm fit and healthy and strong and I'll maintain that. And the fluidity of it being for one week or one month or one year, it is what it is, right? And it is what it is and what you can't control. But make it what it is and what you can control, that's the difference. Don't just throw your hands in the eye. It is what it is. It may be how it is for things you can't control. But what can I do to keep turning up and to keep winning? That's a powerful thing, right? I'm working less hours than I've ever worked in my life. We've got higher performance output, results and impact than ever in life. With more stress, chaos and less time than ever in my personal life with my family and young children and working through it. Well, how do we do it? Well, it's not a one man band, is it? Like when you've got a team of 10 and you're pumping out hundreds and hundreds of hours a week now across the board with all of you on specific roles where there are elite specialists in their specific given role. Well, of course you're going to do better than what Al can do as a one man band. Trying to wear all the different hats of serving the dads in rdm. This is about not just working smarter, it's about being intelligent. And the greatest way you can be intelligent in your life and build the best skill sets is not by always adopting the path of least resistance that's familiar to you. It's about continually defining and then refining this path through taking time out, shifting your environment, creating space, asking questions, getting that third eye, that bird's eye view of looking at where you're actually going and then executing and then rinse and repeat. I hope this episode serves you well. It's a couple of layers on. One, to get creative, two to minimize and get in damage control and three, to couple those two together. So that with the ebbs and flow of life, with the fluidity that life is, the ups and downs, the growing and dying, all the different bits and pieces that life is, you can still hold the reinsman on your life. You can still control and dictate who you wish to be, the actions that will define and reinforce that, and how that will continually improve. Family, self and service. Hard to do. You can have all three. I've had a couple of people, highly respected I look up to who've said, no, you'll only ever have two. And I say fuck bullshit. No way you can have all three. I'm living all three. We live all three. That's what a high performance father is. Otherwise you're not family, self and service. You can have all three. You can be a high performance father in your life, but you must stay focused, pay attention, cut the bullshit that distracts you. If you're pumping 20 hours of technology a week, sedation, distraction, alcohol, you need to remove that if you want to be a high performance father and focus on the most important things to live and breathe and ultimately create the legacy you desire and that your children deserve to move forward and win the second half. And one of the greatest ways to do that is, yes, not by taking necessarily the easy road, but this is the easy road, right, relative to regret and trauma later on in life, but by finding your new path of least resistance. That's coupled with growth and coupled with improvements and constant evolution in family, self and service.