114. Do What Is Right, Not What Is Easy

Welcome to another episode of Real Dad Movement podcast. This is your host, Al. And we've got an amazing man with us today. I think, Is this our third or fourth?

I think it's our third. Third, yeah.

Third episode. Drew McKenna, one of our elite coaches inside of our elite coaching program, High Performance Father, which comes underneath the soon to be global umbrella of Real Dad Movement. What a fucking amazing movement we have, mate.

It is. It's unreal. It's so good.

So title of this episode and I think Drew's got some ink that represents it quite well, which should be fitting for this episode. Do what is right, not what is easy. And we're talking about just before we. We started this, I was chatting with Drew and just saying, what do we. What's this episode about? And for me, a lot of it's appreciation for Drew and what he's done with us, been with us. We connected. Officially connected under RDM in June 2019, but a bit of comms here and there in the CrossFit days, but Drew came on board three months later and it's been nearly two years now. On board as one of our key. He's a head coach now, but starting with performance, mindset, accountability, all of the above. But now, you know, the head coach of our Gold program. And that's where I want this episode to start, mate. One being a testament to yourself, your bloody legend. Which is why we're not filming this on YouTube, because Drew's cuddling me at the moment. It might just be. Might be R60 plus.

No one needs to say 39. 39 year old man crying.

Yes. Oh, yes. What a tough fire you are, mate. A firefighter with some crazy life experience and that you've been through personally, professionally, and you just keep standing up, man. That's why I love the title of this episode. That's why I love. It's actually a tattoo you have. Do what is right, not what is easy. And that, that's the point of this episode. A bit of a testimonial to yourself and where you've come from. But the theme behind that is it's never settling, is it, mate? It's continued excellence. Where does the buck stop? Well, it doesn't as long as you're still fucking breathing and you've got some air in your lungs and you've got some hunger in your eyes. You should never stop. But how's it been for you, mate? Just reflection, last couple of years.

It's been a crazy couple of years, mate. As you know, there's been so much on here, personally, professionally, it's just been full on. And it's funny you say, like, where does the buck stop and when do I stop and rest? And like, there's some days you just can't. There's no, like, you know that if you stop, it's going to be remain stagnant or you're stuck in that version of you at that time, which isn't always beneficial for where you are in your life cycle as well. And that's where doing what's right, not what is easy comes forward with that. And there's been times when even my daughter's pulled me up on that when you hit them, times when you're tired and you go, I don't really feel like doing this today. And I'll never forget one example that she had that kept me moving forward. I had to do a midweek mission video, the roundtable. And this is a while back, and I was absolutely slammed, so tired, I'm sitting on the lounge almost asleep. I went, I really don't want to do this today. And she turned around and said, what's that tattoo on your ribs? What does that mean? And I went, you know what it means? And she goes, that's right. So you should get up and get it done and then you can rest when you're finished. And I went, son of a bitch, you got me. And so that just represented, you can't stop at any stage because unless you're in a decent position, why can't you get better? Why can't you move forward in your life and enhance everything that's going on around you, like the growth and everything that goes on behind the scenes. And like we all know the old adage, if you don't do it today, then it's not going to get done tomorrow. Or if then you work out your triage your priorities and things as well, so you know where to put your energy to be able to move forward. And you know what it's been like here as well. You and I have joked about this a few times and I've joked about it with a couple of the other coaches as well. And Max, when he just came on board, he goes, oh, man, everything's so full on. I went, yeah, it'll be full on for about two months and then it'll cruise for like four week period. Then I'll go, right, are we going to do this now? And you go, son of a bitch.

Let me have a week.

But if you don't stay ahead in life, you fall behind, and that's why. Or that's where with Real Dad Movement, we help guys be able to identify that and turn that around. But in my own life, I've just kept plugging along, making sure I get done what needs to get done. I prioritize a lot of stuff and then go through the schedule of what's most important and move forward from there. And as you know, my daughter is always the most important thing for me. And everything else gets scheduled around that, everything else. And if there's a way that I can get around it, then I'll shelve it until later on and all that kind of thing. So that's the most important thing for me. And then I look at that and go, what kind of. Of example and legacy am I leaving for her? If I'm sitting down, not doing much at all, like I'm sitting in the lounge watching my 15th YouTube video or some TV show, and it's funny, I know it frustrates some of the guys at work because they'll be talking about TV shows and. Oh, have you seen this? Yeah, no. You've seen it? No. And even with footy, like, we had midweek mission this week. State of Origin was on and I didn't watch any of it because I was in midweek mission and honestly can't remember the last time I watched a full game of footy. I used to love it, same as you. We lived and breathed it and played it. And yeah, now it's kind of like, well, I don't have time because that distracts me from other things and other things I need to get sorted out and done. So I'm always looking for ways to improve and move forward with that.

So isn't it. Oh, man, there's like three or four things in there. That's what I'm trying to write them down and pepper back around them. Yeah, yeah. The game changes. You know, you're playing. You're playing the wrong rules in the wrong game. If you find yourself stuck and caught or falling behind, you gotta fucking check yourself. Like you said. Like I. Yeah, it's nothing against sport or other. Other moving parts that, that life can entertain us with, but it becomes a distraction or an interruption, external, internal, whether you allow it or whether it's forces itself on you. And I don't know, man, like, you've got to. You've got to be intelligent, you've got to have awareness and excellence. You got to have awareness of where you're going and why. And excellence, or we call it pillars of progress, precision and purpose. But you can't just be the lone wolf or the guy who just thinks, you know, like you said, you never stop. Someone will think, yeah, you're right. I never stop. I work these hours. I do. This means all, mate. Yeah. Why are you making that money for your family? Or why are you doing extra for your family in that area, but you're not doing extra for them in terms of spending quality time with them or why you're just spending time with them, but you're not doing anything and improving yourself or your health.

You need to check yourself and reflect on where you're at yourself, not just where you're at professionally. Like. Like you say places are on 200, 300, 300,000 massive money. And you go, well, that's cool, you're earning all that money, but you're selling your soul to get that money. Your family's missing out on you. And then you go, okay, so I've lost that now. How do I know? The gut check comes and go, okay, now where do we go from here? And you've always got to be mindful and reflective of yourself and do it quite often so that you can give yourself a proper gauge to where at? Because without that, you just lost.

Do you think that's the hardest part in the modern world, mate, when it comes to being a father, entering the second half or in the second half and you are alone, like, how do you get a gauge? How do you change your eyes? How do you change that up? I mean, that's probably a lot of the guys say it's the most valuable asset of rdm, the environment, the coaching, which I agree, for longevity and sustainability, you need to have the right pathway and you need to get your energy up there. The first two pillars, alignment and energy. But what is the biggest hole. What's the biggest hole missing in most men and fathers lives? Is it direction? We did an episode with Ken on that. Like, what do you. What do you. What do you say? You're on the inside and you've seen the outside too?

Yeah, yeah. From the outside I see that lack of direction and lack of interaction with people that are. Or they're on a common goal to you especially, like, there's plenty of guys that we get on board and. And they're a little bit lost. They don't know where to go. But they've always done what they've always done. So they're still in the same pub that they've been drinking since I was 16 years old. Watching the footy games on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Missing out on that time with the family. Nothing's changing. They're still hanging around the same people and that's fine. But if you're not happy there, then you need to look at leveling up and what can you change out of that? And there's quite often where I'll, like, you become products of your environment. So if you're always in that environment and you sit there and this is like we used to joke when I was kid or younger, he'd be there going, oh, there's such and such. He's still in his same chair that he's been in. Like, they've painted around him when they painted the pub kind of thing. And so, like, do you want to be that guy? He's there and he's 55 years old, but he looks like he's 155 years old. His missus has probably left him. His kids don't talk to him. He spends all his time in the pub to just because he hasn't dealt with a lot of things that he needs to deal with. And it's just not a judgment thing that I'm coming from with that. It's more that I find it sad that he doesn't have that ability to be able to look at that and go, I need to change something and how can I change it? It's more that quite often blokes like that don't know how to change it, don't want to put the effort in, and then they become lost in that. And then when they come on board with us especially, they're in a group of guys in the tribe that are all supportive. Doesn't matter what happens, doesn't matter where you go. Guys stop training. Guys stop eating really well for. It might be a month at a time, but then they dive back in and everyone's there, Come on, let's go. We're going to lift you up. And so there's that disconnect now with having people in that tribe. Troubled environment. You don't have that connection now, especially now that everything is online. Zoom calls are Online. Everyone has 5,000 friends on Facebook and Instagram. And how many of them do you actually hang out with? And all those kinds of things. Do they align with you? Do their ideals align with where you want to be? And that's when you need to have that gut check as well and go, well, sometimes you might have to limit your exposure to different people and that. That can be sad. But unless you have quality relationships with people, people are going to get upset. People with quality relationships can kind of understand or you can talk about it and go forward from there through the communication go, look, I've only got time to hang out with you for a couple of hours this week. Okay, cool, no worries. Happy days. And move forward from there. Or people have a lot of other different things on and a lot of different struggles and things and deal with them differently. And that part of that might be just disappearing from life and from people for a few days and then they come forward. But if you've got a decent block of people around you, then when you come back into the fray it doesn't make much difference. There's that lack of connection and that lack of one self awareness, the connection with others and the connection with the external environment that is going to be beneficial for you as well. Because it's not always a beneficial environment that you're in, which we see quite often with guys coming in and they've got that are in the pub that go I need to change something here because I'm starting to lose a lot and how can I change that? And they're not happy with that external environment that they're in all the time. And we've heard it plenty of times from guys when they come on board and they cop a lot of flack from family or from friends especially, might be lifelong friends because they've made their decision to turn around and go I'm not going to drink as much now. I want to turn this around and go forward from there and I want to be able to do this and turn different bits and pieces around and then it's so they, they get a lot of flack, a lot of blowback from people like that and they get there and go, well how can I deal with this at boys? Because I'm copping this flack and it's not what I want to do anymore. Is there a way I can work around it? And quite often it's just be truthful with them, just put it out there and go look, this is not where I want to be anymore. Okay, we can still do stuff but we're going to do it in less frequency or whatever. And it's just more that awareness and not having that connection with yourself and not having that connection with the environment to be able to push yourself forward as well.

We talk about that term like the truth always wins and what you're sharing there. Ultimately for a lot of you guys it's really understand that you got to take one step At a time, the frequency might not be what ultimately it will become, but to start something, how can you do it when you're on your own or in the wrong environment, or stagnate in the same position, yet telling yourself fucking lies or living in denial or not being honest with yourself by bringing up the truth in your situation. And for me, my question is what you think things will get better as you get older? How, tell me, how do you think? If you haven't changed your life, invested in an environment that wants to grow as well, doesn't mean cut your friends and family away. My wife, potentially, I'm not going to pigeonhole it, but potentially will not have the ambitions that I have on a professional level in terms of growth in the area that I'm working at. That doesn't make her more or less than what I am. Like, she's done some fucking unbelievable things with the children I couldn't even comprehend doing. But my point is, as long as you're continually growing in your environment, your tribe, those around you, you won't lose. You can't. But if you think things will get better by sweeping it under the rug, going it alone, well, how, what's your strategy? What's your tactics? And it's interesting, a lot of the you and I know this because we're heavily involved with the guys, their data, what they go through. We see a common theme, especially for these men. And it's probably you as well listening to this. It's self value. Like if you don't have a high level of self value and belief like that is the chronic disease of the world. Like you, you know, that really is tall popping, self sabotaging, having the wrong environment, you know, someone else giving you an identity or a label, which we'll say for another episode. Most of them are talking about labels. You lose belief. And the craziest part is, man, we like, we're not here to convince anyone. I love doing these, I love doing this with you as well. We'll try and get some more episodes out and we, we give a lot of value. We give a shitload away for free. Tactics, mindsets, resources, all that sort of stuff. But ultimately we're not here to convince anyone of anything. There's two things that are needed for the father to move forward. A belief in the environment that he's investing in, that has his best interest at heart, that wants him to grow and win and hunt life with him, and a belief in himself. It's always the belief in himself which lacks. That's the Crazy part, man. I mean, we got, fuck, we got testimonials, we got shit coming out of our ass that just shows that we're real. We get the runs on the board and we do what we say we will do and we give those guarantees. But hard part is a lot of times these fathers don't believe in themselves, whether they reach out to us or not. But it's like, you know, sometimes you might not have that, and sometimes that takes time. Sometimes you get a few chinks in your arm and sometimes it gets challenged and sometimes it's from those most closest to you. So you're really vulnerable. That's heavy, man. Like you guys listening to this. You're not alone in going through those sabotaging moments. Whether it's self sabotage or those around you. You thought loved you and have your best interest at heart. But all of a sudden there's an agenda that reveals itself. Point is, if you don't believe in yourself, that's okay. Find someone who fucking does and then they'll help you and show you how to raise that belief in yourself. You can't do that on your own.

No way.

That's environment when you talk about environment. I went for a walk the other night and there's a big two story house right near the beach of Batto Bay. And it's sort of open windows and I saw a huge TV blaring. The whole family's there just sitting, zombies fucking watching. And look, I don't care if you guys listen to this, watch telly or drink alcohol, do whatever you want. But for me, how can you ever be truly present if you're not present in an environment that nourishes and nurtures you? First, first excuse. Yeah, but it's my time to relax out, you know, I've had a big day this. Blah, blah, that's cool. But if you're chronically using a device like that to relax 20 hours a week, you should probably peel the layer back one or two and maybe ask that question.

Oh yeah, well, going off that as an example, you look at when the kids are in front of the tv, how aware are they? Doesn't matter what age your kids are, they could be three, they could be 23. If you want them to engage with you and you want them to be able to be present, does that happen? Mate, they'll watch the ads because they've got ads on ads now because the colors are really flashy. You try and talk to a kid who's watching TV in the first thing in the Morning. And go, mate, I need you to put your uniform on. You need to do this, this and this and get ready for school. If you got their attention. No, the big screens got their attention. They're not aware of anything that's going on around them. And it's not like a. Again, not a judgment thing. That is statement of fact. That's what they do. They just sit there looking at the screen. And you could go back, you could walk backwards and forwards with a brass band completely starkers and they would not even see. And there's been studies that show that as well walk in and all kinds of things, but because they're just so distracted and it might be okay for half an hour here, an hour there, like, as you say. But if you're listening, you're losing 24 hours in a week. There's a whole day you've lost. So, like, if you lose a whole day, what can you do with the whole day? You can do lots with the whole day.

Yeah, and like you said, like, if you don't have. There's a. Yeah. There was a test. Trying to think of the thing of the scientists. Oh, the invisible gorilla. Yeah, I just looked it up. Now, there was an invisible gorilla test where you're right, they had two teams, one with black singlets, one with white singlets, and they're passing the ball around. And your goal was to track. Obviously, you'll find it easy if you know what the test is about. But your goal is to count how many passes the black singlet team did, right?

Yep.

In this video. And I watched it. I'll show you after this. I've got it up now. In this video, there's a gorilla, like a guy dressed in a gorilla suit that just fucking walks in the middle, dances, twirls around. He's there for ages. It's not. It's not popping your head in. He's fucking there for ages, man. And then he walks through. And of the studies, it was over 94% didn't see the gorilla at all. But they all got the right amount of passes, right? And that was one team. So you got the black singlet team, the white singlet team and this big fucking gorilla suit. When I watched it, I was like, that's ridiculous, man. Now there is a small percent that would catch on to it if you're open, very thinker. All different moving parts that highlight a level of free will and not being a sheep. But that's for another story. You will, you will. Absolutely. You'll identify that and you will notice the gorilla because your peripherals and your spatial and social awareness is very. Well, it's very acute. It's very, very pinpoint, mate. That's crazy, because when you wind that back to something that's even more alluring than watching this basketball team, it was a small space, too. It was such a small area. So you couldn't miss the gorilla, but rewind that back to an undeveloped brain in our children. And then they're focused on something that's colorful, luring, and attractive and conditioned. Like, TV is a form of conditioning. It's not wearing a tinfoil hat. It is a form of. Everything's a form of conditioning right here and now. Like, what we're doing here is trying to influence you into being empowered inside of yourself to rise up and win the second half in your life by being a fucking leader. Like, it's just. I know you and the other guys laugh at me sometimes because of how fast I talk. And it's like, take a breath, Al.

Can you just take that back a little bit? I missed the last three minutes.

But it's because it's literally my makeup. It's like I'm not even. I don't even need to be actively present. It's part of the belief system in the subconscious. Just like you have, like, you're a fiery right man. You'll be under the pump with some scenarios. Oh, yeah, tell me. Right? Your instincts, Things just kick in.

Yeah, it is. And part of that instincts training and all those kinds of things. But it's also, you need to be able to be aware of your surroundings. You got that again, that external awareness, not just of yourself. You need to see that. You need to be able to see that gorilla. Because if you only see the passes, then you're going to get a roof, land on your head, that kind of thing. You need to be aware of so many different things going on at once. And it's being able to be spatially aware of your. Your place in the world. Not just like I'll use when we're on a job as an example, but like, so much happens on around you. If you stay laser focused on one thing, then you're going to fall, you're going to hurt yourself. Something will happen. But if you go, okay, let's detach a little bit and look at the screen as well, the scene as a whole. Okay, I can see there's an LPG cylinder in that corner. There's a light fixture about to come down there. There's a lot of air Conditioning ducts dropping down, seat of the fires over here. But these can be still impinged and these are our exposures. And just by having that little to be able to detach and have that 10 second look before you go diving into what your actual task is that keeps you alive. Where if you even at work, we quite often use the analogy of the rescue, the rescuer. And you see it a lot in the news. Every so often there'll be. Someone will die of gas exposure in a mine or in a hole somewhere, or carbon dioxide. There's another one, carbon monoxide, where there will be five people have died and only one person was stuck. But because they didn't double check, they didn't see okay, that motor's been running in that hole for that long. So that's probably got rid of this, displaced the oxygen. So now he's passed out. And then the next four guys that are. The next guy goes in, he passes out guys, next guy goes in, passes out, dies. Because they're looking at, they're solely focused on getting that guy out. They're not actually looking at the stuff that's around and they're not so spatially aware of what's about to happen or what's happening here. And it's not until you get the fourth or fifth guy and they go, man, there's too many people dead in that hole. I'm going in the hole. And they go, why, why can't we go in that hole? Now we look at it where you need to have that in, in life in general, that's just like a work example. But in life in general, you need to have that awareness of, hold on, I'm not going to go balls in right now. I need to be able to just detach a little. And then how do I, how do I see that as a whole working together? And then, okay, now we can dive into that and get the action done. Because now I've got an overall plan. I'm not diving into one small section and then blowing out the rest. And which is kind of what we do with real dad movement as well. A lot of guys will come in overweight and they will go, all right, I want to lose weight. You go, okay, but how do you want to lose weight? What can we do to do for you to lose that weight? And if they dive too much into nutrition or dive too much into training, then everything else falls down around them. They lose that. With the, they say they go all nutrition, you lose out with again, relationships around yourself because you limit Yourself so much you might miss out training because you're not paying attention to that. You're paying attention to that, to your nutrition. You're not. You're spending more time on that than you are with the family, with work, all those kinds of things. So you let yourself down and it's more. You need to detach from that as the whole sole focus and let it all come together.

Yeah, yeah. It's just on that point alone, me getting my nutrition sorted to 95%. And the family's good. The family's on board. I educate them. But getting that, getting my nutrition sorted and my night routine and how I track my sleep is so much fucking quicker than a training session.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Like, instead of training six days a week, why don't I train? Because sometimes I'll do four, but I generally do three solid sessions a week and then I'll hit four. And five is like cardio mix, walking, family movement. I'm moving. So instead of that hour to an hour and a half, if you include travel time, shower, all that sort of stuff, I can bang out four meals in 20 minutes. And I've already got an automated structure in how I track my sleep, my night routine, my morning routine, setting alarms, setting my plan for the next day with the family, with myself, that's like 35 minutes. It's nothing. But the training session is almost triple that.

Oh, yeah, easy. And once you've got them in place, it becomes second nature. You don't realize you're doing it. And now, as you say, you got 20 minutes to knock up your meals when someone first comes on, it might take all day on a Sunday to knock that out for the week. But then as you start to get more practice with it, it's easy, easy, easy done. And it's just that repetition and practice and it becomes habit because you're building the habit over that time.

Yeah, it's like Quick Fire example. I can throw a kilo mince in there, throw a little bit of rice bran oil, because that's a good stable oil to cook with. Bang. I get two avocados split their mince. I've got four avocado meals, I got four meat meals. Meanwhile, I chuck six chook breasts in the oven, cut four potatoes in half, I'm fucking done. Like, I've got eight meals like that, more 10 meals. It's not that hard. But ultimately, if you don't. And this is the skill set, and we're going to wrap back around to the whole point of this episode, we need to create layers, because this is about layers and understanding. If you don't have the skill set to zoom in and zoom out frequently, you will get burned. Either as a fiery, either in your life, as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, or a worker in society and the communities, or in yourself and your own health and well being, you will get burned. But here's the point. The greatest way that you can build that awareness is by focusing in areas where you have environments that are controlled or fertilizing so you can grow. That's why environment is so important. This is the point of everything we're sharing about the tribe so far, which we'll peel back to Drew on a personal level and his experience. If you're in an environment you can control, it's why we love exercising in the gym, because there's so much hardship, resilience, grit, determination, persistence, endurance. All of it. Like, massive sport as well. But sport has variables that it can be good and bad. Depends on the age you're at in the stage and the sport. Of course, you know, rugby league cut me in half in many ways with my body. But we've got dads who still play. A little bit of old, old boys, afl, a little bit of soccer. Ken, our energy coach, he's 50. Guys think he's 40. He runs rings around him and looks 32. That's soccer.

Yeah, he looks 32.

He's the Benjamin Button about.

Yeah, he's going backwards.

Yes, he's fucking short enough. But I hope you're not watching this. Don't listen to this episode, Ken. Ken's got a fucking chest like a gorilla chest. Press me out of the. Out of the office. It's good hacking shit on a podcast because you're. You know, it's.

Because he's not here.

I'll get a message in about an hour's time. Hey, Al. What are you up to, Ma? I live three hours away in Wollongong, but I thought we could catch up in the office and just have a bit of a chat.

As long as he's not calling in at my place two hours before that.

Or an hour before that. Why don't we do a zoom, Ken? Oh, no, no, no, mate. It's. I like to. I like to be in your presence. You know, it's. It's fascinating when we. When we have that environment, that's what gives you the tools like fertilizer, growth, nurturing, nourishing. And that's a very powerful thing, man. Like, fuck. I can't. Like I learned so much more from the old boys. We've got a fair few dads in their 50s and oh, fuck, they teach me so much. And I love they look, I love that they look up to us as leaders and that's great, but it's a reciprocal energy, massively. It's that relationship together because if we don't get their data and the feelings with that. So we get. Drew's amazing at tracking and interpreting the data we get, which is phenomenal. Like, I've started to roll a few ads out. Our IP is very valuable, but we're starting to show a little bit more. And just because, you know, even if people, which they do try and copy our programs, you can't replace what we've got in the people, the culture, and definitely our coaches. But when we show the data, we connect that with feelings and we go through a process with a weekly cadence when we get a real feel for the man's life. And it's not in an intrusive manner, it's in a supportive manner to help him win. So when we're diving into this data, it's very, very powerful to show us what the next step is, what they need help with, how we can help them with the facts and the feelings of their life. Having that environment where you can give them the continuity of coaching they need is such an amazing thing. Because Drew, you and I learn a lot from these guys when we get their data. But the data gives us the skill set and the tools to then interpret it, reflect it and show the mirror bear sounding board, or deliver our coaching sessions to show them exactly what they're talking about. But they don't quite understand this is what's going on in my life. Al, Drew, Swaney, Adam, Max, fucking Pete, Ken, like this, this is what's going on in my life. But some of them don't understand it. It's like the data we get, it's a lag measure, it's after fact, it's massive. So we get it, we interpret it, and then we break it down and go through it and then we build from there. That's. Oh, man. Talk about compound interest in improving your life. Massive. But how's the environment played a role in you for the last two years, Mate? You've been through some pretty heavy stuff in all areas. And I guess, you know, how have you found having this environment both as a coach and as a part of the tribe and how much has changed as well over the last couple of years?

It's been incredibly valuable both ways I've been delivering coaching to them and just quite often the guys will share different things that I get a lot out of to be able to push forward as well. Every so often I'll actually message a bloke and go, mate, that was really cool. I've got a lot out of that. Other times they probably won't even know how much impact they have on my life because I'll sit back and take it in and process it and go from there. And it's been good to be able to have second sets of eyes on things or listen to different guys experiences that you're not on your own, you're not alone. And people have been through a lot of stuff that you've been through or you're going through at the time as well. What you can draw from is their experiences and how to use that to enhance your own experience with it and to better negotiate different things too. You're able to be able to take the wins that some guys have gone, okay, this is what I did here and blah, blah, blah, and you go, oh, I can take that on board. That'll keep me moving forward. And then you can see where other guys have had, we call them learnings in rdm, where they've tripped, they could have handled something a bit better. And they've gone, oh, look, I learned this. And I go, okay, so I'm going to take what you've learned from and then take that outcome and go, how can I learn from your mistake and move forward with that? I found it. There's been a few guys I've been able to contact with and talk about different bits and pieces on a personal level, not just a professional level with them guys and they do that with me as well. It's reciprocal and it's been very good and beneficial for me and my growth. There's, as you know, there's been plenty of times in the last few years where I was busted as shit and then I'd read through or I'd speak to different guys and I thought where I was average or ordinary and then I'd be able to look and go, okay, maybe where I'm at right now isn't as average and ordinary. And now I can put my best foot forward because this guy needs some better energy than what I. He needs more energy today because of these different factors. And that's where my sense of duty and doing what's right, not what's easy comes forward. Where there's been days when I've actually doesn't matter I've shelved how I've felt to be able to get there and deliver because I know that someone else is in a worse position, which has forced me then to look at myself and to again reflect and look at where I'm at in where I'm traveling. Is there something I need to change myself not just for the professional side of it all, but is there something I need to change personally to be able to get in front and win? And is it. Am I freewheeling in a position? Is there something I need to address on a personal level? And it's. It's the. The tribe has held. Held up a mirror to me often enough as well. And then it's not in a bad way. It's. It's a thing of. You need like, mate, you need to reflect what's going on here. Why are you still like, feel like you're stuck? And, and even though I'm still moving forward, for me I feel stuck in different parts of the last few years. And so you get there and I can use that then to turn that around and look at myself and use that mirror that the boys hold up. And then I'm able to use that in my own experience then to help push that, not push that through, but to be able to use my own experience when guys have similar situations and go, okay, this is where we're going to go with this. Let me know how you go. Try it for two weeks, if it doesn't work, come back to me, those kinds of things. And then I can again, I can draw from the experiences of others to be able to help sort of enhance my arsenal then as well. It's been very cross beneficial. It's been both backwards and forwards with the whole thing. It's been a brilliant, brilliant thing that I've been part of and I'm actually very, very appreciative one of you for having me on as you know, but also appreciative to be in that position, to be able to do that with these guys and in a part of my life at the time that I really like, I needed it, but I wasn't really sure how much I needed it until now. I look back in reflection and go, wow, that was amazing that I was part of that and to be able to move forward with what I've had to move forward through.

Yeah, fuck. You've changed so much, man, since 2019. It's unbelievable. You've gotten stronger, you've gotten resilient. That's the hard part, isn't it, man? Like people. You don't. The way that we become known in life is turning the unknowns into knowns. And that creates a level of certainty, control, freedom. The opposite of that is obviously uncertainty, fear, regret, doubt, inability to act weaker in your actions, which means you're at identity over. Your life becomes less and less and you implode. Eventually everyone does. No one can escape, can't escape the universal laws of life. So to see that that progress and change for you, man, it's so fucking incredible and inspiring. But we don't know like it's unknowns. Like you don't, you don't necessarily know at the time what leadership may look like because leadership is after the fact. No one ever looks at someone and goes, he's about to lead. No way he's leading right now. How do you know? You could only say he's leading right now in a comparative analysis of 10 seconds before that action. So it's like, well, you can't really like what we're pioneering here. For fathers, I believe the standard we hit and what we're continually rising to will be a first globally. I'm not saying that there are programs out there that don't help dads. There are plenty of programs out there that are for men and some of those men happen to be fathers. It's not about that. But the way that we just hone in on specific areas of the man's life as a father and triple down on the feelings and facts in such an interactive and connective way is, man, it's fucking mind boggling. Which is why I know we laugh about. Yeah, we create this. This is awesome. R. Now we're changing it up again. We're evolving. We're evolving. If you didn't have that in me, if I didn't have that drive and inspiration from you and stagnant RTM would have died in 2018. 2019 wouldn't have. So you must have that. That continue longer for growth. And then the benefits of that is someone like yourself, how you just get such a big change in not only your resilience, your strength, man, you're like your leadership. It's crazy how much you've changed. And you say the same to me, how much I've changed since 2019. But you know, and then that peels back.

Probably dropped about 10 kilos. Yeah.

One of those pictures looked like I had a case of beer. It was the shirt. It was the shirt. The angle. There was a fan on floor fans and the floor fans were blowing up the shirt. If you said Michelin man. I would have had butter Jibb.

I'd be sweet. I'd be safe. You can't come. You can't reach down that far.

You're too tall. My arm mobility got caught at the, at the mid waist area. Trying to wrap around and bear hug.

You, it's like trying to chase around a four year old. You'll never catch me.

It's like Rocky when he chases the chickens. Yes. Before he got fit. You know, like it perfect examples coming back to the start, like Addie quoting, you know, monkey see, monkey do. Right. When she reflects that quote to what is she, six, seven?

She'll be seven in a couple weeks.

That's unbelievable, man.

So fast.

To have your child though have give you that feedback.

Yeah.

I mean I'm sure you're not sitting there every night like lifting your shirt up going, hey, remember what this means? Do what is right, not what is easy. Remember this like do you know, like it's not like she, she sees. They, everyone, especially kids, they respond to energy. It doesn't matter how, how well you can articulate a word. Communication is important, but communication is a form of communication is action. Right. You communicate, it's energy. Like communication is energy. That's what it is. Life is energy. Yeah. And so when we're talking about what we do with these guys, data, facts, feelings, like you guys listening around on the inside, you've got no idea like how we actually, you know, how we actually integrate and collect that. But what I did is I just brought up something quickly while we're here. This is part of our, our feedback with the guys and one of the questions is what are you blessed for? But just as a bit of a rapid fire speak too quickly. But obviously we've got a lot of fathers and we work through their entire forums. But the answer to that question for these guys, they just rattle through them without obviously saying their name, but their answers. Awareness of life, the opportunity to be great and lead my family. This is answering our question to them that we pose every week. What are you blessed for? Support of my wife. She's my biggest fan. Family, friends in RDM and good health. Family. The kids have been great. My wife has done a great job with them. I'm blessed for learning more and more about myself every day. Had a really good week in my business. Feeling good and positive having RDM in my life. Had a tough week this week at home, so on and so forth. My family, the freedom to get away, to see some of the countryside without restriction. Time Spent with the family, my health. Drew laid down some hard truths. The truth always wins. Right, so we're not Nazis cracking the whip, we're not cheerleaders. But yet there's times when we need to have a respectful level of firmness. Go, mate. Come on, let's fucking lift. Having a great run this week and a few challenges. Running 10k straight lock. And when we take this then, and this is just a handful, take it in. The greatest win for the week. Understanding that I'm building a powerful life. Running 10Ks straight this morning, getting fit again and walking. Doing 10,000 steps daily for the month of May. 5:30am Fitness class. Start the week cleanest nutrition since arriving in Queensland. Getting alongside my kids, being able to encourage them to push themselves. My nutrition's improved so much after a poor start on self. I turned around and got in some training whilst I was away. Back in the gym for two workouts. Getting back on track after down now start to the week, just working on post op recovery. I've taken two big hits this week, but I'm still here. I've got a good circle of support. Broke a rut but need to be considered. You know, this is when we're reading these words, we're seeing history and feelings and facts that are tied into a scoring system that we've created. So we chart and score the dads in family, self and service, in connection, in their energy, in their performance in leadership. So they get their HPF scores, they get their high performance father scores, then the tribe gets a score. But the way that we track things with the cadence of coaching is there's layers of feelings and diving into the heart and soul of these men so we can create this connection and then help them move that forward so they can express a better life. Like Drew, this is doing what's right. This isn't easy. No way. Like, this isn't 28 day dad bod challenge. Get the out of here.

Growth isn't easy. Nothing. See, nothing worth having in life is easy ever. And that's one thing I've come to learn in my 39 years of or my 39 journeys around the sun is anything that is worth it is always going to really test you. And if you're in a position now where you feel like you're really tested, that means it's time to level up. That means you need to change something and move forward. And because nothing happens when you're just sitting there stagnant, we know that. But if it's worth it, it's Going to take hard work and dedication and accountability to get there. But nothing in life is that is worth having as easy. Nothing.

You know, it's. And there's. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. And it's not that we go out chasing hardships or trouble or challenge, but that's a natural byproduct of looking to perform with excellence in your life at every step, every turn, every corner. Now, you won't win every day you turn up to win, but you won't win every day. And that's okay. But you try and stay in that win zone. Above that 75% mark, get in that win zone. Worst case, you're competing. Sometimes you feel like you're surviving, but you still get in that competitive zone to get into the wind zone. And you stay there as long as you can by consistently turning up. And the best way to do that is by improving who you are. People want. See when we. It's a revelation. I had the other week talking about freedom, control, certainty. You know, every human wants that. But for fathers, mate, fuck off. There's chaos, there's stress, there's shit everywhere that you need to organize. You're wearing all the different hats, you got a massive amount of pressure. Life doesn't get easier, your body's in worser shape, so you've got less energy. So everything's, it's, it's really a topsy turvy the other way. And with relationships with everything, one of the greatest things that you can have, which is a byproduct of having a good foundation, is stability. Right, stability. And it's not necessarily stability in your actions. Like, there's a lot of risks that I've taken. There's a lot of risks you take. There's a lot of risks you take as a firefighter as well. But having stability in your own standards, principles and who you are, that's the biggest thing. You know, if something happens and we lost our house or I lost something and something went wrong because of how much I've invested in myself, I know I have the stability to generate value, to personally, professionally, financially, lovingly keep our family above water and keep them moving forward. Not, oh, this is my job, I've got a job with the government for the rest of my life. And it's nothing against having a government job. It's like, you can't just sit on thinking you've got security and stability in something outside of your own hands. That's a dangerous thing. Doesn't matter. Like, my wife's a Primary teacher. She's. She works for the dat. She's set for life if she wants, in terms of that role as, as employment. But what does that mean, though? Has the next 60 years come yet? Well, no. So you don't know.

And you don't know what's going to happen with government budgets and stuff either. We're always. Every government department's copping a kick in every year. So it's, yeah, okay, the stability's there, but what's to say you're not going to be earning less in five years?

It's stability in self. That's the big thing here. And the greatest way you can have that stability in yourself is by doing what's right. And if you know what's right, but you're in the wrong environment, if you know what's right, be taking the wrong actions if you know what's right but you're not doing it, you're fucking killing yourself, man. Like, it's, it's not. It's almost like it's one of our other episodes, the biggest virus. It's almost like you're being an internal hypocrite to the higher level of who you are.

Yeah, you're letting yourself down.

Challenging, man. Like, how. How would you sleep at night when you. If you did that when you're 50, 55, 60, and those decades have passed, mate, I couldn't.

And it's. Anyone who's been around me knows that I can be asleep within minutes. Once, like once the end of the day is finished and everything's done and squared away that I need to get done. Minutes, I can literally count it within five most of the time. And I'm asleep because I've done everything that I can do during the day to get in front. So that way I don't have. I'm not freewheeling at nighttime. I'm there and I go, okay, everything's done. There are all the things I need to square away. That's what I need to do tomorrow. And tomorrow's a fresh day. How do we start that tomorrow and live in that moment and go to sleep? Because I've been able to do that growth, get that work done on myself, professionally, personally, whatever, the day before, or that during that day you go, okay. So I've been able to hold my own level of accountability to myself and stay true to myself for that whole time. For that whole day. So I can get there at the end of the day and virtually most of the time doesn't matter what happens through that day. I'm going, okay. I handled that with my own level of. I've stayed true to myself. I've helped, I've held that and I've done what's right, not what's easy, and been able to hold that, that level all the way through. So then I'll get to the end of the day and I can sleep like that. Within minutes, I'm gone. And quite often people go, how do you do that? And you go, I don't know how. You don't. But I think it's just. I don't know that that's something that I've built through habit over time, is to just stay, stay true, keep a true course, and then move forward with that and then with just growth. Because if, again, if you stay stagnant, then like you say, 50, 60 years old, you're laying there with regrets at night because I should have done this. I should have done that, man. I sold out. I did this. I took the easy option there. Now I'm 65 years old and I've got nothing. Or now I can't sleep at night because I have regrets. And where do you want to be? Do you want to be 65 years old, living unreal, and still being able to sleep at night and not have those regrets? Or do you want to be laying there at night at 2 in the morning, still thinking about stuff he should have done 20 years ago?

Mates. It's what I said when we were at Cozy. I'll never not be the hero to my children if they're 40, kicking ass, kicking goals, dominating. I'm 70. Awesome. Let me show you what's next, son.

Exactly.

Let me show you what's next, daughter. Let me show you what I've done or how we can move forward or how I can. Can help guide you or be part of your journey. Not just the old, frail man who plays around with the kid, the grandkids for three minutes and sits down and watches. Yeah, watches tv. You know, it's. Yeah, you can have all three, man, Family, family, self and service like it is. It's hard. It is hard work. It's why we push so hard to set the standard. But the rewards, it's worth it, you know, and this is the, you know, as we start to wind this up, mate, this is the dichotomy of both regret and what it encompasses, which is generally unhappiness. It is a dichotomy because it's like, whoa, does that, can that word actually exist? I mean, I'm opening thoughts. I Thought about this a lot lately. I'm like, someone. What does regret mean? Okay, it's knowing that you should have done something, or you could have done something, or you could have held a high standard, or you could have had something more that you believe you now desired, but you didn't. And I'm like, okay, well, well, who the fuck's fault was that? Who controlled those actions? So, okay, so you've got regret over it. But hang on a minute. They were the choices you made with compound interest over the last 25 years. So you couldn't be making those choices unhappy. You must be fucking happy, like, because you made those choices. Because if you weren't happy, you wouldn't make those fucking choices. So how can you have regret? And I know it sounds weird, I'm not trying to put a big riddle on you guys listening, but that's what's going through my head. I'm like, hang on, how could you fucking. But you did that. There's heaps of shit we can't control. Like, there's a lot of things that we can't control. And they will influence and affect us. They'll hurt us, they'll break our hearts, they'll do lots of things. But from what you can control inside of stability, inside of yourself, freedom, control, being your own leader. This is your life, your reality. It's like, fuck, man, how can you have regret? You had the chance to do it, but you didn't. So don't be upset about it because you fucking did it. So own it and be happy about it. Don't just own it and say, oh, yeah, no, it's my fault. And I've seen people, like in the past, they put their hand up like, oh, I wish I should. It's like, mate, putting your hand up. Taking ownership over now means nothing. Don't come to me with that means nothing. Make sure you're happy about it, otherwise you're actually being a. That's it. That's a form of being a hypocrite, I guess, isn't it, to yourself. But what's. You've had a. You've had a phenomenal amount of exposure now and work with these men and really guided their journeys. What's some. Some advice for these guys? You know, guys listening obviously aren't on the inside. Yeah, I guess, mate. Just to wrap up a couple of key, like maybe between one and three key bits of advice to help some of these guys that aren't part of our journey, just to start fucking changing, start moving forward. Just to add a bit of, a bit of value as we wrap this.

Up, one is to have a good hard look at yourself and ask yourself, are you happy with the person that you see in the mirror? Are you happy with the person that you feel about yourself in the mirror? We talk about reflection a lot and there are times when we have to hold up that mirror to others and to ourselves as well. And that's where I said with the tribe, they hold a mirror up to us as well. And you need that. You need to be able to turn around and look at yourself and you go, am I happy with where I'm at? If you are happy days. How can you improve what you improve your happiness if you're not happy with that, how are you going to turn that around? Another one is surround yourself with people that are like minded and will help push you to a better position. If you want that change, you need to action that change and you also need to be around people who think similarly. Otherwise you're going to be in that position where it's a quagmire and they're going to keep wanting to drag you down. It's the bucket of crap. They're going to want to keep dragging you back into the, into the bucket when you're trying to get out. So you need to have a look at your external environment and your tribe that you surround yourself with. Another one is action because you can make all the plans in the world and it's paralysis through analysis. If you plan everything but don't actually action anything, then you're not going to go any further forward. It just means you've got 15 papers floating around on your desk taking up space and nothing has changed. So they're the three big ones, I guess. Reflect. Then you want your action and you want to surround yourself with like minded people.

Yeah, yeah, love it, man. That's really powerful. And just as we wrap this up, I just want you to spend a second and whether you're sitting in the car at home, going for a walk at the beach, for a trail walk, trail run, headphones or not, as we wrap this up, I want you to really spend just a minute on this as we wrap this up and think about what Drew just said, then have a good long hard look at yourself. That's not a negative or a positive. It's looking where am I? Is this current path leading down? Continual happiness is a funny one. People think happiness isn't everything. It's like, well, fuck, who are you to say that happiness is a byproduct of fulfillment, meaning contribution, growth, leadership. It's fucking all of it. So I love the word happiness. Does that mean that me and Drew smiling like we've just left the dentist this whole episode and our fucking cheeks are sore.

We have been.

Funny. Like, sometimes these episodes, I get pretty heavy and direct and firm, and then, yeah, it's good. It's good to have a laugh, but it's. Yeah, you know, like, am I happy? Like, is this what asking yourself the question, am I happy? Is really asking yourself, is what I'm doing worth it? Is it worth it? Like, what you're currently doing? I'm not saying you need to call your mates right now and say, fuck off, you're no good for me, or call your boss or change your work or change your career, but really have a look at yourself and go, family, self and service. What's working? What isn't? What can I improve? What do I want? And then, yeah, man, nothing influences you more than your external environment. Like, where's the influence? Where is there a larger source of energy that I'm immersing and surrounding myself with? And what is the intent of that energy?

Because that's what it is.

That's what your environment is. It's a larger energy source. Drew is one person. I'm one person. No, one person is bigger than rdm, bigger than the tribe. We're invested. We're accountable to the tribe. The tribe is bigger than us. We'll steer the ship. At times, we'll harness the energy. We'll get a greater ROI and compound interest on that for the fellas. But absolutely, you know, it's got to be an influence with your best interest at heart and your action. If you do nothing, you know, nothing changes. And it's. You know, people talk about the definition of insanity. It's nothing to do with all those clear. It's just that fucking stuff. Simple. Your thoughts are a form of action. Your words are a form of action, Your facial expressions. There are so many different things. They're all actions. The question is, what level is it? Do you have a higher level of energy expression, which is action that overtakes, pushes aside, defeats, or diminishes the level of energy in the resistance that the universe throws at you. You'll never have that if you don't take the right level of action. It and you'll never have that if you don't have the right environment. And if you don't know what your truth currently is, how are you going to find the real truth? You can't Buck. It's good to see you up here, man, and run this session together. I'll definitely keep you around. Next time Ken wants to come up, you can take the first blow, tire him down a little bit.

Yeah, I'll be the sacrifice. I'll be like that. I'll be like the big cow hanging up on Rocky. He'd just be laying into me the whole time and I'll be dead. Stop it.

Sacrificial lamb. Yes. Yes. Your great man, Kenneth. I know you're too busy to listen to this episode, so we're very confident, very confident you won't take me out next time you see me, but now, it's been an awesome episode, mate. It's been great having you.

You know he listens to podcasts when he's going to and from Sydney.

That's right, yeah. He drives a couple hours every day.

We're in trouble.

Crack up. What a. We got a good team, man. We got such a good team, eh?

It's good.

So I'm so blessed, you know, through all the years of business. It's been, yeah, like 10, 12 years now. Really in business. Well, I have my own business, but, like, really running a proper business, not just, you know, sole tradership or an individual PT at parks and renting gyms. When I was real young, trying to make footy, it's really good to. It's hard, mate. It's really hard to build a solid team, but by doing what was right, not what was easy. I nearly burned out a few times. I built the right processes, I attracted the right people like yourself and, man, it's worth it with we got such an amazing team and we continually build bit by bit, and it's awesome. It's what makes it all worth it. Because you're right, it is hard, but anything worth it is going to be hard. And if it isn't, did you set the goal high enough? Exactly. But no. Awesome having you on, mate. Anything else you want to say to wrap up?

Nah, mate.

Nah.

Thank you. Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, that's great. We'll definitely do some more in the future. I hope you guys got a lot of value out of this. Above all else. When we're talking about doing what is right, not what is easy, let's apply that to the three points that Drew just said. Then do what is right, not what is easy. By looking at yourself, having a long, hard look in the mirror and going, all right, where am I? Checking your environment and investing in that, taking action. Those three things Are right. And you know what? None of those will be easy if you're currently in a little bit of a tough spot or you're in the pit or in the rut or the mess in the spinning wheel or in the storm or any other fucking metaphor analogy you want us to rattle off. But you know what? It'll be worth it.

Should we wind up with a joke since it's dad Joke Friday.

It is dad Joke Friday. We can. We can. I don't know if you want to. Hey, you can take it. I'll let you run with it.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

I did up.

Yes, I did up.

Who?

Pass the toilet paper. Oh, you. Craig, up. Your laugh's infectious, too. Laugh at my own jokes.

I'm the best audience ever. I get it.

Well, I can't use that on Lillian and Roman because it'll probably be true.

Yes.

They'll be like, we already know.

Yeah, here's Mel.

Well, I'll certainly test it out on Stella. Yeah, she'll like that one. And you guys can throw that out to your kids, too, even if they're 20 years old. The older, the better.

I was gonna say, I got a girl at work the other day. She's in her 40s.

It was the best. The old scratch and stiff test after. Yeah.

Can you smell these?

Brutal. What a way to finish. Have an amazing weekend. And if you listen to this, obviously, other than today, have a good day, night, weekday, weekend, and above all else, apply. Apply everything you see. Feel. We've got over 70 hours worth of podcasts, over 25,000 downloads. Fuck, that's awesome. Isn't it? Unbelievable. So cool. It's great to see one of the fellas telling me that a lot of people out at Toowoomba are listening to it and his words from his missus. The RDM podcast is all the rave. I'm like, fuck, yeah. That's what I'm talking about, man. Like, we know it's popular, but it's just great to see that ripple effect members or not. You know, we get a lot of fathers come through this process because they feel connected to us, but even those who don't, man, that's awesome. We love giving value because, you know, that value is definitely received. And we appreciate all your feedback too. But thanks again, brother, for joining us. And thank you guys for listening and have a great rest of the day, night, weekday weekend, and tune in for another one soon.