134. HPF - Lifestyle Habits. Good, Bad And The Ugly

Welcome to another episode of Real Dad Movement Podcast. The point and purpose of these episodes, as always, is to have a point and purpose towards helping you win the second half in life by building a path of becoming the best father, husband, man and member of your community that you can be. We do this with various ways of connecting. Life is connection. And as you hear these words spoken time and time again, know that the driving force of connection in life is energy. Which means that how you turn up as a father, as a husband, as a valued member of society will always start and end with how you turn up as a man within yourself. First, this is why it's my mission, my purpose, our mission, our purpose through Real Dad Movement, to inspire, motivate, educate, and guide you into thoughts, feelings, actions and a change in your belief systems to rise up, cut the shit from your life and live and leave a real legacy. When dads win, everyone wins. And when you win, I win. Let's get moving forward, mate. Right here, right now, Another HPF episode.

Welcome.

My name's Al. You probably already know that. Bloody hell, if you don't know that by now, this is probably your first episode ever. But we've got the amazing Ken Lavander joining us as well. G', day, mate.

Hi, how are you? Al.

Is it short for Alan? Alex, Alexander, when I'm in trouble from my mum, but I don't get that too often anymore. Men, we've got an amazing episode for you today. Whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening on our several platforms, iTunes, Spotify, Anchor, SoundCloud, Stitcher, we've got our own RDM podcast website as well. You know, it's pretty cool how we've had over 30,000 downloads, Ken, and a big acceleration, really, since we started our. Our special edition HBF episodes, which is awesome, but this one, Lifestyle Habits, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Like, this is a very interesting episode I'm keen to dive into with you, Ken, because a lot of the times we know we need to change habits, right? We know things need to change, or we need to change this or that or something specific, but we don't understand, A, what got us there, and B, where that plugs into our entire life. There's a cue, there's the action itself, which is as a whole, the habit, and then there's the perceived reward. But we can't just take out without plugging back in. And this is the interesting part that I want to dive into with. You can. Not just from a health point of view, but absolutely physical, chemical, emotional, and the makeup of most of you guys listening to this who are middle aged men, it's critical. Your habits are a belief system. They form your life, they form your experiences. It's why we have as the war cry for us as a high performance father is championship habits, championship life. But Ken, mate, talk to us. Lifestyle habits. Where do we start with this fascinating episode? Mate, take the floor.

It's a really, really interesting subject because what we've been covering over many weeks, when it comes down to the individual person and nobody really knows unless they've done their pathology, they look at kind of what's going on from a foundation point of view. When our lifestyle habits that we've created and we don't know whether they're actually good or bad for you, it's like as we've spoken about, the good, bad or the ugly. And so what works for you may not work for me. And so that's why it really comes down to the individual person and it's just trying to recognize or at least making a list of the potential good habits that you think they're good. But when you're looking and you're talking to a coach like myself or yourself also out, then we can actually sit there and dissect those habits whether they're actually good or bad for you or the individual person that we're working with. So like we said, like a lot of people work, shift work or they have extended hours and they're sitting at the computer and then all of a sudden is that something that affects their sleep? Is it something that affects their posture? So I know that we can't stop you from working, but can we change the position that you're in? Can we give you a 90 minute kind of step away from the computer so that you can do a couple of little breathing techniques, a release or a stretch just to try and improve your posture. So I get it that there's lots of things out there, but it really is coming down to analyzing what is good and what is actually bad. So they're the really important things now. And so as we get through some of these and we'll kind of use a couple of examples that maybe you've got out and then we can kind of dissect that and then see whether it's a good or bad habit. And what do we need to put in place, what do we need to change? I don't want to change three or four bad habits all at once because it's just going to, it's just not going to be Possible. So we just want to chip away and see what lever we can pull to try and turn that potentially bad habit into a good habit.

Yeah, couldn't agree more, mate. Like, a lot of the different habits books that I've read, Ken, over the years, a lot of the times the approach actually isn't necessarily to change the cue or the perceived reward, because sometimes that's out of our hands. Like when you're walking through the door, like, I mean, that's a cue for all of us every single time when we come home from work, or if you have a home office, you walk through a different door into the living room, right? So the cue of what might trigger a habit might always be the same. So it's very interesting what you're talking about there, because a lot of you guys here, it's not about just removing or eliminating, it's replacing as well. Take alcohol, perfect example. The cue is 8:30. Kids have gone down to bed. It's been a chaotic day. You've worked all day, you've come home, then you've spent hours with the wife throwing the kids at you, getting them sorted. The organized chaos inside of your household with dinner, bath time, bed, Take a breath, all right, me time now. So the cue is you actually have some time to yourself instead of working or running your business and family commitments. So the cue is time to myself. And it's 8:30pm at nighttime. And it could be the living room, it could be one of the chairs that you slump into. It could be a television show. Like, there are so many different things. Humans are very predictable, Ken. Like, there are so many patterns. Just like when you talk about the nutrition side of things. We're lucky to have more than 12 different types of food in our entire makeup like that. It's amazing. Like, what you'd have to have, man, it'd have to be close to a thousand different types of foods, maybe more. Depending on the culture, the areas of the world, the different types of beans, there's probably, you know, 100 different types of beans that you could get mate. But ultimately we are very predictable. So when the cue is the kids have gone to bed, the perceived reward is come down. Relaxation, unwinding, taking away some stress, helping you get ready for bed and sleep. They're all great. There's nothing wrong with them being perceived rewards. And I say perceived rewards, Ken, because sometimes the habit fucks you up because alcohol is giving you that perceived reward. But it's not wholesome. It's not cherishing or nurturing you. And it's not something that has your best interest at heart. Long term, even if you guys listening have one drink a week, but it's consistently always the same. You are a fucking alcoholic. Well, you're behaving like one anyway. I'm not here to judge you for it. And I know sometimes we're pretty firm in our approach, but yeah, we live an eggshell free life. We bleed for the men on the inside, Ken, and move mountains for them. But ultimately we're here to reveal some hard truths. And the hard truth is you probably haven't stepped back like what you're saying then, Ken, to the point where you don't even know what habits you have in place, so you can't even identify whether they're good or bad. And then you don't even know the frequency of how often that's happening and what you need to plug and play to ultimately adjust that. So the cue might be the same, the reward might be the same, but the actual action and the act itself is one that's wholesome. That was just one example, Ken. But what's some of the, like, what are some pitfalls you see that guys fall into? Just bad habits, you know, middle aged men, you know, life's, life's, you know, tearing them in your asshole at times because they've just got the chaos of life and the whirlwind where they can't think for themselves. What's some of the autonomy or the patterns you see them fall into that becomes habit.

The big thing I believe for everyone is, and let's kind of pre Covid is definitely the weekends. Like that's where they. We talk about the perfect kind of nutrition plan. When I talk about perfect, nothing's ever perfect because we have to tailor it for the individual. But you talk about the 5:2 diet and things like that. People are looking at generally getting from their Monday to Friday through their work, and they're in a routine, so that's what's really important. We all need routine. But then all of a sudden Friday comes and exactly what you're talking about, Friday night, it's the takeaway night. It's then the alcohol that comes with it. Then Saturday, they think, shit, I've got my Saturday and Sunday to myself in most cases. And then so they're letting their guard down. So then there's another drinking night and then there's another takeaway, as in as far as their food, the restaurant order. But now the problem we've fallen into now this is absolutely imperative now because we're all at home and we're not getting out or not getting out as much. Now, that weekend now stems into sometimes four and five nights a week because you're home all the time and you're spending that time and you're homeschooling kids, if that's what it is, and whatever else. And then the stress levels because of everyone's trying to do all this work and trying to jam stuff in, and because it's not something that's routine, then all of a sudden your stress levels start to rise. You don't know how to cope with it. And in most cases, what people do is they look for alcohol. And then all of a sudden it affects your energy levels, then it affects your sleep quality. And then you start making bad food choices because you've just busted your ass all day trying to help out with homeschooling and all the other kind of chores that you will do and trying to get your work done. So you're trying to jam everything in and you go, fuck it. I'm not sitting down cooking. I'm not doing anything like that. Let's just make it real easy for ourselves and let's just order in. I don't know whether you've got Uber Eats or whatever it is dial a meal or whatever. And then what does that come with? Just poor food choices in most cases, because you have no idea what's coming into those foods because they're putting all the, you know, the gmo, the additives and all the sugar and all the bullshit that goes with it. And then what goes down, you're going to wash it down with a couple of beverages. And then all of a sudden you're not realizing that that's kind of got to the end of the day where you think, fuck, thank God. Like, that's just that dopamine release, because you don't have to cook or you don't have to partake in cooking while someone's getting the kids organized and whatever else. But then on the other side of things, then you just loaded yourself up with a heap of shit, which affects your sleep qualities, which affects your energy levels. And then all of a sudden you don't realize that you're doing the wrong thing. But now what you've done, you've just created that bad habit, because instead of you generally getting a takeaway on a Friday or a Saturday night, now you've potentially picked up takeaways on three or four nights. And then all of a sudden, or a lunchtime meal, whatever else it is, and Then you've just created so many problems that not so much you'll notice in one week, but once you get there in 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 weeks, all of a sudden you're one size bigger. And then just all of the other systemic problems that's going to affect you, people don't understand that things are not going to happen in a day or a week. And because you can't see it, you can't turn your insides like yourself inside out so you're not really noticing what's going on. And then all of a sudden you're so exhausted at the end of the day you're so absolutely shit faced because you've been putting up with so much kind of low level stress or mid chronic stress. And then all of a sudden your head hits the pillow and then smack. You're out for six, seven, eight hours and you don't know the quality of sleep. And then all of a sudden you get up the next day and you go straight through the same routine, same bullshit things. And then if you've had a bad day, whether it was a bad decision or whatever else, you're not staying hydrated, you're not making the right food choices, things aren't going so well because the kids needing a bit more help, then you're losing your shit, the kids are losing their shit, everyone scatters. And then all of a sudden we've just created this whole stress level cortisol release and then everything goes to shit.

So it's incredible how it happens, mate. You know, we need, we need something like Ken's cook ups or real dad meals to get these guys, get these guys squared away with their nutrition. But you know, it's on that. Ken, I love a good beverage, mate. People think it's water inside this HPF bottle. It's straight vodka, mate. And it gets me through the day, it really does. But got to curb the smart ass inside. I tell you what, isn't it an amazing deal what you spoke about, the awareness that they don't even have, Most men when they fall into these pitfalls of bad habits, they don't even have that awareness that they're moving 1% in the wrong direction. And then when your marriages are breaking down, your relationship breaking down, you're triggered as fuck when it comes to the kids. You can't be on the level. You've got no control. You've got no control to the point where you can't even go upstream and see that the entire source of what becomes chronic problems and breakdowns Inside of your life in all key areas, family, self and service, there's just one or two little things that you consistently did wrong or didn't do well, or didn't adjust or didn't replace. And I guess what this leads to, Ken, is if you don't have that active awareness and control inside of your life, life will control you and create the wrong types of autonomy. Whether it's external influences, social media, different marketing, different conditioning, mainstream media, all different moving parts tell you how you should live, who you should be, what your identity is. Which means you're left lost and confused and drifting through space, not even knowing who you are. This is the savage part though, mate. Autonomy can be amazing if you're actively aware and in control. Ken, can you tell me that you think about every single little thing that you do every single day? Of course not. You've got a beautiful subconscious that already has Ken dialed in. Because the autonomous part of your life has been dialed in with the right habits that you've actively been aware of, with discipline and self control to build that up until it's a belief system and identity. And all of a sudden you're just humming, man, you just do. That's the best thing of all. Because what then creates with the right habits for a lot of you listening or watching this is it creates more mental space. The mental capacity is there. You don't have, like David Goggins perfect example, completely hardcore savage in his discipline. Same with guys like Jocko Willink, but he's not a. They're not disciplined men. I know Jocko Willink says discipline equals freedom. It equals the beginning of freedom. But you don't have to maintain a long level of discipline, just long enough until it becomes a belief system that becomes a habit of yours that you do. And then if you break that or it falls down or you're in different environments, cool. And reintroduce the discipline. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but you absolutely need that. But what cracks me up, mate, before we dive into a couple of other key examples, is the weekend stuff, right? When people want to say, let the hair down when it comes to weekends. So it could be words as simple as Saturday, thank God it's Friday that term, or Sunday. These words trigger straight away a belief that because of what they've done Monday to Friday, they should be rewarding themselves. Open close speech quotations, and then take that into rewarding themselves with bad things.

Yes.

And then when it comes to doing good things, they're seeing that as a Sacrifice, like that's fucking crazy, man. Like, what version is this coming from? You're seeing the great things you're doing that are evolving you to become a better human being as sacrifice. Like, I'm sacrificing this so I can train, or I'm sacrificing this so I can eat. You know, it's a bit of a sacrifice not having pizza tonight because I'm cooking a steak. And what do you mean sacrifice? Are you saying you want to continue being a shit version as you move through your 50s, 60s and 70s and then you reward yourself with that, mate? It's crazy, isn't it? When you see that psychology. When they see good things that are hardy, wholesome and investing in them to become a better human as a sacrifice. And when it comes to rewarding themselves, letting the hand down, or my mother in law, perfect example, it's all right to treat yourself every now and then. I'm like, every time I see you, Sandra, you say that, you know, it's all right to treat yourself just as long as you're treating yourself every single fucking day. It's not really a treat anymore, is it? It's baffling, man. The psychology of it all, Ken.

That's why it's so. It's very interesting when people talk about reward. Like I think, yeah, what someone's reward is on a weekend or a Friday night is completely different to my understanding of what a reward is to me. Like, so the last thing I'm ever going to do is get in, jump on the alcohol or jump in and look for a whole heap of shit. That to me doesn't seem like a reward to me because I've just busted my ass for four days, five days, six days, doing everything that I need to do to achieve optimal kind of, you know, optimization within my body and performance and everything else. And what am I going to do? Sabotage it? Because that's my reward. My reward is a sabotage. Like, this is crazy. That's why we've got to create these lifestyle habits that are optimizing what we're doing, not sabotaging. Because we've got through five days of what, eating well. But is it really that we're eating well? Is it really that we're working on ourself, our performance, our well being. And so all of this stuff like you think about like fatigue in itself, you know, like concentration problems and poor memory, all symptoms of low energy. So all of this stuff, you all of a sudden give yourself a whole heap of shit on a Friday, Saturday Sunday night. And then all of a sudden what, you're going to hit the ground running with low energy levels and then it creates poor memory and then concentration is much more difficult. And so then what? You've got to set yourself up for another 1, 2, 3 days before you get rid of the shit out of your body. And we've got this vicious cycle over and over again. Like you eat shit today and you drink alcohol today, I'm guarantee you're not going to be operating at optimal level for at least 72 hours later. There's no way in hell that you can literally operate at optimal levels. Now. We're starting to split heads here for high performers. But hey, that's what we're all about. We're all about getting people to high performance. That's our job, that's our role. That's what we inspire to do. That's what I do every day. I inspire. Like my reward is, hey, shit, I'm going to, instead of Getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, my reward is I'm going to get up at 6 o', clock, I'm going to give myself an extra 30 minutes of sleep and I'm still going to go down on the beach and do a thousand snatches with a light kilo, you know, like with an 8 kilo, 12 kilo kettlebell. That's my reward, to sit down there and watch the sun come up. Like that's a reward to me. And then you know what, hey listen, I know caffeine is not the best for everyone, but hey, I can have it. My reward is to have a coffee after I do that workout, take the kids down to the beach, they're going for a swim, they got their wetsuits on because it's freezing cold at the moment. But you know, and that's a reward to me. Like that's my reward. So like I said, like your reward as what we call this podcast, you know, are the habits that you've got, are they good or bad for you? The lifestyle habits. Have a look at my lifestyle habits compared to someone else's. Like if people would say my reward is fucking their bad reward because they ain't getting out of bed at 6 or 5:30, no way in the world, and going down and doing a workout on the beach. But like, Jesus Christ, like this is reality for me. This is what we're trying to do. Like I don't expect anyone to like, you know, get up a half an hour, an hour or hour and a half earlier than what they normally do. Because they've obviously got their rhythm. But if they want to improve what they're doing from day to day, they're going to have to make sacrifices. That's really what it's about. Like in reality, people want to look, feel and move better. Without a doubt. There's no two ways about it. People want to improve their day to day. And so let's find out what we can do for every one. And write down your so called daily journal so that you can see what you're doing throughout a day. And you can't just do it in one day. You have to take like a two day, maybe a Monday, Tuesday or a Monday, Wednesday, then look at your potential Saturday, Sunday, then look at it and go, shit. How does my Saturday, Sunday differ from my Monday, Wednesday? Look at that. So whenever I kind of create nutrition plans for people, I want to see three days that they're kind of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then I want to see a Saturday, Sunday and see how much the nutrition plan differs from one day to the next. And when we start talking about sleep, we can start to see what the triggers are that's causing underlying problems. And then we can start to pick up, okay, this is a bad habit, this is a bad habit. This is a bad habit. Hey, this is a good habit. And then all of a sudden we can start to d dissect those and go, okay, shit. I'm not sure why your sleep's gone to shit on Saturday, Sunday. I'll tell you why. Because look, those bad habits, let's change those bad habits and then look over one day, one week, one month. And then let's see what's causing you inflammation or causing you the problems that are in your day to day life that we can start to eliminate. One thing at a time. Let's not take a whole heap of them away. Let's start to just work on little, just like a sculpture. Let's just chip away at it and go, okay, let's change that Friday night from pizza and a six pack to something a little bit more nourishing. You know what, we can still have a pizza, but I'll give you a homemade pizza made out of a cauliflower base and things like that. And let's get all the natural ingredients and put on there. All of a sudden you've just saved yourself so much inflammation. You've just nourished your body. Like it just, it's not difficult. But hey, listen, that's why we're here. We're coaches. We're here to coach you on how to live a better life and make better lifestyle choices to optimize your own personal wellbeing. That's what we're here for, you know.

And we've got a finger on the pulse in your life. This is a very important thing for you guys to understand when you're on the inside with us. We've got a finger on the pulse when it comes to your life, the question is, do you have your own finger on your pulse or are you lifeless? Do you actually even know where you're at? And a lot of guys don't, Ken. They either sweep things under a rug or bury their head in the sand. And, yeah, when you're talking about sacrifices, then what a lot of us, including us, need to realize is as we continually ascend and try to create the next evolution in who we are, because you're either changing and improving or changing, getting worse, you must be willing to sacrifice the old version of you that you have familiarity with, that is in a place of comfort and routines and rituals. That's what the sacrifice is. I'm sacrificing the shit version that I don't want to be anymore or the lesser version to become more and to move forward. And look, we're not here to push standards on anyone. Can we share and show the possibilities of standards when you come on the inside, though? Yeah, absolutely. We're going to help you get out of your own weight. We're going to lift you up. We're going to lift you up to see what you could not see on your own with your own eyes. We're going to help you break through that glass ceiling. You can feel it, but you can't see it. It's glass. You can't see it. Weekend, though, we've got a special set of eyes. We're like, all right, well, here's the crack. Punch through there. There you go. You're away. And that's what it's about. Just those. Those little ones. One thing at a time. Like you said, Ken, this isn't about overhauling your life. It's like that old movie Tron, right? You've got that big grid and you've got those crazy motorbikes going. We've got a huge grid. We just need to line it up and just hit one, one at a time and stay in one section, completely dominate. Own that. Once that's been exhausted, that's part of your makeup, who you are, move on to. The next problem is, though, mate, you're already defeated before you even start to initiate the possibilities and actions. Which is why I just want to let you guys know that you need to be very cautious with your words and your lang. Be careful with your wording. You need to get your language in order when you're talking about rewards, sacrifice, giving back to yourself, letting the hair down, investing in you, not investing, giving to others, having no time, being time poor. All the different moving parts that you use to validate your position or your identity. You don't know who you are and who you can become. That's an amazing thing. It's not a burden. It's filled with possibilities. So don't confine yourself within the constructs of words in themselves that have become a habit and a habitual way to describe your limitations and the lack of possibility that you have, because that's a dangerous thing. But what do we do? So I guess the key thing to give the guys the hows. Because you're right, Ken, it's about the how to. You've got the bridge A to B. The bridge itself is the how. You're standing there looking at the other side of the bridge. So this is the what. The other side of the bridge is the why. That's the result. Okay, let's connect all the dots. I guess so far, what we've gone through here, Ken, is they don't know what habits are actually not serving them. And that sounds crazy, right? Because it's so simple. But the chaos of life as a father, as a man, as a husband, business owner, working like, there are so many different moving parts. We don't have time to stop and scratch ourselves and go, oh, is this actually moving me forward? Some of the consults I've had, I'm like, okay, just so I'm clear, I'm not telling that you have to stop drinking, Bob, but why do you drink alcohol? The amount of times where it's like, I don't know how, I just do. It's like, shit, man, let's get that control back. You don't even know what you're doing at times or why you're doing it, right. I guess identifying is important first, Ken, then establishing if it's good or bad, what you said, then remove one at a time. What's the next step for these guys to help them? Is it, okay, well, what do we want? What do we replace the bad habit with? Like, what would you give as advice for these guys once they start to go through understanding what their habits are allocating, whether they're good or bad, then what should they do? What do they do from there. Yeah.

The thing is, the big thing is. And what we do, as we've already spoken about, is you have to journal it first. And then you've got to journal it. That's really important. We've got to write down the information. We've got to be able to do that. But then you've got to analyze that. You're sitting there and you're looking at it. You're going, okay, what's causing my biggest stress? What's causing my biggest. Biggest discomfort during the day? And the problem is they don't know. They might be able to. It's a bit like. The best analogy I can use is that, okay, when I'm getting people to write down their nutrition and whatever else so that I can see what their palate's like, have a look at the types of food that they're. They're eating and whatever else. And so then I start to get a bit of an understanding of what's going on. And I'll guarantee you, nine times out of ten, without me even having a look at that information, they look at it and they go, oh, fuck, I'm not sending you that information. There's no way in the world. Because they already recognize what the problem is. So the devil's in the detail. That's where the issue is. So once you start to journal or you start to write down these things, then all of a sudden it becomes reality, and that's really what it is. So you don't really know what you're dealing with until you can actually see it with your own eyes. You can't try and remember it from what you did yesterday to the day before to the day before that, or even last, for that matter. So you don't really know what your bad habits are. You might think that what you're doing is absolutely brilliant. And because you're successful in business, or as a husband, as a father, whatever it is, you might think that you're just kicking along because you're better than your neighbor, you're better than your friend, for whatever, however you analyze that. But the unfortunate thing is that when you really start to look at this stuff and you can see it on paper and it's sitting there and you actually have to write it down. Don't type it. You write it down. So it's sitting there in front of you, and so then you can start to really analyze what's going on in your individual day and in your individual life. And it's a bit like what I say, like if you have a physical discomfort when you get out of bed in the morning, how much pain do you have when you first put your foot on the ground? And what I'm all about is trying to alleviate that pain by, and give you strategies in place to be able to alleviate, then potentially hopefully eliminate that pain entirely. So then your day is great. So then you look forward to getting out of bed, you look forward to doing your breathing techniques, you look forward to maybe going for a walk or doing your exercise or whatever else. So your day is better than your today is better than yesterday. And so whilst you're motivated, whilst you've got that enthusiasm, you have to act upon it there and then. So when you're writing these things down, you go, fuck, now I can see this is what potentially could be causing me that problem. And so it's written there, it's in front of you. Then what you do, you stick it up on the fridge, you stick it wherever you can see it when you're brushing your teeth, you actually know what's going on. So nothing is better than, like I was saying, you know, the devil is in the detail. So you need to literally be journaling that so that you can see it through your own eyes. Otherwise you honestly, you'll forget about what you did yesterday, you'll forget about what you did last week, and you really don't know what's going on. So modern life is killing our ability to generate new neurons within our brain because we're all over the place. We've got so much we're trying to jam in and now we're working at home and we've got all these other stimulants and all these other kind of problems that are revolving around us and we really don't know what's causing our issues. So that's why I just can't emphasize enough that you really need to sit down and look at what you're doing on a day to day basis.

I couldn't agree more. Ken. Everyone. You fellas listening to this, everyone wants to take your attention, whether it's the mainstream media, whether it's, you know, different sources you have no idea exist, or whether it's family, whether it's friends, associates, your work, everyone's trying to get your attention like it's one of the most valuable assets we can have. Because what your attention becomes is one of my podcast episodes. When your attention becomes focus, you start to hone in right away with two things you never get back, time and energy, which then creates the construct of your Reality right from the top of what the attention influenced you with. So you need to ask yourself the question is what I'm attending to is what I'm gifting, giving, submitting my attention to something that has my best interests at heart. I mean, you're giving us your attention right now. Awesome. We're here to challenge you in a genuine way on the level. We're here to provide insights, to provide the pathway to getting in front with the right actions, not just the knowledge, with the reflection, to know where you're at, what you need to do. We're here to help guide you in your journey, whether you're a member or not. Like I said, Over 30,000 downloads, Ken. I'm very proud of that and proud of the men like yourself and like the men of you guys watching, listening, who continually turn up and invest in yourself. Because that's what this is. When you don't bring something front and center like Ken saying the world will run and rule you. We've all got conditioning to a degree when we're talking about free will. Some people use their free will to forfeit their free will. That's hilarious. I can't get past that yet. Especially with some things going on at this stage. We'll leave that at that. But ultimately, yes, you know, you must best yourself, you must best who you currently are. And you can't do that if you have a bit of a self audit, like what Ken's saying here. And reps, you need reps, man. Like life is about the reps. You need to write it. You can't write it if you're not thinking it. When you write and think it, you can start to feel it. And then that means when you're writing, thinking and feeling it, you can actually read it and then you can review what you've written and what you've thought and what your feelings are connected to that. How my feelings that are currently attached to these facts and how these facts moving me forward to leverage me to have better feelings, or are they not? Am I actually holding onto my feelings, which is one thing I control in being angry, bitter, resentful, holding back in the wrong bad habits. But you know what? It gives me certainty, because I've fucking done it before. So I'll just keep doing it. When ultimately what that becomes is an illusion in your internal reality which then becomes delusional because your external reality doesn't match up. That's breakdown, man. Like that's, that. That's a mental breakdown, Ken, waiting to happen. And you've Got to just best yourself, man. You must best yourself by bringing it front and center. Have that foresight to go, okay, let's strip the layers back because there's a lot of gray in life, but there are certainly areas that we need to make binary. Black or white, we need to make a binary. These are the facts, like what you said with the nutrition. And then be critical of yourself, of where you're at, but do it in a constructive way. We can go, yeah, I can actually see all of that now, you know, and this is what I needed to move forward. And ultimately it's never done alone, you know, like the old lone wolf with all these battle scars and all his pride, who's secretly falling apart behind closed doors, you know, I say it tongue in cheek all the time. No one comes walking, talking out of the womb, wiping their own ass. We all need different layers of accountability, of help of things that are going to help us position ourselves. Even with myself, with such a wide range of perceptions in life and ways to see things, I still need a Ken. My sessions I have with you, like right now with this is realigning me. The men that I work with realigns me. I learn from them. Just like they're getting a skill set and acquiring the steps and actions they need from me. This is the energy that moves you forward. But what do we do, Ken, like how do we make this. So we're writing this down, we're actioning it. What is the play here that can help a man convert this to a short term thing, to really becoming a solid lifestyle habit? Is it environment what we spoke about? Is it coaching? Is it continual revision, journaling, weekly writing that. What do you feel as we start to wrap this up, mate? It's been a great episode to really turn this into a temporary thing, a quick fix, the silver bullet, the shiny, all that sort of shit to go. No, this is now a belief system and this is actually a lifestyle habit. It's not a sacrifice, it's not a 30 day challenge. This has actually become part of my lifestyle.

What's exciting is that. And I'll share a really brief story in a second only from yesterday. And what is really exciting is we're not talking about just the day to day habits, we're not talking about things that don't really affect our lives. What we're really about is where do you see yourself in 10, 15, 20 years time? Where do you see yourself at your retirement age? These things are really important because what you've got to do as a Great business coach would do would align you with people that you inspire to be like who you really. Where do you see yourself? Like, myself, like I'm 50, nearly 51 years old. Who do I inspire to be like? In reality, I don't really inspire to be like anyone other than myself because I'm living what I want to do. I'm a perfect example of I practice and preach what I say. That's what I do. The thing is, is that you don't really know whether you've got these good or bad habits in your life. Because of you may be aligning yourself with your next door neighbour or your mate down the road that's maybe living a shit life. Because once you peel that first and second layer of the onion back, you realize that the superficial things on the outside aren't really what it seems to be. Just because you're in a conversation with someone and they start talking to you about what they believe in. Whatever else, once you start to dig a little bit deeper, you realize that things aren't as sweet as they make them out to be. And so that's why only yesterday I trained a lady who's a psychologist and I'm going through different things with her and whatever else and I talk about what I do when I coach people and whatever else. She said, fuck, that's crazy. Like shit. Like you should be coaching all of my patients. She said, it's amazing. And the techniques that I tell her that I use when I coach people, she said, shit, can I borrow some of those techniques? Can you actually give me those techniques or can I actually use them and just kind of mention you in these techniques? I said, yeah, absolutely. This is not rocket science, but what I'm trying to say here is that once you take your journal and you look at it and you realize that you've got bad habits. Is it that one bad habit that you get to a Friday night and all of a sudden you turn yourself to eating shit and drinking alcohol because of your mates are doing it and you're trying to align yourself with them, you're trying to do what other people are doing because that's their habit. Is it going to improve your life? Are you going to make better lifestyle choices or is it detrimental to what you're doing? Maybe not just the one Friday night, is it continuously you're doing the same repetitive thing over and over and over again? And so what I'm trying to say is that once you recognize the bad habits, then are you actually, have you created those bad habits? Because of that's what everyone else is doing. Are you going to be the sheep? Because everyone else, that's their Friday night, that's their Saturday night. You really, really have to take a good hard look at yourself and see whether it's actually improving your quality of life or is actually detrimental to your quality of life. And only one of those bad habits will set you up for a lifetime of getting more bad habits within what you're doing. So it's really, really important that you do understand that you need to take control. You need to be leading with changing your own thing. Because if you're the leader, the next time you're having a conversation with someone that has bad habits in their life, well, then hopefully you are the influencer to change their bad habit also. And that's why when we talk about weight loss, we talk about healthcare, it's not really about weight loss with me. It's about improving someone's inner self. It's about building them from the inside out. I don't care that they don't lose weight, but I do care about improving their pathology, everything that's going on the inside, because that's what's going to be systemic, that's what's going to create autoimmune disease and all these other things that happen over 1, 5, 10, 20 years. And all of a sudden someone's looking for sympathy because you've made bad lifestyle choices over the last 15, 20 years and you haven't taken control of your own life because of your mates doing it, or your friend down the road or the group of people that you hang out with. I'll tell you what to do. If the group of people that you hang out with have poor habits, guess what? Take control. Change a group of the people that you hang out with, change those lifestyle problems that you have. But the only way you can work out whether they're good or bad for you and your family and the people that you care about is you have to create a journal. You have to see what's driving those bad habits. Is it you or is it the influence of someone else? And that's what's important. And that's what I try and do, get people to start to take control. It's about the mindset. This is where we come into the emotional side of our physical. Chemical. Emotional. Yeah, I can do everything for you physically, I can do everything for you as far as the chemical side of things when it comes to nutrition and your pathology, and I can control all that. But guess what? I have no Control over your emotional stuff. I can be telling you stuff until you're black and blue. But if all of a sudden you get off that coaching session with me and then you're being infiltrated by your next door neighbor, your mate, whoever, the group of people that you socialize with, then all of a sudden, shit, you're spending one hour, 168 hours in a week. I'm giving you one or two hours of my time and someone else is influencing you. Five, six, seven hours of that. How in God's name am I going to change those habits if you're not willing to take control of your own life and your own bad habits?

Yeah, couldn't have put it better myself, Ken. You know, most men want to improve their circumstances, but they're not willing to improve themselves. And that's a hard truth for a lot of you guys listening to this. You can speak all the words you want, you can make all the goals and dreams, all that sort of shit you want. But if you're not willing to improve and work on yourself first, what hope do you have? And one of the greatest ways you can do that is through your environment. Everything Ken just said, then that's a powerful way to wrap this up as well. Because nothing influences you more internally than your external environment. Your internal environment might spark triggers, it might create a flow and effect from the state that you're in, how motivated you are or are not your belief systems, all these different moving parts. But how are you expressing what's internal? Well, directly and immediately to what's external. Step, you're surrounded by head beats. And this isn't about trading your friends, but it's about asking yourself, well, what do I really want? You want to improve your circumstances, improve yourself. You want to improve yourself. Immerse in the right environment that's got your best interest at heart. The end, like that is a universal law, a universal truth, whether it's been written or not. And there's several that we've written. I call them ours Absolutes. It's one of the books in our master course that I've got for Identity Cycle. But so true, man. Like nothing influences your internal environment more than your external environment that you expose yourself to. So for some of you who want to create shifts and adjust your habits as we wrap this up, firstly, identify what are my lifestyle habits that I currently have? Because most of the things we do in life, 91% of life is autonomous. It's the 9% that you're actively aware that rerecords the subconscious that actually creates the difference in life between someone being right up the top and living the dream and having absolute control and certainty and someone who's just a fucking bum. And I say that with respect, but that's a recognition of action. That's an observation of actions. In that 9% that has created the 91%, that has been the daily 1% that's chronically led to those breakdowns. Identify where your habits currently are, then categorize them. Are they good or bad? Are they moving me forward or not? Categorize the environment that those habits are in. Are these environments good or bad? Are they moving me forward or not? And then pick one. What's one that I'm going to remove, which I'm then going to replace, and then immerse yourself in the right environment. And one of the best ways is to wrap this up. And Ken, Ken hit the nail on the head there in his whole explanation around environments and really peppering the message continuously. And what you need when it comes to mentors, role models, all that sort of stuff. I'm like you, Ken. Like, I used to love Arnie when I was young, getting into gym training, that sort of stuff. In the 80s and 90s, he was the hero and I started weight training and all that sort of stuff. So he was for that version of Al at that time. He was absolutely my role model. He's definitely not now, but he was when I was younger, when I was a kid. But. But for a lot of you guys, you don't need to look to Hollywood and all the other bullshit that Ken described, which is smoke and mirrors, because that's what it is. It's superficial and a lot of it isn't real. But really, two points I've written here. Find someone that has something you want, or find someone that's done something you want to do. It's that simple. And if that's wholesome and in a loving and nurturing way, that's going to improve you, your relationships, your marriage, your business, your family life, how you are as a father to your children, how you are as a man to yourself. Hey, game over. What else do you need to worry about? Life is very simple, Ken. That's it. Does someone have something that you want? Have they done something that you want to do? And do they provide an environment that's going to give you and deliver both of those? That's what I love. A lot of the guys like, mate, I have my stresses like everyone else does, but in family, self and service, I fucking dominate. Ken, because I line everything up. I journal frequently. I've got my championship journal as well. I get aligned with the habits I need to do. I continually revise, which I'm going to do with you, because I work with Ken one to one as well. I'm not some guy standing at the top going that I don't need coaches and people to help me. I absolutely have the same as well. Okay, let's. Let's realign, because when we went through this, I'm like, Before we hit record, I said to Ken, I'm like, shit, man. I need to really write down the little nitty because now I've got the big. I've got the big one squared away. What are the nitty gritty lifestyle habits that are just chipping away, which I will do, you know, after this. But just to paint that picture for a lot of you guys, a lot of you guys might buy my conviction, my certainty, my passion, all that sort of stuff. It's because I'm winning in those three areas, but it's because it's been a case of 1% every single day in the right environment, with the right coaches, with the right game plan, and continually excelling by finding those who have what I want or have done what I want, want to do. And then as a tribe, we now set that standard. That's such a powerful thing, man. Like, you cannot, like, you look at championship sports that people follow in different codes, can. You cannot replicate that when we're looking at the greatest game of all, which is the game of life. Yeah. What. Anything you want to add as we wrap this up? This has been a great episode, actually. I really. I really. I enjoy all our episodes, Ken, but there's always something new. Yeah, you think. I don't think I know it all, but you think you've got it squared away. You're like, that's a different angle. And this. These are the subtleties. Right. But, Matt, I'd love this. Anything else that you wanted to add?

Really, the big thing is, as we all know, knowledge is power. But what you do with that knowledge is incredibly powerful. And you can go many different ways with the knowledge that you have. It's a bit like, you know what we're talking about writing down the journal and seeing what potentially what your good and bad habits are. But having that knowledge is great because it's sitting there in front of you. But what you do with that, then is what really matters. Yeah, that's the thing. That's like, when we ingest nutrition, are we Just taking it and shitting it out the other end. And we're not really absorbing that. And that's what's really important. We can take all of this information in, but then what do we do with it? We need to act now. We need to be enthusiastic. And whilst that adrenaline is pumping, whilst that dopamine hit there, that happiness drug is flowing through the veins. Then get started now. Don't talk about tomorrow and making some bullshit ass goal, you know, like for like I do with the New Year's Eve resolutions and all that bullshit. If you're not going to act now, well then you're not really going to act. So that's why knowledge is incredibly powerful, but it's not worth shit if you don't do anything with it. Yeah, or you're not heading in the direction that you want to head in. But that's really, my dear, like it literally can change your life incredibly in the positive way. But like I said again, it is what you do with that. Knowledge is what really is most important.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Otherwise you just become the old armchair wizard with twirling his beard, with all the theory in the world, but fuck all the show for it. Say that in a polite way. Just like you guys listening to this phenomenal episode. Ken, thank you very much, mate. Loved having you on. Again, you guys listening to this, We've armed you with some pretty cool stuff. What are you going to do about it? Take action. Take action right now. Do something about it. Identify where they are, categorize are they good or bad. Remove one, add one in and make sure you've got the right environment so you can get out of your own way to execute. Follow through and get the deliverables that you know you need. Because ultimately when you need to change was the last episode I did. When you need to change, generally it means you need to do something you haven't done before. How are you going to do that on your own and keep doing that on your own in the chaos and the whirlwind of life? That's very hard, man. That's why no one should ever try and go alone, especially middle aged fathers. Take care, men. Have an amazing day. Night, afternoon, weekend, weekday. Whenever you listen to this or watch this, and I hope you got a lot of value out of this, but just like Ken said, do something about it now and move your life forward. Thanks Ken.

Thanks guys.

1000 minutes a day. It's a lot when you waste it on shit that doesn't serve you or move yourself or your family. Forward. You are bleeding. The most valuable resource that you and I never get back. How much time do you think you have and how much quality do you think you've had? Don't be a fool like the masses, thinking you'll cheat the system or get round to it one day or worse. Just accepting life and sinking back into a slumber of regret. This is your moment, your time. You're cut from a different cloth. You have the hunger and desire to be more and live more, otherwise you wouldn't be here. So stand up, find the golden nuggets in this episode you just listened to and align immediate action with them and where you want to go. You are worthy. This is your life. You are the the king and this is your kingdom. Now go and claim it by showing, not telling and be the real leader. You and I both know you were born to be.