176. Men Chasing The Wrong Thing

This episode is brought to you by our high performance father coaching program where we help men juggle business, marriage and fatherhood to create the greatest balance and impact life has to offer. This is done with our philosophy that is at the core of achieving these phenomenal results in family, self and service and that is investing in yourself first so you can be a true 100% for yourself but just as importantly for those around you that you love and care about. If you're a father struggling with choosing between your work work and your family, lacking balance and connection in your relationship, what your children need, your own needs whilst building prosperity in your business, head over to highperformancefather.com fill out the form and I'll have my coaches contact you to see how we can help you and if you're a good fit, what it looks like to join the winner's circle on the inside. But for now, take the time to yourself for yourself and enjoy this episode. Chasing the wrong thing. What do you mean, Al? I don't chase. Yes, you do. We all chase. We are all in the pursuit of something in life. We all have routines. We all have habits. Good, bad and the ugly. Not having a routine is a routine. Thinking that you're not having a habit through doing nothing and doing everything once sporadically and randomly is a habit in itself. The irony. Welcome to an episode where really we're here to like all episodes, adjust and realign your focus. This is a powerful thing, focusing on what's important, focusing on the possibility, focusing on the possibility that comes when you are chasing, when you are in pursuit of the right thing. Because we all have time and energy. How much do we have left? Fuck, man. Who knows? How much do you have left? You could be dead in 12 months. You could be dead in 12 years. You could be dead in 24 years, 40 years. I've had friends that have passed. It's tough. It gets emotional. But friends who have passed from 15 years of age had friends who've committed suicide. Friends have been healthy and they've just fucking dropped dead. And that's not a pre. Like, I hate that, you know, there's nothing wrong with them. It's. This is what happens. This is a part of life. You don't know that. You don't know what's going on on the inside. I've seen that before in the past. Not so much anymore. I guess my circle is incredibly small compared to what it used to be of just, you know, I guess, keeping up appearances, so to speak, and not rocking the boat. People are pretty clear on where I stand. I'm pretty transparent on a lot of things. And you know, I used to hear, used to hear people say, what's the point of all this health and fitness and exercise, blah, blah. Bill down the road was 51 and fit as a fiddle and he just dropped dead one day. It's like, well, how the fuck do you know how fit he was? Well, you perceive fitness by body fat percentage. That means nothing in the grand scheme of what may present a circumstance of inevitable death, cancer, disease, accidents. Shit happens, man. Life happens. The default of life is loss, which is why we must continue to create life, to build, to gain, to create. So when I look at habits and patterns and routines and rituals and all that sort of stuff, we've got time and energy. You're going to spend it somewhere, you're going to use it on something. You may as well use it on the right thing. Well, what's the right thing? Alright, that's the hard part, isn't it? What is the right thing? I don't do this to protect myself, but there are a lot of times where I am open. It's an open ended approach with you with statements like there's no right or wrong. Statements like you choose what's right for you, could be good for you, could be bad. It's not that I do that to protect myself. It's a position of perspective, otherwise it's just an opinion. Right, so what is the right thing? Fuck, I don't know, mate. Like the right thing really. Again, when I say I don't know is I'm not, you know, if you're, if you're not a member on the inside and I'm not investing part of your life, it's hard for me to know because firstly, when you peel that layer back a little bit by asking that question, ask another question. Well, what do you want? What do you desire? And that's the hard part as well, isn't it? What do I desire one thing? Do I desire one specific outcome or is it a series of outcomes? Is it like, I'm going to hit this at 48 years of age and that's it, I've reached and achieved what I desire. No, it doesn't work that way. You know that because you've already reached and achieved things that you've desired before in your life. Everyone has. Might be unfortunate, the childhood was the last time that happened. But surely there have been wins and runs on the board. We all have that. It's a position of perspective. So When I talk about what is right, it's not about an opinion. Do this, this is right. Do that. It's. No, it's an observation of facts. It's an observation of a passage of time with actions, time and energy. So it's an observation of data. And the observation of data showcases the result. The result. And the results that we get. The results and the results that any man gets is after that passage of time and energy, which is experience. It's life. That's why I don't give a fuck how old you are. Like, we all learn from everyone. We learn from my children. Roman's one year old. I'm learning from him. Should I not because he's younger than me? Because that's the case. And I get that sometimes with some old, stubborn men. You don't have as much wrinkles on your face as I do, mate. You're not as old as me yet, so what would you know? It's like, oh, fucking show me, mate, what's the answer? Because what I present is a collective of, you know, thousands of men we've reached, but hundreds on our inner circle of their life, their experience, their rewards, their runs on the board. This isn't Alex Ranieri. This isn't the fucking Big Al show. This is all of the men. This is all of you. It's why when I speak these words and these messages, it cuts straight through to you. Like, how the fuck was Al talking to me? He doesn't even know me. How's he just explaining my life to a tee? Or I've got my head in my hands and I'm rubbing my eyes and I'm tired and it's like, oh, fuck. It's like this chronic headache at times. But then some of you be like, no, I didn't get headaches, Al, but I have silence in my marriage. There's times when things are suppressed. I can feel it. We can feel it's not there. We're just grunts and groans and then it's silence from the children and there's back chat. Then it's frustration. And I've invested time and energy in the frustration. So I hold onto that. This is the hard part, man. You hold on to a narrative because you've invested time and energy in it, right? So you stay the course. You stay that. There are a lot of things happening where people may not admit that they were wrong because ego takes hold, pride takes place and precedence over doing the right thing. Right? It's easier to maintain the narrative than admit you're Wrong. And turn. Turn the boat around and head in another direction. It's pretty fucking crazy, man. Look, I've seen that destroy men. I've seen that destroy families. For what? To maintain a fucking story in your head? You don't even know that's the truth. That's your reality. But what's the truth? What's an absolute? What's a universal truth? So when I'm talking about right and wrong, I'm coming. Please understand. It's not coming from a position of just Alex or any area in his individual life. It's from all of the fathers and men I connect and work with. It's a collective. And guess what? You're the fucking same. We're all the same. We are all part of a collective of life. Whether you want to transfer that into we're all one, we're all connect. Well, we are all connected, but make of that what you will. What I'm talking about is something that we all go through. Is that something that is the same? You might have a different name, it might be a different year. It happens. You might be different age. When it happens, it happens. This is life. There's something very surreal around life. When it comes to death and newborns, new life and death, time just stops. Everything's so. So real. Nothing else matters. Everything is so present. It's almost like this big fucking hood's been lifted over your head, over your eyes. You're like, wow. I can actually see as an organism, as an animal, as a human being, I can actually see what life is. It's right here. It's right now. It's reasonably still. It can be calm, it can be quiet. You will never have that if you don't stop the world. Stop the world. Al, I want to get off. Yes, yes, push the button. Like on the buses. It lights up. The bus driver keeps driving. Hey, fucking pull over. Pull over. I'm getting off, getting off. And I'll get back on in a few minutes. This is what we call creating space. You need to do this, man. Going away with my family, three nights we're in caravanning three nights felt like fucking three weeks, I tell you. And it was amazing. Look, I'm not here to paint a picture of a positivity and a facade, like Instagram models and all this sort of shit, that everything's hunky dory. My son woke up every day at 3:30am and was very hard to settle. And almost certainly out of those three nights, two of those, he didn't go back to sleep. Off we go. Four, 4:35, maybe a bit later, we tried to settle in for an hour and a half. So it didn't work. But essentially from 3:34. 3:34, not 3:34 in the morning, it's quite a specific time. Hour and a half passes. 5:30, okay, in the pram, go for a walk. And my wife and I rotated on sleep ins like that. That was fucking horrific. That sort of shit's punishing. Trying to put the little ones to sleep with the two girls and they didn't go to bed till 10 o' clock at night. So what do I do though? Like, what's the alternative? Just focus on that. Yeah, the holiday was great, but this, this, this, this and that, it's like you've just negated what you said was a positive by countering it with a negative. Okay, you've equalized. So it's a nothing. It was non event. You can't operate this way, man. It's why when I'm talking about right and wrong, when I'm talking about chasing the wrong thing, I'm talking from a position of observing actions and outcomes of many men, including myself. And when you see that, and you see the observation of the actions and the outcomes, but you see that it doesn't quite correlate to the words that are being spoken or the desires shared, or the feelings of what was actually wanted and needed. Then you know whether something's right or wrong. Okay, we did this, this and this and what? Sounded to me like you wanted this, this and that. You did A, B and C, but you wanted X, Y and Z. Well, obviously it was fucking wrong, wasn't it, mate? And when I say wrong, you can learn, you can build, you can move forward. When I first started this program, it was just Big Al doing emails and shit, couple of videos in his gym. Like, we have evolved and changed, but it wasn't that. Some of the mistakes, learning periods and adjustments to the software we use, the way we integrate with the men, the coaches, the delivery, the itinerary. I can fucking stack this itinerary too much. Pull it back a little bit. If you're just coaching all the time. It's a band aid. It's a band aid approach. Coaching is like that. Refresher, realignment, knowledge, awareness. Bang, go, go. Reflect, realign, Reaware. Bang, go again. It's not, hey, I'm gonna motivate you today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And I'm just gonna motivate you every day and just, just, just keep going, be Motivated. That doesn't fucking mean anything. So mastermind all that sort of shit. Like, whilst I appreciate, you know, their intention, it's very hard, man. Like, for a lot of. It's a waste of time. Get fucking clear on the facts. Focus on them. So when I'm talking about right or wrong, this is what I'm talking about. You're chasing the wrong thing, you're chasing the outcome, you're chasing the celebration. Let me ask you a question, not that I'll get the answer, but this is for you. This is for you to answer and reflect inside of yourself. What would you want more in your life? What do you think is better in your life? What do you think is right? Or the greatest thing you can have in your life? Is it celebration or is it reward? Is it a reward rewarding yourself, or is it a celebration? What is a reward? What does that, I mean, what does that even mean? What does reward actually mean? Let's look it up. Here we are in front of the computer. A thing given in recognition of service, effort or achievement. So do you want something to be given in recognition of your service, effort or achievement? To give something to someone in recognition of their services, efforts or achievements, that's the meaning for award. What does celebration mean? Let's have a look. The action of celebrating an important day or event, because that's all it is. What do you think is more important? A celebration, which is the culmination, the climax, the finishing of something. That's what it is. Would you rather have a celebration? Do you want. Do you want a celebration in your life? Do you want to celebrate in your life every month, every year? Or is it the reward in your life through the continual pursuit? Stay with me here on this one. What I'm talking about is people chase the wrong thing. They're chasing the outcome. They're chasing that hit, that feeling, that end game, that celebration. People chase the celebration instead of understanding that the reward, a rewarding pursuit of life becomes the reward in itself. Isn't it funny, the irony? I'm sure if you've listened to my podcast, you've heard me say it time and time again. The journey and the type of journey that you have live and experience is the destination. The journey is the destination. There's a bit of a. It's a bit of a dichotomy, isn't it? You think of journey, you think of movement, you think of traveling, you think of continual continuous motion, continuous movement. But then when you think of destination, finite, stopped, finito, done. Too many men Are chasing the outcome in life, they're fixated on the result. Think of any other word you want. The result, the outcome, the end game. Facts are important, but facts are riddled throughout the entirety of your life. It's not just here are the facts at the end. They're always there, they're always present. If you look for them. What do you think's better? The reward in the everyday pursuit of your life or the celebration? Because here's the interesting part and I want to share with you a story from when I was fishing while I was away. The celebration is only ever going to be dictated upon or determined by dictated to and upon or determined by the type of pursuit you have, which becomes a really interesting part. Like for me doing 43 CrossFit competitions over a six year period, that's a lot of competitions. Like 110, I'd range from 108 to 112 kilos. Doing CrossFit. This is after nine operations and reconstructions, building the body up to be able to do handstand walks, muscle ups, snatch 120 kilos, clean and jerk, 160, all that crazy shit coming through. Doing regional so international competitions, all that sort of stuff. 43 competitions in total over six years from 2012 to 2018. Out of all of those competitions, have a guess at how many I won? I did some team ones as well. I did, I will admit, I won a team competition with. With at the time my right hand of my gym. And you know a great mate of mine, Luke Preston, he runs his own gym and whatnot now down in Sydney. Great guy. We won a competition, but in terms of my individual, so I think it was 33 competitions individually and 10 as a team. Out of all those comps I won one fucking event, man. One thing, one. You know what? This is the funniest part. It was funny and not haha, just the irony of it. It was the very last competition I ever did. 2018, body was in amazing shape. I bounced back from, you know, the traumas and the pitfalls of my life falling apart in 2016 and 17 with my marriage, with my business. It's very fucking tough, man. So what did I do? Well, I started to build on everything that the guys on the inside see in high performance. Father. I started to develop myself as a man, as a better husband, as a better father. But then the outlet was a real outlet, man. Like I was punishing myself, was my CrossFit, my conditioning, my fitness. And I was a fucking beast. I was in amazing shape and I won I won a two. Was it three day two day might have been three. It was a multiple day event. And the three of us, top three of us were very close all weekend. So I couldn't, couldn't drop the ball on any workouts. And the last one had like legless rope climbs and thrusters and lifting up heavy balls and shit. And still leaders perform well. And I won that event. So that meant that I won the competition. And I knew in the last round it was like a four rounder, like some heavy ball lifting, some thrusters and some rope climbs. You're pretty exhausted, man. It's Sunday arvo. Like those of you who've ever done CrossFit or CrossFit competitions, like doing it day to day to day at the highest, like at a high level. Redlining, very fucking tiring. And when I knew I had it in the bag, I had that feeling like it's that. That euphoric feeling. I'm sure you've had that before. It's like that rise up inside you. It's just like a. It's a really weir weird, it almost feels like nervousness, but it isn't. It's a different kind of feeling. And from there got the last rep out. Big yahoo. Big fucking celebration. Crim was there, Stella was there. It was awesome, it was fantastic. And it was just an amazing rush, amazing rush of endorphins and dopamine. Everything was like all there. Then it was done. That was it, like, that was the celebration. Like fucking hell, man. You trained your ass off all year. It was in October. Trained your ass off all year. And you've trained really the year before. When you're trying to rebuild yourself and your marriage and everything, you try to focus on being disciplined in where you applied your life and going all in on life, family, self and service. Trained all year, all that sort of shit. And that was it. It was a celebration then. And even when it was the podium when they, you know, you get your gold medal, all that sort of stuff, it's just stepping up and waving to the family and shaking the hands of the other guys. And that was, was a nice feeling. You're chasing the wrong thing. You just want this outcome. You've got this dream in your head. You've got this fantasy that this is what will happen. If I get this, everything will be okay. If I have this much money in my account, everything will be okay. If I have this fucking car, if I have this boat, if I have sex this many times, everything will be okay. If I have this from my wife, if I have that, from my children, if I have this sort of experience or this respect from them. You're chasing all these things that are outside of your control. Why? Because they're in a different fucking timeline, mate. They're not here and now. So you don't control that and you never will. You may influence the right now in your actions, which could lead to that being an outcome inevitable or not, but you don't control that. It's the fool's dream. You are chasing something, even in your head, in a fantasy that you're using to define you and showcase a better life when you get there. It'll be better when I get here, It'll be better when I get there, It'll be better when I'm 112 kilos instead of 125. Or it'll be better once I'm done. Double digits instead of triple digits and I get all that shit. Look, the facts are the facts. There's truth that can follow that. But what's going to lead to the facts is your pursuit. What the most rewarding part is, is the pursuit of life itself. I might say that word pursuit a few more times in this episode. Don't get tired of it, because that's a very powerful word. In fact, on that note, let's look it up. The action of pursuing someone or something, pretty fucking standard. Wouldn't expect anything else from the mainstream. The pursuit, man. Like, what are you doing here? What are you doing even listening to this? Why you? Why do you even listen to me? Why you even listen to these podcasts? What are you trying to achieve? What do you want out of life? Look, I get it, man. It's good to have goals. It's important. Goals change. Goals adapt. They transfer, they transform. Why do you want those goals? I'm not saying you should never plan for the future. Fucking oath, man. I want that RDM ranch and I wanted it yesterday. Like, it's just going to be an unbelievable setup. Like, it will be. Fuck, it'll be crazy. Helping fathers. And not just fathers and families together, but fathers by themselves. So both getting off the grid, reconnecting with themselves, slowing down time, investing their energy in the right places, reconnecting with their family, reconnecting with themselves. Like that shit is real. It will be here. What am I going to do about that? Like, just fucking research. Land every day for two hours. I'm not there yet, and I'm not going to rush the process. And ultimately, what I can do about it now is completely different. To what it's going to equal, then developing and building this brand over the next decade. What we do, being here in a critical time where the world's all fucked up, but it's always fucked up for a generation, different generations, different type of fucked up, what can we do to make sure we're bringing the needle back? A lot of weak men led to a lot of pain and suffering for other good men and for women, which led to the extremities of feminism. So the needle went from the right all the way to the fucking left. Let's bring it back to center. Men and women should both wear a pair of pants and lead in their own right, in their own way. That doesn't mean that there's confusion. It doesn't mean you talk about fucking alpha male and masculine and feminine and all that bullshit from a position where you're castrating one or the other. We have both Viking and the Panda. You have feminine energy and you have masculine energy in you. From a genetic point of view, yes, you'll adopt more masculine naturally, but some of you guys might have boss ladies, high profile, high powered women, well, guess what? They need to, if they're going to perform in the corporate world, yes, they will need to adopt in a competitive world, the driving force of action, energy, competition, hunting life, more masculine energy. Which means naturally, in the dynamic of their household, you might adopt more feminine energy, but you need to hold on to that part of you that makes you a fucking man. Because guess what? When she's out hunting life, if she's the main breadwinner, just on a side note, when she comes home, she doesn't want to have to fucking worry about other things and have to just continually wear a different set of pants from what's genetically slightly different to what women are ingrained within their DNA and what evolution has shown us. So there's going to be times, no matter how high profile or how much of a boss lady your wife is, that she wants you to fucking take the reins and dominate, be the man. And she'll fucking love that, I promise you, man, she will. All women, all women, they want that. They want a man to lead in different ways. Doesn't just mean money. They want a man to lead and be that fucking Titan, be that Viking, be that warrior, be like, yes, I'm the fucking protector. This is my chest. This shit is fucking puffed out because I'm the man. Not because of front, not because of oxygen in my lungs. Just like, you know what, a lot of us as men, we want to be held? Yeah. Like, there's times where I come home, I'm fucking exhausted. I just want to sit down and not curl up in the fetal position. Although sometimes we've had that feeling, right? But I just want my wife to come around, put her arms around me, and just rub my neck and my shoulders and be like, you've fucking done an amazing job, you know, driving the caravan for the first time. We made it home alive, you know, like. And I got that. But what I'm saying is a time with us as men that we want to feel nurtured as well, just like women want to feel the power of a man. But that's. That's. That's courses down the track. That's other stuff. That's a different. The point is, though, how you get all of that? You think your life will get better when you achieve this? When you get that? When you get that? No, no, no. It's the pursuit of the actions. It's the pursuit of the celebration that is the reward. What do you think's more valuable? The celebration itself or the reward of everyday life and becoming a better man, a better person, a better husband, a better father. That all comes down to you in the now that. That all comes down to your actions. You're chasing the wrong thing. You're chasing the result. You're focusing on the result which is costing you time and energy in the now, which is costing you the actions that will equal the result. So change your eyes. Readjust. Yes. You can look far. Okay. There's a couple of mountains there. There's something off in the distance. That's a funny shape. Beautiful. Fucking imprint that in your head. Pull the eyes down. All right, there's the road. It's fucking a kilometer ahead. I pull the eyes back in. There's the path. It's 100 meters. All right, Pull the eyes back in. This is where my foot is going next. The end. This is where my foot goes next. Then here, then here, then here. Look up. Yep, there's that rock. There's that funny shape. There's the mountains. There's the path. There's the road. Cool. I'm on the right spot, on the right path in the right direction. Where's my foot go next? And that's the reward. Because when you reach that mountain, when you rejuvenate or reconcile in your relationship, when your marriage is back on track, when divorce is no longer on the cards, those of you listening to this who are divorced, when you're taking what we're talking about in the skill sets and developing yourself so you don't have that shit happen again. This is just important. This is, in fact, more important for you. Those men listening to this who are already divorced, don't take the same shit into the next relationship. And if your wife was a narcissist, no worries. You still need to work on yourself so you can fix your fucking eyes so you don't pick another one. It always starts and ends with you. Why? Because this is your life. So when you're taking responsibility over yourself, responsibility equals retention. You can retain the things you need to develop and focus and work on inside of yourself. That doesn't happen by just looking at outcomes. The outcome compass map points. Drop the pins. Let's go. What are the actions then? What are the actions that will lead to the outcomes? Lead and lag measures. We call it a tav. Targets actions version. We set that up every week. Who do you need to become? Who will you become when you achieve this? All right, what's the target you want to achieve? No worries. What are the actions that will give you a high likelihood of achieving the target? That's what we call a tav. Not tab tav. When you apply this man, life itself is the reward. I'm pretty transparent with a lot of things, and there are some things that are personal to my life, of course, like they should be for all of us, but I'm pretty transparent. But put it this way. Making millions and millions of dollars and doing all that sort of shit, that'll look after itself when I'm older. In life, I'm the caretaker. We are a team. I'd rather trim a big chunk of fucking cream off the top and invest that in other men. Support other men, other men's families in our coaches. Provide a high level of value, get professionals in, get experts in. Give them fucking more money to come in and provide value for our men, for the tribe. So we really stamp this as the pinnacle of. For how a father can create change in his life and be part of an environment that is just phenomenal and nothing and no one comes even close. That's worth it to me. Way more than holding a few extra pennies in Al's purse. Way more. So you can't sit back. And that's one example, body composition. Other things, you can't sit back and go, when I have this much money, everything will be okay. When my body's this, everything will be okay. It doesn't work that way. One of our men in our Sunday charge ups was talking about scarcity mindset versus abundance, mindset, this is the key, man. You can't just think abundance, you need to have an abundance of actions. And when I'm looking at that, I'm like, yeah, you know what, I'm not a fool, I'm intelligent. But the money will look after itself. Focus on the abundance of actions, on the abundance of the rewards that I can provide in myself through the pursuit of leveling up who I am. Evolving our program, evolving the men inside the program in their life. It's a little bit different. Like the guys who are members listening to this, they get a different level of value from my podcast than you might if you're not a member. That's not a right or wrong. It's just a different type because they can correlate and tie this straight back into everything they're doing in the inner circle like that. That just is what it is. But the value is a little bit different, but it's there for you. The podcasts and what we do, the YouTube channels, the free group that we have on Facebook, all of this is providing value and helping you and helping you initiate change. But the important part is not just having an abundance of mindset and thoughts and affirmations and feelings and emotions and post it notes, having an abundance of the actions that's going to move you away from the scarcity of what you think you should be having, because you have scarcity inside of your mind, from a place of what you believe you should have, not from a place of what you believe you should be doing. Can you see the difference with that? People who are living in scarcity, they're driven by fear. Don't let fear drive you, man. That's why I fucking hate the news. We all experience fear. We all experience fear. Being scared, different things. It's not going down the dark alley. You don't pull the trigger and take the step on something or don't take action. You're afraid. I don't care what anyone says, you're afraid, just like me. No, no, I don't want to drive the caravan yet. I want to get. I want to get lessons. I want to hire someone who's driven caravans. No, no, go out and fucking do it, mate. Earn your stripes and it's good. I enjoyed it. We all experience fear but don't express it. You can't chronically express fear onto yourself, onto your children and think that shit'll be okay. Think that that'll rinse out in the wash. It won't. That shit'll be Seared inside of you, who you are in your makeup. When you're living in a mindset of scarcity, you're focusing on what you don't have, not what you're not doing. Can you see that? So you're never going to celebrate anything if you're not going to be focusing on what you should be doing. No one is living in a scarcity world where they have a scarcity mindset and a fearful mindset of what they're doing. They're afraid of the outcome, of what they might do. That's why they don't do it. How do you know that's the case? How do you know that'll happen? You don't. So cut that shit away. An abundance of mindset comes from abundance of actions. The abundance of actions comes from a perspective of understanding where the most rewarding part of your life is. And the reward is the goal, the reward is the key, and the reward is not the celebration. So if you're doing something just to have that fucking boom, it's why, look, I'm not a Grinch with Christmas, with Easter, with New Year's, a Grinch across the board of celebrating. But honestly, man, people use New Year's the completely wrong way. They use it as a foundation. They use it as a Hail Mary. They use it as their savior to pull them out of whatever pit they're in, a pit of despair. You can't do that like you're trying to use a celebration of a day in a calendar year psychologically to arm yourself with something that your entire body, the mechanics of how you operate physically and mentally, are ingrained in the wrong patterns, the wrong habits, the wrong behaviors that you've built up over the last 12 months. Rope's full of knots. You're going to try and untie them all in one night. It doesn't work that way. You know that. Here we are, we're coming up to the end of January. 92% fail in the first four weeks. 92% of people fail their news resolutions in the first four weeks. That's crazy, man. Like that. That's pretty heavy shit. Because guess what? People have an expectation on that and they assume that things will be better this year because there's another number. Fresh start, clean slate. What have you done about it? Are you investing in different people, places and things? Environment, coaches, coaching programs, tools, data, knowledge, information, coaching. Like, what have you changed? Because if it's just you driving the ship, you know you're going to crash it again. Shipwreck number three. Shipwreck number 12. It's been 15 years, Al. You've probably run out of ships. Men. The reason why I say you're chasing the wrong thing when you're looking for the outcome alone. And celebrating that outcome alone is all of that is a byproduct of what you're driving every single day inside of your life as a man. So it's the wrong thing to focus on. It's the wrong thing to chase because it's a non event. It doesn't exist. It's not real. It's a byproduct that reveals itself. It's a byproduct that comes to fruition. It's why it's called a moment. Celebrate for a week. Celebrate for a month. Fuck, mate, good for you. It's still a month of moments. It's still a week of moments. That's all it is. The pursuit of those moments is where the difference lies in life. The pursuit of those moments is where the man will celebrate or he won't. It's the pursuit of those many, many more moments that defines and like I said, dictates and determines the meaning of that celebration. What you are celebrating, why you are celebrating, and what it means for you moving forward. I can't stress that enough. And just to finish on this, look, I guess, you know, obviously I went in a few different directions there because I said I was going to share a personal story. Went on my caravan, went away fishing. New rod for Christmas from the missus. All right, beauty, let's take her out. Went out fishing. Fucking bang. Snagged, snap. Everything snapped off. Alright, hook up the line again. Way we go. Bang. Snagged another one, Snapped. Okay, hook up the line. Where we go again? Bait, bite, bite, bite, bite. Gone. Bait him up. Bite, bite, bite, bite. Gone. Holy fuck, mate. I'm doing well looking after the fish here. And I had mullet, it was fresh mullet. My next door neighbor, he'd gone out and caught eight fucking sharks that day. I said, well, I must be doing something wrong, Steve, because you've just caught eight sharks and I've just fed the fish for the morning. Okay, well, you need that. This is how you actually fill it, the mullet. And this is how you should put it on your hook. This is the type of hook you should use. Okay, I'll do that. Throw it in. No more bites. The fish are full. Ah, man, this is day two. I'm fucking burnt and I'm burned again. It's overcast. Put some sunblock on. But I'm a lobster. Okay? Spend time with the family. Come home. I'm a failure. Daddy, where's the fish? Oh, Daddy didn't catch any fish, darling. What do you mean, oh, Daddy just fed the fish this morning. He just had some fun with them. Oh, I wanted to see the fishies. Okay, it's safe. When I say failure, it's tongue in cheek. I don't see it that way, but it's just funny, all these different perceptions you can adopt through different influences. The children, the line, getting snagged, rehooking, rehooking, getting burnt. The frustrations. Old mate next door was catching sharks, like, next door to where we'll set up. He was awesome, yeah. Landing two and a half meter sharks. And, like, I would have loved to have done that and just released him back into the wild. Just catching something crazy. We go back Sunday afternoon, all right, we'll throw a line in, throw some prawns on, go on again, go on again, go on again. Lillian sits on my lap. I teach her how to cast. She's two and a half, throws the line in, having fun, laughing. And I'm like, maybe. And you know, like, it's just how I'm wired. Not that I'm always turned on, but I was like, I wonder why I'm not catching any fish. Maybe I didn't have any sun cream on my hands. I tried all that stuff. And maybe there's a lesson here. And straight away, something in my head said, al, maybe the lesson is there is none, mate. And you just fucking relax and you're just kicking by the water and just spending some time with yourself or with your family. I don't know where that voice came from. I was like, fair point. Kicking back, relaxing, having a laugh. Kids are running around. My nephew caught a little flatty, so we had to throw him back. The hook was right in. So I got the hook out for him, threw him back in. He was upside down for a little bit, and then boom. This big tuna. This is the crazy part, right? There's bites, little nibbles, little shit. The prawns cut in half because it was prawns at that stage. And, you know, it's like, ah, these little fucking fishes. Just babies in here. The flatty. Literally, a minute later, this massive fucking shark. And it's massive because they're right there on the rocks. He's right there, like he's a meter away from my children. And he would have snapped him up. Nothing else. Two and a half meter. Two and a half meter shark. I'm like, holy. This big thing. The water just comes up and out, grabs the flatty, goes down. I was like, holy shit, man. That was. Here I am getting little bites and nibbles, and there's a beast like that here in the lake. Comes up again, goes back down just to give us an old wink of the eye, and off he goes like, bloody hell. Insane. So I'm relaxed, I'm having fun now. We're just kicking back and having dinner and throw it in and I'll finally hook something. And I've got a brim, reeling it in. The rod's bending. I'm pulling it, pulling it in, reeling, reeling it. Daddy's got a fish. Everyone comes running over. Kids come run over. This thing was like 10 centimeters long. It was the smallest brim I'd ever seen. I just pissed myself laughing and I. I cheated. Yahoo. We took a photo and it was the funniest thing. Like, I couldn't believe, like. And the kids were over the moon. They were celebrating. Lillian was patting it. Stella poked its eye, and I was like, hell, man. And I just laughed and I just felt this rush over me. And I was even more relaxed again. And it was so funny because it was like. And I did celebrate. I was like, I wouldn't have celebrated to the level I did, you know, laughing and jovial and with the kids, obviously, so, you know, over the top and exaggerated in excitement with them. They loved it. Lillian never been fishing, and she cast him with me. So I'm like, lillian, you helped me catch this fish. You helped me catch him. I wouldn't have been celebrating if I hadn't have put the blood, sweat and tears. Because that's what it was at that stage into this. It was the pursuit of living and experiencing life, being there in the moment and growing. Because guess what? I did grow. I grew with my child who'd never been fishing before. Stella had, but Lillian hadn't. I grew in myself to. I think I'm good with creating space and being a good leader of man, of men and mankind, in making sure we're filling our cups up. I do all of that. But being away in a different environment and really slowing down, I was like, man, I'm really fucking slowing down. I'm like, I need to caravan more. I'm going to take HPF to the next level, man. If I can actually take more time out to slow down and be present, because shit just floods into my head, then that's how the subconscious works as well. All of the greatest ideas and things that I've ever seen or had from myself, from others. Always floods in when I'm doing nothing and not thinking about was the pursuit of just life, man, living your life and being there with the family, with myself. When I was fishing alone, getting sunburned and just feeding the fish that morning, that was Saturday morning, that's the reward, but it's the pursuit. And the reward in that pursuit of what I wanted to achieve, what I was attaining, what I was moving towards, what my goals were, what I was driving through, actions, adjusting, changing, asking for help, asking for advice, getting lessons off different fishermen. How the fuck do you do this? How do you do that? All of that is what led to the celebration. As funny as it was and as much as a piss take as it was the celebration being really fulfilling and a real sense of contentment. Maybe you're fishing, tide's turning, your line's getting hooked up with other fishermen, you're getting snagged, you need to re bait. Fish are taking it, they're not taking it, old mate. Next is catching more fish. Maybe you're fishing in life and all these different things are just chipping away at you. They're peppering you, peppering around you, pulling you down, pulling you away. And in your head is just this fixation on a result. This job completed, this in the household, this, this with my wife, this amount of money, this holiday, this car, this promotion, this business. Maybe you're just fishing. Maybe you're fishing for the wrong thing or the wrong reason. You're fishing in life, looking to jag the shark, looking to pull out flatty brim, even a brim as big as mine, just quite small. And maybe you're so focused and fixated on what it is that you want to catch in that water that you can't quite see but you know is there, that you've dropped the ball and you've lost the edge in your life because the focus has disappeared from that which is the most powerful thing any man can have. Yourself, your time. Who's holding the rod? Who's baiting the hook? Who's casting the line? Who is it that's actually there? Who is the greatest asset? What is it from which everything that equals your life is being created from? It's you. If a tree falls in the woods and you're not there, there is no tree because you're not there to consciously observe it. So don't even fucking worry about whether it makes a sound or not. My point is, man, this is your life, this is your set of Eyes that you're living life through. This is your consciousness. Regardless of what happens in the next chapter or the next life, you are here and now. Don't waste that. You're chasing the wrong thing. Chase a level of growth and a hunger for life in the entirety of life. To create an absolute identity in your life. Which absolute identity means the averages of who you turned up as over the course of 50, 60, 80, 90 years, however long you live for. That's hard though, Al, because it's like looking in the water when I'm on my deathbed. That's the only time when I'll have that realization. Correct the dichotomy of life. You realize how valuable, how important life is when you're dying. Important how? You realize how important living is when you're dying. How important life is when there's death. Yes, that's right. What a funny game. But it is what it is. Some rules you can't change. Others you can change how you see them. So chase lifemen, chase the experiences. Chase the pursuit of something, knowing full well it may never eventuate. But you developed a better man, a better human being, a better husband, a better father in that process. And that in itself is the reward. And I fucking promise you, mate, when you do that consistently, A, the celebrations will come, B, the outcomes will come, and C, the rewards will build and get bigger and bigger over the course of your life. You don't need to be 80 years old to see that. You don't need to trust me, man. I see that shit in my 5 year old. And she's worked hard at something. Spelling, reading, writing for months, years. Don't ever forget that. This is your rod, your bait, your line. You read the conditions. You might not control the water or the fish. You might not be able to remove some of the rocks where you get snagged, go somewhere else, see it differently, change the bait, get a different hook. There's always a way. But that way will never be seen or realized if all you're focusing on is the outcome. Because the outcome from which the celebration, which is that lure, that temptation, that drug that most men chase doesn't exist. It's simply a variable of what could be. It's simply a possibility. But you are the greatest probability that you'll ever have in your life. You and the actions you take. And that is why men, when you're chasing the celebration, readjust, make a few tweaks, change up your approach and chase the actions. Love the pursuit of what it is that you're chasing. In the outcome through chasing the right actions. And I'm telling you, man, that is the greatest reward that you and I will ever have. Because you will know whether it's sport, whether it's other things, the wins, the losses, everything else. The wins are more sweeter on the back of the losses. The losses help you ground yourself again and realize and recognize that this is the game of life, all of it. It's all one big fucking muddied mess in life. And that's what it is. But when you do this, I promise you, man, you will rise up, you will set the course for better actions, better habits, and your life will become and continue to become more rewarding. And that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode and got some golden nuggets with possibly one or two aha moments as well. If you truly loved and enjoyed what you listened to, then I want to invite you to share this episode with someone who you know needs to hear this. It could be your brother, friends, colleagues, your uncle, even your wife. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that none of us are alone in the hardships we face. But the solution to getting back on top, winning can start with a gift from someone else. And that gift could be an episode like this because another man transformed is another family saved, which is exactly what we're all thriving and winning in life. There is no alternative. It's possible. It has been done. It can be done, so it should be done. I appreciate your support in spreading this message. Cheers, mate.