215. 10 Life Lessons From Losing My Voice - Part 1

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. Well, bloody hell, here we go. Gentlemen, I tell you what, it's been a minute, hasn't it? Welcome to an episode where this is going to be unlike any other episode that you've experienced or listened to before. And I'm very proud and privileged to be part of this message of high Performance father, but also to see the wheels in motion and this momentum Continue. With over 200 podcast episodes, it's incredible to see over 165,000 downloads now and the impact that we have in men's lives because of them. I'm not here to say your rewards are mine. They're your rewards. You do the work and you're the one who should be getting the achievement, the result and the fulfillment from your actions. But it's pretty cool, members or not. And what wasn't cool was the last almost five fucking months. Now, please bear with me. We're getting a lot of feedback where the partners and wives are starting to listen to the podcast, which is awesome. I absolutely recommend that you men should be encouraged, encouraging in certain areas, certain elements, your wives, your significant others, to listen to this sort of stuff because essentially some of the times it's not about, hey, this is what I need from you. It's about, hey, you know what? This is what goes on inside of our heads. And if we can give our wives or significant others more clarity over our position, who we are, where we come from, what defines us, what drives us, and so on and so forth, if we can give them that clarity, then there is understanding through our flaws and through the amazing things we do that helps Them see why we are wide and why we operate the way that we currently do. The reason why I'm talking about that is there's definitely going to be a few more swear words in this one. Maybe it's the passion. Maybe I'm well overdue. But I'll tell you what, man, it's been a fucking nightmare. Four months, literally. That last podcast episode I did with Ren, phenomenal episode, by the way, too. We've had men come on board. We've had men who are ready to take their own life, which is just incredible to see that they have been inspired from other men. Our podcasts, men on the inside to go. That is not the answer. That is not the pathway. And look, hpf. And every man's journey is slightly different. And it's not just about, hey, we're looking for the men who are that deep in the pit or feel like there's no other choices in life, whilst we absolutely welcome them with open arms. And I think it's incredible to see the turnaround transformation. It really is. It's very humbling to see that we've got a range of men who really connect to this message and this podcast. So it's been so fucking frustrating, man, because this is how I connect to you men on the inside and on the outside, I guess, of our. Of our inner circle or our coaching program. And it's an important message to keep a rhythm and pulse with. I can't believe over 200 episodes, we've, you know, maintained a level of creative range to. Yes, we hammer home with a fundamental message of truth and honesty and leadership and actions and everything else. We can go on forever about that. But to have such individual circumstances is in every single episode is something that is just incredible. To continually paint the picture of the golden nuggets that you can pluck out of every single episode. I tell you what, man, like, this has been one of the craziest times in my life. Just after the episode I did with Ren, I went to Darwin with the family. Half business, half pleasure, and coming back, what happened was got a little bit sick from the little man, Roman. He had a little cough, and I just got a little bit of a dry cough from him. Next thing you know, and I haven't even spoken about the episode. This episode is the 10 Life Lessons that I have learned from losing my voice for four months. I'm going to break this into two parts. There are two parts of this. Part one, we'll go through the first five, and part two, we'll go through the second five, but pretty crazy, man. Like some pretty crazy stuff that hopefully opens up the eyes for you fellas as well, in a personal fashion, of what's going on in your world and what you can adopt from these fundamentals, these 10 fundamental truths that I was exposed to because life was very chaotic. Life was pretty crazy from September till about the end of January. It's been fucking savage, man. It has been so tough like you wouldn't believe. I've broken my jaw before, I've fractured cheekbones, I've had multiple operations on my knee, multiple operations on my shoulder. I've been over a quarter of a million dollars in debt. That's not home loans or mortgages like proper debt which was owed. And people were tapping on my shoulder, looking for it. And you know, from business deals and business in the past and failing in my marriage, failing as a fail, I've gone through some crazy shit. But I'll tell you what, in my position anyway, and what I do in providing not just insights, inspiration or influence to men like yourself to create positive change and rise up as a leader in your life. Not just that, in life in general. Not being able to speak is a fucking nightmare. Even if you're a reserved man who doesn't talk that much, having that power taken away from you was fucking crippling. So we get back from Darwin and I get a little bit of a dry cough from the little man. Then all of a sudden, it's like the biggest fucking session I've ever done in my life. I wake up the next day with, we call it doms, delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. But wake up with severe, severe pain and soreness all through my body. It was crazy. It only lasted a day. This is off the back end of traveling and different climates, obviously to Darwin down to Sydney. But the back end of that, I was like, man, maybe I got a bug. Maybe got something. What the hell's going on? This is crazy. Okay, I come good. More like two to three days later. And we had courses that we've completed and we had to complete on the inside for our fathers and other ones that I'm finishing up now because I just haven't been able to. You know, it's almost like the anxiety in my life was higher than ever before. Wasn't a grand final with footy. Wasn't something with my wife for our relationship or leaving or my children's safety. It was just a thing that just sat, man. It was like a lump that was on my body and I couldn't get it exercised. I couldn't get it cut out because it just sat there where every single fucking day I'm waking up going, man, I've got like, I've got like 20 to 30 minutes max. I've got 20 to 30 minutes tops of speaking time before my throat caves in. And I'm just looking every fucking day, I'm looking at my roster, my schedule, and there's just hours, there's hours of talking every day. And it's why, you know, and I'm sorry, man, but you know, you've got to prioritize. You got to live and breathe the message. I talk about being 100 to give a hundred. One of the first things to go was unfortunately, the podcast because, man, I had fucking half an hour. And every day I'm looking, there's hiring, there's firing. I mean, I say that with respect. There's recruiting and building, developing, there's relationships, there's other men that we're working with and that's just on our coaching side of things. And then there's our team and delivery. So I'm still involved in hpf. It's, you know, we've got an amazing team of coaches that continues to grow, but I'm still part of the team with our Sunday charge ups with our communication and connection as well as the one to one clients that I take. Obviously only a handful of them, but still it's quite. And then on top of all of that, there's communicating not only with your team, with your tribe, there's communicating outwards. So that got shot to shit with doing live videos and videos and connecting as well as the podcasts. I'm trying to juggle all of that. And then we had these courses. So I came good a couple of days later. I'm not here to bounce around, but I'm just painting this whole picture. This was savage. These courses we need to complete around relationships and mindset. Pumped them out, got them all pumped out, which was awesome. They're all complete. They are phenomenal courses and we do have specials now and then where we do offer them to you guys who aren't members. So make sure you either join our Facebook group or keep your eyes peeled for emails and comms or different things. Like in this podcast where I'm offering certain insights to HBF and value, I can't give it all away for free all the time, right? When it comes to our high level IP and our resources, there are men who pay good money to get access to that as well as our coaching. So Ethically and genuinely, I need to look after those men. Otherwise I'm, you know, I'm obviously being disrespectful to them too, right? But we will have times where I'm going to offer things. The relationships course is phenomenal, but I had to hook in, man, that they're solid courses, right? So there's videos obviously involved in all of those. And it's crazy. Just this, this anxiety that built up inside of my life the last four months was real. And I'm not. When I say was real, I mean like was was really, really big. Really big. When I say real, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I think anxiety, things like anxiety and depression, they're all labels, right? They're just fucking words. So some people will sit there and be super tough and say depression doesn't exist. Okay, cool. But what you're tying into is a label of a feeling or a state of being, well being or not of an individual. So you can't say something doesn't exist. What you're saying is the common associated term with depression doesn't exist. Which I get. I get the elements of that, right? Because when you're looking at that, if someone hasn't looked after their health, their nutrition, dialed everything in, where they are outpacing out, running this depressive state, think about this. Like depressed, right? That means you're switched off, you're not plugged in, you are not turned on. Depressed. What's the opposite of that? Pressing pushing the button on life and going fucking all in. If you're not doing that, then of course you're going to feel that way. But that's just a word. But it was real. And then there's obviously people on the flip side who use words like anxiety and depression like a crutch, right? It's about your world, your belief systems, but it's also about challenging your world and your belief systems to ask the question, is this fucking serving me? Yes or no? Because if it isn't, why are you holding on? So for me it was this battle because I'm so mentally tough and geared towards relentless action, persistence, resilience, success, and whatever it takes. So persistence. I will not stop. I'll keep going. Resilience. I'm overcoming the roadblock. Here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another one. And when you can't fucking perform, you can't perform. So I had everything there that I've detailed with you from which my voice is critical. I'm not here to Be your guru or motivational speaker. But a large way in how we connect is through our words. Went up to Queensland last week. Fantastic. Caught up with a couple of dozen men and it was incredible. On short notice. Went up there to visit mum and dad. They live up there on short notice. Had a great outreach of men who joined in on our session and got to connect with them and just spend time in each other's energy. Awesome. But you're still talking. But it was just savage how this was so embedded in my life where I was fucking crippled. And I'm talking about professionally. Right, let's now go into. Personally, I couldn't fucking train. I couldn't breathe. Like, I was struggling, man. It started as laryngitis and became this massive shit storm where I couldn't talk. And it's really funny when you explore your vocal cords in your voice box and your larynx, it's like two little violin chords. It's quite. It. It's pretty crazy how we can communicate with such. I don't know if diction's the word, but create such a variety of words and ways that we communicate through air passing through two violin chords. It's crazy. So I was bouncing up and down, up and down and around. So professionally I was fucked. But then personally didn't train in four months, so obviously body got shot to shit. I had no outlet, I had no release. I was lethargic. Like, I mean, if you feel like you're lethargic because you train and you're tired from training, some of you who've never fucking trained or you haven't trained for a long period of time, you are living a constant and chronic state of lethargy. Because when you train and you build your capacity to handle a level of resistance in a controlled environment, so, you know, my heart rate's up, I'm lifting weights and all that, and life's a walk in the park. I'm carrying my own body weight. I'm talking. I'm not breathing at 170 beats a minute. And lifting weights, it's so much easier. Building stability and resilience and resistance against the day to day levels of what life throws at you, right? And mentally it charges you up too. And it's definitely an outlet. Couldn't do any of that. And then personally, again, no sleep and I was coughing on average. And this doesn't sound like much, but it just became this chronic cough. And it's not a mental toughness thing. Like, it's not like, oh, yeah, you're Just not strong enough to stop coughing. It was a reflex action. I couldn't stop it. It was no control. No control, man. And this is at a point where we were driving. New programs, upgrades, courses, content, coaches, coaching, team building, everything going to another level in the final quarter of 2022 with HPF and all of this here at my doorstep, coughing at least 500 times a day. I'm not exaggerating too. Like, think about this, do the maths. If I'm awake 16 hours and it's just a little cough, one to two coughs every one to two minutes, no drama. So let's make it nice and easy. One cough a minute, 60 coughs an hour. You do the maths. That's 900 times a day. If I've got 10 hours, 10 times 60, 600. Six times 60 is 360. So I'm being very, very, you know, when I'm talking about the numbers, I'm actually being quite humble in giving you the number and the nature of what's happening compared to what actually really happened, which in reflection is probably around a thousand times a day. Think about that. My back was fucking killing me, it was so sore. So my personal well being was shot to shit. But then, guess what? I got three little kids, all of them want to fucking talk to you. Like children. When I talk about this, they don't listen. They watch, of course. But guess what they do when they're watching. They're asking questions, they're expecting words, they want answers. They're misbehaving. Like, I can't go if our kids are misbehaving with bed, bath time, all this sort of stuff. You can't go from no talking to, you know, I don't smack much. But giving them a hiding, like, I'm just talking two extremes. You can't go from no talking to, all right, I'm going to give you a hiding. I mean, my old man gave me a couple of hidings back in the day, and probably well deserved, mind you, but when it comes to my children, you can't discipline them from nothing to all of a sudden the end extreme. So where do we find that middle ground? Through words? I couldn't even do that. This is at the end of the day when my voice is already cooked. I had 20 minutes each day max, and I could feel every fucking word of those 20 minutes. But my roster was two to three hours. And then family, my children, my wife, and we'll talk about that in a second. But family, friends, my, you know, immediate family, as well. My brothers, mum, dad, couldn't talk to them. My best man, best mates, couldn't talk to them, couldn't talk to anyone, spoke to no one for four months. They'd be contacting, communicating. And it's all, man, I've fucking nothing. I can't give you anything right now. I'm conserving and holding on to a thread of what I'm currently doing just to survive. So here it is. My wife, of course we're getting disconnected, she's not getting that feedback. She doesn't feel emotionally supported and so on and so forth. And it was just savage, man. And she knows, it was like, she knows the reason why. It's not like, hey, you're not communicating with me anymore. But that doesn't take away the reality of her needs not being met. This became proper fucking savage, man. Like, I'm not sure if this is something that's. I mean, this is. Maybe this isn't a therapy session of mine, but I really want to open up and share with you, man, before we dive into these 10 life lessons that I learned how crazy life was. And it's not an attempt to get you back on site because you didn't get a dose of alpha the last four months. There's over 200 episodes. Maybe some of those you can go through and repeat or you could have or you should have, which I saw. You know, we can see the stats and we were still hitting consistent numbers with guys listening. So awesome. Well done to you men who stayed with a finger on the pulse and kept up to date or kept in tune with yourself and what you needed to listen to or go over again. But, you know, I'm not painting this picture as a big apology. I'm sharing with you how fucking crazy life can get. My life's in a fucking great place. Like, make no mistake, the reason why my life is in a great place is because of my skill sets and ability. So my capacity and my skills, two things that are important for the circle of self. So that's my gas tank, my ability to perform at high levels and the endurance for long, as well as my skills, how to perform with that energy as well as connection with who to perform, how with that energy. It's top notch, like it doesn't come luckily or as a surprise. The reason why I'm in this position and the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing with HPF is because of the right that I've earned through the blood, sweat and tears of developing and building who I am. So my life's in a great place. But the reason why it's great is because I can handle the bullshit, the problems, the challenges, every fucking day in my life at a high level. My life doesn't come without problems, it doesn't come without challenges, it doesn't come without issues. Three young children, I've got a wife, I've got a business, I've got my own body and health. I'm trying to recover from a career of rugby league, which I had nine operations over a six year period. That's pretty fucking heavy. Throw losing your voice in the mix. It was crazy. To the point where it got so heavy, man. Like I'm coughing again, you know, I was being quite conservative, but I'm coughing easy seven hundred to a thousand times a day easy. To the point where I was drawing blood. It was like I said, it's savage. Imagine that you're coughing so much. It's not like I've got a punctured lung or something else and blood just pops up because of the sheer volume of coughing. I started coughing up blood. I had an X ray, I had bloods done, I had allergy testing, urine testing, CT scan, a scope. So it's not an arthroscopy, although that's the term we use for a scope in the knee and a clean out. But I had a scope with an ENT down my throat to check, man. I had it all. I did every fucking test you could think of, looking for the answer. What the fuck is going on? This shit just keeps going. I tried resting. How do you do that, right? But I did do it well. And I would rest and I'd crave a little bit, but wouldn't recover at the rate it needed to. It was intense. It was so intense. And it got to a stage, man, where it almost brings up anxiety now talking about it. My wife was understanding and it was tough with her and tough for her. She had to be a larger and higher voice for the children. I was useless in some areas of life, that's for sure. When it came to communicating, connecting with the kids, and then even from an intimacy level like, okay, cool, haven't spoke to you, let's go have some sex. Like all these little things that take for granted or not if they're a part of your life or not, all the little things that just make life bring some sort of normality. I'm not a big fan of the word normal, I hate the word average. But just helping you feel normal, at least at the level or standard that you're used to operating at. So my level of normal could potentially be higher than other people's. But what my normal was and all of that was quite challenging. But this got really crazy, man. To the point where I was on all different medications to try and help the throat. Nothing seemed to work. And I got to a point where. Or I'd be waking up in the night because I wear an aura ring. I track all of my sleep. It got so bad that I was coughing up blood, getting zero sleep. And the small pockets of sleep I'd be getting should be anywhere from 30. It's like I had a fucking newborn again, actually. Honestly, it was crazy. And imagine a newborn, but with poor. You've got poor health. So not you're sleep deprived and your body's okay. Like newborn status with zero health. Crazy. To the point where I'd be waking up and I'd just be going into the shower and putting it on hot and just sitting there fucking collapsed in the corner in the shower and closing the doors and just getting some steam, you know. And I know obviously hot air rises, but that was my level of exhaustion, man. I was collapsing to the point where sometimes crim would be coming in, waking up two in the morning, shower's been running. I feel bad, obviously, I don't want to waste water, but, man, there's times where I'd be in there for 20 minutes, half an hour, just running the hot and then turning it off and sitting in the steam trying to get some sort of alleviation or alleviate some of the stress in my throat. Because it got to a stage where it was like breathing through a straw. One of the days I had 40 puffs of a Ventolin puffer. Did all. And you know, that's obviously not your answer, Al. Yeah, I fucking get that. So we tried everything, right? That was a desperate attempt when I was under essentially what looked like an asthma attack. And it was like breathing through a straw and nothing like. I don't really think bad thoughts when it comes to worry, concern, like, there's going to be a day where this voice will no longer be speaking. Hopefully the voice will continue to be heard. But essentially there will be a day when I'm gone and I'm not here anymore. I don't really think about that too much. I think on a deeper level in terms of life and meaning and potentially afterlife. And I have those reflective moments, sure. But I don't think, hey, you know what? I could be dying in two weeks or two days and I Talk about that, but it doesn't mean I give it focus. This was real. I'm laying there face down now, lying down, my head's in a puddle. I just got a little pocket of air breathing and the hot water's running all over my neck and my head and I'm just fucking exhausted, man. Like, I feel tired visualizing and thinking about it now. And this would happen two, three times a night and this happened for weeks at a time. And so it would happen in October and then I'd sort of navigate through a little bit. The volume would be less than what I have to do with business and family. And then it would come back and then go come back. And December was when shit really hit the fan. On Christmas Eve, breathing through a straw, got antibiotics and I was just, I was just cooked, man. Christmas Day was a write off. Boxing Day was a write off. It's, it's rough like. And some of you men are going through tougher times, right? Al's got his voice back. Cool. But my marriage is falling apart or my wife's left or it's been 12 months or. I get that, man. I'm not here to compare stories and compare challenges and hardships. What I am here to say though is there's always something fucking waiting for us around the corner. And the only reason I came through this and survived was the tribe around me and the environment as well as the history. So the backbone of all of the runs on the board, all of the wins I'd accumulated to come through this because there are times and I'm going to break out again, not to be rude and I don't swear a huge amount but. But I'm going to break into a bit of a self owl talk mode where I bring out that animal slash. You know, when I was sport competitive athlete and just being that savage, there were times where I'm laying in the shower and that little voice, man, I tell you, like he had, he had a trumpet, he had a microphone, he had everything and he was fucking hooking in. He had the cat o' nine tails. It's just one of those old and old ancient whipping tools, torture weapons and so what discipline tools, man. Little Al was not holding back. I'm laying down collapsed in the shower and all that's running through my head is how the fuck am I gonna keep this business alive? How am I gonna keep myself alive? How am I actually going to pull through this? Like some of you guys might have lost your voice. Something's happened. You might have had laryngitis before you lose your voice for a week, couple of weeks. Four fucking months even. Right now at the time of doing this, the reason why I'm breaking this into two parts is so I can have a fucking break as well. And make sure I'm not just flogging my throat for an hour at a time. Because this will probably be two 45 to 60 minute sessions. I still got to be smart. I'm not 100% yet. Four months. Think about like over 100 days. No throat, no voice, no talking. When you do, it's rough as fuck and it's killing you. There goes another packet of soothers or Mentos. Not Mentos, sorry, Soothers or butter. Mentoles or like, it's. It's insane. Little Al was taking hold and I was in a boxing match and he was beating the fuck out of me. But the only reason I came through is Big Al was there and he was not going to lay down. Even though I was laying down. He's not going to lay down for good. I'm laying there collapsed in the shower, water on full hot. I needed as much steam as possible. So potentially burning. I was red all over my neck and my shoulders, that's for sure. Could be a silly thing, but I just needed that steam. And I'm just pumping this hot water all over me. Laying down, head on my hands, elbows flayed out, fucking collapse. And all I'm saying, getting a bit emotional. All I'm saying, it's a little owl. Fuck you cunt. You have no fucking idea who you're dealing with. I'll fucking get you. You're a fucking piece of shit. You think you've got me? Alright, cool. Give me another fucking month. Give me another fucking month. Give me all that you got. I'm gonna fuck you up, cunt. You watch this. I will come back. You watch me. You cannot fucking stop me. I don't care if I'm fucking dying. I will not stop. I refuse to stop. There is nothing you can do. I will fucking win. You watch me win, man. So enjoy the. Enjoy now. Enjoy now. I'm down. I'm. I get it. I'm tired. Yeah. Bottom of the ninth. Whatever you want to use. Twelfth round of box. Any term you want to use. Like this was all going through my head where Little Al was beating the out of me. And in my small, my small pockets of energy, I'd lift my head up and I'd rise back up and I'd be like, I'll get you. You can't you watch. You don't know who you're dealing with. You have no idea who you're dealing with. Make believe, all real gentlemen. Delusional optimism or a true level of underlying belief in whether you have that inside of you or not. It's not something I was born with, but because I knew my track record, because I knew the history, I knew that I was going to come out of this and I was going to find a way to win. I had to. I have to find a way to win. I have to. And sometimes the way to win is just time. Like, here's the crazy part, at the end of the day, all those scans, guess what? They showed fucking nothing. So what was it? It's even more frustrating, right? What the fuck happened for the last four and a half months? Crazy. And you must find that animal inside you. You owe it to yourself to find that animal deep down inside of you that is relentless, that will not give in, that will not give up. Because if you've gone through the shit, your wife's left you, you're getting divorced, your children tell you they hate you at the moment, you feel estranged to them. Shit's falling apart in your business. We're in the middle of a gfc, probably, who knows? Depends on what they tell you. That's certainly something that I think is happening in the world. There's lots of hard times, good times will come, but there's lots of hard times. And they come at different times for different people. But regardless of what you're going through, you have done more. And you have been here longer than any hardship you've ever faced. You've had a tough run for five years. If you're 45 years of age, you've been here fucking eight times longer than that. Adversity. Well, nine times if you include experiencing that. Right? Nine fives are 45. But including that pocket, yes. You've been here fucking nine times longer than that five year shit fest that you're currently going through. Having a tough for a year. You're 34 years of age, man. You've been here fucking 34 years. You've got one really tough year. You've been here longer, you've done more, you are bigger, you are harder, you are stronger, and you can go longer than what it is that you face. It was so tough for me, man, because it was just. It's just different, you know, like, yeah, I have knee reconstructions. I got a bone and bone knee, no meniscus, no cartilage. I can still walk I can run if I have to. I can ride bikes, I can exit. It's a limb. When you have anything that's attached to a core part of you, who you are, how you communicate, how you connect to life itself. And generally on top of that, anything that's around your head, it's quite a sensitive area. So your eyes, your ears, your nose, nasal, anything. Your jaw, your mouth, your tongue, all of this, your teeth, that's definitely more sensitive, right? You know I've broken my finger, okay? It's right at the end of my limb where I've got my phalanges, I've got my five fingers. Cool. All right, we'll get over it. Let's tape it together. Let's move on. When it's around your head, it is tough. It's so much. You're so much more consciously aware of it, and it's so much more debilitating. This was such a debilitating period of my life. It was crazy. And even now, like, operating at 95 to 98%, there's still a part of me that's like, when's this fucking thing gonna end? Like, I'm talking now. I couldn't talk normally, my voice changed. Doing exercises, trying not to clear my throat, talking low, all this shit to try and fix it, like I'm some sort of fucking professional singer. It was crazy. But this might linger on for another two to four months. Who knows? But what I do know is that inner fucking mongrel that exists in all of us needs to come to the surface every now and then. And in certain areas, it needs to come to surface every day. Where you need to unleash the rage, have that outlet, become that animal, become that monster. In a calculated approach, controlled fashion at the right time. Sometimes it'll feel like a whisper. Like when I was collapsed, laying down in the shower. Gone, you motherfucker. You enjoy this. And who am I talking to? Like I say, the little voice inside could be the devil, could just be energy, right? Someone's pinning me down. Something is keeping me down. There's a level of energetic exchange from which I'm having a conversation, maybe with the victim, Owl from the higher source, Al. Who knows? Like, it doesn't. It doesn't matter. Don't tie into the finer details here of Al's laying in a shower at 2:00 in the morning, mumbling to himself. Collapse, head down on the floor. That doesn't matter. It's the will, it's the desire, it's the commitment that you Make. To not staying in that position, to not laying down forever, to rising up. And every fucking time. Must have had at least 30 of those showers. Every time I'm crawling back up, my head's bowed, I'm on my knees. Then I lift a leg, I slowly stand up, I turn the shower off, I pat myself down, I sit there fucking slumped, just trying to breathe some air. It's crazy, man. We haven't even started the five points yet. But it is crazy, because I want you all to use this as a point of reflection on the hard times in your life. To ask the question, what was my response when the chips were down? What did I do? There's fight, there's flight, there's freeze, there's fawn. There's actually four things. It's not just fight or flight freezes. Obviously, you just. During the headlights, I'm just fucking stuck. Fawn is an underhanding, underlaying, supplication. We just become the punching bag to whatever it is that life's doing where you look to softly negotiate your way to being accepted. Fawning. It's like the peacemaker. Peace. Peacekeeper. Right, the peacemaker. There's a bit of conflict and someone comes in, oh, let's just all be friends and. No, no. If there's fucking conflict that needs to happen, there's a point behind it. And that collision has an opportunity to bring a high level of respect and conn. It should be done. That happens for me at home with my wife. But those words are important. It's got to be necessary. There's got to be a point. There's got to be a desired outcome. I don't go looking for fights. No one should. What's been your response? When the chips have been down, how did you respond, slash react to what life was dealing you? Because I was pretty fucked up, man. Like, I was looking for answers that I couldn't find. And the one answer that I found had nothing to do with the illness I was suffering from. The one answer I found was actually a mentality. It was an attitude. It was an approach to what I was facing. That's all it was. It wasn't a tangible answer. I had all those fucking scans. I had all these medications and everything from prednisone, oral steroids, nasal steroids, or whatever they are, inhalant steroids and sprays and things for gut reflux, nasal drip, all this shit, man. It was fucking crazy. The answer was the mentality, the approach, the attitude. That was my answer that kept me alive and Kept me going. But through this experience, there were ten valuable life lessons. I'm gonna go through the first five with you now. Then I'm gonna have a break and the other episode will probably come in a couple of days because I need to be smart in my approach as well. But I'm going to go through these first five with you and hopefully off the back of what I've just shared in this first half an hour of my life and where everything's been, it will help you see the light inside of your life, even if that is just your approach and your mentality. And that doesn't mean I was just a fucking warrior or a meathead going, I'm just going to keep fucking fighting you. It wasn't that. It was an understanding of my core, of who I was and how I was not going to give in or give up and how that just wasn't an option. And I hope at least that first half now inspires a lot of you men who might be in the shit at the moment, going through some tough times to go. Amen. And even if your time's worse than mine, the point is, there's fucking shit everywhere in the world. There's death, decay, loss, evil, badness everywhere. But they're two sides of the same coin. Let's try and flip and have the other coin show a little bit, too. Hey. The miracle of life. The good, the great, the gift, the blessings that we all have, the opportunity that we all have. 10 life lessons. Here we go. Lesson number that was a solid. That was a solid intro, if we wanted to call it that as an intro. Those. Not that there would be many, but if there are any of those who feel like I waft in my intros, go fucking do something about it. Take. Take a couple of kernels of truth from this corn in the first half an hour to ask yourself the question where you're not fucking pushing hard enough. You need to do something about your life to rise up and be more. Because everything that I share with you men comes from the head and the heart in a true and genuine fashion from me and inspired from all other members. And I don't give a fuck how long it goes for or how short it goes for. If you are looking, you will find the answer that you are looking for. I promise you that. Life lesson number one. Emotions now, emotions later. So the very first thing I learned was I was getting caught up in this emotional state of how I was feeling right now. Because it's such a direct line of connection, isn't it you're only ever living life in the now. You're living life right here and now. So I'm feeling like this. These are the emotional pools that I have. These are the triggers that I have. Of course you're going to have. It's such a short, quick pathway. Easy or not, your emotions can be hard to deal with. But easy or not, it's fast, it's instant. So the very first life lesson I learned was really learning and making sure I continually practice what I preach with hpf, which is casting out emotional hooks in my life instead of holding onto emotional anchors. And visualize this with me too. When you're thinking about emotional anchors, what's the point of an anchor? It keeps you fucking there. It keeps you sitting there. So should my connection and my love for my wife be an emotional anchor? Well, no, because the woman that I met as a teenager is fucking different, just like the man who met her as a teenager is different. So even great things should never be anchors inside of your life. They should be continual hooks that you cast out and redefine and redevelop and reinvigorate and reinspire and recreate. So what I first learned was relearned is probably a better term because we all know to some degree an answer or possibly the answer. It's remembrance and bringing it to the surface that matters most. That's a really important thing. Whether you listen to that again or not or write it down. You should remember that. Remember that remembering is probably the most important thing. Not so much learning something new. I had to really ground myself in knowing that all of these emotional angers right now and how fucked up my life was and this voice and this throat and the bullshit that I've been served. So the judge and the victim, why me? What about he? And all of that sor. Looking out, going without, not going within. And I had to understand that all of these were just states. They were just sensations, right? Emotions and feelings. They won't keep you warm at night. They'll solidify and back up your story and your bullshit, but they won't keep you warm at night. So the emotions and the feelings that can be fleeting because they are fleeting, are something that are to be used or that is to be used as a tool to leverage. You have amazing feelings, fantastic triple down in the action that became the precursor to that being the after effect. You have shit feel fantastic triple down on the action that led to that as a precursor to create different changes and different actions inside of your life. Everything man has you fucking smack bang in the middle, you are the driver, you are the navigator. You are controlling the ship. You really are. Whether you think you are or not, you really are. All the trauma and that happened in my life five years ago. I fucking wanted that. Of course I did. Otherwise, why the did I subconsciously carve that out inside of my life, right? I got exactly what I was asking the universe for. Go figure. I'm blessed now. Not at the time, but now I am. Because look at this monstrosity. That's been created in a good way, mind you, of high performance. Father wouldn't be here right now. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast. If I didn't go through that five years ago, where would we be? The amount of fathers who are close to ending their life, their children not having a father anymore, guess what? They've still got their dad. That's not solely because of me. But this is the ripple effect of life. The emotions now is something that you must use as a tool to leverage a greater state of action and being for the future. So what I learned, first lesson was focus. Don't worry about how you're feeling right now, man. You'll have your moments like I spoke about. Collapse in the shower and you can fucking get up and get your back up, get that testosterone pumping. Say big fuck you to what you're facing. But the reality is, what I need to focus on was emotional hooks. How amazing is this going to feel when I come through this? What about all the content for the podcast I've got for the fellows? Boys, I've got about fucking five months of content for you. It's crazy. I can't keep up. I've got so much here. It's like shit, man. Enough to start doing podcasts every single day just to try and catch up instead of the traditional two a week. The point is this. I was focusing on the outcomes and the feelings and the outcomes together that can be true and will be true when this too passes. Because this too shall pass. All of the good will pass, all of the bad will pass. Everything, your life will pass. Everything will come and go. The very first lesson was understanding what to focus on and what to attach myself to, which was casting out those emotional hooks on the possibilities, the change, the triumphs coming through the other end, resetting, reinvigorating. A bigger message from the universe. Someone speaking to me. Something speaking to me. Me. Someone trying to slow me down. Something just happening and just getting a level of understanding and just reeling those in. All right, that's the emotional hook. I'll take some action. That's the emotional hook. I'll take some action. That's the emotional hook. I'll take some action and I'll review and analyze and embody myself with the future facts, the future emotions, the future feelings that I can focus on, not to escape, but that I can focus on that can still drive a level of action inspiration to apply myself so I don't waste the now. Did I need to rest and recover? Absolutely. But did I need to just fucking lay in bed for four months? No. And that's what I mean by that. First point, gentlemen. Your emotions now will more often than not give you a skewed point of reality and potentially, even if they're good, put you in a state of passive, not active, active vulnerability through your own strength and awareness. And truth is powerful. Passive vulnerability where you will be exposed and life will come back and fuck you up. Whether it's being jovial, complacent, things are great, things are good. Awesome. Bang. You get punched in the face. Emotions now versus emotions later is the very first life lesson I learned. Make sure you always understand that there is a difference and that both of those are tools to be used with your hooks you're casting out and reeling in through actions and with the anchors that you're identifying, reviewing, assessing, looking at, and then cutting loose when you need to. Ironically enough, the second life lesson was the importance of speech. Here's the crazy part. I talk about the greatest example. Sorry, giving away that one. You would have heard it before. If you follow the podcast, the greatest form of communication is example. Think about this. What is communication? What does that actually mean? What does that look like for you? The greatest form of communication life is your actions. It's your example. So whilst I talk about the greatest form of communication being example, the second greatest being listening, seeing, reviewing, analyzing, listening and feeling the energy, the room, the area, through what communication is coming to you. So listening, watching, I'm seeing what someone's doing. I'm listening to what they're saying. I often talk about the third being you actively speaking. The order's right. I wasn't wrong. Although I try and prove myself wrong a lot. And I was questioning myself going, fuck, man, he's speaking. Really? Third on the list. It's not that I was wrong, it's just that I really learned through this process how important speech is. Not to talk, not to share your point of view, but actually to acknowledge. Fucking crazy, man. Crazy. When your wife says to you, you never talk to Me? Do you think she's really saying, I want you to spill the beans and tell me every fucking thing is going on in your head? No. No, she isn't. This is the crazy part, because this obviously happened with me and my wife. I couldn't believe it. And it's not that it covered me. Sort of passed me by, and I wasn't aware of it because it's just something I naturally do. I naturally talk a lot, but there's different ways and different types of talking. I don't talk, like in this podcast to portray a message or to create influence or talk or guide or inspire. That's just one way. The other one, which really fucking got me because I couldn't do it for my wife, but it made me realize how much I naturally do. It is speech through acknowledgement that's so important, because think about this. I had so many guys say to me, I bet your wife's fucking happy now, mate. You can't talk. And, like, just a bit of members on the inside taking the piss and having a bit of a laugh. But, you know, the opposite was true, because guess what? Think about this, gentleman. You never talk to me or you never listen. Right? It's a cyclical relationship with those two lines of communication. Talking, listening, talking, listening, talking, listening. Same with a cyclical relationship and how that's operating inside of your marriage. Point is, when your wife says, you never talk to me, it's not that you're just telling her everything about her day, about your day. It's that coupled with probably more importantly, a lack of response from what they're communicating with you. So everyone says, oh, mate, your wife would have been over the moon. You can't talk anymore. So she just has all the talking. Well, I'll tell you this, gentlemen, guess what fucking happens when your wife finishes talking? Guess what they're waiting for? That's right. They're waiting for a response. So the fact is, when someone is talking to you, the importance of speech is not so much weighed in or has a weighting towards how much you're talking, what you're talking about, the information and value of the information you're giving. It's just as equally important to use speech in acknowledgement, acceptance, and awareness. So every time Karim will be talking and then she finishes talking, I'd be doing this symbol. Those who aren't watching the video or listening. I'm doing, like, the hands across the throat, like, cutting my head off type of thing. Like, I can't talk. Can't talk. Awesome. Great. Okay, cool. That was my life for a large portion of the last four months, gentlemen. So every time she finished talking, it'd be like, what feedback can I give her? I'm giving a thumbs up to the point where we've got a funny thing now where I'm like, two taps was yes, one tap was no. This is. This is where my life went, man. Like, it's. It's fucking crazy. I'm doing that hand symbol across my throat. I'm giving a thumbs up, I'm shaking my head, I'm nodding to the point where we're taking the piss, you know, two blinks for yes, one blink for no. But. But in a serious way, she felt unappreciated in sometimes, in some areas, a lack of communication, obviously, you know, and a lack of understanding and emotional support. Because when someone gives you all their fucking blubbery mess, which, you know, I'm not saying women are good for, but when. When. When there's an exchange with emotions tied into it, which women are great for, otherwise, us men without women would be fucking. They're a beautiful gift to the world in many ways, and one of those is bringing down the walls in the savage in us. If you don't have any walls and you're not a savage and you're a fucking pillow or a panda, you need to build some of that up. It's about equilibrium. But because women love that, they want masculine energy. A real woman wants a real man, obviously. And a woman who's holding a higher level of masculine energy only holds onto that masculine energy because of the beta in her husband, but also because it does bring a level of certainty and control when you break those walls down and you have a real fiery woman and you become the fucking alpha man. Get some fucking crazy sex waiting for you. But anyway, so when we're talking about communication, she would talk all this stuff with emotional attachments tied into the words she's speaking. How a day was this drama, this issue, this challenge, life. I had fucking nothing. What could I give back? And it's not about just solving her problems. It's like simple things like. Like, that must be really tough, Corinne. You know, I appreciate you sharing this with me, and I know it sounds selfish, but at the end of the day, when I'm fucking cooked, I just couldn't even speak those four to six words because it's just another thing. It was another thing. It was another thing. Then I become the fucking yes man with no boundaries, and my throat's fucked for another day. Another day Another day. Like I said, even with this podcast, I'm not going to do a two hour session. No fucking way. I'm not ready for that yet. So when through self preservation, in trying to play the longer game, I'm applying these strategies and tactics to try and limit as much as I can. Krin would catch the short end of the stick. But the point of number two is the importance of speech is not always about what you have to say. It's about what you're saying which acknowledges and accepts and brings a level of support to those who you are connecting, communicating with. Because that's a really important thing, fellas. Like, the universal truth of this world as human beings is everyone just wants to feel important. That's all it is. You can go on looking at all these advanced things and tactics and post it notes and honey and handsome time and we do some amazing stuff on the inside with hpf. You can apply all of that, but they're all byproducts of a fundamental truth of all of us as human beings just want to feel important. We want to know that we matter. We want to know that life matters. Fuck, man, you should have that in you. That's why I love bringing men on the inside with hpf. And we turn you into fucking juggernauts because you're important. You're such a powerful being. You have so much power to give, you have so much to offer yourself and the world, but you're fucking dying slowly inside. And some are already dead. They just haven't been buried. So this level of communication is important in knowing that. Speech is important not in just what you have to say, but in what you have to acknowledge and share and feel with someone else. Life lesson number three was gratitude. The little things we talk about, this being grateful and all that. And that is important. Gratitude plays an important role in life. Where we wake up, it's not about half glass full, half glass empty. The glass is always full, right? Here's the real answer for you. The glass is half air and half water. You need both. You are both. You can use both. So the glass is actually full in my eyes, which is probably a little bit different to some of those fucking common sayings you hear about half full and half empty. Nonetheless, it's very easy to not be grateful when shit's not going your way, right? But the greatest way you can fine and jag some wins physically, mentally, psychologically and emotionally. He's actually looking for the little things, little things. So right now, man, like I, something happened yesterday, I Was cleaning. I was doing something. I was cleaning up and something just went and just caught my throat a little bit and I coughed. I haven't coughed in. In a while now. I haven't coughed in about four weeks. Thank. That's fucking crazy. You don't need to train your back. Fellas don't go to the gym. Just fucking cough a thousand times a day. So it was crazy, man. And that cough brought up everything. I was like, oh, it brought up all those memories. That feeling, that sensation, like drawing blood. It's like, you know, you got to think about that, what's going on inside. That's something that I'm grateful for. Now, gratitude, fellas, is hard because the little things can sometimes be things that you're grateful for without knowing or ever experiencing loss, to know what it's like to go without. So what I mean by this is some of you men may not have coughed a thousand times a day for months on end, and hopefully a lot of you never have. So it's hard to be grateful, right, because you haven't experienced it. I'm grateful for my wife now that I've lost her for four months and we're back together. Like, these are the things that happen, right? It's hard to measure a level of gratitude for something you never experienced loss through. But the little things are important, man. I'm just fucking grateful that I'm not coughing anymore. I'm grateful that I can train. I'm getting in good shape. I'm looking strong and healthy. Took up boxing again. Just fucking hooking in, man. Loving it. I'm so grateful. I'm grateful to be in active, controlled pain. I'm grateful to sweat. I have gratitudes towards struggling and doing a fucking thousand squats yesterday in a workout. And my legs are killing me right now. I love that. Fantastic. I haven't felt that feeling in so long. Life lesson number three is the little things. Yes, it's harder, but you can visualize this. You're very creative. We're all creatures of vision, fantasy, and creation. So what I mean by not experiencing loss is you can still create a stimulus to have thanks for where you are right now and who you are right now. I'm fucking grateful I got both my legs now. I don't need to. And this is my point, I don't need to experience life without legs to have that gratitude. I can visualize what couldn't I do if I didn't have legs. And I'm not saying people who don't have legs are fucking Inept. And they can't add value to the world. I'm talking about you and your life and your current makeup. I'm grateful I've got all my fingers. It doesn't mean my life ends if I lost a finger or a thumb, but I'm fucking grateful I've got them all. This is what I'm talking about, gentlemen, the little things. This is going to really rock you men. I can't remember, I heard this from somewhere, something. I don't think it was a podcast. It was really cool, though. I can't remember where it was. Gratitude. You should be fucking grateful that you woke up and this is what I heard. I can't remember when. It was a while ago. Trust me, I was doing it all. Podcast mindset, Motivation, David Goggins. Fucking all of it, man. To get back on track. It was tough. And what this bloke spoke about was the cost of your life. So we've spoken about this before, right? You wouldn't sell your arm for X amount. You wouldn't sell your legs for X amount. Maybe some of you would, but either way, everything comes at a price. Or does it? Some things are priceless. And what this bloke went on to talk about was waking up and he had a big banner in his room or his house that said, congratulations, you're alive again. And he just spoke a couple of quirky things like, ah, that's really fucking cool. It's pretty simple stuff, right? But very cool because what he spoke about is the value exchange. And the value exchange at a monetary level is always an easy one to kill. The need or desire to think that you're fucking unlucky or you're a victim or you're fucking entitled or owed something. Because your life is one of the greatest gifts that you have. And a monetary exchange of value is a great way to measure it. So if I said to you, and this is what he said, what's the time now? 11 o'. Clock. If I said to you, 11 o' clock in the day. Okay, cool, I'll give you a million dollars, but this is your last day on earth, would you say yes? Of course not. I'll give you $10 million, but this is 11 o'. Clock. You've got 13 hours left and that's it, you're done. Right? Clock strikes midnight. I like Cinderella. You're fucking gone. You wouldn't do it for 10. What if I give you a hundred million dollars? What if I give you a billion dollars? Think about this. Are all of you Men, right now, if I give you 100 feel like Dr. Evil, $100 billion. I'm not going to attempt his accent now he does it. Fucking cracker of a movie. Back in the day, if I give you a trillion dollars, more money than you could imagine, more money than you can spend in 13 hours, right? If I gave you fucking 100 billion, a trillion, a hundred trillion dollars, but said this is your last day, would you take the deal, man, you couldn't even like, let's bring it back a few notches. You couldn't even fucking spend $10 million in a day. I mean, maybe you could go buy a super yacht or buy this or buy that, but there's, there's paperwork, there's transactions. You can't go and indulge in the experience that $10 million could bring your life in fucking 13 hours. And it's such a powerful thing. He's like, man, you wouldn't even sell your last day on earth for a hundred billion dollars, would you? So why the fuck are you getting up each and every day feeling sorry for yourself? And I was like, fuck, man, that's a really cool. It was just a good different angle. We've spoken about this before. We do it a lot on the inside with about perspective. But I was like, fuck, you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to say, all right, I'm going to give you anything you want in this life, anything you want at all to take money away. Imagine you got a genie. You've rubbed the lamp, man. You can have anything except time. You've got 13 hours left. What do you want, crazy man? Gratitude comes down to the little things. Now, if you're awake, let's quickly look at some maths. Awake or you're alive for 82 years. There's 365 days, 41 4, right? And we crunch those numbers and you have. Even if you don't live to be 82, let's just round it off. You've got 30,000 days alive. Waking up and being grateful for your life is a little thing. And that's what I learned. The greatest momentum, the greatest shift in your mentality, the greatest wins in your life always come from the smallest things. The greatest problems that you have in your life, they begin, you can solve them. The solution are always in the smallest actions, the smallest steps. Your marriage is falling apart. You don't need to do a big fucking revamp, throw everything upside down. You just got to start leveling yourself up to version 2.0. Getting your shit together, getting yourself in order and respecting yourself with your own grooming, your appearance, how you operate every day, your training, your exes, all little things. Your exercise, your value. No runner chaser, dynamic. You shouldn't be fucking chasing anyone. You become the prize and the value exchange where she's like, fuck, I'd be fucking mad to leave him. And at that moment when you're ready to let her go, that's exactly when she wants you back. Like these little things, that's the fucking big thing. It's all those little things, gratitude, waking up. If you're gonna wake up 30,000 times or more, then the little things are as simple as just waking up and being like, I'm awake, I'm alive. I get another opportunity today. Now, we can't sit on our hands and be complacent with that. You've got to equally weight that with something like what I've got on my wall here. One shot, mate, make the basket. Now I've got a guest, definitely got an affiliation with or, you know, an admiration for Michael Jordan. He was my childhood hero, loved basketball. And what he achieved at such a high level is phenomenal. I don't think it's something that could ever be eclipsed, regardless of stats and numbers and everything. And there's champions throughout every era in different ways. You know, his personal life may or may not be something that I want to aspire to be, but from a tenacity and an attitude point of view as a professional athlete or as a performer, someone who got results and the mentality and approach. So here I am. I've got different sayings around that. One of his sayings also, when it comes to anxiety, fear or worry, is, why would I miss it? Why would I worry about missing a shot that I haven't taken yet? I fucking love that one, man. That's a really good one. That's one that you should probably think about or write down. But I've got, to the right of me here, I've got a picture of my family and it says, one shot, mate, make the basket. So you do only have one life and one life in the current shell that you are with the current existence that we have. I mean, reincarnation, everything else that may or may not follow, we don't fucking know. And maybe we're wired that way for a reason, Right? And it's also not your problem, right? You're here and now. It's not your concern or something you should really fantasize or spend a high level of the nows you'll never get back with an in. But that one year. So that one life is broken down into one year at a time, which is broken down to 365 days. So the little things, be grateful, man, for the little things. Find the little things, you know, if you bit, you know, even in yourself, if you put on 10 kilos, but you haven't put on 40 kilos, be fucking grateful that you haven't become a fucking slob to that degree and you've got more work to come back on. But don't just sit on your hands. Gratitude is not a vessel or a tool to sit still with. It's not something to idle bott with going, I'm so lucky. Oh, my wife left me. Oh, she could have left me five years ago. I mean, like, you can't. Don't use it as an anchor for complacency. That's fucking bullshit. And you know the difference? Deep down there is a big difference, man. Gratitude and being grateful for the little things. It's actually a proactive nature to fucking kick yourself up the ass, get yourself into water, get yourself into gear and take action because of the opportunity that you have, because of the gift in life that you have. That's what gratitude's for. Make no mistake. Let's not muddy the waters there. Not something to sit back and go, you know, I could be on the street. Instead I'm renting. Don't look at it as an excuse, but use it as a mechanism to drive a higher level of appreciation, change, and an attitude towards the opportunities that you can have in your life. And that's what I had to do through all the hard shit I had to start from the ground up. I know it sounds silly. It was only four months. But hey, it was four months. You only lost your voice. But hey, my whole fucking business and my entire life and everything hinges around and for humans, to a large capacity, the ability to speak. And it's not just that. It's what it took away from me. Couldn't train, couldn't connect, couldn't communicate, couldn't do anything. As a vessel of life, I was suffering. But the gratitude and little things definitely helped. Which takes me to point four, health and energy. And then we'll do 0.5 and we'll wrap this up. You cannot, you hear the saying, can't put a price on your health. You can't. You can try, but it's not a price worth bargaining. It's not an exchange. When you're at the checkout scanning your fucking life through. And there's your barcode code. It's not a purchase worth making or a prize worth selling, so to speak. Here's the craziest part. Whether you look at other areas, relationships, money, any other source of power, influence, achievement, opportunity, all of that shit goes out the window. When you lose your health, when you have no energy, everything else. I love this saying quote. I don't think it's a famous one, but it's one that we certainly say on the inside with hpf. So maybe one of the members came up with it. Everything in life is important. Until you lose your health or until your health goes, then nothing else is important. Think about that saying for a second. Everything in life is important. Many things in life are important. You can find lots of things in life that are important. Pick any line you want. But as soon as your health goes, nothing else is important. And that was me for my life. I had to start from ground zero. I was like, all right, cool. Emotions now, emotions later. What do I need to do to make sure that I'm trying to create sanity in my head and my heart to know that this will pass and I've got something to look forward to? We are progressive creatures. We're evolutionary creatures. Importance of speech. Okay, cool. Can't talk. But I'll tell you what, when I can start talking again, I'll make sure I dial back into the rhythm that I always held. Because I did hold that. That, you know, some of you guys, maybe the lesson for you is you never fucking talk. So you should talk a bit more. But for me, I always held a good communication level with the family and helped me realize how important that actually was. Not that I took it for granted, but it was a very common trait that I've adopted for years, but how important it is not for me, but for them. Appreciating the little things, you know, I had to make sure that I found the wins somewhere. Even if you feel like you're fabricating them, you're not. Like, everything is part of your reality. Your thoughts, your feelings, what goes on in your head. It's all part of a reality. You've got an internal and an external reality. If the internal reality doesn't consistently line up with the external, you'll have collision, you'll have conflict, you'll have trauma, you'll fall into the pit. Almost certainly delusional traits follow. And these delusional traits become points of life falling apart as you know or don't know it. Right? That's important. Health and energy though, man, like fuck. I'm starting from ground zero again. I'm trying to forecast, I'm trying to appreciate things, I'm trying to have gratitude. How do I just get healthy again? How can I get healthy and get back in front? What do I need to do? It was a huge life lesson for me. The reason why HPF survived through the turbulent earlier years of his existence was I had a massive gas tank. My ability to perform was huge. I could pump 20 hour days, easy, for months, easy. Not I'm doing 16 hour slogs and everything's full. I could do that and keep everything together, of course, sustainably. It's not an option long term, but for six solid months, because of my health, because of my energy, my capacity, yeah, man, I fucking went all in and I went all the way. And that was probably the difference, which I guess past experiences in being an athlete and all that sort of stuff did help. But point number four is your health and energy is life itself. If you've got a fucked up leg or knee, chronic headaches, anything, any ailment, and it sticks around, you guys know better than me because it's your life and what you're experiencing, if you have any of those ailments, it affects you, doesn't it? You can numb it out, you can get warm or hot and don't feel it for a few hours. You can do all sorts of different tricks. But if there is something that's chronically there in your health, whether you're overweight, so you feel it a little bit every day that you're lethargic, but then you resort to coping mechanisms and escapes like drugs or alcohol, television technology. An escape is not fucking moving. So you're sitting on the lounge falling asleep, you know that that's fucking tearing your ass up, up like that is tearing you apart inside and that is tearing up the life that you can have with your family. Because life is energy, connection is energy. Your value in this world is a perception and reality of energetic exchange, energetic trading, energetic value. I'll go to a park, play with my kids, throw them up everywhere. And that doesn't mean other kids from other parents come to me and they want me to be their dad and they want me to throw them in the air. I'm not saying that, that but ironically enough, every single time I go to a park and I'm the one interacting with my children. And I don't do this as child parents either. I'm just naturally an active man. I enjoy fucking time with My kids playing with them on swings and whatnot. It's really funny because a lot of other kids just start gravitating and they don't play with me. But the energy, they're attracted, right? They get drawn in. So they start playing with my kids. And it's just crazy how that works. But it's so simple, too. It's such a simple truth. Your entire life is built off the vehicle from which you're traveling in and through life with and by. If you're traveling by life, if you're traveling in life, if you're traveling through life, is what I mean, you're traveling in some sort of vessel, some sort of vehicle. That's the human body. You can't escape this, man. It's a turtle and his shell. They are 12 sides of the same coin. Everything you experience emotionally, mentally. This is what I was talking about in one of the angles. When we talk about anxiety, depress anything that's pulling you down. Get moving. If you become a weapon, an athlete in phenomenal shape, I guarantee you that that will at least minimize. I'm not saying things will disappear. They will for a lot of them. But I'm not here to make those claims, even though we experience it a lot. But they'll absolutely. I can guarantee they'll reduce 100%. Hand on my heart, it's the vehicle of life. It's your body. Massive. Everything's connected to that. Now. Zoom out as a spirit or soul or entity and any. These are all. They're all just words. But zooming out as a conscious collective of you being aware of your body, being aware of your thoughts, being aware of your feelings, that's another layer that's pretty special, right? Like you have all of that, so you can zoom out in third person almost on yourself as the meat suit that you and I are cool. That is something greater and larger than life itself. But whatever the fuck that is in your consciousness and your being, it chose the vehicle of life that it's in right now, which is your body. Your health and your energy is so important, man. That's a massive lesson, even for someone who's been incredibly fit and healthy, competed in two international sports, in two sports internationally. Sorry. Even then, we all need reminders to understand how vital and valuable our health is. If you want more reminders, go to nursing homes, speak to old people and ask them questions around health, longevity and feelings, emotions and the back end of your life. Because I tell you right now, you don't need to fucking wait for that. To happen to be experiencing the pain, the loss and the trauma that they are reminiscing about in what's their reality for whatever years are left to come. Point for health and energy, which takes me to 0.5 and then I'll wrap this up. It's been a solid hour. Tell you what, gentlemen and ladies, for those who do listen to this, if husbands do get their wives on board, it's fucking great to be back. I've really enjoyed this episode and the Fox final one that we'll touch on before we go into part two, which I'll save for another day. We'll wrap up this episode. But it's really good to be back. I really enjoy this. I get a lot of value myself because these are reminders for me. But the fifth one, the fifth one is pity party. Here's the interesting truth. When it comes to pity parties, we all have them. And entitled or not, you can all have them. It's like everything in life, it's a choice. Here's the crazy part, though. You're not coming home one day after work and the lights are off. You're like, what's going on here? And you open up the door and fucking surprise. And there's all your family and friends throwing you a big fucking pity party that you didn't know about. That doesn't happen, that doesn't exist. So don't fucking delude yourself and be blind and think that it's something that just gets thrust upon you. This is the crazy part about pity parties. It's your pity party. You're the event organizer. You're the one who chooses the invites to send out. You're the one who chooses which people to invite for those invites you're sending out and who you want to bring into this pity party. You're the person who chooses the start date and you're the person who chooses the end date. And you're also the person who chooses who decides what that party's about and what are the festivities, the activities, and what are we going to be doing inside of this pity party? So I'm not here to point the finger or accelerate my tone or get angry or talk up or talk aggressive. What I'm here to say, man, is to fucking pump you up, to say, you know what have you fucking pity party. But know that you're the controller. You're the mastermind. You're the one who calls the shots. See, when I was having my pity party, I was sharing and reflecting on the hardships when and where I Could with the tribe. I didn't fucking invite him to my pity party. Why the fuck would I. Just like you guys, I didn't do a podcast saying, fucking woe is me in October, November or December. A short, sharp 10 minutes. Hey, I'm fucked. Here's my problems. Why the fuck would I invite you to my pity party, right? I didn't even invite my family. I invited my wife once or twice. I didn't have just one. Trust me, we all have them. I had a couple. I definitely had a few pity parties. I won't deny that. Over the last four months, that's for sure. So much so that the decorations started to wear out. Oh, shit, man. But look, I didn't invite anyone. My wife saw that the door was open, and she came into the party a couple of times. So just be really cautious, man. Like, if you're gonna throw a pity party, fucking great, go do it. Get that shit out of your system. But you owe it to yourself to be very selective. Who are you choosing to bring to this pity party? Because that. That pulls your integrity apart. That pulls your value down. That makes the party fucking stain and stick around and have a dirty taste in it in your mouth. It really does. Because guess what? Every fucking guest you invite is also a guest that you have to ask to leave. I know you guys are getting some fucking powerful stuff here. This is an important message. So if you're inviting 10, 15, 20 people when your fucking pity party's over and you want to move on, guess what? Every other fucking person is still at your pity party reminding you of the pity party, keeping you in your pity party when you just want to go to sleep, wake up, and have a fresh day ahead. So be very careful of that, my man, on who you invite to your pity party and the precedence or what you're setting the background, the rules on what we're going to be going through and what it actually entails. My pity parties are more along the lines of frustration, disappointment, and really. And this was only with my wife. I didn't really have a pity party with anyone else because I couldn't talk. If. If I could talk. Every person was invited. No, it's. It's. It's true. And with Corinne, it was more along the lines of, this is just, man. Like, I don't know what I've done to deserve this. I'm trying hard. I'm doing this. It was just an outlet of frustration. Could you call that a victim? Like, there definitely wasn't a judge, but was there a Victim mentality, probably, but it was my party. Here's the start date. Here's the fucking end date. If Corinne brought it up, that fucking party's over. Corinne, that party finished three days ago. Please don't bring it up again. This is what I'm focusing on. Set the start and the again. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this. Have your pity party. Set the start and the end date. Be very selective around who you're going to choose and make sure you're crystal clear here. As muddied as the waters of your life will be, especially emotionally if shits hit the fan, be as crystal clear as possible when it comes to what that party is actually about and what you're going to be doing with it and in it. Finish the party, pull the decorations down, throw the cake in the bin. Don't save the half cake and put it in the fridge and have a few slices. Fuck it all off. Get the big black bags, throw everything in the bin. Party's over. I'm getting back to life and living my best and my greatest life. That's probably one of the biggest ones as we wrap up part one of the 10 life lessons I learned from losing my voice for four months. Emotions now, emotions later. Absolutely understand that there is a difference. But both of them are levers. They're tools to be used for you in your life. They're not there to run you. You're there to run and position and put your emotions in the right order, in the right place to serve and your life. Second one, the importance of speech. Not in what you have to say, but what you have to acknowledge and who you have to contribute to as one line of communication. Even if it's not the top one, it's top three in helping someone else feel important and helping them feel heard. Third one, Gratitude. The little things you woke up. You wouldn't sell your life for a billion dollars. So why the fuck aren't you getting up, celebrating every single day like you are a billionaire? Plus, because that's how you should be, right? My life's worth more than a trillion dollars. So when I wake up, that's the value you should have on yourself and your own life and your makeup. That's this isn't a mindset thing. That's fucking true. Unless you're sitting there going, nah, you know what? Ella would sell my life for a trillion dollars and I'd have the best 13 hours ever. I fucking feel for you, man. If that's you, I really do. I feel for you. And I hope that I can influence you to change that fucking mentality because you're worth so much more than that. So wake up like the fucking trillionaire that you are. The fourth one. Health and energy. Nothing trumps this. This is number one in life. It is the vehicle from which life is being lived. And the final point, pity parties. They exist for all of us. No person goes through life without throwing one. But if you're going to throw one, make sure you understand that you are the curator. You are the one who fucking runs the show. You choose the start date, the start time, the end time, who's invited, what's involved. Process is exactly what it is. You go through, treat it as a process, move through what needs to be done, fuck it off, get rid of it, and then get back to living the greatest life that you can through action, opportunity, and the mindset that is never going to be invited or certainly never going to be part of what is a pity party. Have your party. But know that you are the one that pulls the gears, that controls the show, that calls the shots. Which means you're also the one that should be well aware of knowing that I will not let this fucking run on late into the night or day after day, or run for weeks or months or years. You're the one who chooses the end date and the end time. And that's your power. So be happy and grateful that you have that as well, because you can set that up and feel fucking sorry for yourself. But guess what? You can also go. Fucking enough is enough. It's my time. I'm back in, baby. Let's go. Because I have plenty of those as well. Don't worry about that. That. I hope this serves you well. What an amazing start to getting back into shit. Is this season four? I guess it is. This is the first podcast for the year, but it's also the first podcast in probably four and a half months. It's fucking great to be back. I hope you guys got a lot of value out of this. I certainly did. I love doing this. This is what I live and breathe. I'm here to serve. You are going to see an absolute gang busting shift in our version 3.0 this year. Just like every year if you go to episode one compared to episode now. I'm always changing, evolving, growing, going. I'm addicted to growth. I can't help it, but when I live within the rules and the laws and the. The. Not the rules and laws, but certainly the boundaries of what HPF embodies, it's a beautiful balance and it's a great obsession that I can have in my life because this addiction to growth is in family, self and service, and collectively being a whole man in my life. Not an addiction that leads to trauma and pitfalls and downturns which me and everyone else, everyone else that I love and care about. And then on the flip side of that, I love growth so much because I fucking hate waste. I cannot stand it. I can't be around it. I can't stand the fucking smell. I don't want it anywhere near me. You should operate that way as well, man. Welcome to 2023. I hope you enjoyed this episode and stay tuned for part two coming your way very, very soon. And that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode and got some golden nuggets with possibly one or two aha moments. 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 about 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.