239. Designing Paul 2.0

Hey, if you're someone who really connects to this message and you know there's someone out there who needs to hear this, but they're too proud. The walls are up. You can't show them. No worries. Flick them the link, share this podcast, send them the link. They can listen to it in the car, in the comfort of their own home, behind closed doors, in private privacy. Listen, absorb, and you know, you are creating impact to change. There are so many people in pain who need to hear this message, who need to empower themselves, take their control and power back and get back in front. Appreciate you all, much respect. Enjoy the episode and again, share the love, spread the love, and let's create impact and change across the world. Cheer. Welcome to a cracking episode we have today. We've got one of our members who's just signed for a second season or four months in Mr. Paul Quirk. Paulie, great to have you on with us today, man.

Thanks, Alex. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here, mate. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, we're just. We're just talking off air not long ago about, just before we hit record about how handsome we both are. And it's just. It's hard to, you know, hard to do this episode when we're getting lost in each other's eyes. But he's finished the gym workout. Looking great, guys. Get ready for a. An amazing transformation. Paul's definitely been through the ringer and gone through some pretty tough times. And the reason why I wanted to share his story is one, he's, you know, the embodiment of hpf. And two, he's going to shine a lot of light and a lot of. Yeah, I'm very cautious when I use the word, but yes, a lot of hope for you men. You can't have hope alone, though, who are in a position where maybe you haven't been able to reconcile your relationship. Maybe you're in a position where you're still externally trying to justify, validate your position in the world on how valuable you are instead of looking inwards and going, what can I. How can I be my own driver and use this driver internally to light this fire and get moving forward? And Paul has got an absolutely phenomenal story to share with some great results. So, you know, on that note, man, I hope you're ready for an amazing episode, which is really going to be inspiring a lot of you. Paul, I'd love to start with you. And I guess before we. We can lead into what. What was it that struck a call with you? With hpf. I'd love for you to just, yeah, share a little bit of your story first mate. And then where, where life was going obviously fatherhood, the challeng trials and tribulations of life, the good, the bad and the ugly of being a man trying to protect and provide and do all things right by the family. So love to share a little bit of your background mate. And then yeah, where life was just before you reached out to hpf, mate. And where it was heading.

Absolutely Al. Yeah. Okay, well I'll start with you. Name's Paul Kirk obviously. 37, born and raised in Brisbane and still living here. I was raised a single child. I had an older sister who passed when I was very young and that had a big impact on, on my childhood. I had the cotton wool treatment, mum quit work, did the full time housewife home at Hearst where his dad, you know, poured heavily into service. And my dad was always very competitive, very service driven. He had a lot of integrity and he built a lot of resilience and just competitiveness into me. A lot of sports growing up as well. It was, you know, I was doing, started off with soccer and baseball and then when I came to school age it was doing baseball and cricket in one season and then rugby and soccer in the other. So again the back to back games. He was driving me everywhere. He never really had that growing up. His dad, you know, they both mum and dad came from a massive family so it was a polarization for me and I got absolutely doted on growing up. All the sports stuff kind of fell away as I got into my 20s and I got into a bit more sedentary existence, caught up with technology and I was, you know, I was doing gaming and competitive gaming and stuff like that but that was a detriment to my, my health and my mind really at that point. But I met my, my wife in 2016. We did some long distance dating for a while. She's from Central coast New South Wales. I moved up in here and we were married, had a house in 2019, married in 2019 and then yeah, we pretty much fell pregnant straight away in the honeymoon and then by the time we had our son it was, you know, peak of COVID So it was tough, it was a really tough time. There was no real fanfare around the, the pregnancy, no baby shower or anything like that. So yeah, having the baby in the middle of COVID was, was, was quite a challenge. And you know me as a father, I think mentally, emotionally I was very immature. I wasn't really Ready to become a dad. And that's. That's a really shitty thing to admit that. You know, I don't. I don't think. I was certainly ready to lead the family in the way I needed to. Yeah, we had. We had a difficult time with our son, Parker. He's four now, and he's healthy. We're happy with and. And blessed for that. But seven months in, when he was seven months old, I should say, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in his frontal lobe. And, you know, that impacts potentially motor skills, language, emotional regulation, all that scary stuff. We were in prison children's hospital for almost two months in total. Absolute nightmare of an experience. Something that you'll never forget at the time, you know, it was horrific because it's covered. There was limited visitations to a bottle up in there, all locked down, looking at the window, just, you know, hating. Hating that everyone else is going about their lives oblivious to what we were going through, so to speak. But I. I dealt with that poorly. On the other side of his recovery, when we got out of that nightmare and he was on the mend on recovery, the surgery went well. He did have some complications. He needed a. What's called a shunt in his head to drain some fluid out. It's still in there, but it's not doing anything now. Luckily, it's all been healed and there's no recurrent tumor. But, yeah, mentally, I was. I started pouring way heavier into service. I started thinking and panicking about. I couldn't control financially. I was worrying about what ifs, what if my son is permanently affected by this what if? You know, you name it. I was just. I was dreading what. What if? Instead of putting myself in the present with. With him and with her, I'd stopped focusing and working on myself, leveling up at all in. In myself, in my, you know, just physically. I was an absolute wreck. I was an absolute slob, very sedentary existence. When I wasn't working, pouring my time and effort into work, I would be sedating. I'd come home and, you know, I just. I'd slump. I'd need time to decompress, so to speak. You know, I. I was convinced back then that I was putting in the effort with the family. As I would get home, you know, I would do the. The hello, the kiss on the cheek and the big hug and how is your day? And all that. But I wasn't mentally fully there. I was. My mind was always somewhere else at the same time, and I hadn't really built Enough of an energy tank at all to focus on the family and my son the way I needed to. Yeah, that was. It was really hard. It was just an absolute. A storm of things over the. A few space of a few years where really all my energy was. Was sapped and depleted to a really low level. And, you know, I was home. We lost connection, lost alignment, myself and my wife Bri, and it just culminated up until. Until 2022 where she, you know, she. That atomic bomb hit. She's just like, I don't love you anymore. Like, I don't know how to say it. I don't love you anymore. And I don't want to even give you a kernel of hope that we can fix this, you know, And I was so oblivious to any of the signs that that was coming, and there was plenty of them when I look back in retrospect. But as I said, I was just pouring so heavily into service thinking that, you know, I want to provide a quality of life for my family financially with the nice house and the chattels and all that kind of stuff that the connection, the alignment and the quality time was, Was being sacrificed, you know. Yeah, pretty. Pretty horrible thing, right? So I reached out to HDFS pretty much immediately after she. She said d, I don't love you line. Um, we were living together in the same house for quite a while after that, just in separate rooms. And I was scrambling and I didn't, I didn't even start with hpf, to be honest. I was shopping around at lots of different things, quick fix bullshit type of courses that you could find online that are really centric around, I guess, communication, language, but ultimately just buying. Buying time thinking that words may influence or change behavior, some actions as well, but not the, not the degree of asset that you need to transform your life and become the. The leader, become a powerful person again so you can have more energy for yourself and family and service. Yeah, so that's, that's where I joined off. I gave it a call. Well, reached out and first call was with Ed. It was a. It was a very challenging call, Al. It was, it was interesting because it was a case of, well, will you commit to this? Will you commit? We're not gonna hold your hand necessarily all the way through it. You've got to commit to this, turning yourself around. You're going to carry the weight up in the mountain. We'll help you. We'll walk it with you rather than. But we, we're only walking as far as you go. You know, you gotta make sure. You're in this. All in. So, yeah, that's how we started.

Yes. What a. What a tough start to fatherhood as well, man. And, you know, coming off, I guess, the. The mindset that you thought you weren't ready to become a dad, which I'm curious to come back to that and get your thoughts, because we've got a lot of men listening to this who are expectant fathers and a lot of men who are fathers to newborn children for the first time. Not like it's their second, third, or fourth kid, but, you know, it's really tough. And obviously, Paul, you're on the inside, so the ethos and how you live and operate in your life is one of investing yourself. Be 100 to give 100. And I can obviously hear all those things laid in there. And a lot of men out there are aware of that, and a lot of men aren't, which is why I think is a really valuable a podcast, because a lot of men might listen to our episodes, enjoying some of the mindset pieces, but it always comes back to you and back to center. And I shot an ad around this saying, hey, like, love languages and communicating, quote, unquote with your partner more isn't. Isn't the answer. You know, like, it's. And a lot of men think it is. It's like, well, no, the reality is you need to go inside yourself first. And this isn't just with feelings of fluff. Obviously, Paul's got some great physical, tangible results, but it comes down to you becoming more valuable. And not to your wife, but to yourself. You can't. You can't give what you don't have. So a lot of the times men will look at things like relationship courses or marriage counseling or, you know, doing the love languages, which is so fucking tactical. You know, I've said this example a million times. I could be crying on my knees telling my wife how important she is to me, and she'd be like, like, this is fucking disgusting. Get away from me. I need you to be a real man. Or I could look a firm in the eye and say, hey, you're doing a great job as a mother of our kids. Keep it up from a position of strength and just fucking walk off and get back to work. Both are words of affirmation, poorly, but received a completely different way. What we talk about, it's being the chief. So these tactical things aren't the answer. It's what's the energy that's driving out the vessel that I am of life and to Others around me. And the energy has to be one of a high level of certainty, personal power, results, which is obviously all of those convert into confidence. Not a feeling. Confidence is a track record. So tough, man, what you went through even early on growing up with the family and the household and the unfortunate tragedy with his sister. And it's just really crazy how there are so many similar patterns in life to what we experience as men. But we individually, though, we've all been through so much shit, no one has a clean track record where they haven't been hurt at all or had some sort of hardship. But I guess before we dive into what we've worked on together, mate, over the last 16 months, what do you think a man needs to do or be? I mean, is anyone ever ready for anything? Maybe not, but you spoke about not being ready to become a dad. What advice would you give now? Fast forwarding through, going through. That's a hard start, man. And good on you, you know, four years now with Parker. That's fucking amazing. And, and I've seen so many of your stories and your shares and dadventures, special time. You're a fucking phenomenal dad, make no mistake. You're killing it, man. But, oh yeah, pleasure, man, it's, it's, you know, it's just fucking facts. What would you say though, to like, new fathers or fathers who are, like, what would be the advice? How do you get ready to become a father? Or if you're a father listening to this with very young children or young family or a newborn, like, what is the advice? Is it investing in yourself? Like, what would you say now, looking back would help prep or prime a man as much as possible to be the right father that he needs to for his family.

You said it, you touched on it before. It's give 100 to be 100, you, you have to start giving back, back to yourself. I mean, if you, if you hark back to the days you probably met your wife, you think about the person you were when you first met her, you know, what, what made you attractive to her. I can pretty much guarantee it was your energy, it was your, your output. You know, you're investing in yourself first and foremost, before you met her, probably, and becoming a powerful man and an attractive person. You got to get back in touch with that first and foremost, but in, in a healthier way than you probably were before. You got to start looking after yourself, your mind importantly. So wanting to learn, wanting to evolve, your thinking, but just be able to put yourself in, in their shoes. What Are they thinking, take a step back and think, well hang on a second, how my behaviors influencing them. But also, you know, pour into yourself physically as well. You need to get your energy levels up real, real high or even not even real high like before. I mean to be honest, just at 100%, you know, and that's, that doesn't necessarily take a, a massive, massive amount of effort. If you just start with the fundamentals. Start you know, going to bed earlier, eat better, start exercising again with routine, with consistency and concerted effort, no compromise. Make you make sure you set yourself some hard boundaries of what if you're pouring too heavily into your work, you need to start setting the boundary there. You need to give yourself time, you need to create space for yourself to pull back into yourself and make yourself a powerful person again. And you will, you'll start to dramatically see a change when you can start doing that, putting back into yourself in the right way as in growing yourself mentally and physically, not pouring back in yourself by you know, just going and hitting up some screen time or just doom scrolling socials or you know, what I call decompression before that doesn't serve you at all. In fact that puts you further in a pit because you just, society wants you there, let's be honest. They want to kick you down, keep you down. But the more you can, yeah, just start breaking free of that. Guys, you really just need to start, you know, less screen time, more time to yourself, more time out, go for a, for a walk in the morning. Like probably getting ahead of myself here but we're doing this 21 day high performance challenge, high performance life now and it talks about those fundamentals of you know, get up for a conserted 30 minute roam in the morning. You know, some of those, those powerful fundamentals that you just do, it becomes a habit, becomes a ritual that gives back to you and there's no compromise, there's no excuse. You do it. And once you start building those that ethos in of I must do this because I want to for myself. That's how you could start prepping to, to become a dad properly if you're not already. But yeah, even if you're a very newborn, you know, you need to start doing that now so you've got the energy levels to, to face all those challenges through fatherhood. It is hard. It's really hard. Yeah, you can give back to yourself to, to get your fuel tank to a hundred percent, not 10% like mine was.

Well, I see what you said then is like two Waves, when you think about it. So men may or may not. They may be operating a hundred because they don't have all the shackles that life throws on them pretty quickly with fatherhood, financial stress, keeping the missus happy, all the moving parts where there's more tension and more pressure, right, because of the moving parts as you become a father. So you may already be at 100, maybe not as clever or as smart as what Paulie was saying there, with how you be efficient and effective, connective with your time with morning rooms and other things, how you're actually rewarding yourself. Not drugs or alcohol or porn or social media or other things that just keep you in a lower state, but you justify in your head eating heaps of shit food, you justifying your taste buds that it's a valuable thing for you. Now that's just. That's almost like gluttony, which is obviously sin. No, it's about you actually making sure that you're being intelligent with your time and your boundaries. No compromise, like Paul said, and then investing yourself in an intelligent and smart way that's gonna keep you in a rhythm that you can uphold. Okay, you mentioned the word consistency, which is huge. But I see it as two waves, man, as that, right? So you. Let's say they're already doing somewhat thereabouts or they're a hundred because they don't have all the other things that are stealing some points off them and pulling them down yet. So you've got that. That's the first wave. Then you become a father. And if you don't look after yourself, boom, that's just gonna ride downhill. Some pretty quickly, within eight, eight months. Others, yeah, maybe four, eight years. But it just becomes a chronic thing. But we're talking about quality of life too, right? Like you might stay married to your misses in your 60s. You might fucking hate each other for the last 20 years. That's not success to me. That's not successful. So there's the first wave, but then there's a second wave. Everything that Paul just shared for a lot of you men, you know, in entering or in the second half, who already established with, you know, two, three kids and working and building blower, you need to do this again, to revamp. You need to rejuvenate yourself and get back up to 100, because that's what awaits you, what I mentioned, with those men in their 60s and much sooner, you know, in your 40s and 50s, where everything does just fall apart. So there's almost like two, two waves. At play here, one is, hey, where you're right at the start. Keep doing that because you're going to come under some pressure. A lot of you guys who are newer fathers most yourself in the right environment, set yourself up so you got to be 100. You've got to give to yourself. Don't sacrifice for the family because you sacrifice both yourself and the family. The second one is a lot of you men have already done that. Like, fuck, he got me. That's right, you've already done that. So let's recoup, let's revamp and get you back to 100 again. And you should be doing this immediately, investing in yourself and getting yourself up to the top. Paul, share how have you. Obviously, I guess we wouldn't be here if it wasn't a positive experience. That's not a lot of question. I just want to hear through your eyes, man, because it's a really. I thought about this the other day. I was like, because I'm a member of hpf, like I'm part of hpf, but I've never, I've never been one on the other side, if you know what I mean. I haven't gone through the process and then had the dedicated one to one coaching and all the other bits and pieces involved. And even with the experts, I'm part of that and I enjoy seeing and getting knowledge from the experts and learning. But, but I've already made that connection and facilitated that first and met the experts and worked with them and then brought them into hbf. So, you know, well, I'm hoping anyway, it's a positive experience. Unless Paul's ambushed me, he's jumped on the podcast. Sweet boys, pay attention. Al doesn't fucking exist. He's AI. But no, man, like, talk to us. Like, how's. Fuck 16 months solid. Solid. Since so far, man, second season. Have you found the experience? What have you loved? What have you seen? You might be sharing and seeing things that maybe I take for granted or just assume as well, but like, there's no judgment in hpf. That's just a given for me. But the amount of men I hear say that I'm like, oh yeah, of course, yeah, that's a, that's a powerful thing. But for me there's no on the inside, so of course it's expected. But talk to us, man. Talk us through the journey. Like, how's. How, how have you found hbf? And, and I guess the results and, and the experience as a whole, man.

Yeah, it's extremely powerful. I came out the blocks pretty hard. First four months I smashed through pretty much most, if not all the courses and that's a shitload of stuff to get through as, you know, powered through yet. Mindsets, relationship course. Yeah, you touched on love languages before, but it goes far deeper. You know, it goes to connection and alignment and, you know, peeling back the layers of emotion and what they really want and mindset stuff, you know, just getting healthy with your mindset. Powerful, powerful books. I started off with atomic habits, the one thing. But you know, fundamentally all of, all the great stuff you get from those books outright, but just by reading them by themselves, all that's laid into all the coaching and sorry, throughout all the, all the messaging throughout all the charge upsell that you do and where the coaches, the campfire chats, everything that we, we do together that kind of is, is embedded in, throughout and so many books. There's just so much to read and consume and it just, you know, it's thrown at you, at your fingertips and summarized and you can kind of pick and choose based on where I'm at in my mental state and what will really help me. So that was really good thread out the blocks. I started to turn, turn the ship around pretty quickly, but I did, I did kind of fall off, I guess around about the 6, 6, 7, 8 month mark. I started to plateau a bit. But you know, that's where it really kind of dawned on me. It's. We were a brotherhood of accountability. And what I mean by that is that, you know, you see other guys throw up a share or, you know, it lets you be vulnerable as well to put shares up yourself and then just put yourself out there to the guys on the inside who. There's so many guys in there, guys that have gone through similar things. And you have three months ahead of what you've gone through, two years ahead of what you've gone through or haven't, you know, just a step behind you and you're in that, you're in that kind of state together and you can't really get that anywhere else. Like in my, in my circles outside of hpf, you know, you get the whole, how are you that? And what do you say? You say, oh, I'm all right. You don't really go too deep. It's kind of surface level conversations and you know, you kind of, it's like they're not right time and place either. Like you'll be out chilling at the house, maybe you're having, you're having dinner there or something like that. You don't want to, you know, bring it all, all down and through into the, the drudges. But on the inside you've got a real safe environment to share all that. All the guys on the inside, everyone's on the same page, want the same thing. Everyone wants to be the best version of themselves that they can be on the inside. There's no, they won't last if they've got a attitude. They just won't last. And you know, there is a huge cohort of guys there that have, that have stuck through even through my journey that I've gone through with that I still see, I see their shares all the time, sometimes see them in the campfire chats and it's great to touch bases with similar minded men who just want excellence, who want to be a high performance father. And I think for me, for me it's, it's redefined my life being a lifeline to turn my life around. But it's also given me purpose, drive and direction in what I want to be now. And it's, it's cutting away so much of the, that I thought was important before. You know, I still love material things, don't get me wrong. But they fucking hold such value now in comparison to, you know, yourself. Yeah. And growing yourself and being, being 100 to give 100 as they say.

Yes. It's one of the biggest things that I love seeing Paul, is, is the standards and, and like you mentioned, like there's nothing wrong with material things, whether it's cars, watches, anything but you own that, it doesn't own you. Right. And I think that mentality of knowing that you are enough and you are enough to become more. And who you continue to become is always the prize because who you continue to become can get all the other external prizes anyway and provide value in all the different areas and be live and lead. And one of the big things which we shouldn't shy away from or be ashamed from as men is status. You know, like we want our, we want our kids to, to say that we're, we're the best father and tell other kids or, or our wives or our workers be like man, that Paul, he's, he's a weapon. He's such a, he's such a good dude who's just leading the industry in this area or in his role here or look at what he's doing here, these performance levels there. And I think that's that, that status that we, we look for in how we're seen and recognized as it starts with who you are internally. And then secondly, when you can express who you become by leveling yourself up, you become a leader. So it looks after itself anyway. And that status that people look for in life is a representation of respect and value. And you can't have that if you can't give it and show it and showcase it and perform with it and do it lots and do it consistently. Otherwise, yeah, you're just normal. You're just average, just ordinary like everyone else. So I love that about hpf. It's standards, it's. It's recognizing that off the back of the standards, how we operate and hold each other accountable in a genuine way, you know, and. And support each other, but push each other and inspire each other. It really does help men break through their own limiting beliefs that a lot of them don't even know exist, man. They're just. Well, settle isn't the word because they're in hpf, but most people settle in life, unfortunately. But it's more so settling on that mountain or settling on that rock. Yeah, that's the one for me. It's like, nah, man. When you get the. Up there, then you see there's more and you see there's another one. That's not a bad thing. That's not. That's not. It's not daunting or exhausting or overwhelming. As tired as your legs might be getting top of that mountain, because that's the mentality you want to have. Cool. Get to the top of your mountain, then die. That's obviously not the point or the answer here. So you got to keep living, so. And keep, keep.

Always an ascent, mate. Always in a cent, isn't it? It is.

Absolutely.

Opens your eyes. It really opens your eyes to that, to tackle what you said before. It gives you the tools to lead, to be a leader. It kind of opens your eyes up on what you should be doing in terms of giving yourself that power back to lead, to want to lead, that's probably the biggest thing. I wasn't leading even myself, let alone my relationship with my wife or my son, and. But now I can say that I. I'm capable of doing all three. I'm capable of, you know, leading myself to be a better version of myself and then leading them through those actions, creating them, creating space for them. I'd be able to do that, you know, it just. It's a powerful thing. It shows you the. Shows you the way, lights the path forward to be the best version of you. And both that, that balance between family, self and service you know, balancing all three. But it starts with you. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, agreed, man. I'm curious, mate. Like, what's. What's one of the best memories that you've got with Parker now or have created with him that you thought maybe you wouldn't have even been able to create with without hpf? Anything come to mind? Because you've shared some pretty cool dadventures, man. It's pretty awesome to see you in. In flow, so to speak, as a. As a dad. That's. Yeah. Crushing it and balancing family, self and service.

Yeah. Look, I think it's. It's just that, I mean, one of the. One of the crazy things and scary, really scary things is probably the first. First year of his life, a year and a year and a half almost until he was 2, became blur like that. That's the. That's the horrific thing to say out loud is that I, like, I can't. I can't remember with the clarity that I should be able to remember some of those times of connection with him. And that really is a painful thing to say, you know, especially like those times when he was in the hospital and he's all bandaged up and he can't move and he's. You know, I, I. Every single morning now that I have him, I connect with him. I spend time in his world, in his space. I take him for shoulder rides all the time. If we talk, we talk without distraction. I invest time into his world every day that I have him. And it's. It's just an incredible thing, the connection and the bond that I have within now. It's unreal. It's just unreal. It literally feels like time has slowed down because of the time and effort I put into just dialing into him. Like I touched on before getting up early. You set your alarm. You get up when you set your alarm, not snooze at 10 times like I used to and, you know, get up with intent, get out, do a roam. I'll take my son with me where I can put him on the shoulders, spend time in his states and, you know, is there one. One moment? It's. It's every day that I have with me. Like, no, it's not. The beautiful thing is that there's so many moments, mate, it's hard to even pinpoint one. Whereas before, you know. Yeah, maybe, you know, the first time I read him a book. Right? Yeah. But now it's every day. It's. I get to enjoy him every day, and his communication with me is. Is phenomenally. Good. He. He mimics me. You know, he pulls the guns out. Yeah. He tries to do the workout with me. He understands big and strong. He understands why, which is awesome. And I think about that now. I think about look as a model, as a role model. They watch everything. They watch every single thing you do. So if I can instill in him what it means to be a high performance father, to look after myself and my energy, to be able to, you know, I get down to his level, I take a knee, I talk to him face to face all the time, you know, communicate really well with him. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't really have that level of energy from my dad at all, but I know that I'm giving that to my son and it's powerful thing.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. It's really hard, too. It's. I'm similar to you, man. Like, the first 18 months of Stella's life is a bit of a blur. And I look back at old photos and she's so cute. And now she's, you know, in year two and nearly eight and it's like, man, I get so disappointed in myself and just, just the speed of life. But only for a second. I'm like, hang on. Yeah, but what can you do now and what can you do today? And then it's like, today we had special time before this session. Daddy, daughter Tom was awesome. But I think one of the craziest things, Paul, not to get too, too deep on this, man, is just the speed of life itself, you know, like, you don't. There are so many last times you don't know are the last times, you know, and that's, that's a hard thing. That's why what you said then, lots of moments being present, slowing down time. It's so important because I can't remember the last time that I helped, you know, little Stelli get dressed. Now she dresses herself, you know, she's becoming a little woman, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, and then with, with Lillian, she just turned five. And then with, you know, and I can't remember the last time I helped her put her shoes on. Although I try and get in there and sometimes I'll jag a little bit in terms of, like, her dependency on me to do that for her. No, no, Daddy, I'll do it myself. It's like, now, Romans three and a half. I'm like, but all these last times. Yeah. And they, they've seen me training in the gym upstairs, which is awesome. See me dying and sweating and laughing at me. And it's so though, because these are standards like you said, a lot of men just don't know. And it's, it's sad, boys, because it's like, no, you don't get it. Like, you don't need to know everything that your children will take on board, but they will take it all on board. You don't need to know everything that your children should take on board. Sorry, but they will take it on board. So it's like, it's not writing this whole list. It's like model through example, the standards and who they should become. I don't sit down thinking, fuck, you know what, when, when, when all the kids are getting into gaming and technology and all sort of shit. When they're 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, which I did, you know, through the, through the 90s. Cause that was when it all started to really peak. I better plant a seed now for how important air and sunlight and health and well being. Like, no, no, I didn't sit down and figure all that out. I'm just like, now I'm going to be a man who trains. He gets in great shape, gives his children the opportunity to see it. And when they ask questions, he answers them. Like, if you went up to a children, if you went up to a child who'd never seen their father exercise and, or never seen anyone do a push up before and you say, hey, do a push up, they'd be like, what the. That without the swear. They'd be like, what's a push up? They don't know. Whereas with my kids, bang. Show them once. What's daddy doing? You're going up and down off the floor. Daddy's doing push ups. It's called a push up. Where I do this all of a sudden, just randomly, man. Like I'll be having breakfast and you know, I might have my shirt off or something and I might tease and say, look, Daddy's got big muscles. And then all of a sudden they jump on the ground going, I'm gonna do some push ups. And it's like, hang on a minute. That's like we haven't spoken about push ups for like two weeks. And now you're suddenly. And just. It's so cool, man. It's like, my daughter's a freak. Like she's really good at ballet and she's doing all the stuff where she spins over and getting all flexible. I'm helping her balance out both sides, but I'm doing it from position of fun. What it means for her, not physiology and human performance and mate, it's unreal just seeing them take it and run with it. But you know, having, having that perspective is a valuable thing. And then reflecting like what you shared then what, what do you reckon? We've caught up a few times. Well, mate, done some events which is epic. It's been awesome to spend some time together too. But what I guess, is there one thing that sticks out with HPF for you, man? Like what's one thing that you know as. As one of the tribes and what's one thing that I guess stands out or maybe you, you love the most or, or yeah, what's. What's something that really stands out for you man, in. In hpf or you really thrive with or feel aligned with and feel maybe a lot of men out there could connect with that too?

Yeah, I think it's just that it is that brotherhood, the brotherhood of accountability. The place where you can have like minded individuals share your story, be vulnerable, doesn't matter what it is. You can share anything. And I guarantee you there was someone in there gone through very similar thing. We are all wired pretty similarly as men come to realize and there's so many things that we, we kind of rework, rewire, we short circuit ourselves on the inside and we really think about things more holistically. Guys, you know, reparent yourself as well that oftentimes that's, that's massive. The day, that's this day. And age has changed so much. 40 years ago, 30 years ago, you know, our parents, they had it, they had a lot different, especially our dads. So yeah, it's, there's a lot to learn. So I think the best part is that you are in a community of knowledge, wealth, opportunity to learn and everyone wants to learn. Everyone's on the same trajectory because you know, you're investing in this, you're investing in this tribe, in this community, in this program or coaching and you know, the people that stick it, you know that they're going on that journey with you and you'll, you'll keep growing and growing and that's, that's why I signed up for another year because I felt myself kind of toeing I'd stepped away from a bit, you know, because you know, life was getting busy again. And I, I was like, I'm okay. I've got, I've got a lot of this stuff down pat now. I've got some really good new healthy habits and routines and rituals I'm doing every morning. And that's good and slowly some of that stuff started to slip away and I thought if I, if I don't they in this community, in this tribe the risk of slipping back to my older version is, is high and that scared the out of me and that's something that I wouldn't, wouldn't let happen. So yeah when I'm for another season. Alan, just as a back to baseline guys like it helps you center in brings you back to baseline. What's most important helps keep you accountable. Lots of guys on the same page.

So yes you agreed. We learned so much from each other as well man on the inside and hard to put that down to a single season. Not that I'm here to tell guys hey you should be join HPF. We've got a 15 year program you could buy, you could subscribe to. But yeah man, it is interesting though right. We spend years unraveling a lot of the structural framework that has had is pretty solid or maybe we weren't enough and life just caught up with us. Who know but who knows. A lot of people don't invest in themselves but point is you spend years slowly on the decline and people think that they can just turn it around in three months or six months or 12 months and then and on that like just, just to obviously couple that with how we operate. Yeah we generate, we generate rapid results. We don't fuck around like guys turn around their lives within the first 30 days. Of course it's like going up in shooting the rocket, shooting up into space. Okay, well we need to make sure we're getting a high level propulsion to really start heading in the other direction which seems big but it's actually just lots of little things as well. Let's get you back on track. Let's get you in control. Let's get structure again. Let's start building capacity. Let's develop some skills and keep pushing those who you love and care about most away from you. And you can develop leadership time management and communication connection skills which is deeper than just fucking speaking more and which one of the five love languages do they like and then doing that lots and lots of times consistency but so we generate rapid results. But yeah there's lots of men who will say and just to for a lot of our members listening to this just to normalize what Paul is sharing too. It is a common thing for anyone doing anything where you'll either stagnate somewhere between you ride that high and then it could be a variable of life could be your own self sabotage and like I said, years of your subconscious trying to kick in that little voice inside, take over again, gives you a little run, then he tries to pull you back in. Somewhere between months four and eight, typically what you said, like, halfway six, seven months. Half of the year, men will either either A, stagnate or B, say, oh, yep, sweet. Should be good. Now try and go alone. And sometimes we even see some guys on the inside, they start to pull away from HBF just to see how they go on their own. And then obviously, with the coach accountability, we get in touch with them, say, hey, man, what's going? Oh, yeah, just wanted to see how I go by myself without a tributal and. Cool. How'd that work out for you? It's always like, oh, man, HBF is great. Like, it's amazing. I realized the value of the tribe. And that was a stupid move. It was a foolish move to make. And it's not. Yeah. And it's not like. It's not like we're on some. Some island. You've got a number and you try to escape. We've got the speedboats out to pull you back in. These guys are still in again. They've still got fucking seven or eight months of their first year membership left. But they've gotten so, so much, so many results. They're like, I'm killing, man. I'm good now. It's like, no, no, you don't understand. Like, you've just hit. You've hit version like 1.6. Let's get to 2 and then let us show you what 2.4 could look like. And then you make you feel like you still need the tribune. Do you want to go back into the world on your own and try it alone? You can. You both could be the answer. There's no right or wrong. I love being part of HPF because it keeps me accountable since fucking day Dot, Pauly, that's never, never. And there's been times where I haven't pulled away, but I've just had lots of hardships and challenges and then I'll see a win from you or some of the other guys. Block. Yeah, that's great. Boom. Realigns me and 100.

It's all these little jolts of energy you get from the guys. They put up a share. You might kind of. You might dip a bit, you might be feeling a little bit. And then bang. Someone will throw a great share like Naz or Ran or Ian or some of the new guys. Sean, David, they're coming in, fart out the Gates as well. And you think that I remember when I was at that stage of the journey as well in hpf. And yeah, it just motivates you and inspires you and you want to help lift them up as well. And so you got these old vets who have been in for a year, two years who want to step back and be like, yeah, I remember when I was at that point in time you're at right now, I can, I can put myself in those shoes. Guys who are separated, guys who have gone through some horrific stuff, you know, and I love doing that as well as someone who is separated still, I only have my, my son 50 of the time. I love to show guys that, look, you can achieve a happiness and, and a sense of self worth again. Like you can, you can. You'll have your energy back if you stay. If you stay true to this journey on improving yourself and becoming your version 2.0 and beyond, you will absolutely love yourself again, you know, and you want, you want to be able to. How good is that? I can look in the mirror now and think, I'm actually really proud of you, really proud of you to see how far you've come, where you were, how far you've come. Yeah. Did I wish that I was in HPF a year earlier? Of course I do. I think everyone who joins HBF says that. I don't think there's one person who said, oh, it's all right, I joined right on time. I doubt that. I think everyone did say it. I, I could have started with a lot more and done a lot, so much better. And this community gives you that, gives you that in life. It's your wingman through life, literally. It's not less like piecemeal here and there. It's literally every day. HPF is there with you every step.

Yeah. 100, man. We're here to help you get out of your own way because you don't understand how sneaky that little voice is inside. He pretends to be you and he's not some big brood in your face because you just tell him to fuck off. He's very manipulative, very subtle, very sly and just, just delays everything, just one day more. Just delay the intensity. 10%. Just delay the goals that you should be achieving. 15, 20, 30%. This is good, man. This is good enough. What about these buyers? And then it starts comparing it to all the other fucking the common folk. It's like, is that the life you want to live? A standard, basic, average, ordinary life. I feel like if someone said that to me. I'd be insulted if someone mentioned those words. Average, basic, standard, simple. Simple is valuable, you know. Sorry.

Good enough.

Yeah, good. Yeah. Good, Good enough.

Good enough. Going. Doing good enough. I'm doing. I'm doing good enough.

Yeah. It's crazy, you know, I've got to be.

I've got to be in the 70 percentile. No, the wrong attitude, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Definitely. But, hey, what a. What an amazing story. What an amazing share on. On track for Paul 3.0 now. Yeah, it's awesome for another season, man. And appreciate you sharing your story today, mate. I guess to wrap up, you know, I've spoken about some very valuable things. Obviously, a lot of the guys on the outside don't have access to those valuable things. But. But advice, you know, what would you say to. And it's not a call to action. Hey, call Al and join. But I guess just some advice on guys who are struggling, man, trying to navigate what they're going through at the moment. Challenges of the missus, separation, trying to be the father, trying to balance everything. Yeah. What would be final, final thoughts, man, or advice for. For men who are on the outside, who are listening, listening in today?

I think, you know, even if you don't, don't sign up. There's a ton of free resources I think out there now that you're putting out there are to start to change the way you're thinking. You need to start investing back into yourself first and foremost in a healthy way, positive way, with your eating habits, with your exercise and your routines and create some boundaries, not just for yourself, for that time and space. You need to fall back into yourself in a healthy way, but also, you know, take. Take the kid out. Give, give your partner some space. Give them time. Create a safe boundary for them to do what they want to do. Pull back into their space, Put yourself in their shoes. Yeah. Start thinking big picture, guys. There's fucking way more to life than service. Busting your ass in service and, you know, making more money. More money, more money for probably your life in a material sense. You got to find a balance between family, yourself and service. And it starts with, yeah, doing the right things for yourself in a positive and healthy way.

Agreed, man. Couldn't agree more. You know, you want to be the. The father, the husband, the leader that you desire in your life. Well, then it's got to be you. And if it's not, is it. If it is to be, it's up to me alone. It's. Hey, yeah, if it is on me, well, what the can I do about it to start moving forward? How can I start having the right people around me to give me the right infrastructure, the right scaffolding so I can build and I can build big. Awesome. Paulie, great having you on, man. Hope you guys enjoyed this. What an episode mates inspired me for. For the rest of the week.

Cheers, Al. It's a absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Al. It's. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be part of HPF and continue on another season and, yeah, great things to come. Always evolving. There's always new stuff on the inside. It's amazing, mate. You. I don't know how you do it. It's incredible. So thanks to you and all the coaches.

I'm obsessed, man. Never stops, Never stops. What we do is amazing, but. But never enough. There's always 1% somewhere and I love that, man. I really pride myself on that because I see you men taking that as well and getting those 1 percenters. But yeah, awesome. Great episode, man. And I hope you men enjoy this. Got some solid nuggets, some golden nuggets from Paulie, as I did for sure. And take it. Apply action immediately and start moving in the right direction. Cheers, man. If this was an episode that really resonated with you, I thank you for giving the time and effort and energy to yourself, but also to yourself through the vessel and the vehicle of high performance. Father, we've got a lot of wives listening to these now if they don't mind the occasional F bomb. You know, I appreciate all of you for spreading the message and if there's one thing I've got to ask, I'd love it if you could just give us a five star review or spread the love. Share this message with those who, you know, need to listen to this. And there are a lot of people, as men, we're proud. We're not too open to go, hey, I'm hurting. I need help. And putting our hand up. But sometimes just a subtle way in their own privacy, whether in the car or the comfort of their own home. It really works when you just send a little link through. Hey, Bill. Hey, Bob. Hey, James. I think you might. I think you might enjoy this. I'm not. I'm just going to leave it there. You do with it what you will, but, you know, hit this link, man. Just listen to one or two episodes and my performance, Father. And Alan, see what he has to say. I'm telling you, man, that is one of the greatest ways that you can impact. And some of those men out there you think are okay, you're saving lives. You really are. I've seen this so many times where you just put it, that little subtle message, putting the feelers out there, the amount of men, suicidal or not, the amount of men who are on the brink of breaking down, it is phenomenal, the ripple effect. This isn't my legacy. This is our legacy that we have together by spreading this message and living and breathing the message as well. So thank you, appreciate you again, hope you enjoyed this episode. But by all means, share this with someone who, in your gut instincts, in your intuition, you know, you're like, I think they need this. This. I think they should listen to this. Please, mate, don't hesitate with that. Pull the trigger, make that decision, send it out to them and you'll be amazed at what you get back. Thank you again and I'll see you soon.