51. NFL Stardom, And Winning The Right Way

Foreign.

And welcome to another episode of Real Dad Movement. My name is Al and I've got an amazing guest with us today. We've got John Madsen, former NFL player. John, how are you, dude?

I'm excited to be here, man. I'm out in the United States, Utah. So we have quite. I think it's a day ahead for you, man. Yeah.

Yes, that's right. Yeah. That'd be Tuesday afternoon for you, Wednesday morning for us.

Right on, man, right on. Well, I'm happy to be here, man, and super excited to be on your show.

It's great to have you on, mate. And look, thanks for giving us your time and you're very busy and very powerful, man in what you're doing right now. And I love, and I'm going to love sharing that as well as some of your background and history and whereabouts, I'm curious, Utah. Is that inland from San Francisco? Whereabouts is that?

Yeah, so San Francisco is California. So that's on the West Coast. And so if you go east from California, you'd run into Nevada, which would be Las Vegas. And then from Nevada, one state over would be Utah. So we're, we're, we're on the west coast flight wise from California, San Francisco, we're about an hour and a half. So yeah, man, we're pretty close. Not too far away.

Nice. Is that. Because when I hear that, it sounds like to me that it's like in the middle of the usa, but it's not.

No, it's still West Coast. And so the middle of the USA would be a couple states over. Then you'd get kind of, you know, Midwest and then, you know, pretty much the just, you know, heart of the United States. And then from there you travel to the east coast, which would be New York. You know, New York City is a five hour flight from where I'm at, so I'm definitely closer to the West Coast.

It's crazy when you say that. I think of how massive it is. And then when you actually look on the map, Australia and the USA is virtually the same size. It's incredible. You have like 10 times the population. Yeah.

Yeah, man. It's funny when you talk to somebody from a different country, I always do this. I have no context of where it actually is on the map. And it's funny because in the United States, it's a huge place. And you can go to the west coast and you can have beaches and sunshine and you can go to New York City and it's almost like it's a completely different feel. And so when you have travelers coming into the United States, it's like depending on where you go, you experience one little sliver of what the United States has to offer and not really experience a whole other wide ranging places that we have. And much like probably Australia in my head I picture sandy beaches and ocean and I have no idea what else is out there.

Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? There's plenty of mountains and different fields in different states. We obviously don't have as many states as you, but certain parts of the country which are always reasonably warm, some are very humid up the north and the south is. Yeah, it's like, you know, very, very chilled and cold down at Tasmania and further points south, it's all beautiful. Just like certain parts of America we've been to. I want to visit and explore more, but my wife and I, we've gone to both east and west coast and I enjoyed Vegas too, man. Funnily enough, like I really, we went there for our honeymoon and I really, really enjoyed it. I didn't, we didn't go crazy with alcohol and that sort of stuff because I was doing the CrossFit regionals at the time, but I was awesome. The shopping and the casinos, everything. We weren't going in there getting high off drugs and wiping ourselves out like I hear a lot of my mates do. They're like, oh, Vegas is awesome, but you only want to go for two days and leave. We could have stayed there for a few weeks. We really took it in and soaked it in. We loved it.

Yeah, man, there's, I mean, there's a couple parts to Vegas. Vegas is a city that I've visited one too many times in my life too, especially in my younger days. But I mean, you can find whatever you want out there. And I know what people are saying when they tell you that only go for two days because I mean, there's some, there's some wild pool parties, there's some wild parties, it never shuts down. But it also does offer just tremendous restaurant, nightlife experience. You can hang out with your wife, go to shows, all types of stuff, man. So Vegas is a cool city and absolutely a city that everybody should visit if they aren't from America.

Definitely, man. I'll second that. And to expand on that, well, let's dive right in, mate. Because speaking of experiences, that's what forms up our life, John. And we're connected through our coaching groups and it was great to have this connection with you and I'd love to share your Experiences pretty phenomenal. And some of the stuff that you've told me about being part of and playing in the NFL from 062062010, I think, and I guess the rise to that, and a big thing for me, mate, is perspective and drivers. I really love to know what drives people and the perspective that they choose to have in certain areas of their life. But talk to us, man, like, how did you. I guess a bit of background on yourself and growing up, but then how you got into all of a sudden playing in the NFL, it's incredible.

Yeah, man, in a nutshell, you know, I'll tell you that I ended up playing in the National Football League, which was a dream come true, unlike any other person who's ever made it to the NFL. I never played high school football. And so if I rewind from there and tell your listeners that from the time I was five years old, man, all I ever wanted to do was be an athlete. And I know that because all the time that I spent as a child with my family was either at a ballpark, playing baseball, football field, playing football, basketball courts, playing basketball. I had a drive to be good at sports. And when I was in seventh grade, I remembered, you know, just real quick tangent story. We had to do an assignment where we had these computer labs and for a whole week straight we had to answer questions about what we wanted to do for our career. And from those questions, the computer was going to spit out 10 different qualified career paths that we should consider. And from those 10, we were supposed to circle two and take it to our counselor who then would put us into the classes that would help, I guess, grow our interest in those careers. And the reason I bring this up is because after a whole week of filling out hundreds and hundreds of questions, ranking different tasks from the number one to 10, one being I would hate to do that, 10 being I would absolutely love to do that. We got our sheets and as you can imagine, being a professional athlete was not on the list. And instead of picking something that the computer told me to pick, I wrote down career choice number one as professional athlete. I just wrote it in. And for career choice number two, I wrote down professional athlete. There was no plan B. And this was me as a 12, 13 year old kid who grew up with amazing parents who when I told them those things, they were like, John, you can do whatever you put your mind to, you know? And they spoke in terms of what a lot of parents speak, but I never got the feeling that they didn't believe it for me. And so for me, I truly believe that that was a possibility. It never occurred to me that it wasn't. So I took this, this, this little sheet with those two choices to my counselor. And I'll never forget, it was the first time in my life where the counselor was just doing his job. I still remember the guy's name. I still remember what the freaking room looked like, man. And the reason is, is because he pulled out a sheet and he was telling me the statistics about how likely it would be for any athlete in junior high to make it to any professional sport in the United States. And so we went on to say, look, John, if you want to be a college, you know, call it. If you want to earn a college scholarship playing sports, your chances are about 5%. If you want to go to a big school, a Division 1 school, your chances are probably 3%. If you want to play a professional sport, your chances are less than 1%. And so it was the first time in my life I had an adult figure tell me that my dreams might not be possible. And I never forgot that feeling. I walked out of that room a little bit defeated, but it only lasted a split second. And then it gave me even more fuel to prove anybody in my, in my wake wrong, that I was going to be the guy who made it. Ironically, going into my high school football career, I had played football my whole life. Going into my sophomore year, I went into the weight room for the very first time. I had never lifted weights before, and just like an American old school football coach usually does, the very first thing he asked us to do was to max out on bench squat in power cleans. And I was like, well, shit, the power cleans look hard. The squat looks pretty dangerous. Let's just take my five little friends over to the corner and see how much we can bench. That looked like something I could do. Up to that point, I thought I was a pretty good athlete. It never occurred to me that I wasn't strong. But as my friends were warming up and we were taking turns, they were still warming up. I got to the point where there was 25s on an Olympic bar, which is £95. And the bar came crushing down on my chest. And my friends just being boys in high school, they were laughing at me, calling me all kinds of names and thought it was hilarious that I got pinned by a 95 pound bar. But in that moment, my confidence got crushed and I was like, holy shit, man, I am weak. I am a weak kid. I am the weakest kid in this class. And I was afraid in that moment that I was going to get crushed playing football. So I went home and I told my parents. I was like, look, dad, I am not going to play football this year. And, you know, he looked at me like, why? Like, you were always a really, really good football player. And I said, you know, I went to the weight room. There are kids that are a lot bigger than me. I'm scrawny, I'm lanky. I just want to get bigger and stronger. And so my dad did something that changed my life. He hired a strength and conditioning coach when I was 16 years old. And I couldn't wait to go three times a week for a year. I was with this guy, and this guy absolutely crushed me. Dude. This dude crushed my soul every single day. And I loved it because there was a part of me that knew that every time I was doing something that I was doing with that guy, my friends were not doing it, and my friends who were at one point was stronger than me. I knew that every time I went to that weight room and I went through that pain, I was bridging the gap. I was getting closer to them. And I knew one day that I was going to be a strong, powerful mother. Effort man. And I took that. And it wasn't even that I wanted to be a better football player. It was that I just wanted that strength and power. Funnily enough, you know this because you're in the same industry as me and the same reason you probably like it. With that strength and power. What really changed was I started believing in myself, and I had this confidence that was just like. It grew and grew and grew. I graduated high school having never played a down of high school football. I played basketball. I wanted to be a college basketball player. I wanted to go to the NBA. I was 6 foot 5. I was about 190 pounds as I graduated high school. And my high school team was terrible. I didn't have a single scholarship offer. I was going down to a junior college just to walk onto the basketball team. When I thought it, somehow, some way, I got it in my head that I was going to try to walk on for the football team after never having played high school football. I walked onto that football team, man. I played for two years. I transferred to my school that was close to my home, the University of Utah. For anybody who's football fans in the United States, we were the first BCS busting team. We won the Fiesta Bowl. My quarterback at the time was Alex Smith, my college coach. Is a Hall of Famer. Coach Urban Meyer and I took that and I reached my dream of being an NFL player and played in the National Football League for about three and a half years.

It's incredible, man. It's fascinating when you see how vulnerable we can be mentally, but then also how we all have the ability to tap into the adversity that we face to fuel us. Like, I'm the same as you, man. My parents always used to say to me, you can. You can do anything in this world, Al, if you put your mind to it, and then you're willing to work and sacrifice for it. And not once did they ever say it from the line of, oh, they're just being a supportive parent. It was. No, it's the truth. It's the truth, mate. Go and do it. You want it? Go get it. You want it, Go get after it. Because when you say that, mate, so much that connects with me because that's what I grew up as well. I didn't know what the sport was. I just wanted to be a professional athlete. So I was going to play cricket for Australia and then play soccer for Australia and then play rugby league for Australia. And it's incredible how there's a lot of similarities in your story and the different adversities. For me, it was the opposite. Well, I wasn't strong, but I was overweight, so I lost my athletic ability from, like, 9 because I was a child superstar with soccer and cricket. Then I lost that from 9 till about 17. But can you remember, though? I'm just curious, man. Like, you've said so much amazing stuff just then. We can dive into. But can you remember, like, what led to you having that belief? Like, do you have a memory when you're three or four or five? Like, why did you just want that? Like, why did you want that, John? Why was that a part of your being that you then nurtured and nourished as time went by?

Dude, it was a couple of things. I was a good athlete. I was naturally athletic. But when I say naturally, guys, the point is, is that because I liked it, I put in the time because I wanted to, because that's what I truly enjoyed. Where I grew up, there's, you know, we get four seasons, and so in the wintertime, it's. There's snow on the ground. And basketball was one of the sports that I. That I liked. And so I remember days where it would snow and my. My neighbors had. I was on a hill, so we didn't have hoop in our yard. And across the street, it was flat, so my neighbors had a hoop. And I remember multiple, multiple days, me going to my neighbors, knocking on their door and asking them if I could shovel their driveway, which was huge, by the way. And I would spend a whole 45 minutes shoveling their driveway and then be shooting baskets in the middle of a snowstorm with an icy basketball. And so my friends wouldn't do that. Right. And that's the thing. When I say I was naturally gifted and naturally athletic, it was that. But it was also that I liked doing it more, begets more, because I was good at it and liked it. That's become, like, my kind of life journey. All I knew was like, I want to be an athlete, and that's what I wanted to do. But the funny thing was, man, is as good as I was. It almost felt like I was never the star or I never got the credit that I wanted or craved. Call it insecurity, call it whatever you want. It was like, I was always like a really good player. But there was somebody on the team who. Who I thought was getting all the accolades, all the recognition. Take that into high school. You know, I wasn't the guy that was averaging 30 points a game. I was averaging a nice, you know, 10 to 12 points in basketball and maybe 10 rebounds. And athletically, it was like I was superior athletically. I could jump, I could run, I could do all those things. But I was an unselfish player, and therefore I wasn't lighting up the scoreboard with points. And so I was always, like, I was always a good athlete, but I was never getting the recognition that I craved. And so when I went to college, there was this feeling that I think I was so afraid to fail, man. And this. This is going to be weird. I was so afraid to fail, and I was so afraid to go to college and then come back home and just be another guy. Like, just be irrelevant. In my mind, my fear of being irrelevant and not somebody to come home with pride and say that I'm this college athlete and I made it and I won scared me so bad that I just kept going. I just kept going, and I just kept going. And I was relentless in my pursuit of and my afraidness to come back. A failure never allowed me to quit. Where there's millions of guys out there that was more athletic than me, that had more ability than me, that for some reason a coach said something to them, or they didn't get playing time or, you know, they got injured or whatever, and they just quit. They Just stopped. And for some reason, I was so afraid to fail that I just never quit. And over time, I got better and better and better, and ultimately, I ended up in the National Football League, and we're on the world's biggest stage, and I'm playing the world's biggest sport, and I score a couple touchdowns. And it was almost then, and I didn't realize this until years later, where I've kind of unpacked this in my life, where the afraidness to fail got me to a certain level. And then that was. And then when I got to that level, I took this breath and I was like, nobody can ever say I'm a failure now. Nobody can ever say I'm a failure. I never played high school football, and I'm playing in the freaking NFL. So no matter what anyone says, like, if they say that I failed or I didn't succeed, like, it wouldn't even affect me, because I know that's not the truth about me. But see, here. Here. Here was the problem. I couldn't flip the switch now. I couldn't chase greatness. I was so used to just not wanting to fail that when that was over for me, I couldn't flip that switch and then chase greatness. Because now what I do and in my programs and a lot of what I teach is I think people are either away from motivated or towards motivated.

Right?

There's two different things. People are going to be either motivated to get out of the pain, or there's people who are going to be motivated for greatness. Two different things toward away. And so I spent my whole life being away from motivated, where I was like, I'm a wait. Like, whatever I do, I don't want to fail. Like, I cannot fail. And I think that's really powerful to get off the Runway to take off. But there's a certain level where that's going to stop. Like, if you don't make the switch and start chasing down greatness every single day, then you're not going to ever reach your fullest potential. Because when I got cut from the NFL, it had nothing to do with ability at that point. It had everything to do with my mindset. And so for the past decade, I've unpacked all of this because I was determined to never let that happen again. Never, ever leave potential in the tank and not grab all of it. Because I felt like I did that in the NFL because I didn't have the tools that I have now. I would have been whatever I wanted to be if I would have tapped into a bigger belief of being in the hall of Fame or being a Super bowl champion or being an NFL player for 15 years. But when I was content with the fact that I didn't fail, I stopped.

Incredible, man. Did you that stop that stopping process? Did that happen overnight? Is that what ended your career in 2010 or what? Share some of that with us.

Yeah, man.

So.

So I. If you're familiar with the NFL, I was playing for the Oakland Raiders. And every single year, I had new. I had new coaching staff, which is not a good situation to be in. So I. When I. When I got there my rookie year, I worked in and I got a ton of playing time. My rookie season, my rookie season, we were a bad football team. And so at the end of the year, they fired that coaching staff. A whole new coaching staff came in, and I had to rewind the position, which happens after that year, that coaching staff got fired. We had a whole new coaching thing, coaching change, and I wasn't a high draft pick, so I kept going to the bottom and then working my way back up, and it was like I never. And because I was so afraid to fail that I just kept doing whatever it took to just get back that spot. And then I got to a point where I got comfortable, where I actually was for the first time, being like, man, I made. Like, I made it. And when I took that breath, what happened? It wasn't that I didn't work hard. It wasn't that I didn't go to the weight room. It wasn't that I partied too much. I did a combination of all of those things. I was living my life. I was partying probably more than I should, but I was living my life, and I was just doing what a young, dumb kid normally would. The problem was that I believe that my belief system wasn't built enough, like I said, to just chase down that ultimate greatness. So what happened was I feel like I could have done a little bit more right? And I don't like. I don't like to speak in terms of regret, because that's not what I'm talking about. It's just if I look back and unpack everything that happened, I know that there was more left on the table. So at a certain point, I started to struggle. I started to struggle. I was playing a position with that third coaching staff that I wasn't necessarily great at. I was a hybrid wide receiver slash tight end who was forced to play tight end in the first two seasons. I was left playing a position that I was fairly confident in. And in the third year, I was forced into a position that I was like, dude, I lost my confidence. I lost my ability to play with confidence. And when I did that, I got cut. And when I got cut, it was the first time in my life I had ever got cut. And then my confidence took a. Took a. You know, it's like it took a dagger for a minute, and I didn't have the mental tools to get back up off of my feet and get back on my feet and fight all over again. It was like my confidence shattered, and I tried to build it back, and it shattered again. And then ultimately, I didn't have any fight left in me to continue on. So, basically, after I got cut, during going into my fourth season with the Cleveland Browns, I remember calling my agent up and just saying, man, that's it. I'm going back to Salt Lake City, Utah. I signed a lease. I'm opening up a gym, a performance center. I'm tired of this stuff. I'm tired of living in suitcases. I was 27 years old at this point, and it was like, I just. Like, for the first time in my life, I took this breath. I was okay with the fact that nobody could call me a failure because I made it and I scored touchdowns. And it was enough for me in that moment because I didn't know how to tap into a bigger belief. That's the only way I can explain it.

An amazing share, man, and thank you for that. Because a lot of people similar to myself, I never made it and then had years of glory in rugby league. But a lot of people, all they see is what they see on tv, right? They don't hear the story whether you made it or not or how much you made it or how long you went for. You could be the greatest player in the world. But at the end of the day, they don't see a lot of the challenges and heartache and tough times and the adversities that we all face. Just to be clear, guys, this is the first time that I've spoken to John and seen him. We've messaged each other plenty of times. I can't believe how much I connect and resonate with everything that you're saying, although I can. Because, you know, the message and contact we've had in your movement, which we'll speak about, is something that aligns heavily with me at a fundamental level. I'll show you. I'll show the fucking world. You'll see what I'm made of. That fear of failure, man, I was exactly the same. Being that fat obese boy and then trying to work my way through winning, being the fittest on the team, just earning my spot on the bench and then coming out in the starting lineup. And then when that got stripped away with nine operations with rugby league, my body was shot to shit. I can't fail. I'll show you what I do. There's no guy my size in the world who can do this at an international level. With CrossFit, I'll start a gym. It'll be a CrossFit gym. Just filling this void. And I got there. I did regionals three years in a row and again 110, 112 kilos, which is nearly 250 pounds. We're talking your language and doing muscle ups and handstands, all this sort of stuff. But there's a point where you hit this glass ceiling and you don't know it's there until you have that revelation, which is what you're speaking about. When did you have that? And that's what I'm curious on. When did you have that breakthrough? Because this has only happened for me recently, man, probably the last two years, which is why IDM is exploding. It's not that it's an overnight success. It's decades of something that you said is very powerful getting you off the ground. Adversity, fear of failure, all that sort of stuff. I feel you need both. Like you said, that is powerful, but it only gets you to a point to which you then have a driver for greatness and truly tapping into the gift that life is because it goes so fast. We're nearly halfway through the first. The decade of 2020, right? And the year of 2020 in the next decade. When what happened? And when did you have that switch for you, mate, where it then was no longer about. Was it when you retired? It was no longer about fear of failure, but it was then a realization of, hey, let's actually reach my potential. Let's become great and have that as the motivator. When did that happen for you? What was that like, dude?

So, I mean, opening up a gym, not having any previous business experience, like just succeeding at the level of getting to the NFL gave me a lot of. It gave me a lot of confidence in the fact that I was like, I don't need to listen to anybody. I made it to the NFL. I can make this business work. I don't care if you think that I have any business knowledge, right? So there was a lot of ego There. And when I opened the gym and I created this performance center and I trained a bunch of athletes, dude, 16 months later, man, I watched my bank account go to freaking zero. From three years of building it up in the NFL. I was shelling out money to build this gym up. I was trying to live, not an extravagant lifestyle, but definitely not a poor lifestyle. I had no idea how to handle my Money. I was 24 years old. So I wasn't just spending like crazy, I was just living. But I was also trying to fund a business that I didn't know how to run. And so I had. I remember shutting down my first gym. I remember shutting down my first gym. I had built a little clientele up and I shut down on a Friday. On a Friday after the last class. I took all the equipment out of this gym and I put it in storage. And then I started selling off the storage because I was like, shit, man, I don't have very much money. Like, I need some Runway. And so I started selling this shit off and I'm like just getting rid of it as like pennies on the dollar of all the. Of all this shit that I bought 16 months before. And I had worked out a deal with a local gym. He was a huge Utah fan here in Salt Lake City. And I was like, look, man, he knew who I was. I said, I'm shutting down my gym, but I have a bunch of clients that I still need to train. Can I just pay you to use your gym and I'll train him out of your gym? And he's like, john, dude, I'd love to have you. And so I shut down my gym on Friday and on Monday it was like nothing changed. I just started training clients out of a new gym. Clients didn't know any better. They were just like, John's going over here. Cool. And it was like I just suppressed all of that, right? Like, I just. I know how to from sport, kind of channel my emotions and not. And just move forward. So there was like, shut down gym start, new thing. Next thing I got to do is I got to figure out how to make six figures as this new career. And that's as far as my. Again, that's kind of as far as my belief grew. And then I took that in about a nine month period. The dude who owned the gym was like, john, dude, you're overtaking my gym. I think it's probably time for you to start another one. So then I got a lease at a kind of warehouse spot where I was like, screw it. I don't need the nicest gym in the whole state. I just need a warehouse. I'll get some old racks and I'm going to train the shit out of these athletes. And that was like my dungeon. One of the funnest times that I've ever had as a coach, just training people. My goal back then was not financially motivated at all. My goal back then was to be the best fucking trainer in the state of Utah and, you know, get known on a world stage as far as performance training and train NFL guys and train Major League baseball guys and stuff like that. And I. And I started to do that because that's where my focus was. But still, I had no idea how to run a business. And so throughout. And the reason I'm telling you this is my business was very, very rocky for a long time. For a really long time. And, you know, and I think you know this because we ended up in the. In the same coaching groups. So over time, I still was this guy, even though I still hadn't come to the conclusion, to answer your question, that I was chasing greatness at this point, I was simply trying not to fail. So I'm still on this journey. Like, I'm not going to be a failure. I'm not going to end up, you know, being bankrupt and not succeeding. Like, people around me have to see my success. I care what kind of car I drive. I care what I'm wearing. And the perception of John Madsen is that he's. That he's a winner, right? Even though I felt like I was losing in business because my bank account, if I was looking at the facts, was telling me I was fucking losing. There was no getting around that, dude. Like, I had ruined credit score. I had overdrafted AMX cards. Like, I did it all, dude. But on the perception side, people still saw Jon Madsen as a former NFL player who has a thriving business. You see this incongruency with how I was living my life. Ultimately. I got married. I got married. My wife was a beautiful news anchor on TV here in Salt Lake City. So I saw her face on TV all the time. She ended up coming to my gym for a little bit. We hit it off like crazy right off the bat. And eventually we got married. And I bring that up because it's important I shift from an idiot kid to getting married at about 30 years old. And now I have a wife and we're trying to. She was very successful in her. Right. And I'm trying to build my business and I'm still this guy who's just trying not to fail. This is a theme, man. I'm just trying not to fail. Eventually, I started investing in myself. I started reading some books. I ended up going to a Tony Robbins event. And this Tony Robbins event unleashed the power within. Was really like this spiritual awakening for me where I'm like, shit, man. Like, there's so much more inside of me that I'm not. That I'm not doing. And that event just, you know, it led me to go to Tony Robbins Business Mastery, which was like a $10,000 event. And at this point, I'm dragging my wife, and we're just putting stuff on credit cards. But I inherently knew that every investment that I made, I wasn't giving Tony Robbins the money. I was putting it inside of me. And every time that I went to an event and my belief grew a little bit, I started going a little less about being afraid to fail and a little more about becoming who I needed to be. My only thing was I wanted it. I wanted it faster, man. And so eventually, I had this gym business, and then I wanted to create a movement online, which was, as you know, probably way harder than the gym business. And I started kind of getting my feet wet there. And there was a lot of things that were holding me back from being my true, authentic self. First and foremost, just caring what other people thought, putting myself out there, putting my message, like, first and foremost in front of people for them to judge. But really, I was afraid of it because my life was incongruent at that point. Here I am struggling, but people thought I was successful, so I couldn't really speak the truth because the truth wasn't in my heart. And as I kept going, man, my true revelation, for a really long answer to your story wasn't until recently, man, I would say two years ago, a year and a half ago. I'm 37, man. This probably hit me at 35. I didn't give birth. My wife gave birth, but we had our first baby girl when I was 35. She's 2 now. And that moment was the best moment of my life. That moment was like, now I have a purpose. That moment changed me. And there was somewhere right around there where I really, really made that shift and got away from being motivated just not to fail, but to really believe that I could achieve that infiniteness that I was, that that was there in the past that I buried. Does that make sense?

Does this fatherhood play a role in having that realization? When you see that you're more invested in life with something that is actually a part of you, in your children.

I think what it was, man, I looked down at my baby and I look at her eyes, and she's just like. And I just. I'm not. I'm not, like, religious in the context of religious, but more spiritual and whatever that means. But I look down at my baby and I see. I see God. I see infiniteness in all of its glory in this baby that can achieve and do anything that she puts her mind to. And that baby is made from half of me and half of my wife. And so when I'm looking at her, I'm looking at me. And then I realized that we were born infinite. You, me, everybody listening to this fucking show. We're born infinite. And were taught limitation over time. So for a while, I escaped that by making it to the NFL. And then I got beat the fuck down in business because I didn't know what I was doing. And I had ego and I had a bunch of shit that I had to get rid of. And then I realized all over again that I could tap into the infiniteness of life and power, just like my baby will be able to. And if she could do it, I could do it. And there was just that realization that, like, fuck it, man. Like, I'm going to. I'm going to do this life, and I'm going to. I'm going to do as much as I possibly can, and I'm not going to be bound by restriction and limits anymore.

Very powerful, man. And it's. It's understanding frequencies and vibrations, which is energy. And that there's a science to this. It's not talking about, you know, wizards. And I'm the same as you made in a spiritual sense in understanding that obviously we're having a human experience, but we quickly forget the possibility of our power and what we can do. And I think you're right. Like, our children remind us of that. I think you mentioned before we caught up or you sent me through that you had to do IVF for her as well, mate. Is that right?

Yeah, man. So me and my wife, we were trying to have babies for quite some time and come to find out, like, there was nothing really preventing us from having it. Like we were. My wife had a fibroid. She needed surgery to get it removed. But ultimately, once that was removed, we had done two previous rounds of IVF before that and failed both times. Then she went in for surgery. Meanwhile, we had one embryo left. So actually we had failed twice. I think it was our Third IVF try. We had one embryo left, and the doctor was like, let's get your fibroid out and just give this last embryo the best chance possible of turning into a born baby. And so my wife got surgery, and then we had to wait six months. Meanwhile, our little beautiful baby was frozen in time for six months. And when my wife was healed up, they inserted the embryo, and that one embryo turned into my beautiful baby girl. So we had been through, you know, that was three rounds of ivf. My wife is a warrior. She's. I mean, I can't even imagine what she went through as a man. You know, all we can do is offer support, and when it doesn't go as planned, you know, what can we do? We can just move forward and offer support and love. And ultimately we got a beautiful baby girl after her. We tried one more round of ivf. So that was my wife's fourth, and that didn't work. So now we're in the point where, dude, if my baby girl is. If she blessed our lives as a gift, we're happy. We want and we believe that we're going to have another baby or two naturally. But whatever happens, man, it's in the hands of God. And we're happy, man. We're truly happy. It was quite the journey.

It's a real miracle, isn't it? And timing is something that plays a role in this as well. Modern world. It's a little bit, little bit better, I guess. The chances and the odds we had with our initial collection because we did IVF for our first two children. And then my wife cringe, she's naturally pregnant with our third, which is actually gonna be a boy, which is really funny how it works. The two IVFs were girls, and the natural one is a boy. And she had polycystic ovaries and endometriosis. Pretty, pretty bad stuff. And. And I had an average camp, so I was just average, I guess. You know, when you look at.

They called me a C.

Well, it's funny because I look at the times when she wouldn't fall naturally. And I was training ridiculously, probably overstressed with training, work, business, everything. And same with her in a professional sense with her career as a primary school teacher. And we failed a few times and we got Stella and then failed and then got Lillian. And then this one naturally happened when we weren't even thinking. So they're going to be pretty close, I think. Fifteen months apart, Lillian and our son. It's such a gift, man, and it changes your entire world, especially when you go. It doesn't make it any more or less, but especially when you go through, like you said, some of the heartaches and hardships for the mom. Yes, absolutely. And for us, too, though, because you're right. What can we do? And we're used to being Mr. Fix it, and this is what we can't. And I don't know how you felt, but for me, initially, when we were failing the IVFs, we felt powerless. I felt powerless, and I was just frustrating me, man. It actually put tension on our relationship because I wanted to help. There was nothing I could do. And that's the mindset that I was caught in. It's a beautiful thing being a father. You're more invested in life, and they really do. How's your little girl? She's a couple of years old now.

She's two and three months, man. Beautiful time, man.

Yeah, they. And they just copy. You don't even know they're copying stuff. Like, they take it in copy and.

She'S copying Disney Show. She's copying all types of stuff, man. I just. I love it, man. There's nothing. There is nothing in this life that has given me more joy than just watching her grow.

It's. It's something I find gives you a higher, higher lease on. On life. And it depends on how you, I guess, reprogram or repatter yourself, too. John. For me, years gone by, it would have put me in a state of, I can't fail now I've got a third on the way. What's going to happen? And I'm feeding and fueling that energy, right? And then that's subconsciously, which is a small part, but the greatest part, the small part of control you have, because it's just what you do every day in the now, consciously. And for me, when I found out, because we've been through hundreds, literally hundreds of the pregnancy testers, right? And I've always seen the one line. Yeah, one line. Disappointed. Krim was like, can you pinch my arm? I was like, yeah. Why? Because I didn't realize she got a test. She was whinging about symptoms. I was like, I'd just get a test. We know it's not. We've had to divide the effort. She just pinched me and I pinched her. And I was like, why'd you do that? And she moved out the way. And I saw her on the table right there, two massive lines on this pregnancy tester. And I just laughed and I couldn't stop laughing. And then. And then I Sort of yahooed. And I just said, fuck yeah. I said, all the more reason to win, you know, you watch me now because we won't stop and not stop having children. Although I laugh when I say to, ten's the number. Ten's the magic number. But is that true? Over in America, if you have 10 kids, you get free health care and everything?

Dude, I don't think so. But I can't even. I can't even imagine having 10, bro. Like, even with one. I was like. Because it was so hard. I remember thinking, I'm like, you know what, babe? Like, I just hope we have twins. We have two. Two and done. And then when I had my first, because we had waited so long, right, I was, I was in my routine. I was like, whoa, dude, two would have been. I mean, we were, we were ill equipped parents at first, man. We were, we. It threw our lives into a spiral for a minute. So I'm like, we needed. We needed one for practice. So I can't even imagine having 10, dude.

We were happy with two. And it's not that this is unwanted, by no means I'm excited, man. But we were like, the one was. It was a nightmare. And like yourself, we were very ill equipped. And this one, she still doesn't sleep. She's nearly 4, man. It's been brutal. But then the second one came and it was hard, but then it almost became easy. And then as soon as I found out we're having a third, I just straight away looked at my two girls. I was like, man, raising two kids is easy. Corinne, we've got one each now we're gonna be outnumbered. It's just funny how. Yeah, that's right. It's funny how it changes. But, man, tell us about. It's awesome the transparency you've had, John. I've really enjoyed it, man. And so much of it hits home with me. I hope it's hitting home with a lot of you guys and dads listening now. You don't have to be professional athletes to connect with this. You don't even have to own your own business. It's a case of all the moving parts of life in your family, in yourself and in your career or whatever you do. And how a lot of what you gear yourself around comes down to your perspective and what you choose to believe. How has that now turned into what you have now in a thriving business? And tell us about. Or tell us about what you're doing now mate with your online movement and share a bit about that. And I guess the principles and core elements of that.

Yeah, man. So like I said, I had the physical gym for about a decade and recently I let that chapter just kind of shut the door on that chapter. Because the online coaching movement that I've grown has really fulfilled me in so many ways, man. It's truly powerful. I'm a guy who I want to lead by example. I want to transform people from the inside out. I want to help people understand that it's not just about a meal plan and a training program. If that shit worked, everybody that you see would be walking around fit. But that's not the case. The. The thing that we want to accomplish and the thing that I think most men, all the men who are in my coaching program want is it's bridging the gap from what it takes to be a champion. And that's one thing in your body, that's one thing in your mindset, but also it doesn't mean shit if that doesn't percolate into your relationships and into your business. And so what I've created, man, is a fitness oriented program, but I take myself completely out of the box of just fitness. And it's a coach, it's a transformational program. And really I take people who are tired of being average looking in the mirror and knowing that there's potential that you're leaving on the table, whether it be. And maybe the first realization for these guys when they first come through is that they just don't like the way their body looks and they know that they're just not liking the way they feel. And so they look in the mirror and they see this guy who's staring back at them and they don't even know who the fuck he is anymore. And so I take that guy and that guy might make pretty good money, and other parts of his life might be pretty good. A lot of the guys I have coming into my program are kind of high achievers in the form of the financial realm. Providers, sales guys, executives, some business owners. And in chasing that road and going down that path, that lonely path of trying to provide and trying to win for the family and trying to make money financially, at some point they look in the mirror and they're like, fuck, I got this whole next part of my life and I just look like an average guy. And I'm ready to take that shit to the next level. I'm ready to tap into my fullest potential when it comes to my mindset. I'm ready to break down limiting beliefs and I'm ready To tap into the infiniteness that I was talking about. And right now's the time. Because we're kind of at a crossroads. We're either going to stay down this path, and I can positively, probably predict where I'm going to end up in 10 years. And it's probably pretty fucking comfortable. But I'm never, ever going to know what it really felt like to be great. And once I reach a guy at that, at that point and I know he's ready to venture off into the unknown, a little bit uncharted territories, and allow me to lead him to tap into that greatness, that's the true transformation that I'm after. And so I've created that movement. I call it the Athletic AF CEO Project is really what I named it. But the whole premise is becoming a champion. But here's the thing. Champions do champion shit, right? Champions do champion shit daily. And so ultimately we can think about this future self all we want. And setting the vision is very, very, very important, right? Some people are never even aware. They don't even have any awareness. But once we think about it, what really is going to determine our outcome is our behavior. And you know this, our daily behavior is what's going to determine our future result, right? We are what we do. We are what we do. And so when someone comes in and they sit on a phone call with me in the beginning and they are just like, fuck, John, dude, I am just not happy with where I am at. I am this, I am that. And I am like, they think they want me to send them a meal plan and a training program. And I am like, dude, you don't need me to tell you that grabbing five beers every Friday and Saturday night is taking you away from your fullest potential. You don't need me to tell you to put the fucking potato chips down and grab an apple instead. Like, you already know that. And so what happens with men? And you get this, but I'm just talking to your listeners and hopefully saying it in maybe a different way. You already know the behaviors that you're doing that are sabotaging your success. So why the fuck do you do them, right? And the reason you do them is because you have no set vision for yourself. You have no set vision for what you want to be and what you want to accomplish. And there's not enough desire for you to actually do what it takes to get there. Because you've never been around enough men that's going to set you straight and call you on your shit. Because if you Keep saying that you're going to do something and you continuously don't do it. It's the worst thing you can possibly do for every aspect of your life. Because every time you make a promise to yourself and you quit, you're creating a pattern and your unconscious is taking notice that this guy is full of shit. And so really what I have to do is I have to break people into the fact and make sure that they understand that their behavior is going to be the thing that determines their outcome. And we have to stop the self sabotaging behavior and replace it with that champion stuff. Because Tom Brady and the Patriots do shit differently than the fucking teams that go 2 and 14. And you do stuff differently than the dad who's struggling. And I do stuff on the daily differently than the dad who's struggling. And you and I know that it doesn't matter how the fuck we feel. It doesn't matter if we feel like doing it or not. We are what we do, so therefore we do it anyways. And once we can teach people how to connect with that and tap into their own power, dude, the rest is easy. Now instead of swimming upstream and getting buried and joining programs that stop and start six weeks, you know, six week programs, 12 week programs, swimming against the current, ultimately getting dragged down and making everything hard, now we can create these habits that can be sustainable for the rest of their lives. So seemingly it feels like you're swimming with the current and the shit's a lot easier, man. So we just need to. We need to gain alignment is what I would say.

Mmm. And you spot on, man. Like life is a series of present moments which is built off the back of patterns, habits, routines, rituals. You are exactly what you do. It's not looking forward. So you've got guys and men who aren't even visionaries that can't even see where they want to go. Which means, guess what? They're not seeing the alternative as well because they're blind both ways. It's like, I want this. They don't even know that. But then they don't even realize how fucked up they're going to get. I call it point minus A. Like you want to chart a point A to B. A lot of them don't even know minus A till it's too late, mate. And when that light bulb moment comes. You do some incredible things, John. I've seen and I do as well. But we're not miracle workers. It's got to come from them. We're not here to save people. And you don't run three week programs, three week challenges. It's about compounding. I spoke to one of my dads last night about this, actually. It's like compounding interest. You just keep turning up. You get that 1% every single day. Turn up, little shift, turn up little shift, turn up little shift. And it makes huge changes, man. And the result looks after itself, doesn't it?

Yeah, man. Dude. And once we can take a guy there, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this shit until I'm dead, right? And so, like, it's not even that somebody has to go so hard out the gate. And that's the funny thing. Sometimes people get excited and they just want to go balls to the wall. But the problem is they burn out. If I go to the gym and you look at my pictures online and you're just like, I stay in great shape year round, year round. And I do it seemingly with a lot less effort than some of the guys who are spinning their wheels, doing a bunch of cardio, going to the gym for two hours, kicking their own ass in the gym. Like, I work out, I get strong, I recover, I eat good, I sleep good. And like you said, I have the habits and rituals and behaviors that I can Sustain not for six weeks, but until I'm 100 years old. And then when you get into that consistency game, you give yourself a lot more freedom to not have to restrict and not have to do all the things that suck in getting to that point in the first place. You can go and live this life of excellence.

The funny part is, with all that as well, mate, you spoke about fitness being an element of your program and you did touch on that. But you're right, it's the coaching transformation, all of the above. But what people don't realize, this is where I hate. I sort of don't really like the term online coach or some people think I'm an online pt, what the fuck that means. But we are using and tapping into the primal vessel of physical health and how that affects how we feel. Because everything we do physically, John, affects how we feel. And I say this all the time with my dads. How you brush your teeth, benefits if you do, consequences if you don't. Having showers, clothes you put on, the climate, the environment you're around, physical environment, it all plays you, man. Getting crushed with a 95 pound barbell, how did that make you feel? And that's the crazy part. People don't realize. It's like, no, no, I'm not just giving You a program and exercise, we're using that as a vessel as well to start to shift the mindset through the routines, habits and rituals so that you actually change your identity and change who you become, who you can. I don't know why people, I think it's people who hate their life don't like change, which doesn't make sense. Right. Whereas change is something that happens. It's the only constant in life. It's always changing. You're different to who you were six months ago, six years ago, 16 years ago. Why would you want to be the same 21 year old? Our turning up now. I'm 35 now. No way I could handle what I'm doing right now. I'd get fucking crushed. Even though I was physically fitter across the elements of my life, like you said, with business relationships and their own body worlds apart now than what I was.

Yeah, yeah, man. And like you said, I'm the same. Like, call me, call me a coach. I don't know. I don't really know what you want to call me. Like, I view myself as a leader. I view myself as somebody who can tap into, who can grab a hold of a person and help them by leading them, not saving them, but simply leading them and then helping program the behaviors. If we're going to be, like I said, I keep going back to this. Champions do what champions do. It takes what it takes. We're not going to shortcut that. But if you're willing to go for the go on this ride with me, I'm going to show you what you're capable of. But I can't do it for you. Right. And I think we're very, we're obviously very similar in the way we coach and lead because we know that we have to lead from the front or nobody's going to do anything.

I'd love to get your insights on that as well, mate. When you talk about leading from the front, what are a couple of things that you'd love to share with us on what makes John who he is? Like, he's like, what are a couple like mantras, you know, habits or things like, are there a couple of things I'd love for you to share, man, and then maybe we'll touch on, obviously some advice as well to help guys who aren't at the level you're at. But yeah, what are some things you do to make sure you stay in, tune in check and you're on point?

Yeah, man. There's a couple of things I'll start with One that's more conceptual. And then I'll give kind of a ritual that I do that's. That's more like something you can implement right now. But one of the things that changed my life and the one thing that I wish everybody can know is that there's two things that you can ultimately control that are going to absolutely have a profound effect on your life. And it's going to actually dictate how you experience life, whether you experience success or whether you experience failure. All of it, the whole spectrum. Number one is your focus, okay? Number one is your focus on. We've all heard the term, what you focus on expands, but really what I'm talking about is more than that. It's not just your focus, it's your reality. And as soon as you realize that we each have our own reality that is our own map. And our own map is built through our own lens, which if we're taking stuff that happened in our past or things that we're seeing in real time, everything is being distorted, deleted, or generalized, right? And those distortions, deletions and generalizations make our map, right? And so I call this really our, like, our reality. And I say my reality because my reality is going to be different than another person's based on their deletions, distortions, and generalization. So we got to be very, very careful about the lens that we're looking through, right? And there's a couple things that are gonna. That are going. That are going to dictate this reality. Number one is our physiology. So just what you said is one way that we can control what we. Our reality and our emotional state is by changing our physiology, which is the exercise, what kind of food you're putting in your body, how you feel based on, you know, the activity that you do. Are you lazy? Are you sitting on the couch? Are you eating potato chips? That's going to have a profound effect on your reality, right? If you're working out every single day and you're getting your. Getting all your nutrients in and you're getting your micronutrients in and you care about what you're putting into your body and you're getting stronger, like, that's going to have a profound effect on how you feel. Ultimately, how you feel is going to dictate a lot of what you do, right? And so that. That's part of it. That's part of it. And when I say focus and we. When we hear the term or the saying, what you focus on expands. I've seen so much of My life change when I've been able to control my emotional state enough and focus solely on what I want to happen. Because what I used to do is focus on what I don't want to happen, Right? And your unconscious cannot. Cannot decipher the negation there when people think, if I tell you, if I told you, man, not to think of a pink elephant sitting under a blue tree, like, whatever you do, don't think of a pink elephant. You can't. Your. Your unconscious can't. It doesn't take the knot. So even though you don't want something to happen, what happens is your focus goes right to it. And so if you ask a man what he wants, and you've done this a million times, what do you want out of life? What do you really want? What do you truly want? 95% of men are going to start telling you what they don't want. Well, you know, Al, dude, I know I don't want this, man. I don't want to find. I don't want to struggle financially. Well, your unconscious can't. Can't. You're not giving it direction. You're actually giving it direction into a precisely what you don't want to happen. And I know it never really occurred to me until I. Until I really got help with this exact thing where my world started to change. You see, two people can see the exact same event. One person sees it beautifully, and the other person sees it negatively. It's the same reality, but our two realities are different based on all of. Based on the lens that I was talking about. So if you see opportunity everywhere and you focus on opportunity and you say, I want to make 20 grand this. 20 grand this month, and all you focus on is that want. This is where people get lost. Because then they think, oh, all I got to do is think about it. Well, no, that's part of it. First you got to know that what you got to know exactly what it is. And then your behaviors have to be aligned with that. And if that's what you focus on enough and with enough intention, that's what you're gonna see. There's gonna be opportunity that pops up everywhere. But too many people are stuck in the knot. They're stuck focusing on what they don't want to happen, what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with them, what's wrong with their spouse, and there's no responsibility there. And so the very first thing I'd say is just be very, very, very precise on knowing what you want and focusing intensely on what you want and leave no room for any focus or attention on what you don't want. That's number one. That can change, that can absolutely change your life. In my program we talk a lot about that. Number two is a routine that you, that I do every single day that a person could implement right away and absolutely feel a difference every single morning. Depend you're a dad sometimes, you know, it's hard listening to somebody speak when you're a brand new parent. You're like, John, there's no way I can wake up at X time because my baby woke up in the middle of the night and you know, I was up all night. So I get that as a dad sometimes. I was a dad. That helped. In the middle of the night, baby wouldn't sleep. You can throw away all the morning routine stuff. I just, there was a point where there's some survival stuff but if all things are normal and I'm wanting to live my perfect day, I want to start with seven hours of sleep. So if my alarm clock, if I go to bed at 9:30, I'll set that alarm clock for 4:30. If I go to bed at 10:00', clock, I'll set that alarm clock For 5:00am If I go to bed at 11:00', clock, I'll Set that alarm clock for 6:00am I have flexibility in my schedule to do so. I'd rather go to bed from 9:30 and then wake up at 4:30 in the morning. I like the tranquility of the morning before anybody is up. My very first thing man is if you're trying to run on four hours of sleep, you're going to burn your shit to the ground at some point. There's a time to grind and you know when that time is. But if you want to perform optimally, I'm just going to start with seven hours of sleep once I get up and I have that tranquility in the morning. There's a routine that I call the 202020 and the 202020 is I wake up instantly and do meditation for 20 minutes. 20 minutes of meditation. I simply breathe, I concentrate on my breath. I've in the past use apps. It doesn't really matter what type of meditation that if you don't have any experience you can start with an app and then grow from there. But that meditation in the morning is just an anchor for me to just be present for the first 20 minutes with no sounds, no nothing from that 20 minutes. The second block of 20 minutes is where I want to learn something for me, I like to read something inspiring, something personal growth. I want to read philosophy, something in that realm. You can read whatever you want, but the just make sure it's inspiring to you. So first thing, meditation. Second thing, read for 20 minutes. The third thing I do is focus on what I want, which I just talked about. But here's how I do it. I get my day planner out and I start by planning my day. So I look at the little, I block chunks of time and I just write out every single thing that I have planned that's non negotiable that day. Then at the bottom of that, I write the one thing that I need to do today that will move the needle forward. If I just got one thing done, what would that one thing be? I just write that one thing. Because we all know I could write 50 things, right? And then I'd be overwhelmed. Then I go, so that's like, that's kind of like a chunk down and then I chunk way up and I'm like, what's my vision? What's my ultimate goal? And then I write my goal in present tense because again, I'm practicing the power of focus. Focusing on what? On what I want. If it's a monetary thing and I'm like, I want to make a hundred grand this month and I'm like, I'm going to. Like, I'm so happy and grateful that I made a hundred grand buyer before, whatever. I just like to write it in the present tense. But the main point here is I'm focusing and I'm using this time to a plan my day and B, focus on what goal I want to accomplish in a more grand scheme. So chunking up, setting that vision and paying attention to it. And then the next thing I do is write why? Why do I want this? Why do I want a hundred grand? Because you know, al that your unconscious need, like it needs to be compelled to actually do it. If I want to make a hundred grand just to win, like, it's, it may or may not be compelling enough to actually put all my resources into making it happen. So then I write like, why do I want, like if it's financial thing, why do I want this amount of money? Well, I want it because I need to, you know, 50 grand of it is going to go into my basement and I'm creating an awesome podcast studio or whatever it is. Like I have to have really compelling reason to fucking do the thing that I want. So when I say focus on what you want, I fucking mean it. Like the last 20 minute block in this little routine is ultimately taking 20 minutes to focus on what I want. Then I have a running list in a spreadsheet, a hundred experiences that I want to experience in my life. 100, no matter the cost. As if I had a genie in a bottle and I could just say, genie, I want this, and bam, I'd have it. Okay? No judgment, no anything. What are those experiences? Then I have Another list that's 100 material things that I want. I want a Louis Vuitton backpack that cost ten grand. Nobody can judge it. Like, it's on my list and like, say, materialistic or whatever anybody wants to say. If I had a genie and money was not an option, what do you want? And here's the funny thing. If you try to do this, Alan, I told you to do 100 experiences and 100 things, you're going to get to 10 or 15 and be like, fuck, man, my life is pretty good. I don't need that. What your brain is telling you I don't need a Bugatti to be happy, but you're missing the point. And this is where people go so wrong, man. You have to be compelled to win, but you can't. Your unconscious doesn't have enough reason if you don't have enough reason to go after certain stuff. And so the exercise for me is every single morning I add one or two things. I'm over 100 material things and over 100 experiences. And that shit was hard to get to. But I'll look at the list and I'll start scanning it. Dude, I'll start scanning it. It's an exercise to loosen the boundary of your unconscious mind and to concentrate on desires and be uninhibited by it. It doesn't matter what you think about money or whatever. Like, you start building this list now, I'm like, dude, well, I have like 20 cars on my list. Because if money wasn't an option, like, I'll just put them all here. It'd be fun if I could have it. And there was a genie, bam. Because it's a trigger for me. It's a trigger. I'm expanding my awareness and my desire. And so the 2020 formula, to sum it up. 20, you wake up with meditation. 20 you learn something, and then 20, you focus on what you want. Because I am leaving no room for me to focus on anything that I don't want. This has been a magical transformation for me. And then I solidify this by hitting the shower, taking a shower, and then the last Two minutes of that shower is ice cold every single day. And we can talk about the health benefits of ice cold shower. I really don't care about any of that. When I hit cold, I am changing my physiology. I'm changing my physiological response. You can't help to be freezing cold, right? And so I'm changing my emotional state in an instant. And that trigger, the first thing that it triggers, and I trigger it every morning. I fire that trigger, that cold water on my body. Excellence. Championship. Excellence. Championship. Not average. And as soon as that water hits my face, it's a trigger that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to reach my goals. And most people aren't. So I take that, I take that trigger and that anchor and then the last like 30 seconds or so of that shower, I feel the gratitude for even having the ability to have hot water on demand with that cold water on my face and just feel gratitude for everything in my life. For 30 minutes out of the shower, bro. And I'm on fucking fire in that first, that first part of the day. If I start my day like that, I feel unstoppable for, for the rest of the day, man.

As you would. That's incredible, man. I love it. It's. It's a lot of, a lot of methods that surround you, connecting with yourself. That's what I say. And the thing about money and all that, people use it the wrong way. They use it to trap themselves. You're using a liberating way. It's an economic plan, it's a resource that the end, you're its master. So I love that stuff. I've got nothing wrong used to, but nothing wrong with people talking about material things. And a lot of the times I think it's symbolism of sacrifice and what they've earned too. So why wouldn't you be able to have that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. That's really powerful, man. I love that. Especially with the cold shower. And you're right, there's a lot of different benefits. But the purpose behind it, from what I've seen and heard with all that stuff, is alignment. Because it's such a distracting world. I don't watch the news, I listen to the radio or any of that. I haven't done that for years, but especially now. No way, man. Like you said with realities, I'm not absorbing all these other people's realities into my own. Especially if they're halfway around the world. What can I do? I look after myself, be the best version I can be. Everyone else is going to win Anyway, aren't they? They're all going to get some value out of al.

It's a real quick way to solidify negative programming by paying attention and bringing that into your reality 100%.

It's been awesome chatting here, John, and you've given a huge amount of value. I am curious though, what's something, a piece of advice like. I know you've spoken about the method, what you said just then for the last five or ten minutes was awesome. But there will be a lot of men and a lot of fathers listening to this and it's not about not knowing where to start with something like you said just then, 20, 20, 20. Awesome. But I guess from a mental point of view, like what's a bit of advice or something you would give someone or a pattern that you see, or some advice you can give a father or man listening now for him to just change who he is to who he wants to be.

Absolutely, man. God, there's so many. But I'll tell you this, I'll tell you this. It takes. I'll just say it takes what it takes, but nothing more than that, okay? And I'm going to explain really, really briefly and try not to be long winded. If you want to be elite and you want to go from good to. And I say elite just like a true high performer, becoming that is going to take what it takes. Meaning you're going to have less options. The road is going to be more narrow if you want to live in that body and in that financial arena or whatever aspect of your life you want to improve in. If I want to look like a 1 percenter, my options are going to be less broad than somebody who's okay with being a 50 percenter. And it's very important for a person to understand that because you have to understand that there is no shortcuts. There's a lot of dumb ways to do shit. There's a lot of dumb programming out there. There's a lot of programs that you can spend time in and not get any result and spin your wheels. Frustrating. But the great ones know that it's going to take a tremendous amount of work, dedication, consistency and effort and courage and all the things to achieve what they want to achieve. Okay? And you have to decide where you want to be on that spectrum. If you're okay being a 90 percenter and you want more options, then you're going to strike that balance at some point, knowing what it takes to be that 90 percenter. If you want more options than that and you want to live your life and be free and eat more cookies or whatever, then you can be a 70 percenter and you can find a plan that will allow you to live that lifestyle. But if you want that, you can never be a 1 percenter. And you have to understand that being a 1 percenter is going to take different choices, it's going to take different behaviors. And if you're sitting here listening, you're like, fuck, I need to get ahold of Alex because I really want something more than what I have. Know that your behaviors are going to change and as you ascend up the road is a little bit narrower. You're going to have, you're not going to, you're not going to have all the freedom and be able to, you know, go out on the weekends and drink a bunch of alcohol and do all this stuff if you truly want to create this life that you say you want. So I'll say that it takes what it's going to take, okay? And as long as you have a well thought out plan and somebody to follow, if you need a leader, then you can get there. But it's not going to take more than that. And so some people burn themselves out. So I added this last part in because I realized in working with men, sometimes, especially with high performers, they jump into things full bored and they just want to crush themselves. They want to work out six times a day, they want to do hiit training, they want to fucking and be in a pool of sweat at the end of their workouts and just die. And I'm here to tell you that that's not what it takes. You don't have to give 120% effort. You have to give your hundred, you have to give all you've got, right? And you don't have to burn yourself over and over and over again. And if we think about this in terms of sports and baseball, for example, a pitcher who wants to throw 100 miles per hour and he's stuck at 98, if the tighter he grips the baseball, he's actually going to have his miles per hour go down. Because if he's so wound up and he's so tight and he's trying to out effort everything, he's actually going to get worse results. The only way for that pitcher to get over that hundred mile per hour mark is to obviously work at it, but to loosen his grip a little bit, to be more flexible and to let it go sometimes. And so we have this paradox that we play in where it's like Bro, it's going to take what it takes, but you don't have to give more than that, man. You don't have to, you don't have to die every workout. You don't have to just eat chicken and broccoli out of a container every single day. You don't just, you don't have to work 15 hours, 16 hour days to be financially successful. You have to figure out what that balance is and what you need to do. And then you need to not do anything more than that. That's going to cause burnout. Because this game, Al, is consistency. So I think that at the root of it is, if I had to say one thing is decide who you want to be, decide what you're willing to do to get it, and then be aware of what you're not willing to do, right? And if you're not willing to do the things that it's going to take, then you have to be okay with living at whatever level that's going to put you at. For me, there are certain levels that I won't cross either. There are certain levels like people want to do crazy, crazy things and they want to grind. And bro, I want to love my daughter. I want to bring her up in this world. I want to give her kids. I want to be off work at 5pm and give her a kiss and put my phone down and live my life and still have this financial freedom and still have this body. So for me, it's striking enough balance and doing whatever it takes to get it, but knowing when enough is enough and knowing what I'm not willing to do and what I'm not willing to give up to achieve what I want.

It's a big revelation, man. It's something that I've only just tapped into recently. I was doing 2am, 3am starts, and I just stopped. And I was like, why? My daughter, Lillian, she's just turned one last month, just over one. And from seven months to 12 months, I just went, where's my little girl gone? Who's my baby gone? Who's now walking in a toddler almost. And my other daughter who's going to school the next year and here she is putting sentences together. And I've just missed that five months as well because I was in the grind and hustle. And you're right, there's times when you need to do it, but it's also having that grand perspective and view. And I think the second part of what you said then is equally as important, man, because you know what? Some People will never even start because they think it takes more than what it takes with some things. So they'll defeat themselves before I even start. That's very fucking powerful, man. Like, it's something that. I'm not sure how many people get that on. What that second part you said, takes what it takes, but nothing more.

I had to add that in because in one of my coaching calls, I was saying that, and then I got a question and I realized that, like, some people can misinterpret. It takes what it takes and think that just what you said, they have to do way more than they actually have to do. It's like it actually. You have to know. You have to know what that fine line is. And that. But. But nothing more is so powerful. Equally as powerful as the first part.

100%, man. And a couple of dads I've shared with before, I'll say to them, because what you're explaining with the 79% is it's funny that the whole equilibrium of control and freedom, right, you can have control and freedom over all of these choices, eating donuts and cakes and blah, blah, blah, but you'll lose control and freedom of this portion of your life, which can be up here. You can lose control and freedom of eating the shit food. I don't do that anymore. I'm disciplined. I set times, I set routines. I'm not a slave to time. I'm a master of it. Which is hard because they're breaking a lot of old conditioning, even from our parents, to a degree. But the control of freedom, it gives you up here and something, mate, that, you know, it's a big thing without being arrogant or an ego. I say to some of the fellows as well, I'm like, you know, I promise you this much. It's not easy being at the top, but you'll never get sick of the view. And it's the fucking truth.

There's nothing more true than that, man. And if they do it, and if you're sitting on the fence and you're wondering, it's fucking worth it, man. It's worth it. And you know what? You know why it's worth it? Because you have this pride comes out that when you look at yourself, you're proud of yourself. And you're proud of yourself because you've kept the promises, you've made promises to yourself. And if you're not proud, it's because you keep making promises and you keep breaking them. Nobody else has to know that but you. But, you know, when you look at Yourself in the mirror, you know, and at a certain point, if you do what Al says and you get to the top of the mountain and you get to. And you get that view, you're fucking proud, man. And when you're proud of yourself, you're in this energetic state that, you know, it just, it just allows you to even get more and be more so. I agree 100%.

Yeah, it's the toughest and really only person that you ever have to answer to, mate, is yourself, isn't it? When it comes down to it. And that's what I see now, which I do so even more now that I have children, being a father, because I need to stand up and lead them, which means I need to look at that man, like you said, look at that man in the mirror and have that, have that pride, that self respect which you can have. Like, why are we so different? Everyone can have it, man.

Every single person. Every single person can have that.

It's been awesome. Is there anything that you wanted to. I've loved, you know, having you on today, mate. Is there anything else that you wanted to add or any final thoughts, John? I mean, you've, you've wrapped up the last half now with unbelievable fire, man. But is there anything else that you wanted to add to this? It's been great having you.

I just want to commend you, man. I see you from afar, I see what you put out on Facebook, I've been in your coaching group, you've given me tremendous value. I've looked up to a lot of your success and so I just want to say thanks for having me on and the leadership that you exemplify has been noticed across the seas in America from my two eyes. And so I just want to tell you great job and tell you that I'm proud of you and I appreciate you having me on your show, man.

Thank you, brother. And it's reciprocal, mate. I see the same as well with everything I follow on your end. And it's such high end stuff, mate, and I love it because I can't imagine, and it's not castrating the USA in any way, it's just there's so many more people there. There's so much shit and fluff going around in Australia. I can't imagine that that wouldn't be there on a great level as well of people being misdirected, lost, unguided and actually not having the real support they need. So I love seeing your work, man. It's incredible.

Thank you, man. Thank you. Well, I Appreciate your time again, man. I look forward to connecting again in the future. And I'm excited to listen to the show, man.

Yeah, yeah, I think I'll listen to it as well, mate. You got some great golden nuggets in there that I'll certainly pick up. But I hope you guys enjoyed this as well. And thanks again for coming on, John. And if you guys ever need anything, please, please sing out and reach out and also look into that, you know, the Athletic as fuck or Athletic af sorry project is. Yeah, you've. Have you got your podcast up as well?

I do, man. So I have a. I have a podcast called the show. So if you type in John Madsen the Show, it'll pop up. It's pretty much everything we talked about. There's about 125 or so episodes. So I released that about a year and a half ago. That's a really good place to get more content. And if not that, I'm on Instagram, John madsenofficial and you can absolutely reach out to me there too. But more than anything, I'm just happy to be here and speaking about this movement because it's something that I care deeply about. There's nothing better than being a father and our kids need us.

Well said, man. We'll leave it at that. Thanks again guys for joining us. And you know, tune in next time for another episode on Real Dad Movement. Cheers.