40 Fitness & Life Lessons That Took Me 20 Years to Learn

At the time of filming this, I turned 40, and I own one of Australia's best personal training studios, Enterprise Fitness. And I want to make this video to distill 40 things that I wish I knew before I turned 40. Let's begin. 1: Love is the only thing where the more you give, the more you get. How many times have I withheld my feelings about someone or something because you think maybe you give it to someone and you don't get it back? But really, in life, you can spend money, you can spend time, you don't get those things back. But love is one of those one of those things where the way you show up in life, if you show up loving, you will almost always get it back. Even if it's not from the other person or the other thing or the thing that you're doing, you'll get it within yourself. So I think it's a really important lesson that if you want more love in your life, it starts with you. 2: The adapted child becomes the maladapted adult. I learned this from the book Us by Terence Real, and what it basically infers is that in your childhood, you have to adapt to the environment around you. You have to survive. The way you started in life isn't the way and probably where you want to go. So question: the way you've shown up in childhood, is it serving you in your adult life? 3, the Pegasus became a horse because the donkey got jealous. This came to me from a book written by Charlie McKay, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, where the horse gets wings. People don't become all they are because of their environment around them and people are jealous. Don't become a donkey, don't become a horse when you have wings and you can fly. Don't let the haters pull you down. 4. To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth. Do you react when someone gives you the truth? Do you lose your shit when someone gives you the truth? The truth is what you want, and it's our ability to process the truth that is going to get us further in life. Always have an accurate plot, an accurate plan of what is actually happening in your life. Get the truth of the situation so you can stay on course. Don't get a false map because it's not going to lead you to where you want to go. 5, you're one difficult conversation away from living mentally rent-free. How often do we go through life thinking about things which weigh us down? It's not the time, the hours in the day, it's the things that are taking up our focus, taking up our energy, the things that we're thinking about, the thing that we're wasting energy at. You're just one conversation away from living mentally rent-free, and I would encourage you to have the difficult conversation first because you get so much more energy back from whatever it is that's, that's holding you back in life. You want to get that out of the way so you can move forward. 6. Current unexpressed expectations become future resentments. I've learned the hard way through business, personal relationships. If you walk around and you don't express the things that you want, if you have an expectation that you haven't communicated with someone and you expect that from them and they don't deliver it, you get resentful. Or on the other way around, if you are with someone or have a friend or business associate who has expectations of you which they don't communicate, they then later down the track get resentful from you. 7. The fastest way to an unhappy relationship is to live with unexpressed resentment. If you've been in a relationship with someone for any period of time, there may build up some feelings of resentment to someone. Now, that's not necessarily unheard of. You're not the only person on the earth that would think, I'm feeling a little bit resentful for this person. That's okay. You're human. These things are going to build up over time. The problem is if you live with that and you never express it. I believe it is far better to put your cards on the table than to walk on eggshells. Because if you are walking on eggshells, these things fester. They build up over time. As Jordan Peterson would say, kill your dragons when they're small. The little dragon over time becomes a very big dragon, and that dragon is resentment. And the more time and space you leave it over time, the bigger and harder the dragon is to kill. Point number 8 is repair. Relationships don't die from conflict. They die from unresolved conflict. Point 7 and point number 8, similar in the sense that if there is a problem, you're able to talk about it and you're able to repair the relationship. I know in my life I have conflict with people, and once we've resolved that conflict, our relationship has only become deeper and more meaningful and someone who I can actually trust. And the point on repair is that you don't see people's characters when things are going well. You see people's characters when things are going poorly. That's when the inner demons, so to speak, come out and the way they are under stress. One of the most underrated skills in relationships of any sort is the ability to repair. 9, legacy is not what you build, but in how people remember you. I've met a lot of people and they say the word legacy. And to me, legacy, it's kind of like, what's the point? You're gonna be dead anyway. What's the legacy that you really wanna leave? It's never gonna be in the material things. It's gonna be in the people that you care for and how people remember you, not in the things that you build, not in the things that you leave. Legacy is not about leaving a business empire and leaving millions and millions of dollars. It really is about, well, at least again, I can only say for me, It is about the memories that you create and the lessons that you teach the people around you. 10. It's better that someone knows you care than you cared. The difference in those two is present tense. If you care about someone, don't wait until it's too late. Tell them today. 11. A man or woman in control of their focus is a dangerous person because we live in a world that is ever growing in distractions. If you can focus on one thing and become masterful at that one thing, you're a dangerous person. Success is by definition about excluding the other options and focusing on that one goal and target beyond everything else. So if you can control your focus daily, you become a very dangerous person. 12, be careful when looking for closure. Often it's disguised as acceptance. Often we look for closure on things when you're not gonna get the closure that you thought you're gonna get in your mind. You wanted that person to care and they don't. You wanted to make the business successful and it wasn't. You wanted to win the game and you never did. You're not gonna get closure on those things. The closure is that it didn't happen. The accepting that it didn't happen is really what it's about. When looking for things to have closure, be very careful it's not disguised as accepting what has happened. 13, success doesn't change who you are, it reveals it. And what do I mean by that is there are a lot of people who become successful that stop doing the things that made them successful. So if success for you is about having a bunch of money and you get the money and then you start treating everyone like crap It shows that you were never really about the thing that you were doing to get the money. You were about the money. Success reveals the character, just like challenges can reveal character. Success, when you're on top of the world, how you treat people is a verb. It's something that you want to chase continually. It's not something that you get to relax and think you're done. And if that's your version of success, it's probably going to be very short-lived. 14. In life, business, and love, the right person can't be stolen and the wrong one will leave anyway. This comes back to value. And in relationships, you want to have values aligned. You want to know what your values are. You want to know what the people's values around you are. Whether it's business or a personal relationship or a friendship, people can veer. Relationships, I believe, ultimately break down because of unfulfilled values and unmatched values. Let's give it a business context. If you have a value on growth and another person has a value on keeping things the same, you're probably going to diverge at some time. You can use that exact same analogy or example in a personal relationship or an intimate relationship. If one one person wants to grow and the other one's really sick of this person always wanting to grow and wants to have a stable, comfortable life, there's going to be a values conflict, which is ultimately going to break down the relationship. And they will quote unquote be stolen and found with someone who has a matched value to them. 15. You're not too much, they were just not enough. This again comes back to, I suppose, emotional maturity. This comes back down to values. But often in relationships, people get in relationships and the very thing that makes someone unique, maybe in a relationship it doesn't fit that person. But in the right relationship, the thing that makes you unique is the reason why that person loves you. So it's not often that you're too much. Potentially, it's because you're not in the right place. 16, men don't need more motivation, they need more meaning. I often say to people that motivation just makes you do dumb things faster if you don't have the right strategy behind that. If you can find meaning behind something, people will do just about anything. I mean, if we look at in the 1950s when men were getting drafted to war, they wanted to go to war. Why? Because it gave give their lives meaning. Find the meaning behind what you're doing, and you will find incredible courage and incredible risk abilities and things that you never knew you had. But find the meaning behind what you're doing. 17: The best gift you can give your children is your own healed heart. It's that thing where people talk about generational trauma, and they talk about trauma being passed down for ancestors and this kind of thing. Now, I don't know if I ascribe to ancestral trauma, but there certainly is something to be said about trauma that gets passed down from generation generation through parents and grandparents and the way people lived. Be the person in your bloodline that breaks that, that gives your children, gives the people around you your own healed heart. Now, how do you do that? Very difficult. Through personal and constant reflection. It's not like you're gonna go to an Anthony Robbins course one time and be completely transformed and you're, you're done. It's a constant and never-ending improvement and commitment to making yourself a better person and showing up as that person every day. And through that, you can set the example for the people around you whether you have kids or not, as a way to be in the world. 18: If it matters, schedule it. If it doesn't, delete it. I've written this book, it's called The Enterprise Diet, and one of the biggest things that people say, being a coach, a fitness coach, is people say I don't have enough time to train. My life has gotten very hectic over the years. I've done a lot, but one thing that's always been consistent in my life is training and is nutrition. And I do these things to further enhance my life. Things get crazy and things get busy around me. I can always fall back to my training and nutrition, and they are the constants in my life. So they matter to me, and they matter to me because your body is the vessel that houses your spiritual essence. We are both physical and we are both spiritual, and it is wisdom to take care of your physical body so that you can live your best life possible. If you need help with that, check out my book, The Enterprise Diet. It's available at enterprisediet.com and available on Amazon everywhere. Also Audible if you prefer me to read it to you. Schedule that stuff in because it's important, and you'll get so much more out of your in your life if you're showing up every day in the best possible shape you can. 19. A coach changes your form, a mentor changes your direction. Now, what I mean by that, a coach often focuses on the, the not trivial details, but the smaller details— how you show up, what techniques you're using, and really just focusing on the direction that you're already going. The biggest changes in life is where I found those who are several steps ahead of me, and they change my whole direction. Instead of focusing here and getting masterful at the things that I thought were important. So where possible, find people who are several leaps and bounds ahead of you, and they will help change your direction, and you'll be all the better for it. 20: God, or whatever you believe in, whispers. You have to be quiet enough to hear it. So I do believe we have an inner voice, a soul if you will, that does speak to us. And I've certainly had at different times in my life that voice speak to me, whether it's to not give up, whether it is to be the leader, whether it is that I've had to be the example. And I like going for walks. Some people like meditating. I'm not really the meditating type, but I do it from time to time. But what I really love is that zoned out, headphones on with no music, walking actively and just having time to think to myself. 21: Weak men break strong women. Weak women resent strong men. What I see a lot online, and you don't have to go very far, is this gender baiting of men versus women. And it's not about men versus— it never was about men versus women. It's men and women, women and men working together side by side. It's not an us versus them, and it should have never been like that. But in politics, in social politics online, it's very divisive to say all men or all women are this way, and that is simply not true. Weak men, just like weak women, they're the ones who should be held responsible for their malice. They're bad acting. I believe a lot more women and men who do good than who do bad. And yes, unfortunately, the ones who do bad often have the loudest voices and are seen as the examples, which then infects the good men and women of the world. 22, there are no winners in a relationship scorecard. Relationships are not about winning and losing. The minute you flip a relationship for it to be about who wins and who loses, that's when it becomes competitive. And a competitive relationship will ultimately be the end of a relationship because you'll then start competing on who has more time, who makes more money, who does more things around the house, who does more whatever it may be. You don't want to make any relationship, be it personal, professional, competition of who does more. You want to both win and you want to show up for that person. And also, winning to different people are going to look completely different. It's about supporting people on the journey. 23. Avoid jealousy. Fundamentally, jealousy invites comparison. What is comparison? Comparison is the thief of joy. It leaves you comparing your life to everyone else. The only one you should be comparing yourself to is the person you were yesterday. 24: The people who trigger you are showing you where you're still healing. What does that mean? What you react to in the world are often the things that you need to work on yourself. So the things that are poking you, they're the things that you want to look at and look at carefully, because that's probably where the personal growth is. And no one said personal growth is comfortable. No, personal growth is some of the most uncomfortable things you can do because it's looking at yourself in a different light. 25, when in doubt, write. When certain, act. I've certainly been probably in my 20s and my 30s very quick to act and not take as much time to reflect. And this kind of one is a little bit of a double-edged sword because it's not about going away and doing nothing. It's simply about taking a little more time to reflect on what the best action is. You'll know as myself, I will simply go problem, go into solution. Without really getting into the weeds of the problem and also the best way to solve the problem. You just want the problem solved. And I think that's probably immaturity in many ways. What I've learned over the years is sit with the problem, analyze the problem, write about the problem, because sometimes when you act, you only get one chance and you want to make sure that the way you act on that problem is the right course of action. 26, you will outgrow people. Let them go gently. There's no point in burning a bridge with people. I often say when you burn a bridge, it starts a fire. You don't need fires in your life. For me, I look for peace. I want peace. I want no drama in my life. Burning people out of your life who don't serve you doesn't serve you. If you outgrow people, you don't need to let them know that you've outgrown them and all the ways that they've pissed you off. Let them go gently. It doesn't mean that you can't be friends with them. It just means that they're probably not in your close circle anymore and you can release them at any time. 27, give fewer fucks, but give them deeply. You only have so much time, hours in a day, hours in a week. You can't care about everything. You reserve the right to not have an opinion on something. People ask me, what do you think about the political situation in the world? My answer is, I don't really know because I haven't spent the time looking at it. It's not in my sphere of interest right now. So I don't have an opinion. I don't need a strong opinion. You give fewer fucks, but the fucks you do give, give them deeply. 28, you don't find yourself. You build yourself. You build on top of yourself. You build yourself up and you evolve yourself. So stop trying to find yourself like something is wrong with you. You're just adding layers and complexity, like watching a movie and seeing the character, or watching a series that goes for 8 seasons. You watch one season, it's a one-dimensional character. You watch all the seasons and you see that this character has so many different faces, acts in so many different situations. That's you. Continue to build layers upon yourself. 29, you don't settle for someone, you settle with someone. If you look at dating advice today, a lot of it is about saying to both men and women, don't settle. But the dating Dating world and advice, I think, has created a massive disparity between what the word settling actually means. Settling can be a quite positive thing. Just make sure you settle with the right person. 30. Maturity is learning the difference between protecting your peace and avoiding your problems. In my 20s, everything was a problem and I would not protect my peace. And all it created was more problems. Protect your peace. Not everything can be a problem. Because if you make everything a problem, you'll never have any peace. So do you go out and solve all the problems of the world at the expense of your peace, or do you create peace and let some shit fly? So what? Your kids didn't pick all their stuff up in their room. So what? Your employees left the weights out and the coffee cups out. So what? Your sales guy gave the client the wrong price. These are problems, but it's not about avoiding those problems. It's about creating peace and letting some things go to also then have focus and attack the things that are more problematic or going to move you further in life. So protect peace, because peace, I feel, is one of the most underrated joys in life. 31. Anger is rarely the first emotion. It's what we put on top of fear, hurt, or powerlessness. If you're angry about something, I would encourage you to reflect. Are you fearful? Are you hurt about something? Or are you feeling powerless? Because the anger is there to help you express those things. And sometimes when we get angry, maybe it is the right course of action, but it doesn't necessarily solve the problem inside us. So if you're feeling angry about something, I would encourage you to reflect on where does that anger come from. And that anger usually comes from a very vulnerable place that we're trying to protect. And it's not saying that anger is bad. Sometimes anger is the right thing in certain situations. But for self-reflection and as personal growth, it's about understanding where that anger comes from and then setting a boundary on not letting those things happen again. 32: No one can read your mind, and that's a feature, not a flaw. This is a point about communicating your needs, wants, and desires with the people around you and not assuming their intent. So humans are meaning-making What that means is we ascribe meaning to things which inherently have none. So a friend might not call us or forget to text us. We might ascribe the meaning that they don't care. We ask them, why didn't they text us on this day? They might have lost their phone. Don't assume the person's intent. They can't read your mind. And if that's how you felt, you owe them the explanation of putting that forward and saying, hey, this is how I feel about the situation. 33, don't fear failure. Fear the comfort that overstays its welcome. The amount of people, trainers particularly, who I speak I speak to who are scared of failing at a given endeavor. It's not about the failure, it's about dying with not knowing. Well, at least for me it is. Comfort will certainly keep you at the same level, and it's predictable. And this is where a lot of people, I think, get it wrong, because people want certainty and they want to grow. But if you want to grow, you have to embrace uncertainty. So there's a paradox: if you truly are committed to growth, you need to let go of security and certainty and embrace uncertainty, because uncertainty is coupled with 34. Love is a verb. The best kind shows up even on hard days. Love is not something that is, I love you, and then it's done. Love is doing the work every single day and loving someone even when it's difficult to love them and when they don't maybe love themselves. You need to frame it as something that you practice. It is a practice just like mindfulness. Showing love to someone is also about when they give you bad news, they give you good news, they— your kids do something you don't like. It's taking that breath And it's easier said than done, of course it is, but it's showing up in a way that is loving rather than love, period. 35: Urgency gets things done. Distance makes sure the right things are getting done. I can tell you this one, I have valued urgency in my business over just about anything. And the reason is because urgency— get something, you do it. You get something, you do it, and you get shit done and things move forward. The problem with urgency though is you just keep doing things like a crazy person and you're not necessarily doing the right actions. So the counter to urgency is distance, and get as much distance as you can from what you think is the right course of action to see the whole strategy of what you're actually doing. So my antidote is not that urgency isn't important, because it is— it moves the needle forward. It's just to make sure you take time to get distance, refocus. Clarity over chaos. 36: You don't need all the answers, just better questions and the balls to ask them. Often people think that they need to have all the answers before they start something, but really, I mean, life is a, a story. It's always unfolding, and those who get what they want in life are able to flow with the story. They're able to question the story. They're able to make sense of things as they uncover and understand why certain things happened and what to do about it. If you're sitting there, you're waiting, you want to have all the answers, just realize that the best answers come from when you Ask better questions. 37, everyone is trying to get all they can out of life like they've got somewhere else to take it. If you ever hear yourself saying, I need to get all I can out of life, why? Where are you going? This is life. It's not about getting and squeezing all you can out of life. It's about enjoying life because there is no other life and there is nowhere you can take what you get from life. Like there's an endpoint where you're gonna get the pot of gold and the millions of dollars and all these followers and all of a sudden you're able to cash it in somewhere else. This is where it goes. So focus and being present— this really is an understanding of being present in the here and now and the moment that you have. 38: Clarity isn't given, it's earned by doing the work in the dark. With being clear on where you're going, you're not going to be clear on where you're going the whole time. And this is the thing where people say go write out your vision, go write out your mission— it's going to suck the first time you write it, first probably couple of times you write it for years, because there's a figuring out. It's like if you're trying to get up 1,000 stairs, you might not even be able to see the thousandth step from the first, but you take the first step and lo and behold, you get to the last one very, very easily by taking step after step. And it's exactly the same thing if you are stuck right now. If you are driving your way through the dark, you just need to keep going. Just see the path ahead and take each step at a time and do the work in the dark. You will get get there. 39: Chaos is addictive, peace is expensive. Chaos makes you feel like the fucking man. Everything's going on, everyone wants you, things are happening in your life, there's drama, there's always something to do, you're always productive, and it really can leave you in a bad place. And it's very, very addictive. And you can find with chaos, you actually don't ever get anything of substance done. It's cutting out the things that are the short-term wins in exchange for the things that are going to be sustainable over the long term. Chaos Chaos is addictive. Peace is expensive. The way you pay for peace is with hard conversations, is with self-reflection, and with boundaries of saying, no, I'm not going to accept this anymore. I'm not going to be at the whims of my emails or the hectic job or the hectic life that creates chaos. It's about breathing in peace and letting go of the chaos. 40. The full table principle. Think of your life as a long long invitation to a final dinner. Who comes to your dinner? Is your table full? Or at the end of your life, are people saying, I don't want to be there, it's inconvenient? Live your life like people want to be on your table. And I believe the only way to do that is to be generous, compassionate, empathetic, and to embrace people on your journey, to help people, to impart what you can to people so they come with you. So the end of your They can't wait to be on your final dinner. I hope you've enjoyed watching my 40 things I wish I learned before I was 40. If you want more from me, check out my book, The Enterprise Diet. You can go to the Enterprise Diet website, enterprise.com, or order it directly on Amazon. Also, if you prefer me to read it to you, it is on Audible. It will walk you through exactly how to get your best body and transform your physique from the inside out. In fact, the first chapter I talk all about the mindset it takes to developing that healthy identity to carry you through life and make it sustainable. Folks, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes about life, which is, "The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that's all there is." If you've enjoyed today's video, make sure you give it a like and subscribe.