Why Self Awareness Matters as a Business Owner

Welcome to the Hustle and Muscle Show, week 2. Week 2. Richard, Rich and Riz. Rich and Riz sounds a bit better than Richard and Riz, so it's Rich and Riz, Hustle and Muscle, every Friday. Week 1, if you haven't listened to week 1, that was last Friday, check that out.

Yep. We chatted about what, 75 Hard? Was it 75 Hard and owning a business, not a job?

Yep. Good stuff. 75 Hard. How's the week? How's the week been, Riz?

Full on. I'm just hiring my first staff member, which is very exciting. So upskilling him, a lot of hands-on stuff. So very full-on week, but a good week. Self, Rich, how'd you go?

Next question, but I'm going to break down my week actually. Okay, go for it. Let's talk about that a little bit in a second, but I just want to talk about the first hiring. This is the first hire you've done. A little bit of backstory for those who don't know much about yourself. You got this studio, you opened it up at the end of COVID Last, uh, last year, 2020, October

2021. Yeah,

October 2021. You've been talking about getting into a studio for many years, right? You got into a studio.

Yep.

Found the gap in the marketplace and

made the gap.

Made the gap. Made the gap. Made the gap in the marketplace. Yep. And, uh, now hiring your first team member. How does it feel to hire your first person, Riz?

Good. Feels good. I truly don't know how it feels though, because I've been putting so much work into upskilling him, bringing him on board, doing the extra admin. So I can't tell you exactly what it feels like to be alleviated of the extra hours just yet, but it is exciting. Yeah. Uh, and he is going to be taking over while I'm off, uh, for a week. So I'll be on complete holiday next week, nothing to do with work for a whole week. It's the first time in 4 years I will have taken more than 3 days off. So if anybody's listening, And yes, I might have taken the harder route, but for me, it was all about the hustle. And I haven't taken anything more than 3 days off in 4 whole years in order to build this thing up. And that's sort of how seriously I take the rising of my business. So if you're listening and you're like, hmm, I should take a break or whatever, look, I deserve it now. I've earned it now. But I think my rise is reflects the speed of my rise, is reflected by my work ethic.

It's interesting, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. I remember I was in New York a couple of years ago and I did this whole piece around hustle and asking all the New Yorkers what does hustle mean for them.

Jesus.

It was a lot of fun, you know, because—

What did you say your name was? Richard from where? Australia?

And hustle, I think, is a real thing. However, what you're saying And hustle's like a cool thing. Like entrepreneurship was not, you know, been a cool thing. And I remember when I, um, when we went on The Amazing Race, um, Riz, this is about 10 years ago, I was a contestant on it. And we said, what's the best way to get attention? And my brother-in-law said, call yourself the married entrepreneurs, uh, i.e., the married wankers back then, because entrepreneurship wasn't cool.

No.

And not like it is now to a degree. But at the— and that's what we're talking about this week, actually. I want to really get into that concept of that, you know, the toxic behavior and what hustle actually means. You're saying, you know, and, and I always say, what's the lead-up of the studio? You know, you said you hadn't taken a holiday for 4 years. What was the lead-up to get to the studio? Ups, downs, stressful, trying to figure out what to do. Everybody's been 2 years up and down, lockdowns, that kind of stuff. We've been nurturing our clients and nurturing and nurturing and nurturing and figuring out what Zoom is and how to use that. coming out of that now, getting a studio, first hire. So a lot of people are probably in this situation now where— and speaking about my week, yeah, my week was like, oh, okay, we're now progressing past lockdowns and COVID. And this week, this last 2 weeks for me is like, wow, okay, what do people need now? What do people want right now? And that's what I've been deep in developing and what working on this week. And so sometimes when you're in a bit of a part of life that's uncomfortable

and

it's really uncomfortable and it's stressful and it's having anxiety and you're not sure, is there going to be an end? Now I know there's always an end to these things. However, I know what it feels like to be in the zone of hardness and deep hustle and exhaustion and annoyance. And I, and I'm starting to understand that as you go through seasons and different stages, you— it's like I had my friend Sam Cawthorn on the podcast ages ago and he goes, I love creating crisis to a degree. Now I don't know if I believe this 100%. However—

You were touching on that last week.

Yeah. Crisis gets us to take some kind of attention if it's positive or negative. And for me, when I want to— when I know that I need to make a decision or a change, I literally And it's probably destructive behavior. That's how I create. I go deep in for 2 weeks and I get— I lose all my routines and I stay up late or I get up early or I do random things. And then eventually I come out and I go, ah, I've got it. And that happened to me yesterday. I've got it.

Seems a bit more— that's the Rich I know, at least. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Everybody does it differently.

Yeah, of course.

What do you think about that now? Because I know we want to touch on that. I want to touch on toxic behavior, but I also want to touch on understanding how you know yourself, understanding when you should pull your triggers, when you should hold back. And, and also I want to touch on 75 Hard. I want to ask you a question, maybe a leading question.

Sure,

maybe it's a loaded question as well. How's that going?

I'm okay with that. Um, I'm okay with loaded. I know who I am, so I don't really get too overwhelmed by that sort of stuff now, whether or not wins, losses, all that sort of stuff. Um, once yourself— once you become very self-aware stuff doesn't faze you as much. You know, if somebody says you're a wanker and you know you're a wanker, well, you're not going to be surprised by that. Me? Oh wait, you know, you know. So it's— so you're not going to be thrown off by, by that sort of stuff. And so I know that I have really, really self-destructive behaviors in me, but I also know I've got a lot of warmth and a lot of care and a lot of love to give. I also know I can be very, very hardworking, but I also know sometimes I just want to blow my head off and not even think about work for 48 hours straight. think about anyone for 48 hours straight. So there's definitely some extremes that I'm very aware of in my personality that I'm very comfortable with. So there's that. But look, when it comes to building the business and doing all that sort of stuff, my end is a lot more extreme than the average person. But I believe that's what it takes to build a successful business. That's my personal belief. Some people may think that it is something different, and they're welcome to hold that belief as well. I don't think I'm right. But I do think real things like business momentum, real things like hustle have to exist in order to create this thing because now I've got a staff member and all the preconceived ideas of how to build a business that I have have come true. I needed my own space because I was tired of having a personal gym telling me what to do. And that was causing me at least 10 hours of headspace every week because I was subject to their ups and downs and whether or not I felt safe in that environment of keeping my job or keeping my clients around. So now I have certainty. Well, now I can scale the shit out of my business because I have certainty and I've given that to myself. And so all the things that I thought and I was working towards and hustling towards have come to a close. And so because I've achieved them, and just like the lockdowns have taught me so much in that, look, I absolutely hated them, despised them, even from a political level. I thought the whole thing was just so ridiculous.

Mm-hmm.

Um, a bit of a hot take, but I don't want to go too far into the political sort of side of things. However, uh, it taught me a lot of graft. I had to take 120 kilos of my weight plates bench into my brand new car, scratched the fuck out of that car interior because I had to do what I had to do with what I had. So I took all that stuff to the park every day, was subject to rain, was subject to everything. I had to go back to one-on-one personal training marketing versus pod training marketing. I had to change absolutely everything that I did day-to-day functioning, work 6 days as opposed to 5. But in the hope that, okay, tomorrow these lockdowns are going to be gone and we can go back to normal. And what that taught me was no matter what, just keep fucking going. No matter what, just keep going. No matter what, if you're hungover, keep going. If you really don't want to do this work, just keep going. If somebody's— if you're getting this, your clients are getting the shits with you, and something I've learned about is terms and conditions, all this sort of stuff. If clients are getting the shits with you about that, which is always fun, keep going. And so that has really helped me because those, I think those lockdowns really conditioned me. for absolute shit show. I got through a couple of those, so then it gave me self-confidence and awareness of like, oh, I've done this twice now. Hell yeah, let's go! I can do it again no matter what happens now. I know I'm cool because the worst, the worst has already happened to me. Let's rock and roll. Was it enjoyable? Yes, at times. But was it really hard work? And did I lose a lot of sleep? And did I grind myself into the ground? Yes. So coming out of that is great. And now I've got to facilitate holidays and more breaks for myself now that the world is a more stable place. But that is the hustle for me because if I gave up and I quit and I took my hands off the gas, I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in now. So it's risk versus reward. It's understanding who you are and how much you can give and just the willingness to bite down on your mouthpiece. And just start swinging if you need to. And that's what I'm good at. If push comes to shove and I need to start swinging, I will start swinging for the trenches, but I never want to get to those points.

Well, that's an interesting point. We never want to get to those points. And I think also too, and that's why, you know, when we first met, we aligned quite a lot because, you know, there's got to be a bit of— I believe there's got to be a bit of hustle in you as a business owner. And I know sometimes hustle, you know, when you're more an experienced business owner, we don't want hustle, we want more flow.

Yes.

However, to get the flow, you need hustle in key moments. Yes. It might not be going for months and months, but it might be, you know, really one important conversation that's built up and that's grinding, that's hustling, you know. And I think hustling, you know, yeah, maybe it's one of those words that gets attention. However, everybody is a different way. And I want to touch on, like, for me, it's always been, and I think also too, when I say it's always been, every year that you get wiser, and especially everybody going through these lockdowns, I think it's done some— I was just talking to so many people recently, and it's like they've literally changed their entire life. I spoke to Debit Success, Colin Walker, he runs Debit Success there the other day, and they're moving, 2,500 people are getting rid of their offices to work at home and so forth. And So I love to look outside just the fitness industry in our gym and our studio and what we do, because you'll start to see clues. And when we, you know, when I got rid of our office in Sydney and I switched to a smaller office and we did some more remote, there was a lot of anxiety around what if I sell— we had a lot of red chairs there. And I said, if I sell these red chairs, that's it. Like, what happens? You know, and at different moments, or that was like the burning the boat thing for me. For other people, it was like, oh, I've got to, you know, not do the morning classes, or I've got to get people on Zoom. And this was like the burning boat concept for me, and we had to go through that. And

no going back.

You know, especially the early days of lockdowns and COVID, we didn't know what was on about, you know, when you don't know that first week, you had no idea, right? You're just hearing things. So there is no going back. But I, but I also think, as everybody has gone through 2 years, like This has been the greatest, not lesson, but the greatest self-development course or program that anybody, any business owner has gone through. Now—

If you let it be a lesson, right?

Correct. If you let it be a lesson. If you haven't, I think the lesson is this. Well, these are the things I've learned. Maybe you can talk about what you've learned. The lesson I've learned is that we had it pretty good before. And we had a good system before. And if— and throughout this period here, you've either done one of a couple of things. One, you've just kept your head in the sand for a very long time and you hope it all goes away. Number 2, you've decided to change your model, your system, your process. In that period, for me, I also moved and I had a lot of changes, and they were hard, really hard changes, hard changes. And then you hope that there's a better light at the end of it. Or the third option is that you're still just trying to, trying to be like it was, trying to live like it was. And so you're in a couple of those options. And I think if you're listening to this, and a lot of people in our programs, they've chosen option 2, and they decided to change and make— and, you know, that's your example. You decide, okay, let me change it. Let's get to that studio. Let's get rid of the gym. That would have been a hard thing to say, hey, I'm gonna get rid of this Gary, this good thing and yeah, this great thing, you know. Yeah, it's, it's scary in all, all people and what you're doing.

I, I didn't have any as of, as of 2021, June, I want to say May or June, I had $0. Nothing. Not a— not— I'm not talking my mum gave me money. I don't have— I'm not in contact with my parents. My grandma didn't give me money. I had zero fucking dollars. Zero dollars. And I moved out. Moved down 2020, and in in May 2020, and bought the car in May 2020. Moved out. That was it. Went completely on my own in every sense. And then 18 months later, had a studio, or even a year later, had a studio. No magic, just a whole lot of a shitload of work. Taking what everybody had told me under my wing and implementing, but implementing fast and hard, and not looking back. doing what I was told got me there. But I had $0. I'm not talking— there was no financial anything from anybody. It was all my clients' money that I moved into saving, saving, saving, used all the money that I thought I was going to have to pay for tax. Turns out I didn't have to pay that. Got some money from crypto. I think I got a nice little $10,000 bonus from crypto, pumped that straight into the gym, and we were off to the races. And I bought equipment as we were going along as well.

Yep.

So like, yeah, it was scary. It's scary. It still is. I still look around in this place and I just go, holy shit, like I did— like, I— what the fuck? 2 years, 2 years, 2 years, and $0. I didn't— nobody— I don't rent anything. I just applied, just the factory. That's it. I don't owe anybody any money. So I don't know any PT or anyone that's starting off that moved into a studio by themselves completely and did it all by themselves with no backing It's very fucking rare. So I, I think, I think the work ethic and that sort of stuff backs into it as well, where it's like you've got to take no prisoners, I think, in that sort of style. You've got to make the jump. You've got to make the jump.

Let's talk about that because we've got to now understand our intuition of, yes, what we're good at, what we're bad at, what's toxic. So let's go through some of that processes because I think that I— my, my belief is that, you know, I've just turned 40 last year. And by now, I— by now you want to know what, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what you can do, what you can't do. And I think if you don't— and I don't think anybody teaches this, or we don't hear this enough. However, by now you should know the factors, like what food you eat makes you feel crap. Yeah. What food you have and it makes you feel good. Yeah, self-awareness. What if you're hanging out with this person? How does it make you feel? And, and, and to me, it's like, this is really important. If you haven't yet worked this out, or yes, it's been floating there, you really should understand what, you know, what you, what you do to have, have an effect, either positive or negative. What do you think about that, Riz?

I, I don't— I entirely agree, mate. I think, I think I've got a lot of it through therapy. I've been doing therapy with the same therapist for maybe 2 years, and that's been amazing. A lot of childhood trauma at the start, and now a lot of self-awareness and self, um, self-esteem building stuff now as we, as we progress. And so yeah, it was a massive confidence builder for me because now after a sort of 6 months to a year, he's like, mate, look how far— look where you were. Bad problem with substance abuse, terrible problem with substance abuse. I'd just go and blow my head off on the weekends, come back to work on Monday, fuck myself off, let's go, you know. And, and and work through that. That no longer happens, all because of the work and the self-awareness of, dude, what is happening? Because I grew up with drug addict parents, so that was all I knew was use drugs to fix the pain. That's all I did. That's all I knew. Use drugs and alcohol, fix the pain, make it go away at least. But you need to show up and work on Monday. I knew that as well. I knew if I wanted my dreams, which are in the future, I still had to show up to work and I still had to put in the hours during the week. But weekend, Oh yeah, turn that bad boy off. And so I was trying— we sat and analyzed, and I made mistakes, and I did good things, I did bad things, but I realized what worked for me and what didn't work for me. And what was not working obviously was blowing my head off on a weekend. And what was working for me was the work that I was putting in, but I was working too many hours, too long, too this. So by the time Saturday came and I was off work, my head was still, what about this, and what about this, and And I didn't know who I was.

And

so of course, what are you going to do when you're just this ball of anxious confusion? You're like a 2-year-old. You're like, oh, you're lost in space. You've just transported yourself into somebody else's mind and body almost on a Saturday, Sunday because you don't know who you are. And so you come out of that, you're like, okay, let's just numb it and let's go have some fun and let's go have some laughs and off we go. But it's not what works. So what works was actually slowing down in the week, getting to know yourself and touching base with who you are in the week. I go for bike rides now. I'm trying my best to learn guitar. I'm really shit at it still, you know. Or I like going to breakfast in the morning to try and, uh, maybe 2 or 3 times a week I go to breakfast.

And you've realized these activities make you more, uh, smoother?

Yes, by a long stretch.

Less up and down?

Yes, of course. These are self— basic self-care.

Self-care.

That's what I wasn't doing.

Self-awareness.

Self-awareness and self-care, right? I've got— I test something, Oh, that didn't work. And I know by that didn't work if I did the same behavior on the weekend. So it was okay. Try this. No, that didn't work. Try this. That didn't work. And I'd reflect with my therapist as well. How did we go? How are we feeling? Da da da da da. And we walk through so much stuff because from when you're born to bloody 25 and all you've had is experience with drug addicts, drug addict parents, and that's all you've known. There's a lot of backlog. There's a lot of backlog. So working through all that sort of stuff takes time and you're going to make some blunders. But we get there in the end. And so I think that's a— that's— I don't know how best— some people will learn different ways.

Well, some people will learn different ways and I haven't had that experience growing up, but my experience is a bit different. And we spoke about this in the gym maybe a year ago, I remember. And the conversation was that, you know, your— I think your skill is you move fast and execute really fast.

I learn by doing.

Yeah. You learn by doing and that might be the wrong way or the right way,

but

sooner or later you realize, you know, your way. Yeah, yep. And that's self-awareness. But sooner or later you'll realize that, okay, I, I'll need to figure out this is the right way. But for me, sometimes it's, it's almost like when you're, uh, when you're comfortable, you need to figure out how to put a rocket up your ass so you can move if you want to move, or are you going to stay comfortable? Yeah. And it doesn't— I don't think— and I think The, the market will tell you if your business is successful or your body is successful. You feel good, you look good. At the end of the day, you've got to figure out based on your self-awareness what you need to do.

Yes.

To really find that why and to really push that why.

Encourage the why, right? Encourage, encourage the best parts of yourself. And I think if you have, like me, I take Tuesday and Thursday afternoons off. That's a really good way of inbuilt, a foolproof way. Because if I started booking clients in the PM, I was like, oh, I'll just do 1 hour. It's not facilitating my why. And so I think everybody has a really strong why and everybody has a good reason for doing what they're doing, except they might not set themselves up for success. They'll put heaps of roadblocks in, like people who work a 9 to 5 and then do another side hustle that's completely unrelated to what they want to do or whatever, or they have a 9 to 5 and then they blow their heads off on the weekend. or they just don't set themselves up for success. So I think you have to have the self-awareness and then you have to implement and set yourself up for having the best weeks that you can. That'll lead into the best years, which will then lead into the best decades, which will then lead you to the life that you want to live, which is exactly how I've done it. It's been like, okay, that week didn't work. All right, well, change it, chop it. Good stuff, keep it. Bad stuff, throw it away. And just keep rinsing and repeating that process week by week. That's why I plan out all my weeks as well. And I— it's a process that you can't really fail because you've got to optimize who you are and optimize your why and get you there so much faster. It's like a scientific experiment every week. You're telling me you're not going to learn things from 52 trials and errors every year?

If you're

not learning something from 52 mistakes every year, you probably didn't have a chance to begin with.

Yeah. And this is the thing, I think, I think just because we do it once A lot of people don't allow themselves to go, okay, well, that's what I have to do. I have to change that to feel a way.

Yes.

We're forced to feel the same thing.

Yes.

And I love this concept of self-awareness. And there was a, for example, one of my first business partners, his name was Paul, and he had this concept to say, how long, how often do you hang out with people? And this comes down to self-awareness. And he had this thing called, I hang, that's a 2-month person or a 6-month person.

Yeah. I remember you used to talk like that for a while. Yeah. Maybe one year.

It's a one-yearer. So sometimes you have friends that make you feel good, but if you see them every single day, they make you feel like crap. But if you see them every 6 months or every 2 months, it's amazing. It's a great conversation and it motivates you. And so I probably do that a little bit where I rank people of like, oh, I want to hang out with that person and I like hanging out every month and it's an amazing time. But if you hang out every day, it's frustrating. So I think that's self-awareness in, in the concept of that. And to me, it's like, well, by now, if you're 20 or 30 or 40, and especially as you age, this is a really key point that nobody told me. And I was like, if it— what makes you feel good? What makes you feel bad? And you need to know that as an individual. And I don't think anybody can say, oh, go read 10 pages, or go swim, or go do this. You need to get that by now. Yeah. You need to understand that by now.

That's the shit that I don't— I don't— I think is good and bad. Like, let's touch on— I suppose then let's touch on the 75 Hard, right?

Yeah.

So I've got a client, Beau, fucking incredible work ethic. He's just one of those dudes that can bite down on the mouthpiece and I don't get it. Gets it done. He's not always in that flow state, don't get me wrong. Um, nobody's perfect, but he's, he's, he's, he's, he's killing it, right? And, and, and however, however he's going about that is just, for me to comprehend, is just very, very wild, right? He was someone— we both have the same sort of sweet tooth, we both have that sort of thing, we both love training hard, but he stuck with it, stuck with that 75 Hard challenge, and he's happy to go through that. It's difficult, but he's happy to go through that. Whereas me, I had 2 weeks of it. Of what worked for me was literally having my gelato every day to look forward to, but then the rest of my meals were perfect. Oats, chicken and rice, all that sort of stuff. And I had my ice cream to look forward to at the end of the night, uh, and that has worked so well for me, better than any other diet, better than any other anything I've tried in the 14 years that I've been lifting weights.

And this was— you have the Mesito?

Yeah, I love it.

In the 14 days, or was that—

Uh, no, no, no. So I didn't have anything for 14 days. I trained, trained every twice a

day. Yeah,

drank 4 liters of water, did it, embodied it, nailed it for 13 days. But on the 13th day, when that weekend hit, when I was stressed, I was a bit burnt out. Ah, I wanted out hard. Grabbed a six-pack of beer, down I went. I couldn't, and that's my dysfunction coming out. That's my that's my toxic behaviors coming out because I was pushed to a point where I knew I didn't belong, and I knew that's just not where I operated my best. It didn't bring the best Adriano out of me. Whereas mate, I can eat as clean as you want, sort of. 4 AM to 6 PM. But when that 7 PM rolls around, I better have my ice cream locked and loaded because that's, that's what works for me. And it's not what works for anybody else. It's a system that works for me and keeps me on top of stuff, healthy. And I can eat that way and lose weight for the rest of my life, no problem. But it's, it's, you've got to take what works for you and what doesn't. And out of that challenge, I learned exercising every day is really good for my head, whether it be a walk or pushing weights. Sometimes I just trained 5 days a week and then wouldn't walk or exercise. But now I understand how good exercise really makes me feel. So putting that back on as 7 days a week, every day I'm doing some sort of exercise. And then reading 10 pages of a book before I go to bed. I typically try and read 20. 20 didn't work. It was too much. So I just didn't even read for a period of months. And now I'm reading 10 pages before I go to bed. So it's taking the stuff that works and leaving the stuff that didn't completely behind. So yeah, like you were saying, right? It's, you've got to find, there is no set routine that's going to work for somebody. You know how you've seen What's the CEO's morning routine?

Yeah, the 5:00 AM morning routine.

The routine is the fact that they've built their routine over 30 or 40 years. They're now 60. They've learned 40 years of mistakes, grown from the 40 years of mistakes, and now they have a perfect morning routine for themselves. And that's where everybody should aim to get to. It's a perfect morning routine for themselves to allow them to find their why, their purpose every morning without being stuck in their head. Without being screwed around.

Totally. It was even this morning, I said, I messaged you, Riz, and I said, hey, I'm gonna be 10 minutes late, 10 minutes late, because I was cooking my eggs. Yeah. If I don't have my eggs, um, in the morning, or a shake or an egg, I know that I have to do those 2 items.

Yep.

Otherwise I don't perform. And so I risk to say, yep, I'm gonna be late just to make that happen so then I can have the best day. And I always, now for me, one of my hacks is like, I never take appointments. I don't speak to anybody prior before 10, unless that person is either going to give me energy, like I might basically call a mate or a friend or a close client that I want to have a chat to, staff member. And it's a kind of sacred time for me. That means if I want to take my kids to school, I can. I don't have to like cancel somebody. And so I've been doing that and that's worked really well. And so I lock that and say, okay, that's now my thing. Yeah. If I'm stressed, I want to go swimming. That is my thing. And I know that by now. And so I guess, yeah, I think if you're taking away from this session of podcast, it's like, what are your things that make you feel good? And everybody needs to have that by now. I think that is just self-awareness.

I don't know if they need to have it by now, but I think they just, I think it'd be good. I think they should work towards it. If they haven't started, start now. If you haven't started, if you don't write out your week, if you don't Treat yourself, your weeks like a— day to day, I don't think is an experiment. I think days just come and go. But I think weeks are important periods of time that you can learn something from every week. You can learn 52 lessons in a year if you want to, or you can learn none. And that's why I think writing out your week's perfect. But I think if people start now, 100%, they're going to build their way to a great business or more importantly, a great life. Business is a great tool to live the life that you want to live as well. I think people start now, it's going to help them with their life, with their business, with their relationships, with everything, self-awareness, you name it. Works for me. What does it?

Totally, totally. And, um, it's interesting to talk about just going back to the, uh, conversation of the staff and conversation of anything new. I've, um, been working on talking about 75 Hard. I was listening to some old podcasts from Andy Frisella, and he talked about a power list back in the day, and I tried that before. It didn't really work for me. But the last 2 weeks, Riz, I've been doing this. I've been changing my to-do list to a degree to the critical list. And just by changing—

I like the name.

Yeah. The reason being, we come back to the quick conversation I had, is like I always need something to really drive and push me because sometimes if I'm comfortable, I need a pusher. And so critical for me is crisis. Critical is like, okay,

yes,

I need to get this done now and everything's removed out of the way. And so now I have a critical list I write 5 things on this critical list, the top 5, and that's it. And then this critical list is like not regular activities I do, like, you know, okay, I'm gonna have breakfast, that kind of stuff. It's things that are yet not a routine at that point, and that becomes critical. And I'll tell you what, last, it has been amazing because it's like put everything that is really urgent to move, even not just business, personal, like training, family, or that forward. For example, on Sunday, Riz, I had on my critical list, it was like I had to go to Bunnings and return something that's been sitting there for 6 months. That was on a Sunday list. It was clean the car on a Sunday list. And then on Monday, I had a total different list. I didn't return the stuff from Bunnings, by the way. That was the only thing I didn't tick off, but I put it on the next Sunday list and I did it. And critical or to-do or power list or anything like that to drive it forward. And for me, the word critical was really important for me because I needed a driver. And I think a business owner that works by themselves, they need someone to go, hey, what are you doing today? Like, boom, get it done. Because there's so many distractions that we have every day.

It's like your $500 task, $1,000 task, right? Similar, similar energy that you always teach me, right? It was minimize the amount of $5 tasks you do And multiply the amount of $10,000 tasks you do, right? They're not actually $10,000, but they will earn you that money down the line. So I think, yeah, if it was critical list, $1,000 tasks, whatever you want to call them, I think they're all, I think that prioritization of the very, very important big needle movers in your business, the better, the faster you'll go. That's something I learned from, what's his name? Sabri Subie. He's got the Sell Like Crazy book. I love that book.

Yeah.

But he taught me, and obviously I've learned as well over the years, but it's finally finding the knobs that you need to tweak the littlest and make the biggest amount of motion. You know, tweak the smallest but make the biggest amount of motion. And those are the things, the more you can turn those knobs, the more you can rip in, the more growth you're going to have at a rapid rate because you're exerting less energy, you're getting more out of it. So what are those $1,000 tasks? Same sort of thing. The quicker you can find them in your business, the better. Now I've got Facebook ads on lockdown. I'm going to have my high-value content offer on lockdown as well, learn about that and how to market that better. All sorts of stuff, little things that you get set up now are going to be those knobs that you can just go, I'm going to put in $100 and I know that I'm going to get $1,500 in return, you know, thanks to this system that I've built out. So yeah, 100%, mate, knowing that is so crucial for business.

But I think this whole conversation comes down to what we're talking about is The self-awareness, understanding what's going to drive you daily, because you can't even get to the business conversations. True. Like the last 2 weeks, I was like trying to figure out this one thing. My routines were out of whack. I was struggling just to do the normal stuff. But as soon as I did the stuff I knew that would get it out of me, which was talking to some friends, going for a swim in the middle of the day, understanding how to unblock.

Yes.

To me then, okay, boom, it's like, right, ripping again. And especially if you have that flexibility where, okay, you've got some team members that can take care of it while you're in this zone of trying to uncover that. To me, it works. And I think there's always these times in life where it's not perfect. Like I said, the blowout time. But I think also too, you've got to realize that, okay, it is a blowout for 24 hours or 2 days or a night, and that's okay. And you get back to it instead of the continual self-sabotage and hating yourself and in your head for the rest of your 10 years of your life. And I think this is key. For me, it's been huge just to understand that this is going to end. And you know it's going to end and you're in the process right now. You're in the storm at the moment. Just ride that out, ride the wave out.

100%.

And you'll get to the solution. And that just comes from knowing, hey, you've done it before, you've done it before, you've done it before.

It comes by doing. We were touching on that before when we were talking about sort of I was talking about, uh, in reference to clients counting calories, right? A lot of clients I've had go, oh, counting calories gives me anxiety. I'm like, no, it— checking your finances doesn't give you anxiety. How much money did I spend? $5 on Subway, $10 on coffee. That's not gonna give you anxiety. If that gives you anxiety, you've got some fucking bigger problems to fry, first and foremost. Secondly, um, it's the fact that like it's your— it's how you think around it that is the problem, not the actual tool. The tool is, is not going to give you anxiety. It's, it's how you think around it. And 9— it's 100% of the time actually Clients that have anxiety around tracking calories are the ones that aren't doing it. They got that analysis paralysis by paralysis by analysis, right? They sit there and they're, oh, but I didn't, I didn't know what to put in, so I didn't put anything. And then that compounds and compounds and compounds. And then it's like guilt and shame, and they don't come out of it. And then they just weed themselves out entirely, right? And it's like that with business. You get that with so many people. What does this work? Or does that fucking try it?

Pull the trigger.

Try it. How will you fucking know unless you try it for your business? There's not one size fits all. There's no script for successful business other than do shit and do it a lot and see what works and what doesn't. And much like self-awareness, this is business awareness, right? Same sort of thing. You're only going to know about yourself if you try things that you like or don't like. I'm only going to know if I like pineapple if I try pineapples, right? Cool. Now I want them every day for breakfast or whatever it may be for me. But for your business, okay, does this sort of advertising sit well? Does this sort of— does this work well? Does this work well? What does that approach have? If I approach a coffee and a cafe and ask them for a collaboration thing, does that work? You're not going to know unless you do. And so many people have anxiety of, whoa. I see it happening in our coaching group all the time where it's like, oh, Rich, what happens here? And whatever. Fucking do it. Shut up. Love ya. I'm here for you if you crash and burn and you're emotionally a wreck. Cry on my shoulder, get back up, let's go again.

Do the work. And I've seen this, I think I saw a picture later earlier this week. I said, oh, one of our, um, one of our clients that came into our, uh, our front-end program, we have a Fast Lead program. They came into the program, there were 6 activities to do, and they didn't complete the activities, and they were trying to find out what what is— what are they going to do to get the results? Like, how am I going to generate leads? And there were 6 activities to generate leads. Completion rate was 50% on 1 or 2, and the rest weren't done. And unfortunately, I went past their store where they were at because I knew where they're at. Went past their store and there was a for lease sign there, and really broke my heart knowing that some people just assume that because we opened up a store or you open up a restaurant or a gym, they assume they have a right to win, they have a right to have success. However, success, it does require a hell of a lot more work than you ever thought was going to be there. And I also think that sometimes we're not giving that right information. People go, hey, a business, just because you have a logo or website, it doesn't mean success. And I think this pandemic, 2 years on, has kind of figured out if you want to be— if you're still here, listen, you've done a great job, and so you've got to continue pushing through. But it reminds us that, you know, I see a lot of businesses now going, hey, what, that wasn't for me? Or, you know, I wasn't in the right position when I started. And it just reminds us that the hustle and the muscle and understanding these conversations and trying, as you said, they're vitally important that you check it off and go, yeah, it worked or didn't work, I'm going to continue doing it.

Because— That's business awareness. There's self-awareness then, and then there's business awareness. And I think they're 2 really, really powerful things that you need to have a good concept of. If you don't, you're gonna— you see it happen all the time. You see countless times, you know, people who have the source, or like, let's say I'll go to a personal trainer's page and all that font will be stupid on a really dumb contrasting background, and they'll expect that to get attention. One free PT session, but you can barely see the free PT. And you're like, what fucking reality are you living in where that looks good? Look at all the other people. Look at all the big hitters. How are they marketing? Emulate that. And then if it's not working, then scratch your head and go, okay. But I don't know, man. I don't have any— and maybe it's the young bull in me, right? I just don't have any mercy for it. I just don't give a shit. I don't think Those people, um, and look, everyone needs support, everyone needs a shoulder to cry on, everyone needs that love and that backing. But if you're not even going to back yourself and then pretend, oh, we got shut down because of COVID you didn't even try.

You

didn't even try. And I hate that when people take other people for an emotional ride, because I got that all my childhood, was like my mum told me that she was like putting in all this work and whatever, and it was always a— and I got into— turned into an adult and I was like, oh, this shit's fucking easy.

Like,

it's like you've got problems, don't get me wrong, but it's like, it's the work that you put in you get the result from. My mum was always— she was the queen victim, you know? And then that's what I learned. I was like, oh, maybe the world is a big bad place. As I've gotten older and taken responsibility, I'm like, oh, you just get what you put in. That's it. That's, that's all. Like, sometimes people get— you get in a car accident, whatever, but you're Sam Cawthorns, Life-ending, comes out on top,

always

absolute animal.

Always.

You look at people like that and you go, okay, well, is it just you or is it actually the, the system? I think it's probably just you, which is okay. But I don't know, I just don't have— I don't have mercy for people who just don't do the work. I just— and they, they complain. I don't know, you're more compassionate than me. You've been a business coach for a long time. I'm just not that way inclined, man. I, I can't do it.

Well, I think I've— I think I do my best to get— give that information to people and get them to do the work. But eventually, and eventually, you know, I've always been too nice, but eventually, you— there's the, the brainer is that. And because I've been through so much, there is like— He's so, so, so, so much. And that's a conversation for another podcast, like the amount of stories that I, I could tell, which, you know, I haven't really shared, the amount of struggle Struggle, hardness, hardship in running a business, into transitioning—

Multiple businesses too, right? Multiple businesses.

Multiple, selling stuff. Like, I know you've got to be very resourceful at times, super resourceful in business.

More than you want to be even.

More than you should be and want to be.

More than you're comfortable being.

More than you're comfortable being. But if you don't, you won't get through sometimes. It's as simple as that. And I don't think enough people understand the resourcefulness that you actually need going into a business. You need like super, super resourcefulness, family, teammates, everything, self-belief. It just— we'll keep sharing that in this podcast. And that's one of the reasons why I want to start this podcast because I know, you know, a lot of those stories for me and—

Yeah.

I don't really share a huge amount of those. However, these are the stories that people, a lot of people don't put out there, or you don't even believe.

Yeah.

But when you start to, like, work with somebody or be around a mentor, you understand, okay, well, this is actually normal. The resourcefulness that you need, the smarts that you need, the gray lines that you need. There's no black and whites. You've got to figure out the play and that sort of stuff. You need to be around good people to understand to have a word, an advice, someone in your ear. Because yeah, you will go under if you don't have those, if you don't have the skills, if you don't have that resourcefulness, if you don't understand that you need that, you're dead before you start. That's just 100%. I remember my very first business, and we'll wrap up shortly. My very first business, I walked in and I walked in, I purchased a studio at 17. And I walked in and there was already 4 staff that I knew I was kind of taking over and they're going to come on my team. And next door to the studio, there was a registered training organization to train personal trainers up there. The first thing I walk in the door, the trainer who was older than me— clearly everybody was older than me there— he walks in and says, oh listen, you can study down the road there. And I go, no, I mean your boss. And just on that, I had her and just that she hated me the whole time, you know. And so— Oh yeah. It doesn't matter what you do, you're gonna be hated. I was hated from day one. And then I lied about my age for 3 years because I just thought I was too young to run a business. And I had to be resourceful. Was it the right thing? I don't know. But that was the thing I just thought I had to do because I just had— I didn't want to lose my business week one, you know. And you do what you need to do to figure out what's the right play. And I just, I want to remind everybody that resourcefulness and self-awareness and getting rid of those toxic behaviors and understanding, is it 10 pages or 20 pages of book to read? Is it 5 o'clock or 7 o'clock? Who really cares? At the end of the day, are you, is it working for you? And are you moving ahead? So then you can make those very tough and hard decisions daily, by the way, in business.

And

hopefully you don't have to make them daily because your business starts to flow. But, you know, there's always going to be a crash of a wave and there's always going to start the wave. And you've got to ride those waves. The waves will always stop. The flow and the freeness will always stop. And there's always going to be a new wave to jump on. And if you think that wave is going to go and it's just going to flow forever, that's just wrong. It doesn't work that way. You may look at it not as hard because you've done those self-awareness activities, but you've got to plan that it's, it's not ever going to be flowy, and it does require work to, to keep the best flow you possibly can.

And I also think it's a duty. You owe it to your clients. You owe it to the people that pay your bills and put the food on your table, man. That's always been my opinion. I've always— and that might be a bit of a hot take, but for me, whenever I see businesses close down, I go, you didn't even care about your customer base? You didn't even care about the people that backed you for years, that put money in your pocket just so you could blow it and waste it? That's what you— that's really your gift back to your community is you're not going to give them the— you're not going to put in the time, the hours? Because that's why I started the business, to give back to my community, to make people healthier, to make people more intelligent, to save them time, to not have to worry about health and fitness as much as this big anxiety-inducing thing. That's why I got into personal training, so I could simplify the process for people. And then when you see a business shut down because they just didn't even try, I just think it's a slap in the face of all the people that, that, that paid for your services. That's why I think I get upset, you know.

Totally. And but I think they've tried, but they actually haven't realized, or they were just so sucked into it's going to be easy. And that's wrong. And that's what— that's the compassion side of me, Riz. When I go, if they knew—

You did it right.

If they knew and they didn't do it, that's a different story. But if they literally just like were brainwashed for 20 years of their life, like, oh, my father opened up business, my brother opened up a business.

Very true.

Very true. If they did not— if that— but at the moment, The way the world is, it's not that case because there's so many podcasts, education. There's so much free stuff out there. When I opened my first business, like when I became a personal trainer, it was like I couldn't even find a place to become a personal trainer. It wasn't even that popular. And so the world has changed where I don't think, I don't, like if this podcast is free, I actually don't think, I don't think that's even this day and age, if you don't think that running a business requires all those parts to it, well, that's just stupidity. Let's be honest.

Yeah. But I think you're right. I think that's a very compassionate angle, to be honest, because I think, yeah, just like my conditioning, I didn't realize that the world was any different. And so I can definitely sympathize where they might actually have not known any better, but they thought they did. Start up a business, buy a business in a box, think it's going to be okay. And then before they know it, they're inundated with the actual having to run a business and operate a business and build a business. And it's too much for some people to just jump in the middle of.

So— And there's good— and there's really good marketers out there. There's really good franchise owners out there that say, yeah, just tick the box and go forward. And that's the stuff that worries me a little bit. It does worry me a lot. There's multi-level marketing companies that say, oh, just go and do this. There's a lot of cowboys. And so hopefully, if this— listen, if this podcast does one thing—

100%.

Gives you raw facts and it saves you from losing your house, that's the thing that I think we'll continue doing this because it does. Sometimes some people are losing houses, losing families, they're losing marriages. Ultimately, they're committing suicide because they're just— they just didn't know, or they didn't have that understanding. Hopefully, somebody gives you this understanding. This has been a good one this week. Week 2 Hustle and Muscle Show. We talked about toxic behavior, self-awareness in your business and yourself.

Yep, absolutely. Business awareness and self-awareness.

And a few hacks around how to know When— how to know when you're in a good flow, you personally. And if you're in a good flow, tick the box, keep doing it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. Whatever works.

Yeah, put your diary— this is what I'm going to do now. Good to go.

I was reading, um, I was reading Mark Burris's book, his Rise, and he was saying what he tries to do is emulate all the things chemically that get him in a good spot. So is it boxing? Is it running? Is it lifting weights? What is— what is the chemical process? Is it having a specific breakfast? And let's replicate that and make our day chemically as well replicatable, emotionally replicatable, to produce the best results. So just a quick note on that, same sort of thing, right? So impactful.

Love that. Um, I haven't, I haven't read that, but I like that whole concept.

Decent book, decent book.

Love it. All right, team, I look forward to seeing you guys next week. It's been a great chat, Riz.

Thanks for joining us, guys, on the Hustle and Muscle. Loved having you here.

Yeah, and if you've enjoyed this episode, share it, share it out, please share it out with a mate or a friend.

Someone starting a business.

Yeah, if someone's starting out, it could be any business, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Someone wants to try and put some size on, we'll do that maybe about next week, how to put some size on, and I'll take you through my— Yeah, absolutely.

But also understanding what habits don't work. Maybe training twice a day is not going to be the approach for you, and chances are if you're new to training, it won't won't be. So yeah, lots of things to learn from, from these conversations. So looking forward to it. Thanks,

team. Big love to everybody. Have an amazing week, weekend, and we'll catch you next week on Fridays. Bye for

now, everybody. Bye.