7 Reasons Fitness Makes Me A Better Man (#4 may surprise you)#576

Are you ready to transform your life through fitness? 

Imagine waking up with more energy, feeling more confident, and managing your time efficiently, all by prioritizing your health. 

Today, we tackle the alarming fact that 65% of Australians are overweight or obese and how taking control of your fitness can lead to a dramatic positive shift in various aspects of your life. 

I share my personal journey, detailing how a focus on fitness bolstered my mental resilience and self-discipline, and discuss the power of setting personal fitness goals tailored to your long-term vision.

Transcript

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Prioritizing Health and Fitness for Success

Speaker 1 0:00

Seven reasons why fitness will make you a better man , and number four may surprise you . Now , you're not gonna believe me when you hear this next line , but 65% of Australians are obese or overweight . And you may be thinking why does this matter ? It means statistically , for every thousand followers that I have that are Australian , 65% of you are obese or overweight . And I spend my time or my working time helping men become the best version of themselves , so essentially not being a liability to the people that matter most to them , and that's financially , that's physically , that's mentally , emotionally , all of those things and we do that by improving your health . We improve your mindset , we improve your finances and your ability to build great relationships . Now , if I'm looking at what area needs to be prioritized first , there is going to be able to be arguments for every different area .

Speaker 1 0:55

I remember for me , at one point , I thought finances was the most important thing that I needed to work on and improve in order to change my life , in order to live the best version of my life . But knowing what I know to work on and improve in order to change my life , in order to live the best version of my life , but knowing what I know now , health and fitness comes first nine times out of ten . Going back to that stat , majority of people are overweight or obese and they have terrible energy . Many of the men that I've worked with have said they lack confidence , they don't feel comfortable naked , they have poor time management , they feel sluggish , they don't have enough energy to play with their kids and they don't pursue hobbies . So when I hear those things , none of them have jumped out at me and made me go . Man , I want that , and I'm sure the list was probably the same for you . I don't think there was anything that I just said that made you go . What do I need to do to get that ? To be honest , the best version of myself works towards the complete opposite . I think it's important in life , when we're working out what we want , if we get stuck with that , because there is so much opportunity available to us . Think about what you don't want . So if you don't want certain things , then you can just go . Okay . Well , if I don't want that , the opposite of that equals this , and then now you've set a easy goal for yourself to work towards . So personally , I have found that prioritizing my health and fitness has been the best way to achieve the opposite of what I've said . So you know my experiences has ultimately changed my life .

Speaker 1 2:23

Look , fitness is subjective . What is fitness is different and the response to that is different to every individual . But when you know what you want your life to look like five years down the track , 10 years down the track or even longer and I help people do that through my self-discovery program that you are then able to work out what fitness looks like or what good physical health looks like , in order for you to achieve that long-term vision . So for some of you , you may want to be a competitive athlete for as long as humanly possible . For others , you may want to build a big business , have enough energy to look after your family and go water skiing on the weekend and it's different , as I said , to everyone . But when you know where you're headed , you can then go . Okay , this is where I'm headed . This is what fitness looks like for me . This is what I now need to do in order to achieve that . So it may mean training five days a week , it may mean doing strength training twice a week and going for a walk with the kids . Right , you can build the plan off the back of that and that's why it's really cool , because when you define that , you're going to be able to maximize your life and , like I said , if you're not clear on that , the self-discovery program which is linked in the bio , you can get started on and get working with that . But for myself personally , as I have defined what fitness is , as I have worked towards achieving that through discipline , through consistency , I have built my self-esteem , I have improved self-respect or established self-respect . Really , I have improved my self-discipline and my mental resilience or mental fortitude is rock solid , and all of those things are transferable into other areas of my life , which is why I think it's such a great tool or area to focus on , because it will help you in business , it will help you in your relationships and so on .

Speaker 1 4:11

So I want to share a little , I guess , story or a recap example of a goal that I set for myself . So when I decided I really wanted to set in on focusing on my fitness and improving my fitness , one that comes to mind was look , I wanted to improve my fitness . I had to set a goal and I couldn't be vague and just say you know , I wanna get ripped . I think we all wanna get ripped . Well , most people do Because of the vanity matrix and look , it's not a bad goal . But what does that specifically look like ? My trainer at the time said no-transcript . But for those who are reading the newsletter , you can see my in-body there . But my goal changed from my original goal , changed from obviously getting ripped to being 8% body fat and squatting double my body weight , which at the time was around 82 kilos , and I wanted to achieve that within a five month period . So I was currently squatting 135 at the time , 135 kilos and I was at 9.3% body fat and , like I said , you can check that in body there and see all the data on the newsletter

Achieving Fitness Goals Through Discipline

Speaker 1 5:39

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Speaker 1 5:39

But because we became specific with that goal , it was very tangible . My trainer was able to build the plan and it became very easy for him . So we had a timeframe , we had a specific desired outcome . We had a baseline to start from . A lot of people don't have a baseline and you don't always need it , but you do need to establish one . So people like to lie about their baselines . I think you know most people think we're more advanced or have a greater understanding with things than maybe we do and we never test things , so you can have that baseline to build from , because there's no point .

Speaker 1 6:19

For example , I could have said you know I squat , I think I squat around , you know 140 , 150 , but I haven't actually tested it so I could have been way off the mark . So I could have set the outcome goal a lot higher , rather than it being what I initially set it at , at 160 . So with the baseline start point it was also attainable . I had been squatting and I had a decent body fat percentage at the time . But we could measure it through milestones of the program . So roughly every month we would do check-ins , we would track where I was at with squatting and continue moving through there . So I remember when I started obviously , as we all do with this start or setting a goal , the motivation's high , the enthusiasm is through the roof . Now I was already visualizing myself squatting the 160 kilos and being at 8% . I felt like it was truly within reach .

Speaker 1 7:16

Week two came around and well , the motivation was gone . Let's be honest , it disappeared really quick . The sessions were getting harder , and I mean really hard . For anyone who has done a strength block where you're lifting heavy , it is very draining . My knees were aching . My body was constantly sore . So it's hard to get motivation when you're going through the challenging times , but it's through those challenging times that the most growth comes .

Speaker 1 7:44

By doing that , I ultimately trusted the plan . I knew that the sessions that I didn't want to do if I could just show up and get through them , they would be the ones that helped me , or I could look back on at the end of this training block and go . I'm grateful I did that because that moved me closer to the outcome that I was looking for and I think , ultimately as well , you know full well if you've been given a plan and you , I guess , defer from it , it's very hard to know whether it worked well for you or not , because you've taken away or you've robbed yourself of the opportunity of having strict , structured feedback and an approach to achieving the outcome . If you've skipped a session here , skipped a session there and not done it properly , the data will never correlate . So I think that's a really important thing .

Speaker 1 8:31

Around that , and every week , in every session , I was experiencing little wins . I was squatting more , I was doing higher volume sets and I was completing sessions that I didn't feel like doing , and all of that , as a result , built my confidence and was building my discipline and was callousing my mind All things that people don't do . And when you lack discipline , when you lack self-respect , when your self-esteem is declining , it makes it very hard for you to thrive in other areas of your life . So a lot of you will be listening to this because you want to be a man who can take ownership for your life and get the outcomes that you want , which means the simple act of fitness can help you develop those traits , can help you do the reps that are going to help you in other areas of your life . So every week , throughout this , I was learning stuff about my body . I was learning stuff about my mind and I am still blown away with how the body adapts . Even since this time , I've gone on to do other marathons and things and my body has changed and adapted to every program that I've done , which is cool because it shows if you want to achieve something , you and you follow a plan , your body will adapt .

Speaker 1 9:46

But testing day came around . 20 weeks of training was now ready to be tested . I warmed up , I had my training buddy with me for a bit of motivation and a spot , and I was ready to test the squat . As I mentioned , my goal was 160 . As I mentioned , my goal was double body weight , so at the time 82 , so that was like 165 . I fell short of my body fat goal , my squat goal , because my body weight had gone up to 84.5 . I'd actually put on two kilos . My total lift was 172.5 . That is huge growth in a squat in five months and something that I was super proud of . Even though I'd just fallen short , I was still proud . My body weight had increased and my body fat had dropped from 9% down to 8.2 . So while I didn't hit the eight , I was still very close and I was extremely proud and I knew that that program , should I wanna continue , would be something that would probably continue to improve my results and it worked well for me and the fact that I put on muscle and dropped body fat was a really cool outcome . But it taught me so many valuable lessons that I've since applied in other areas that have really helped me , like my business , my relationships and experiencing happiness .

Skills Developed Through Fitness Training

Speaker 1 10:58

So I want to share seven skills that fitness helped me develop and I'm going to list them off and then I'll quickly run through for you . So the first one being mental resilience . Second is problem solving . Thirdly , making friends . Fourth , gratitude . Fifth , goal setting . Sixth planning Seventh growth . Now mental resilience , challenging sessions will test you . That's the whole point , right . They challenge you . I think Sixth planning Seventh growth . Now , mental resilience , challenging sessions will test you . That's the whole point , right , they challenge you . I think every week you should do one training session that really tests you mentally and physically . Of course , there will be moments where your mind's gonna tell you to ease up , it's gonna tell you to quit . Will you listen to it or will you push through ? That is always gonna be the question . When faced with adversity , how are you gonna respond to what's adversity that you're faced with ? The second one problem solving .

Speaker 1 11:48

Things don't always go to plan . They didn't always go to plan within training . I had days when my knees were really sore . I had days where work things popped up . I had days where the gym was so busy that the squat racks weren't free , so I had to pivot . I had days where the gym was so busy that the squat racks weren't free , so I had to pivot . I could either go . It's not happening today . I'm sore , I'm achy . It's not happening . But I knew that I had to trust the program . So I always had to find a way to pivot , because I guess most people that I've witnessed they'll throw the towel in and most people don't get the results . And many people lack the ability to solve the problems within their own life . And I thought , if I can do this in the fitness instance , where I can message my coach and say , hey , this is what's happened , how would I modify it in the future ? Or this is what's hurting , how can I still develop to that ? You can get different options and I think it's really important to have other options to be able to pivot when life throws you adversity and to have other options to be able to pivot when life throws you adversity .

Speaker 1 12:40

The third one is making friends . Fit people hang around fit people . You find common goals , you have common challenges that you can discuss and you share generally common values and common beliefs . So it's really easy to build rapport and really easy to build friendships . Next one is gratitude . So you learn to appreciate the process and be grateful for the small things . Living with gratitude is going to help you minimize your stress , your anxiety and your depression and there's wins that you can take away from every session . It might be the fact that you just showed up and completed the session when you didn't feel like it . It may be the incremental gains that you're getting , or the total volume , or you're just feeling better . All those things are a great thing to be grateful for , and when you're doing that in the sessions , you can then start doing that in life . What are the things that you're grateful for in the relationship ? What are the things that you are grateful for around your household or with your friends ?

Speaker 1 13:35

The next one goal setting . So learning to be specific and goal in , as I said at the beginning , vague goals build vague plans which get vague results . We want specific results . We want specific outcomes . So your life is a result of what you repeatedly do . What I learned through fitness and the fitness goals in itself has applied to creating my life's vision , really getting clear on where I want my life to go . What are the specific things that I need to do to achieve that Planning ? Obviously , as I said , when you set a goal , you must build a specific plan off the back of that that has tangible and also actionable steps

Balancing Life and Fitness Goals

Speaker 1 14:14

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Speaker 1 14:14

So we all wear many caps within our life . You could be the entrepreneur , you know , for me entrepreneur , podcaster , husband , athlete , mate , right , there's multiple caps that we wear . So we need to think about how we manage our time and prioritize doing what is important to us , but also moving us to where we want to go , because sometimes what's important to us in the moment needs to be , I guess , sacrifice in the short term to win in the long term . And I had to prioritize sleep , I had to prioritize nutrition and training , with plenty of focus , and I had to learn to say no . And these become powerful tools for life , because when you can see how they work in that instance , you've now got life experience to go well . If I use or adopt that same approach in this area , I could potentially get a similar outcome .

Speaker 1 15:04

And , finally , growth Now I'm not just talking about a bigger squat . I grew as a person , I committed , I focused and I trusted the process , and I became mentally stronger , more independent , I looked better , I felt better and I thought better , and those were all things , once again , that have developed me into the man that I am today . They have made me a better man , which has made me a better coach , made me a better podcaster , husband , mate and , solely and most importantly , a man . So some people avoid fitness because they don't enjoy it . Others avoid it when it is no longer a sport , and that was something that I experienced and the most important thing is to understand that it is such a crucial pillar that not only is good for longevity , not only is good for your mood and everything else , but can teach you those things that we've covered here today .

Speaker 1 15:51

So fitness goals are just going to be those small milestones that make you the best man that you can be . It's going to help you build the best life possible , whatever that definition looks like . So if you wanna take a step to feeling better and looking better , find and set yourself a fitness goal right , something to work towards . You won't regret it . It's time to help us swing those statistics right . If 65.8% of Australians are obese and overweight and you're among them , you now have a newfound understanding and hopefully a little swift kick up the ass to start building and becoming the better version of you , so you can be the best man . You can be the best husband , father , business owner , all the things that you know you need to thrive with him .

Speaker 1 16:36

And just finally , guys . You will see at the bottom of the newsletter for those who are reading it , the Strongman of Value Core to Three applications open in 11 days , 14 hours and 41 minutes , as opposed to this . Now , what is the academy ? The academy is for those of you who have gone through our self-discovery program . You have mapped out that one page on what your ideal life looks like . In order to be able to achieve that , you need to head over to the application page today , or there's a wait list at the moment and you'll be notified once that opens up and you can then go through the application process . As always . Do something today to be better for tomorrow .