Pursue Your Dream Life (Why I Ran Fit On The Farm) #596

What if redefining your path to success could be as simple as disconnecting from your daily grind and reconnecting with what truly matters? Discover the transformative power of the Fit on the Farm retreat, a four-day immersive experience designed to help men re-evaluate their core values and goals. In this episode, I recount my journey from building a personal brand to hosting impactful events and creating programs that inspire men to take actionable steps toward success. We'll explore the essential elements of a fulfilling life—love, health, freedom, and adventure—while providing frameworks that encourage you to question and reshape your own path for a more rewarding future.

Embracing new experiences and reflecting on past ones is crucial for personal growth and achieving lasting success. We'll dive into the importance of setting goals in health, wealth, relationships, and happiness, and how immersive experiences, like our workshops, can realign you with your personal vision. You'll hear strategies for overcoming self-doubt and low confidence, breaking tasks into manageable steps, and the value of persistent effort. Learn about the journey of organizing successful workshops, the significance of feedback, and the impact of shared experiences in building connections. Tune in and find out how to create a dream life filled with love, health, freedom, and adventure, while inspiring others to do the same.

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https://www.themanthatcanproject.com/strong-men-of-value

Chapters

• 0:00 Building a Life of Success
• 6:25 Embracing New Experiences for Success
• 14:22 Building Life Through Workshops & Events

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:39

Love, health, freedom and adventure. These are rewards for blokes who are willing to create them. Achieving them is simple, yet making them real can be tough. Today, on the podcast, I would love to chat to you about the Fit on the Farm retreat I ran over the weekend, which was designed to help men disconnect, to reconnect and realign with their goals and the above. What I mentioned were things that I value love, health, freedom and adventure. You may have different values, but the point of which I want to dive into today and I want to share the experience of the workshop that I created, what it was like building it, promoting it. The overall experience was because you will have your own set of values and you will have an idea or hopefully, by the end of this we'll have an idea of what success truly means to you, because early on, I attached my whole identity to success in, which was a bad idea, because I'd never really defined what it meant for me and I didn't really understand what it could actually look like. It was just for me, I guess. I was working towards making as much money as possible and I thought that would take care of all the stresses. It would make people love me. It would make me love myself. But I found out very quickly that when you don't define it, you can potentially find yourself feeling or lacking fulfillment, overworking and being underpaid. And from my experience over the last 10 years, we can build and create an incredible life and it's easy to get there, but it's tough to build and I want to expand on that and I will expand on that later. So over the weekend it was a four-day or three-night four-day retreat and it was called Fit on the Farm and we are going to be running another one in November. So if you saw it on socials and it looked like something you wanted to be a part of, make sure you join the waitlist on the website.

Speaker 1: 3:39

But over the years I have started filling in the pieces around what success means for me and what a good life looks like, thinking long-term, building a vision, as you've heard me talk about a lot on the podcast, but the idea behind it is in my earlier years I didn't necessarily know what success looked like because I hadn't tried a lot of things. I hadn't experienced things. The older I've gotten the of things I hadn't experienced things, the older I've gotten. The more things that I've experienced, the easier I've been able to piece or fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle and gain, I guess, clarity and certainty around the direction that I wanted to head in, things that are important to me, things that I enjoy doing, what even, I guess, success looks like from relationships to health, to finances, to career and that could only come by taking action and which led me to the workshop was and I think I spoke about this last week on the podcast the business.

Speaker 1: 4:38

The man that Can Project has always evolved with me. It first started out me building a personal brand through the fact that I was just documenting what I was learning, what I was experiencing, what I was struggling with, how I was, I guess, learning to overcome it. And it started building an audience of people like yourself, who then I invited to men's groups because I was like I want to connect with these people, which then led me to building a program, which then led me to starting events, which then led me or COVID, led us all to moving online for a while, which then has brought me back to events and maintaining that online profile with the one goal to help you live a great life. And I know that's vague, but the beauty of it is there are frameworks that help you fill in those missing pieces, because a great life is built one day at a time, and I truly believe that what you do today impacts your tomorrow. It's why I have the catchphrase do something today to be better for tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 5:38

And the problem that I've seen a lot of men experience is, when we finish school, we pursue this idea of success that maybe we don't understand, that maybe we haven't ever questioned or really defined for ourselves, and we find ourselves 10 or 5, 10, 15 years later in a position that we didn't think we would be in. And it's not always the worst case scenario, but quite often we're left there thinking about what if? And for me, chatting with so many men over the years who are in that position of what if? I want to inspire them and I want to help you guys take those initial actions or those initial first steps to start building momentum, to creating the best life possible for you. That is unique to everyone.

Speaker 1: 6:26

In the beginning, what that looks like is, firstly, just embracing new experiences and reflecting on the feedback of them. If you're, like me, around 33, 30 years old, you've got roughly 30 years of experiences that you can start reflecting on, and you can do that by journaling, you can do that by podcasting, you can do that by sitting around a table with some mates having a few beers reminiscing. But the idea is to start thinking what was it that I liked about that? How did I show up, what were my weaknesses there, what could I have improved on, how could I have made that more enjoyable? And you start building this little mind map, essentially, and from those reflections you can then start using that knowledge or that lived experience to build a better life moving forward, and for me, that was ultimately what I've done.

Speaker 1: 7:18

I launched a business because one I was lost in my life, I was making a lot of bad decisions, I didn't have the finances that I was looking for and I lacked the sense of freedom, and to me, that was not having the time available to do what I wanted to do, which I guess at the time probably wasn't work, and I didn't have the resources to be able to not live in financial stress. So when I started working towards it, there was a lot of resistance, and I was talking with a bloke who came to the workshop last night about this, because we're trying to help him launch a business in his space. But it's easy to get these frameworks, much like you may take away some things from here and go. Okay, that is what I need to do. I need to first select some new experiences and start doing them. That is easy. The hard part is actually doing it.

Speaker 1: 8:10

So with this gentleman last night we were recapping the workshop and we were talking then about what's next, and I could see every time I made suggestions and we were building out a little bit of a to-do list for him. You could see the resistance in his face he was, and what we later went to understand was he doubted himself putting himself out on social media. He didn't think he could present well and a lot of that is essentially self-doubt or low self-confidence, because it's not a rep that you've practiced or a skill set that you've developed. So if we look at that objectively, we just go well, we've got to do more of that, to become more comfortable with that, to get better at it Simple. However, if we don't break that down into what's the first step, it will probably never happen because fear will take over and fear will control the outcome and probably in 12 months, months time or 12 weeks time, sorry, there will be no progress.

Speaker 1: 9:06

So we need to break it down to the a milestone that you believe is attainable and we can take action on, because that's where we start doing the reps. We don't all start benching 100 kilos. You may start with just the bar, learning your form, putting in the reps. That's a very important part. The beautiful thing about that is we've got his plan in place, ready to rumble, and it brings me back to the workshop Throughout life. I'm speaking to a lot of people and you may listen to this as I interview people and do the solo episodes and start to notice common themes. But when we bring it back to building a life by design, or living your best life or building the best life whatever terminology you like to use we're then going to start filling that in, and over the weekend, what it was was an immersive experience.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Now, within our academy, the academy is run in 12-week blocks, so you choose a goal, a goal that moves you closer to your vision, right, moves you closer to the life that you want to live and that should then lead into the next goal. And the next goal and it's just progress, right, it's accountability, a little bit of education and you just reflecting and focusing on your goal. That's what the academy is. So this experience was helping men disconnect to reconnect, so they could reconnect and realign with their goals what they're building towards, the man that they want to become the vision and life that they see for themselves, the man that they want to become the vision of life that they see for themselves. Because, as all of these folks said and some are running multi-eight-figure businesses, others in their early 20s just trying to figure it out there is a lot in common. A lot of them mentioned how quickly life goes by, how easy it is to fall in the trap of just focusing on making money or focusing on work, that you're missing out on the rich experiences of life and it's something that I've experienced firsthand as well where we think that success is how much money you have or what your status is, or the recognition or praise that you get, when, in the reality of it is.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Life is, as I said, built daily, but it's accumulation of a couple of key areas For me. I personally like to use health, wealth, relationships and happiness. Now, every day, are we dictating or sorry, not dictating dedicating time to those areas? What am I doing to move toward my ideal health today? What am I doing to improve my important relationships today? What am I doing to take control of my financial future today? And what am I doing to improve my happiness or fulfillment today? And you should be able to answer that, and it doesn't always need to be complex or overwhelming, but you need to have something that you think is going to work. Because, as I go back to the point number one, you're embracing your experiences and you're reflecting on the feedback of it, so sometimes there'll be things that you think will fulfill that box and you'll be wrong, and that's completely fine. That's life. But you will now know you will use that feedback to be better and to build a better life moving forward.

Speaker 1: 12:11

And so the cool thing was even for me just to strip it back when I decided to run another workshop. We ran one in march and the blow so like, let's do another one. This is going to be incredible. We sat down. I was like I want to do it with a twist because I personally love fitness. Let's put in a nice challenge, because we do a lot of challenges within the man that can project, and everyone's like yeah, yeah, and somehow we were trying to think about it. Somehow a half marathon got thrown in.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Now, the half marathon turned a lot of people away, I will admit, when I was running ads and when I was having phone calls with people, the half marathon was a deal breaker for a lot of people. But I chose to keep it there because I wanted to attract the right kind of people who were ready to step up to a challenge like that, whether they were going to train, modify it, whatever and it did exactly that. You know, we had 21 people. Initially. There were a couple who were sick, but everyone who showed up put in an incredible effort there and many of them walked away feeling so proud about themselves and had actually achieved something they didn't think they could do. So that was a huge win.

Speaker 1: 13:18

But for me, from a personal business standpoint, I guess trying to build the life that you live this is what was going through my head. I'm living in Nashville. To fly back to Australia it's minimum $4,000 at this point of the year, which is ridiculous, this point of the year, which is ridiculous. I then had to rely upon making sure I sold out the or sold enough tickets to the event to cover my costs and cover expenses, but then also build the environment and the atmosphere. And when you're not in the country, I've had this limiting belief that, man, if I'm not there, it's going to be really challenging to do this. And so I had to change my approach, because in order to achieve an outcome or a better output, you have to change your inputs or do the right inputs to do that. And so what I actually did within this period of the workshop and launching it was running ads. So I ran a lot of ads, and, for those who've ever run Facebook ads, you get a lot of people giving you ads. So I ran a lot of ads. And, for those who've ever run Facebook ads, you get a lot of people giving you shit, and I don't like that, but it's necessary to reach the people that I wanted to reach.

Speaker 1: 14:23

I was also doing cold calling. Now, I wouldn't say cold calling, so I was calling people on my Facebook so let's say warm calling, but people I hadn't spoken to for ages Just firstly to check in, but also to let them know that I was running a workshop, because when you know you've outlaid a lot of money that if I didn't fulfill this, it was probably going to hurt me a lot financially. You got to do whatever it takes to get people on the phone and to help them see value or know that you can provide value through the workshop. I truly believe in the workshops because I know how incredible and an immersive experience is for people just even sitting around the campfire and having a yarn, getting to disconnect some of the activities or even just reflecting on your visions, your goals, how you communicate, how you shop, allowing yourself to be seen all of these things. So I knew that it was going to add immense amounts of value, and that's what I did. I just was on the phone for 12 weeks straight just calling, calling, calling, calling, following up, following up, following up, following up, rejection, rejection, rejection.

Speaker 1: 15:23

But I knew that I wanted to create this incredible experience and I also knew that, in order for me to continue living the lifestyle that I want, the one that's full of love, health, freedom and adventure I had to make this work right, because, moving away from Australia, I lost a big chunk of my income, I'm not seeing people face-to-face, and so this is how it now works, with the academy and that workshops. So I had to make that work and, I guess, to the point of what a lot of you may experience is that between doing the thing you know you want to do or you know you should do to build your dream life, there's always fear, there's always going to be resistance, but you have to do it. No one else can do it for you. If you want to build that life, if you want to achieve those things, if you want to live a life of value, that gap is what you have to jump across. And I hope that from, I guess, this episode, you start building confidence within yourself or even start thinking okay, I'm not quite ready to take that step, but if I were to break that step down into some milestones, what would be the I guess, the most minute point or the most simplistic action that I could take to start building momentum towards achieving that outcome? That's what I would love for you guys to do. And lo and behold, anyway we got the numbers to where it was going to be profitable for me to fly back for this workshop, and then, over the years, I've built templates, frameworks, but I wanted to think about.

Speaker 1: 16:59

So let me just recap. I know I'm rambling a bit because I didn't write a newsletter today, I'm just talking about the event. But firstly, I was saying you need to embrace new experiences and reflect upon them to be able to build a better life. Once you start thinking about what you need to do and this will just be point two, let Point two once you know what you need to do, it's then obviously doing it and gaining feedback. Three is working out how you can make it better.

Speaker 1: 17:24

So every workshop and event I do, I send out feedback forms, but I also spend a lot of time thinking okay, what are going to be the barriers to this being a great experience? I know that bringing 20 blokes together who, let's say, 15% to 20% of them have been to an event like this before, and 15% to 20% of them know each other so there's no camaraderie and there's a lot of resistance and apprehension of being there, not apprehension Maybe. There's just some barriers anyway to what we're going to go through. So I think about how can I bring the energy up, build connection in a fun, lighthearted way as quickly as possible. So we add those fitness challenges into it and that's where we got to with the half marathon. It's very easy to go yeah, cool, I'm going to do that.

Speaker 1: 18:14

And when you start having these shared experiences that challenge you, you've automatically built rapport, you've automatically been through some similar suffering that you can relate to and that really set the tone for such an incredible weekend. So from that we did our first exercise and then we had some things around the campfire where people were just sharing two truths and one lie, which is an awesome game if you haven't played it. You just got to guess what are the two truths and what's the one lie. Actually, the easiest part is just guess the one lie. People can muck around with it, put a bit of humor in, or you can learn a lot about someone just very quickly and it breaks those barriers down. So we did that. And then throughout the weekend we had a few other exercises, plenty of downtime. We had ping pong, spike ball, plenty of walks just to build that environment, but also just no phone reception. It was game changing, so people weren't taking work calls, checking with other people. You were just present and the feedback has been incredible and I will be starting to post testimonials about that.

Speaker 1: 19:16

But ultimately for me this whole experience was one of the best that I've had for a number of reasons. One, the overall experience. As I've mentioned, I got to hang out with 20 incredible people who are wanting to build their dream life. They are filling in the pieces, making meaning and trying to understand what that looks like for them and just enjoying the process along the way. And secondly, for me, it's me doing that right. I'm taking control of my life by having built my business, putting myself out there to run events, even podcasts, social media, running ads, investing in these events, which, if no one showed up, I'd lose a lot of money. So to take that risk to pursue my dreams and to build my dream life is something that I want to share with you guys as well, because it is risky. It is a lot of money outlaid in the context of what I believe a lot of money is to achieve these things.

Speaker 1: 20:13

But had I not tried that one, I wouldn't have helped these men have an incredible weekend away and a life-changing experience. Two, I wouldn't have got to meet 20 new awesome people. And thirdly, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in now, where I've got to come back to Australia. I'm going back to America with newfound confidence and some life-changing experiences and potentially some of those blokes who were at the workshop will join our academy and I know they will when it opens up in six weeks' time. So that's what I'm excited about, because, as the business model goes and I'm always going to be transparent with you guys because I want to build this with you guys those events, whether we do them quarterly or every six months, are bringing the crew together and really diving deep and having that immersive experience. But the academy is then using the vision that you've built for yourself or you're trying to fill in and trying to build, to hold you accountable for a 12-week period, to grow and to take some, I guess, really intense action to build that life that you want and be surrounded by incredible people. So pretty pumped about that. It was a great couple of days, like I said, and we're doing one again in early November. So if you would like more information about that or you want to jump in on the Academy, make sure you head to themanatcamprojectcom to find out more information.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Now, as I said, this was just an episode, me wanting to recap, I guess, a few things on the top of my mind. I was going to write it out as a beautiful email, like I have done the last couple of Thursdays, but I felt like I just wanted to speak off the cuff, share my experiences, share the challenges that I faced with it, share the goals with it, my intentions and being honest as a business owner, but then also as someone who facilitates events and actually got to be part of that as well. So that was awesome. My name is Lachlan Stewart. If you like this episode or if you want to get involved in any of our future events or programs, make sure you head to the man that Can Project, join my newsletter or just reach out via Instagram. Have a great day.