Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
Welcome to Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart—the podcast dedicated to empowering men to break through barriers and achieve their full potential.
Hosted by Lachlan Stuart, this show dives deep into the challenges men face, offering actionable insights, real-life stories, and expert advice. Whether you're focused on fitness, business, personal growth, or fatherhood, you'll find inspiration and tools here to help you rise above any challenge and become the man that can.
New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Tune in, get inspired, and start living the life you’ve always wanted.
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Man That Can with Lachlan Stuart
Training with Dads and Their Kids | Leroy Faure #601
Mentioned On Today's Show:
🤝 Physical and mental fitness can lead to a happier and more fulfilling life.
🤝 Training with dads and their kids can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience.
🤝 Legacy and leaving a positive impact on children's lives is a priority for many parents.
In this conversation, Leroy, the founder of Fit Dad Lifestyle, shares his journey from the military to building an online fitness business. He emphasizes the importance of physical and mental fitness in creating a happier and more fulfilling life. Leroy discusses the challenges he faced after leaving the military and how fitness became a pillar for him during that transition. He also talks about the evolution of his business, including the launch of an ebook, the transition to online training during COVID-19, and the expansion into supplements. Throughout the conversation, Leroy highlights the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people and continuously learning and adapting. Leroy discusses the importance of self-learning and using resources like YouTube to acquire knowledge and skills. He emphasizes the value of trial and error and the ability to push through challenges. Leroy also talks about his journey in the fitness industry and how he transitioned to training with dads and their kids. He highlights the importance of setting goals and the impact of legacy on his parenting approach. Leroy encourages parents to allow their children to fail and learn from their own experiences.
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Do Something Today To Be Better For Tomorrow
Welcome back to the man that Can Project podcast. Today we've got a special guest, leroy Fit dad lifestyle. How are you, brother?
Speaker 2:Good mate, Good. Thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 1:Mate, we like to start our days in a very similar way. By the sounds of it, you've just knocked out a 9K run up in Noosa and also managed to treat yourself to a croissant. That's the perfect morning in my eyes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, treat yourself to a croissant. That's the perfect morning in my eyes. Yeah, mate, it's, as you know, queensland winters. Uh, got down to about 11 degrees this morning, so I jumped out of the house, went for a 9k run. At first kilometer it was just sort of getting rid of that numb feeling. And then, um, yeah, got the amazing sunrise over the river on the way back and yeah. So if you go from the noose yacht club to basically the noose national park and back, it's about 10k's. So I just went uh to about the surf club, uh, and then, yeah, my traditional croissant on the way home from my favorite bakery and then jump straight in the sauna before jumping on the podcast.
Speaker 1:So it's good oh, dude, what's your favourite bakery up there?
Speaker 2:I think it's called Bushlands Bakery. Well, maybe it's on Bushlands Drive, but I'm not sure of the actual bakery name. But yeah, it's sort of just a little hidden one there in a little subdivision and it's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take the croissant. Did you get any music in, or were you just raw dogging it with no AirPods?
Speaker 2:I actually listened to the Sean Ryan show. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his podcast. No, I'm not. So, he's an ex-Navy SEAL and he interviews, okay yeah, a lot of military and veterans. He's actually based over in Austin, I think.
Speaker 2:But yeah so and I think he actually he's got one coming out this Friday or Friday, your time with the son of the resistance force of Afghanistan. So he just actually went over there which he's opening up about how the American government is still sending, you know, 80 million a week to the Taliban or something crazy like that. I could have fudged, but yeah. So that's probably going to be one of his biggest podcasts today. I think he had, like jordan peterson and a few of these other sort of big names that you hear on all these other podcasts recently as well wow, that that does sound like it's going to be a pretty awesome episode.
Speaker 1:I'll have to check that one out for sure. But, mate, obviously the, the brand you've built around the fit dad lifestyle, you uh, we've got so much in common man. That's why I'm very excited to dive into this conversation. But you believe that when you're in the best shape physically and mentally, you're going to become happier, have better relationships, feel more comfortable and become a better role model through your actions, not just your words, and you start to build upon those lifestyle changes and positive habits that allow you to create a better legacy for your amazing children. How did you get to this point of understanding? Because I believe the exact, you know very similar thing that if we can work on our mind and our body, the rest of our life really is positively impacted by that. I know you've come from a military background really is positively impacted by that. I know you've come from a military background. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about your story and how you sort of developed those beliefs and that philosophy around life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. Post-military I got out of the army in 2011. I started the boot camp business because I stuffed my back in the army, so I had to leave. I could no longer be in the infantry and it was just lucky enough that I had a personal training certificate behind me and I did that on the side whilst I was in the army as sort of a fallback plan if I was to ever leave or something went wrong. So, yeah, naturally, having that as the only thing behind me and joining the military at 19, I had no other you know skill set or no other you know know qualifications or uni degrees or anything like that. Uh, so I sort of I was forced my hand into doing that. I couldn't go do laboring, I couldn't go do any you know mind work because the back was just that limiting factor, um, in all those different career paths.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, mate, basically spent uh three, four years building up a local boot camp business and that's where the love and passion for helping others and, I guess, fitness, both physically and mentally, sort of really crept into my own life, just by being able to be that coach to, I think, about a thousand people over the course of about seven years, course of about seven years, um, and it's sort of, yeah, just allowed us to really, you know, work out how we can, you know, really impact other people's lives through our actions and and a lot of these things were. You know, you can be the best coach in the world, but when you're actually living and breathing that lifestyle that you're trying to promote to your clients and I'll touch on your question in a second how that correlates back to the kids and you know all the men that we're dealing with now but you know, it really did just allow us to showcase to, you know, the local community and the community of Noosa. You know what it takes to not only look after yourself but then be that source of, you know, motivation or inspiration to those around you, especially your children. So you know, we took that philosophy into international fitness holidays. We used to take retreats to, like Bali, thailand and Everest Base Camp as both. You know fitness retreats and leadership. You know sort of events and stuff like that as well fitness retreats and leadership, sort of events and stuff like that as well.
Speaker 1:And then we sold both those businesses in 2017 and decided to go online from there. What forced actually? Before we dive into that, actually I want to go back just quickly because I'd love to find out a little bit more Obviously. Your whole life, up until the injury forced you to leave the Air Force. That was your identity and I feel a lot of people can relate to that Maybe not military, but for me it was sport. Other people it may be, whatever their career is, or it could be being a parent that becomes everything to them, because they aren't looking outside of that, which is natural right. When we find something we love, we go all in on it. Generally, having an injury pop up or being faced with adversity what was that like? What went through your mind at that point? Was it an easy transition for you or did you really struggle moving through that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely struggled that injury. So I pretty much or very similar to you and probably very similar to a lot of you know males out there. I grew up, you know, with the intentions to play professional sport. Um, you know that was my only goal in life, my only. I didn't want to go to uni. I didn't want to, you know, uh, do a trade. It was I want to be an afl player. I grew up in country victoria, um, and I actually got invited to geelong for a rookie spot. Was I want to be an afl player? I grew up in country victoria and I actually got invited to geelong for a rookie spot. So I spent a couple of weeks there training in the pre-season for a rookie spot and then after that I moved to queensland to play state league and in the afl.
Speaker 2:And it was back in the day and I'm not sure if you know, rugby was the same back in the day. But you got to 19 or 20, you know back 20 years ago now, and if you hadn't made it by then you were pretty much done, whereas now you've got all the mature age, you know players and you can still get drafted at 25, 27, you know, whatever it is. But back then it was sort of a little bit different. You, if you hadn't made it by then, you know and I don't know if it was more you know that parental influence, it was like, okay, you've given it a crack, you haven't done it. Now you need to figure out your life. Um, and that's where the military, you know uh, happened, because I had a couple of cousins and an uncle, uh, in the army at the time and we'll chat and they were, you know, asking what I was doing and and we, they basically described the military in the army as a footy team that you get to play with every day. So you had that sense of community, sense of belonging, sense of you know involvement. Every day you got to train. Every day you got to hang out with the boys. Every day, you know, you got to, you know basically just be around each other and whether it be talking shit out on the you know the beers on the weekend over, on deployments, on you know exercise, it was like that constant footy team and I think that you know sense of you know sporting environment was really what drew me to the military.
Speaker 2:But then, once you leave that, or you get forced to leave due to an injury, when you've only known that lifestyle of 10 years of sport and then six years in the military. It's like you have just been. Everything's just been taken away from you and you're out on your own. You've got no support network. You're paying, you know, full rents, you're paying for your medical, you're paying for all these different things that you haven't had to worry about. You know like I even had to go get a medicare card when I left the the military because we just didn't need it.
Speaker 2:It was something that you joined at 18. You're still on on your parents' Medicare card then. But then you have free medical, free dental, you know, subsidized rent, all this kind of stuff, once you're in the military. So you don't need to worry about all these sort of normal everyday stresses. And you know, once you get thrown out the deep end, it's like yep, thanks for your service, see you later. The very next day. It's like this massive culture shock and massive, you know, kick in the face of like oh shit, I've actually got to fend for myself now and actually figure out how this world works, because even though you it is still seven or four in the military, you know you're very protected from. You know the outside world to a you know, a big capacity, I guess, until you either get married and kids and live off days and you know the outside world to a big capacity, I guess, until you either get married and kids and live off days and, you know, start living a bit more of a hybrid lifestyle.
Speaker 1:And it's wild how that all happens and there's no real like reintegration back into, I guess, civilian life and figuring out what those next steps are for you. And I feel like that, whether it is coming back to civilian life or just people going through transition in life in general, which it's going to happen at some point, whether you're a professional athlete or whatever phase you're going through. We go through seasons of life and people's ability to deal with change isn't as good as it probably could be, so learning how we can improve that or strategies around that can really help. And is that so? Obviously, as you mentioned earlier, that's where fitness sort of came in and it became a pillar for you that you could sort of lean on while you were building out those next steps. What was it that made you then go online with your business? Because obviously boot camps are an awesome one, especially obviously if you're up on the Sunshine Coast outdoors with the beautiful weather up there. It would have been incredible. What was it that made you decide to go?
Speaker 2:online. Yeah, so I went overseas and did a bit of contracting. So I was doing eight weeks on, four weeks off in the Middle East and we had quite a bit of downtime. So you'd only have one or two jobs a day. You'd be hitting the gym all the time and, having come out of those businesses that I had, I had a non-compete, so I couldn't actually start up anything physically back in town when I was back, but there was no or nothing stopping me from doing stuff online. So we were basically living the lifestyle of I'd go away, work for eight weeks and on the four-week break we'd go to Thailand, we'd go to Bali, we'd go to wherever it is and just spend four weeks as a family before I shoot off again.
Speaker 2:And when we were over there, we just kept filming just random workouts with the family. At the time we had two kids that were one and three, so it was, you know, pretty easy to do the style workouts that we're doing and where I guess the Fit Dad stuff started and we just posted a few online. And because we had a lot of our old clients who became, you know, close friends on the social media, they were like can you write me up a program. Can you share what you're doing over in Bali? Can you share something I can do with my kids at home, because I'm not training at the business anymore that you sold and we ended up just making a small group and we're just posting random videos in there and then people started adding their friends and friends of friends and it just kept naturally growing and you know, I think that group now has got about 6,000 dads in it from around the world and it's just constantly just trying to motivate, educate and encourage, based upon all the skill set that we've had in the past, I guess. So it was sort of never a real plan to go online.
Speaker 2:Actually, here's a funny story when I was in Afghan, I developed an e-book, so it was like I think it was Fit that Blueprint or something like that. I literally spent four months building this e-book. I had a professional photo shoot done. I I spent, you know, months and months, like you know, collating everything of my knowledge and then everything I could study and put it into this 150 page ebook. Thinking, you know, this is before. This is probably the time of when, like the kaylee signs, ebooks and all those sort of you know, were really popping out there. So I'm thinking shit, I've just made this ebook. It's the greatest thing in my opinion.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna sell millions of copies and, mate, I think I sold two copies in the first two months and it was just demoralizing I nearly walked away from fitness in general after that because I was like I just poured my you know heart and soul into this thing that I know is going to change lives and no one wants to buy it. And it was like I've got this big group of 1,000 people and you know I've built this for you Like, why is no one buying? And it was just a soul-crushing, you know moment because, you know, as we all do it, we always believe our stuff is the greatest at the time, the best, yeah, mate. And it was like just a massive kick to the face. I thought I was going to be a millionaire overnight, selling 100,000 copies and, you know, having the greatest online package known to man.
Speaker 1:But, mate, the main thing is you had a dig. What? What did you learn from that experience of obviously launching an ebook? Because I know for a fact there are a lot of people, uh blokes, that listen to this podcast who would love to create an ebook or work online, but they just don't do anything about it. So obviously you took that first risk and it didn't pay off, maybe to become an overnight millionaire, but what did you learn from that process?
Speaker 2:Mate, I think probably the biggest takeaway is to, you know, not get your expectations, you know, so high and also not spend four months seeing you know building something in the darkness before you put it to the public without testing. Maybe a 10 pager, you know, a little teaser one, or actually going, sending it to a few people and asking for feedback or allowing them to. You know, do it for a few months, like I did it under the secrecy, and then just come out and launch this thing thinking that it would be the greatest thing in the world. And, you know, do it for a few months, like I did it under the secrecy, and then just come out and launch this thing thinking that it would be the greatest thing in the world. And you know, I didn't have marketing. I just thought that all the friends, family, followers you know, which weren't many at the time, would just all jump on board and, you know, support it. And, yeah, how wrong I could be. Just, you know, giving it a crack and just falling flat on the face.
Speaker 1:Basically, what was it that made you continue going? I think, sorry, before even going into that question, I've learned very similar lessons to you. I was always like this is going to be the best product, this is what I would have wanted, and you're like everyone else must want that. And then you put it out and it's a complete flop. And what I've started doing now is just like starting a product similar to what you said, where it's like you don't build it in the shadows, it's like you build it publicly and I have a wait list. And then, if I get enough traction with the wait lists, I'm like all right, let's put the time and effort and energy into building it out. If I don't, it's like okay, that's fine, let's pivot what? What are the people actually want? What's? Where's the real value coming in? So what was it that made you not quit then?
Speaker 2:um, I guess I had and and now I. So comparison back then. It's something I hate now and it's something I just try and steer everyone away from, but back then I was in a circle because I'd taken all these different influences you know, over on fitness holidays. I've been surrounded with a heap of different people in gold coast, brisbane and just in all these circles where everyone was crushing it, everyone was, you know, crushing the game. You know making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2:You know socials were blowing up and I felt like I was exactly the same as you know, these other 10, 20, 30, you know people that you sort of hang around, that you're sort of hanging around and it was probably just my stubbornness to give up and going. Well, if A, b or C can do it, I can do it too. It just might take a little bit longer and maybe if I just start implementing how they're going about their training or their offering or their marketing or their you know plans, then maybe I can do the same thing. And you know, once again, proven wrong, but it was probably the thing that kept me in the game and allowed me to continue on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's when you surround yourself with people who have the results that you want, you realize pretty quickly that they're just human. There's there's generally not any thing usually that makes them stand above and beyond what you do. It's generally their habits or, you know, stroke of luck or so many other things. So I've experienced that uh, similar feeling to you where it's like, oh, if they can do it, I, I can definitely do it. And that's what's pulled me along over the years as well, as I'm always trying to learn these little things but remain consistent in what they tell me they do, to improve.
Speaker 1:And obviously, over time as well, you really work out what does work well for you and what doesn't work well. It's like when you're building a business, you've got your lag and your lead metrics, like the things that you do. Now that can almost determine an outcome, and the more experienced you are, the longer you've been in business, those lead indicators are a bit more fixed. And then, obviously, the lag indicators, the delayed ones. This result happened because of these actions. Now that I have that, that can become a lead indicator potentially, or something like that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so diving back in, obviously for you when it's looking at coming out of military. You've launched this e-book. What then happened next? After that failed e-book, You're surrounding yourself with people running retreats. What direction did the business go in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I stopped the contracting side of stuff. Uh, when covid happened, um, obviously you know, the whole world shut down and I wasn't doing quarantines and all that kind of stuff. Um, and naturally, coming back, we had a bit of money behind us, because we say that it was quite, you know, it was good pay whilst we're over there. But, um know, I couldn't go back to personal training because there was no gyms. I couldn't, you know, do anything. So online was, sort of it forced my hand to actually, you know, go deep.
Speaker 2:So I remember, you know, during the COVID I had like Zoom Fit 30. And I know that because it's still my username on one of my PayPal accounts and I was literally doing three 30-minute Zoom fitness sessions every day for all my old clients, any other, their friends, family, anyone that was stuck in hotels, and we're making good money like $1,000 a week on three sessions a day where it was literally a camera in the shed and me just doing the workout with them and you know follow along sort of style workouts and you know chatting to you know a screen that had, you know, 10, 20 different, you know titles on it with all different pitches and yeah, sort of that proved to me that you know, as with every other personal trainer in the world who also went online at the same time, that there is money here and if you actually, you know, slowly build that audience and do it with a real purpose and not just do it for a quick cash grab. You know there is opportunities to. You know, change people through. You know, online and that sort of got us through that, that coded period, and then out of that, you know, grew the fit, that lifestyle um, as well.
Speaker 2:So the original ebook, even though it was targeted towards dads, it was just under my own personal name, um, because I thought I was the next great success under my own, you know, personal banner, rather than a yeah company.
Speaker 1:What was it that made you go to the company? Because I've tossed and turned over. That over the years is like do I build a person? Because one side of the internet's like build your personal brand under your own name, like that's the way to do it. And then the flip side is I build a company and and if you, you know if you're looking to sell it in the future. So that's why I went with the man that can project. But then there's still parts me around like, oh, maybe I could have just stayed as lachlan stewart. That would have been so much easier for all the other crap going on in my life. But there is pros and cons. So what was it that made you sort of lean into the fit dad lifestyle?
Speaker 2:Mate, I think there's probably a little bit of lack of self-belief in myself as a brand or as a name, and then also at the time I didn't want it to just be about me, so I wanted it. You know, in the interim I wanted other coaches, other dads to be sort of part of that banner. So if I had it under a company then I could slot multiple people under there, whereas if it was just all under my name, if something happened to me and I experienced it in the group fitness know when I, when I had other trainers and staff taking classes for me, people would realize I was away or wasn't there for that session and they wouldn't come. It was so much reliant on me and my style of training and I just didn't want to experience that again. I really wanted it to be.
Speaker 2:You know about the macro and not sort of the micro of you know who it was and when it was. So yeah, and then I guess the other part is just protection. Being in an online business, you know, we set up like a discretionary trust and then another holding company and then another company underneath that. So we started selling supplements at the same time as well and we had a business partner come on board with that. So it was just a lot of protection, I guess, for, you know, the family assets and me personally, you know, to just sort of allow us to, you know, have those things in place in case something went pear-shaped.
Speaker 1:What was it that made you to then expand into supplements?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because by this stage the group had about 2,000 or 3,000 dads and one of the group guys in there. Because I was always doing workouts. My favorite time of training is like 4 or 5 am in the morning. It's my own time. There's no distractions, no notifications, no screaming kids. It's literally just me versus me listen to a podcast, a book, just music, whatever it is, and it's just one time where no one's pulling me from 26 different angles.
Speaker 2:So I put a meme up one day there should be an energy drink called 4-Hand Toddler. And someone said you should start your own supplement company. I'm like, yeah, that's a good idea. So one of the guys in the group said, hey, you know one of my good friends who I went to school with owns Australia's largest supplement manufacturer. Do you want me to connect you? I'm like, yeah, let's do it. So it was just yeah, sort of putting a meme up to one of our members saying, hey, you. It was just yeah, sort of putting a meme up to one of our members saying, hey, you should do it. You want an intro to.
Speaker 2:You know aiden and phil, the guys that, um, I was in you know partnership with with the supplements and still involved in stuff today with them, um and yeah, sort of naturally progressed. We developed an energy range, a hydration range and the recovery range. Then we bought out you know protein powders and kids hydration as well, and a recovery range. Then we bought out you know protein powders and kids' hydration as well, and yeah, sort of what started as an idea went to do you know half a million in revenue in its first couple of years. So it was a pretty you know crazy sort of journey from you know a meme to selling you know 10,000 products.
Speaker 1:It's incredible.
Speaker 1:And it's cool to see.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking about the journey that you've gone on and I'm definitely sure that along the way, for anyone listening, it sounds like it just has been super easy for you to achieve all of these things, but there would be a lot of skills that you've had to develop, challenges or problems that you've had to overcome in order to do those.
Speaker 1:Even online business is different to selling supplements, I can imagine, with the rules and regulations around all of that sort of stuff. So, to be able to manage that and also the online business, obviously it's one of the cool things of having the brand right as well. If it aligns with and continues to add value to it, you can add more products and services on top of that, and that's one of the things that I love about, I guess, the online space and even the health and fitness spaces like there's so many different ways you can help people and if it aligns and you've found value in it and you understand it, you can make it another offering to to people, to add more value as well, which also, to flip it on its head it continues to grow your revenue and grow your business as well.
Speaker 2:Mate 100%, and that's probably one of the things that I've always done everything myself. So, whether it be editing podcasts, whether it be the website, if I need a logo made, I'll hire a graphic designer. But literally everything to do with the business, from when I got out of the army, has been a one-man band and I'm not a master in anything, but I guess I am a jack-of-all-trades like. I know the back end of you know shopify. I know the back end of facebook. I know the back end of you know facebook ads, google ads, instagram, instagram, spotify, all the different stuff, and I know enough that I can get stuff done. And when I need to get over that hurdle or that speed hump that I might come across, it's as simple as just going to YouTube. And there is literally and even now with ChatGPT, it's even easier.
Speaker 2:But back in the day it was the universe of YouTube. If I didn't know something, it was was a 10 minute tutorial to figure it out. I didn't need to go to uni and study. You know website design or study. You know marketing. It was just sort of trial and error. All right, that didn't work, let's try it this way. Yep, that worked. All right, let's keep moving forward. Get the next speed hump right? Don't know the answer to that? Yep, watch this youtube tutorial. Youtube tutorial. Yep, got the answer.
Speaker 2:Keep moving on and even today, like I'm in a position now where we're going through a complete rebrand and a complete overhaul and I'm actually outsourcing and paying people to do it properly Finally, I've got to the stage where I'm losing a bit of you know, gaining a bit of trust in other people and not, you know, realising that it doesn't all have to be on my shoulders and um, but I I wouldn't trade what I've done in the past because now I can actually have conversations with these professionals and understand what they're talking about and understand if they're talking about something in the back end of meta or talking about something on the back end of shopify or a bit of coding or a bit of you know, the reasoning behind this type of branding versus something else. I actually understand it and it's not like I'm just going in blindfolded and just you know, accepting what they say and paying what they are. I can actually push back and answer a few questions with a question to sort of get to that result that I want to move to.
Speaker 1:It's such a cool way of looking at it because there's two sort of camps with that. There's a camp of people who are always getting ready, to get ready, and they feel like they need to know everything about marketing the most incredible business plan before they even do anything. And, as we've all found out through doing it, it's like you can have the best plan possible, but shit doesn't generally go to plan, so the best way is to just start. You'll figure out and be faced with the problems that you need to solve as you go. And, as you said, youtube like the best subscription I have is YouTube Premium.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly the same.
Speaker 1:It's epic Even when you go for a run, you just have it on in your pocket and always learning about different things, and there is so much value in there to be able to build the things that you want. And, as you said, now with ChatGPT, it's just like everything is just so quick, and I think it's such an exciting time for people to start taking more control over their finances and their lifestyle by building out something similar to what both you and I have done. It's it's, I guess, a problem in our life. You know, for you is leaning on health and fitness. For me, it was leaning on health and fitness to improve my mental health and then recognizing that we're not alone in this, when starting to share and document the journey and then provide potential solutions for that and building community, and that just continues to evolve, right Like that's sort of how you landed on the Fit Dad. So how did you, I guess, pinpoint that you wanted to work with Dad specifically?
Speaker 2:It was sort of a natural progression based upon just my love of just training with the kids. So predominantly in the group fitness world and you know it's pretty common in all, like the F45s or fit stops or all these kind of things now it's about 80% female. So the first six, seven years of my personal training or group fitness journey, it was actually, you know, predominantly females fitness journey. It was actually, you know, predominantly females. Um, and that was just because you know guys, and I'm exactly the same, I knew it all. I would rather go to the gym or go hit a boxing bag than go listen to a personal trainer with 20 other girls on a beach and do you know, burpees and do push-ups and you know, use a torsion bar for 45 minutes. And you know that was sort of my mentality. I'm like I understood exactly why we didn't have more. You know, use a torsion bar for 45 minutes, and you know that was sort of my mentality. I'm like I understood exactly why we didn't have more guys. You know, down there that was, you know, because they're busy, they know it all, they've got everything sorted out. They're either playing footy or, you know, move there. But you know, my love for fitness didn't stop once we sold the companies and obviously, working overseas, where you know could train twice a day, you know, coming back to you know the holidays we'd always want to maintain that fitness, you know, to just obviously keep on top of our own. You know, health and wellness, and I didn't realize that, um, I was going to go in the direction of training with dads.
Speaker 2:But our children grew up in the fitness space. They would always be coming to the group fitness sessions. If we run a Bali or Thailand retreat, they'd take them with us. They'd be standing on the beach or coming on different adventures and they were just always embedded into it. And it got to a stage where we were, me and my wife, would just be doing a training session and one of the kids would come up and just start imitating, you know, a push-up, or maybe they were sleeping or a bit whiny, but we still wanted to train.
Speaker 2:So we'd just hold him and, you know, do some squats, or hold him and do some crunches or you know, to make him smile and sort of change that emotional state that it might have been, and throw them up in the air and then they'll start to laugh. So we had to squat into it and it was just all these different little progressions that, to us, were just having fun. It was never doing it with the idea of like, hey, we could train with our kids and turn this into a lucrative, you know, sort of lifestyle business. On the side. It was sort of just naturally progress of filming it because we're like, oh, this is cool, our kids are training with us and posting it on our personal Facebook page. But then multiple people at the time just friends and family reaching out hey, can you develop a program for me and my kid. And it was just sort of yeah it was like a natural progression.
Speaker 2:It was sort of it wasn't planned. But then at the time and even still now, even though my kids are a lot older, it's still such a passion because, you know, I'm a really big believer in, you know, practising what I preach and our kids are, you know, always imitating and learning from what we do, more often than what we say. You know, like a prime example yesterday, and it will run true for any other father, always imitating and learning from what we do, more often than what we say. A prime example yesterday and it will run true for any other father listening to this, I can scream at my kids or tell my kids to clean the lounge room, their room outside, 26 times and they just ignore you for the first half and then whine about why they can't and try and bribe you with pocket money or something, a toy and credit on their phone for the other half until they eventually do it, whereas if I just walk over there and start cleaning that lounge room or the room or outside and say, hey, can you come, give us a hand, it will be done in two minutes, they come over straight away. There's no whining, there's no emotional blackmail, there's no complaining, it's no emotional blackmail, there's no. You know, complaining, it's just because I'm there actually physically doing it. They're like, okay, you're doing it, I'll come help you, and you know, it's just yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting how that mindset works with them. If they see you doing something, more often than not they'll want to do it or at least be curious enough to want to know why you're doing it. Whereas if I tell them to do something, if I told my son to go do some pull-ups or some push-ups or go for a run around the block that we live on or whatever, not a chance in the world. Whereas the minute I put my shoes on and go outside and start training, I guarantee both kids are there. They want to play footy in between, they want to sit next to me and do some abs, they want to come for a run or even just ride their scooter next to me.
Speaker 1:They just want to be involved and want to be present with you. It's so cool. Children seem to be a reason why a lot of people don't look after their health and don't prioritise their relationship. For you, it's been the opposite. Why do you feel that is?
Speaker 2:I think we've like. So we homeschool our kids. So, harry, he went to school for the first year or two and then COVID happened. Obviously, everyone homeschooled for that short period, but then we never took him back. So we're very fortunate that our kids are with us 24-7, unless I'm working overseas or traveling or whatever. So we're basically in that family dynamic. So for us it's just second nature. It's what we've always done.
Speaker 2:For other people, I think they convince themselves after that 168 hours in a week that they don't have time. And I think that's the biggest thing that I find with other dads and even mums or people in general. They don't have time to keep on top of their health and fitness because of school commitments or commuting to and from work or meetings, because of this, that and everything else. But every person that says that to me over the years, I challenge them right then and there to send me a screenshot of their screen time map on their phone. I'm like like you've got no time to train, do you? No, no, I cannot literally do 15 minutes a day. I'm like that's the one thing you do is 15 minutes a day at minimum, like bare minimum. If you can just do that, we can work on everything else. They send me the screen time that it's literally seven hours on social media in the last couple of days and it's, you know, netflix and it's youtube, and it's this, that and everything else. And I go to them. I said you know what's your job, I'm a, I'm a chippy, you know. You know, I'm a, you know, working the mines, so you don't need to be on social media seven hours. It's not like your career. You're not social media marketing, you're running online business and your phones no, no, I'm like well, there's seven hours that we've just now got straight away. And then you know, we've got the youtube here, and then we've got, you know, game here and you've got sports bet here and you got this.
Speaker 2:That I'm like I just found you 10 to 15 hours and you can't give me, you know, an hour and a half over the course of the whole week at absolute minimum, and like the puppy dog face, they give you straight away on like a zoom or on a facetime.
Speaker 2:It's like, fuck, I'm just fucking being bullshit, not only to you but to myself, because I'm prioritizing all these things that don't actually move me closer to my goals, dreams and aspirations. And you know, in in turn, like what. I can guarantee that kids are also sitting on the ipad on the couch, because seeing dad just lay on the couch or sit on the bed on his phone or on the shitter or you know wherever it is like, it's just the natural flowing effect. And the only way to break that curse and break that, you know, negativity passing on our kids is to to do it ourself. But first of all we've got to match our priorities with our goals and make sure that that calendar actually matches up with everything. Because until that stage happens, or until you convince yourself that it can happen, it's just passing on all these bad habits and all this sort of negativity down the line that eventually will transcend into generations to come that eventually, will you know, transcend into generations to come.
Speaker 1:You did a post a while back and it was 10 tips for dads, and number nine was goal setting is a must. Why do you feel goal setting is so important? Probably just to continue on from what we're talking about there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if you haven't got anything to work towards, you can find yourself very easy to fall into a rut. You know, if you haven't got and that goal doesn't necessarily need to be you know, one of the big things I preach is just be 1% better than yesterday. That's all you need to do. Like if you can beat yesterday, you will never lose. There is no possible way you can lose if you continually beat yesterday. There is no possible way you can lose a continual beat yesterday. So it could be you know you might be starting out after five years of ill health and run 100 metres, like next week it might be, or tomorrow it might be 110. Like it doesn't. You don't need to change five years of bad habits overnight. And if you haven't got goals to work towards, then you know you just find yourself when the going gets tough. And you know you might be over here when it's winter. So typically in summer it's 4.30, we're out running. You know all well and good, but now we're out running, it's 11 degrees, it's dark till 6 am or 6.30. And you know these are the days and times where everyone falls off the bandwagon because they've got nothing to push them or motivate them or encourage them to keep moving forward. And if you're not hitting those milestones and those milestones don't need to be much like you might plan to run 5Ks by the end of the year, your milestone after month two could be 1,500 meters or 3,500 meters. It doesn't need to be much, but at least if you've got a target to hit, then it's going to keep you on the track and when you do get too cold or do get injured or do get overwhelmed, it's easy to go back. And well, this is my purpose. This is why I'm actually going down this route. This is why I'm doing this task. There is a bigger meaning to do it. It could be a charity front-runner. It could be something with your best friend and you don't want to let him down. It could be something for your kids. It could be a color run with your family, one of the things that I've probably changed a lot of my mindset on in the past I would say probably recently, so it was only about four years ago. I was always training because I wanted to be, I wanted to look good on the socials, like I wanted to be that next influencer, that next influencer. I want to be that next. You know, whatever you know, it is online because I thought in my head that that's what people wanted and that's how I would make money if I look good and, you know, sold myself.
Speaker 2:But there was one day and I'll tell you the story. So we're at the snow park over in Queenstown and we were tobogganing with the kids. It was like an hour pass and it was this 50 meter incline. Our kids were, you know, too young to, I think they walked the first lap and then, after that, their you know legs are about to fall off and they're broken. So it was like chuck them on the toboggan, drag them up, push them back down, and it was like literally rinse and repeat. For for an hour. There was a another family, so there was just us, me and another family.
Speaker 2:Um, in this hour pass, same guy, probably five years older, a couple kids about the same age. Literally they got 15 minutes in. He couldn't pull his kids anymore. He was about 30 to 40 kilos overweight. Um, it was freezing cold. You know you're in all the snow gear and all that kind of stuff and he actually looked like he was about to kill over and, you know, have a heart attack and his kids are screaming dad, just one more time, dad, just one more time. And he just physically couldn't do it and their kids were at the same sort of age where it was too much for them to walk up and navigate the pushdown by themselves. We finished the hour of that toboggan, went into the cafeteria to get a drink and a feed before we drove back down to Queenstown. Here they are eating deep-fried everything pies, sausage, rolls, chips, every one of them, even including the kids, they who got Cokes and soft drinks and whatever else.
Speaker 2:And I think that was my biggest realization You're not training for yourself anymore. You are. You've got to look after yourself, both physically and mentally. But I'm training so I never have to say no to my kids. I'm training so my kids never have to experience what those kids did that day. They're just innocent kids who want to probably travel halfway across the world to come here and have all these different experiences and because of the dad's ill health and his physical inability, these kids need to miss out. I never want my kids kids need to miss out. I never want my kids to have to miss out. And and that was probably the realization that you know, I train for fatherhood. Now I don't train for you know myself to look good in front of the camera for hundreds of thousands of people it's a great realization to have and I think that's one of the cool things about goal setting but also long-term thinking.
Speaker 1:A lot of people wake up at a certain period in their life and they either are in a terrible relationship, they're in a body that they're not proud of and lack energy, or they just don't have the finances and by then it's not too late, but they're in a position that they don't want to be in. Had they thought about that earlier, which most people have access to now, with the internet and everything like that. It's like if I see myself in 10 years time knowing that I'll have children and knowing that I want to be a present parent, what does that mean for my finances? What does my business need to look like? What do I need to be doing now so that I have developed the habits and not just going to go from working 80-hour weeks to all of a sudden working 20-hour weeks, because we all know that doesn't happen and you start building those habits, routines and developing those skills as you go.
Speaker 1:And the thing that really upsets me is people don't think about that. They're just like and there's some people have the choice and other people are just trying to survive. So I understand that and that's why for me now, circling back around to what we said before, what you and I have both created with online business or even just working for yourself you have a lot more control over your finances and a lot of people at the moment are just trying to create or generate income so that they can have a bit more freedom in their life, to then start thinking about, hey, how can I improve my relationship or how can I spend more time with their kids? There was number six on the 10 tips for dads was plan, prepare, execute, and I think that's what we sort of tie into when you think about planning, preparing and executing. What does that look like for you and the things that you do in your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, I apologize for that. I just got a cramp in my hand as I was sitting here, so I had to jump up very quickly and nearly knock my computer over.
Speaker 1:That's a 9K run and a croissant right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a sauna, and then straight sitting on the seat here doing a podcast. Yeah, mate, I think just planning for the future and I think you've probably just hit the nail on the head. Then, with you know, looking 5, 10, 15 years into the future and, you know, realising where you want to be and where you want to be not only as an individual but, you know, as a family unit, you know, with with your partner and making sure that you and your partner are both on the same page as well. There's no use in me chasing my goals personally, my health goals you know finance goals and then she chasing something completely different, in a different direction, because you know when you, when you've got that family unit, you need that unity to be on the same page.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that you can't chase your own personal goals, but you also need to be aware of the other person's goals. You know as a individual, to achieve that or an allocation away from the family responsibilities or whatever it is, then we're just going to keep butting heads and getting to a stalemate of just like you know, this isn't going to work. If you're chasing your dream, you're allocating all this time to yourself and I'm the one picking up the slack and not being able to do anything on my terms, because you're taking all that free time away from us, or as a family, and I think it's just planning and preparing your own stuff, making that known as a collective to whether it be your partner, whether it be to your kids, whether it be to business partners, associates, extended family and then executing based upon that mission that you've set. Is it always going to pan out? No, but if you don't make that plan and don't prepare adequately, you'll never get to find out in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll just continue getting more of the same thing there, that's for sure. I've read in a lot of your stuff like legacy comes up. What legacy do you want to leave?
Speaker 2:Probably the biggest legacy that I want to leave to my children is that dad was around, dad was present, dad was, you know, involved in everything we did and dad never lived a life of regret. Um, and you know, just to instill those you know, positive foundations through health, wellness, fitness and even allowing the kids to, you know like I never I know all the answers to my children's problems. I can give them the answer tomorrow. You know, in an instant, whatever they're going through at their age, now under under the roof, I know the answer to their solution. But if I consistently give them that answer and don't let them, you know, fail or try and overcome that adversity that maybe you know, and and to a kid at 10 years old, it's not really the end of the world. It might be lost his youtube account or something you know like that, or you know whatever's going on, but you know, letting them try and figure it out before giving them the answer every single time. And I think you know just giving them that confidence to tackle life. And you know, we all know this, at the moment it seems like the world's going crazy in every which way you look at it from you know politicians, to leadership, to health, to control, to, you know, whatever it is out there.
Speaker 2:And I want to give my kids and I think one of the biggest kids and I think one of the biggest keys to my legacy is to give them the ability to tackle whatever world may look like in 10, 15 years, once they get into adulthood, adulthood with the confidence and the capability to hit that front on and not get to the 18 years old and being sheltered through their parents, sheltered through the schooling system, sheltered through life, and then get there and go shit. What do I do? Or how do I do this, or why do I do it? How do I avoid falling down that pit of depression, anxiety, fear, you know, and getting sucked into everything that everyone else wants you to believe and not actually having a voice and having the capability to tackle those problems or overcome those obstacles you know yourself?
Speaker 1:that's cool, I think it's um. One thing I really, I guess stood out from that was the idea that, in order to be able to set your children up with the ability to navigate and solve their own problems and develop critical thinking, you first have to be able to do that for yourself as well, because in order to probably step back and allow that to happen, you need to understand what's going on and why it's happening, whereas the helicopter parenting is people who probably have a lot of their own whether you want to call it trauma or shit going on in their life that they don't want that to happen to their kid because they haven't learned to work through it and let go and move on and once again, that's different for everyone in saying that, but the idea of allowing people to fail and make mistakes is such an important skill to develop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, definitely. It's one of those things that if we continuously give our kids the answers or the solutions or the finances or the help, you see it and I don't want to stereotype anyone, but you see it like with high profile or high um commercial, you know business owners who are sending their kids to private school and the kids never need for anything, they never want for anything. Everything's given to them, everything's, yes, everything's uh, you know. You know they never need to want, do or need any of those things that an everyday person or everyday family struggles with or needs to save up.
Speaker 2:Kids who have been given everything, their whole life on a pedestal and gone to the ritzy schools and gone to the ritzy universities, are the ones that fall flat on their feet once they have to actually take control of their own life and actually have to do things for themselves, because they haven't got the bank of bad there, they haven't got the advisors or the the yes man to continuously give them the right.
Speaker 2:You know answers and you know it's the same. You know when you get to the real world and you know all these kids have always been given, you know, a pat on the back or you know, you see it with the schools now, like participation, trophies and ribbons and all this kind of stuff, whereas when you turn 18 and go out to the real world you don't get a pat on the back if you fail that job interview. You don't get a pat on the back when or you know, a trophy when your sports team doesn't make the grand final. Like they're growing up in this mindset of like, oh it doesn't matter if it it doesn't work out, I'll still be right and still get helped over here. And you know they don't understand that it's win or lose in the real world. And if you're not teaching your kids the importance of that at this age, then what do you expect them to take into adulthood and then pass on to generations to come? You know, once they hit that adversity that might get thrown at them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, spot on, Leroy. Thanks so much for joining me on the show man. It's been a pleasure to sort of learn more about what you've created, how you're creating it and what you're doing moving forward For people who are listening, who would love to find out more about what you're doing and how they can get involved. Where can people find all your links and socials and all of that sort of stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate. No, I appreciate the time. It's been amazing to jump on here and you know, been following your journey for you know a while and everything, since the world record attempt of the rower and then one of my good mates, I was in the army with yeah Dale. He completed, I think, or did, the same one recently as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did it recently as well.
Speaker 2:He did an amazing job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a yarn as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so, mate, but on the socials, the uh, the fit dad lifestyle. That is where you'll find it on whatever social platform you're after, and then the fitdadlifestylecom is the website for anything like that for everyone listening.
Speaker 1:I'll put all of that in the show notes below, so it's a simple click away and if you've got value from the episode, make sure you go reach out to Leroy. He's got over, let's say, decades worth of experience and insight on not only how to build that fit dad lifestyle, but also be a great husband and partner and father and also just develop a great lifestyle. I think that's one of the key points. A lot of people aren't happy Statistically. I think it's like 73% of that. Maybe that's one of the key points.
Speaker 1:A lot of people aren't happy. Statistically, I think it's like 73 percent of that. Maybe that's the obesity, but there's a large number of people who are unhappy in the workplace and there's also a ridiculous number of people who are obese and overweight in australia and here in the states as well. So I think anyone who is providing opportunities for people to upskill or be part of a community that can help them grow and develop, I think is doing it, doing awesome work. So I appreciate you coming on there, roy no worries, mate, highly appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
