When Your Old Life No Longer Fits #678

Frameworks are powerful.
But they are not the full story.

Over the last decade, I have built my life around structure, discipline and momentum. It helped me run 58 marathons in 58 days. It helped me build The Man That Can Project and coach men all over the world.

But right now, I am in a season of change.

My wife and I spent three years trying to conceive. Undiagnosed infertility. IVF. Uncertainty. Now we have our son, Freddy.

And everything has shifted.

Sleep deprivation. Broken routines. Interrupted work.
Momentum on one side. Fatherhood on the other.

In this episode of Life Performance, I talk about:

• What seasons of change really feel like
 • Grieving the old version of yourself
 • Business growth versus family presence
 • Why productivity decline is sometimes growth
 • How the Core 4 still applies in chaotic seasons

If you are navigating change, questioning priorities, or building a life that looks good but feels incomplete, this will resonate.

Take the free Life Performance Scorecard and see where you stand across Strong Body, Calm Mind, Clear Purpose, and Confident Life: https://lifeperformance.scoreapp.com/

Coaching: https://www.lachlanstuart.com.au/coaching

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lachlanstuart/

Transcript

Naming A Season Of Change

Lachlan Stuart 0:00

There's not going to be any hooks with this video. I wanted to jump on here as I'm going through a season of change. I wanted to share a few things that I'm experiencing, a few challenges that I've had, a little bit about the sleep deprivation that I'm experiencing. But most importantly, because a lot of the episodes I've done recently are polished and they're answering direct questions. But one thing that I have always believed is so important for people like yourself who are following me is that we need the in-between. So I'm a big believer that frameworks are great. They help us understand the step-by-step process in order to go from where we are to where we want to be. But if frameworks themselves were the only thing we needed to have, everyone would be healthy, wealthy, and happy. But if you look around you, you can probably look at your social circle and depending on your social circle, but not everyone is in that position. So we need to talk about what the journey is actually like. And so I have been extremely structured over the last decade of my life, you know, which has been awesome. It's helped me bring peace of mind, it's helped me track progress, see things in my life that are working well, seeing things in my life that are draining me or energizing me, seeing things in my life that were once a goal or I guess something that I was super interested in, and now I've evolved, and that was just a chapter of my life. And it's great having all of this stuff there. But as I go through this season of change and the conversations that I'm having with myself, I almost feel like I'm part of me wants to go back to the old life. And this sounds this is interesting because I love the life that I have. I love being a dad and watching my wife be a mum and just being married. But I it's hard to let go of the routines and the structures and the ability to be able to do anything when you want. And I think for anyone who's not a parent, you'll know what I'm talking about. But even for the parents, you also know what I'm talking about. It's one of the most selfless things you can do to become a parent if you're fortunate enough to do so. And for those of you who aren't, you may have watched my journey and my wife's journey. We had three years of trying for a kid, we had an undiagnosed infertility, which was tough because we didn't really know what we could do to solve that, hence why we went down the IVF route. But now being a parent, just watching young Freddie, who's who's our boy, there is no routine. Like, obviously, a kid doesn't understand the concept of time. So I think if you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you can utilize the concept of time to improve your life to achieve things, do that because when you're dealing with a kid, they don't care what time it is. If they're hungry, they're hungry. You'll be getting up multiple times a night, or if they feel like cracking the shits, they feel like cracking the shits. And I was trying to sit down here this afternoon and just get on top of some work because I haven't really been doing too much work the last uh two weeks. And I feel like every time I sat down and started getting into a bit of a rhythm, then the young fella would start crying and want to be picked up, or he'd want to be fed and then burped, and then he'd shit himself essentially, and then you'd have to change his diaper, and it's this constant routine of interruption. It didn't frustrate me because I want to enjoy the process, and I'm enjoying the process, but now having had such high expectations and knowing what I used to be able to get done in a full day's work or even in an afternoon of work, that is no longer possible, and that is challenging to, I guess, see my productivity decline, but it's also understanding and accepting that this is a season of change, right? My priorities have shifted. I'd love to know have you ever been through one of those seasons of change where your priorities shift and how you were living last week, you're now just not allocating, or you're not able to allocate the same amount of time and intention and intensity to something that you are now, and you're okay with that, but there's still part of you who's like, Oh man, well, I've been doing that for so long. Like I've been coaching men, I've been running the Man at Cam project uh for nearly a decade now. I feel like I'm in a very busy period where I'm every day getting new men reaching out to me, wanting to ask for help. And this is dudes from all around the world. Like, I've been on guys calls with guys in New Zealand, the USA, different parts of Australia, even obviously Brisbane where I am now, which is all great. But when you feel like you're in demand, you're like, oh, I want to roll with this momentum. But then, oh, you know, even after this podcast, I'll turn this off, I'll upload it to Google Drive, and then I'll go look at the little fellow, and the whole world stops. And you start sitting there thinking, like, what is really important to me here? It's easy to fall into this trap. Business to me is this vehicle, right? Like, I'm very fortunate that I have a business that allows me financial stability, it allows me to work for myself, and it allows me to do something that I enjoy doing and I love doing. Like, I was doing this podcast before I was getting paid, and I don't get paid for the podcast. I was coaching for literally like 400 bucks for 12 weeks, so not very much money. And I was doing it because I was putting in the reps and I was learning it, but what it always comes back to for me is the transformation in men like you. I've been around the industry enough to see many coaches who start as men's coaches then eventually become business coaches. They might have had two or three clients and then they go, Oh, I've earned X amount of money, now I'm going to teach other people how to do that through coaching. And don't get me wrong, I've thought about doing that. I've thought about like I could I could really do that. But it's not what excites me. The money is not the ultimate driver. The ultimate driver for me is helping men reach their full capacity. And that means using the core for the if anyone who's taken the scorecard, and if you haven't, you can take a free scorecard, which will be in the link in the bio or in the comments there, which scores you across four core areas strong body, calm mind, conf a clear purpose, and confident life. And I always notice a pattern within men. Whenever a man feels stuck or he feels like he hasn't reached full capacity, it's one of those areas isn't where it could be. And so if you take that scorecard, it's going to grade you and you're going to see some questions that make you think about oh, these are the things that I could do to start actually moving the needle there. Because what happens, right? Let's say you get 100% in strong body and you're 80 in confident life, you're 60 in a calm mind and clear purpose is is lacking as well. You can go, okay, well, which one do I need to focus on first? What then happens is it then starts this cyclic, this cycle effect. And every time you start improving it, you level up because then once your body is stronger, you start having a calmer mind. And as you have a calmer mind, you get more focused in on what you're here to do and who you're here to serve and what you want from your life. And then the confident life is where you go out and actually live a great life and implement those things where you're going to get feedback, and that feedback then goes, okay, well, what does a strong body look like based on the season of life that I'm in, based on the feedback that I'm getting? And then it just continues to roll through, and it becomes very simple for us to work on, and that's one of the most exciting things because I'm constantly having people take these scorecards, and you might do that as well. And I know that I can help men. One, their life is falling apart in some way, whether they've just lost their job, their relationships falling apart. It doesn't matter, one of those things. Or the upside is they're put themselves in a, I guess, a great prison in that their life is awesome. Their marriage might be going well, their job's going well, but they still have that question like, is this all there is? Is this all I have worked my ass off to achieve? And it doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on, the process is still the same because we've got to build towards full capacity. We've got to firstly identify where you're at, what's your baseline right now, and where you want to get to. What has to happen in between that is the gap, and that's where the work happens. And I love doing that stuff. It's fun. We do it through workshops, retreats. Currently putting together, and that's what I've been working on the computer this afternoon, is turning our full capacity one-on-one program into small group cohorts of 10 people, which I'm very excited about. We're just building when I say where I'm building out the app and the back end because it's putting all of our my info in there and we're putting some AI agents in there, and the flow chart of them will make a group cohort, and it will be phenomenal for men. And to be honest, it's going to be probably priced because it's going to be a 12-month program where we have in-person events for people. Doesn't matter where you live in the world, you'll have the opportunity to go, but probably around$3,000 for starters for the beta group for the test group, and then it'll go up to probably$5,000 because I charge five figures to work with me one-on-one. And this is going to be just as good, and it's going to have added benefits where you get other group people. But anyway, back to that process. So as I'm getting these messages, I now go, okay, well, I was meant to have a meeting on Friday, I meant to have a meeting tomorrow morning, I meant to have a meeting tomorrow afternoon, but it's really hard for me at the moment, and this is where it's highlighted a problem in my business and how I've set things up, and that's a different conversation. But I'm then looking at it going, okay, well, do I go for coffee with these men who maybe need my support and may or may not decide to work with me? Or do I spend time with my son and support my wife? And unfortunately, or fortunately, it doesn't matter how you look at it, but it's always going to be my son and my wife. But I do feel guilty and I do feel bad for not being able to take those coffees or meetings. Alternatively, what it has highlighted for me is that rather than always needing to be the guy, the one-on-one coach who gets to work with these incredible people, whether they're business owners, professional athletes, I should have increased or improved my strong men of value academy, which was an old online program I had years ago, to what we're about to launch soon. And it's just reminded me, hey, like the only way to be able to really help it scale is have something that can scale. And unfortunately, one-on-one cannot scale, but you know, even doing videos like this are helpful. And I hope that what I've been talking about, even though it may be rambly, I'll watch this back in the morning and be like, dude, what the fuck were you talking about? I feel like I've dropped some important points for you to at least start thinking about there when you're going through periods of change, I guess prioritizing things and setting your life up to live better and periods of reflection. But I think that's probably enough for me now. Pretty tired. I hope you have enjoyed this. If you have other questions, there's so many bloody videos, podcasts, and blogs that you can start reading through uh information. But if you have any questions, you know where to send me a message at lochlandstewart.com.au or just drop it in my Instagram. I need to go to sleep. Have a great afternoon, guys, or great evening. We'll see you soon. See you in the next video.