Win At Home Before You Lose It All: The 5 Step System For Midlife Men

00:00 Winning at home. When a man thrives at home, everyone around him thrives. When everyone around him thrives, life get easy. When life is easy, he thrives in work. This is the high value man blueprint. It doesn't work the other way around. Roll thing. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Welcome, men, to the high value man show.

00:43 Well, it's the Johnny Jensen show, but I am the founder and head coach at the High Value Man Project. It's absolutely great to have you here once again. If it's your first time, how did you find us? Please go wherever you're listening and subscribe. Make sure you hit some kind of leave a review button and of course share this with other men in your life because that's what we're up to here is we are making a difference to men in the world. It is our mission to see men thrive, thrive at home as much as in their work. And to be honest, even more so, because when we're thriving at home, we're more productive at work. We're more effective at work. We can focus more. But far more important than that, when men thrive, their families thrive.

01:26 We give the space for our wives to fulfill their potential and achieve their dreams. The same goes for our kids. What dad wouldn't want that for their children? And the truth of the matter is, what man wouldn't want that for themselves? Because that's what we're really up to. We lead not to control, but we lead to create the life that we desire for ourselves and for the people around us. Because when men are strong and thriving, everything works out, right? Not every woman is going to be happy to hear that. It's not about telling them what to do or being in control. Not at all. But the world needs strong, confident, charismatic men, okay?

02:06 Men that can withstand challenges, men that can make money, men that can be creative if that's their thing or strong if that's their thing. Masculinity, ultimately, your identity ultimately is yours. But you have to go out there and get it because when you don't, that's when men struggle. That's when we fall into the low value death spiral and life becomes tricky. And the reason why I want to flag all this up today is because of the winning at home series, which we're running across this month, which is June, at the risk of time-stamping that. And Accelerate, our eight-week group program for dads, predominantly midlife dads, men who are creating success at home as well as work.

02:50 That's the promise, right? And off the back of our winning at home events, there's the opportunity to enrol in Accelerate. It's a small group program for 20 men maximum. Like I said, we run it three times a year. And this is the July, like the summer intake. I really want to invite you to come and be part of that, either by getting a taste in the win at home webinar or through literally jumping to the Accelerate page. Probably the best thing that you could do is go and register for Win at Home. So highvalumanproject.com forward slash win hyphen at hyphen home or win-at dash home.

03:30 That will get you registered up into one of the webinars. And if you don't come to the webinar, you can still just dive straight into Accelerate. What I want to do with you today is run through the five core elements that has a man win at home. Has a man secure his identity and thrive. And the reason I came to do this was I was updating my Kickstart Your Single Dad Life e-book. No one reads a bloody e-book these days, but it accompanies now with some adjustments. It accompanies the scorecard process. When you go and discover your high value man score, you want something to go alongside it that says, how can you improve this score?

04:12 We send you your fully personalized response to your answers, which is run through our AI high value man assistant. But some people like to, it depends, left brain, right brain, creative, you know, what side you land on. And so I went through and I updated it and it just really hit home. These five key areas, they're like sequential. It's how we build ourselves up as a man. It's how we're able to lead our families. It's how we're able to fundamentally create the life that we desire, being the man we want to be. So I'm going to take you into them now, right?

04:47 Number one, it's, I'll tell you what, before I get into number one, one of the main reasons I see men crumble, struggle, is fundamentally through a loss of identity. And it's, it's this. this baseline that we have to pull from. When we're kids, we're able to dream really easily. We can say we're going to be an astronaut or a footballer. We can absolutely play in the garden and be as strong or as fast. We can even fly if we want to, right? But as we get older, we lose sight of that. And if you listen to the podcast regularly, you'll know I talk about this a great deal. Where we're at in our 20s, just young and flipping crazy, and it doesn't nothing really matter so long as we're having fun.

05:31 Getting into our late 20s, into our 30s, we get really focused on creating that family, falling in love, starting a business, buying a home, having kids, creating the life that we desire, laser focused on that. Even if we don't know how we're going to do it, we know that's what we want and we go after it. But then the script kicks in. Then life starts to run its crazy pattern on us. And before we know it, we're working hard, we're coming home tired, we're pissed off with mess and kids and wife nagging at us. And all of a sudden, we stop being that awesome bloke that she fell in love with. We stopped being that awesome bloke who we liked in the mirror.

06:09 Like we liked going having a laugh with ourselves. Like that is all symptomatic of one thing, and that is a man losing his identity. It's a man forgetting who he's meant to be. So the number one way to build yourself up to take on life and be exactly the husband, the man, the brother, the father that you want to be, is to follow these five high value man principles. So number one, you can't pour from an empty cup. It's about your energy levels. It's about being able to hit each day with an energy and drive that has you create results.

06:53 The problem is, like, life does kick in. We do start to get a little bit older. But so many men, as they get busy, then poor lifestyle habits kick in, modern lifestyle habits kick in. You know, you have to realize it was only a couple of hundred years ago that we were still walking around, or if you're lucky enough to be able to afford a horse, like the amount of exercise that we naturally had to do to survive is part of our entire evolution as animals. And yet, some sort of 150, 180 years ago, we invented the car, the train, the bus, the plane, all of it. And now we sit on our ass as much as possible, even in work.

07:35 And so that energy level is already tanking. And that's before you bring in modern day foods and access to shit, well, food and shit, food is the same thing, but food, entertainment, access to cheap dopamine, like instant hits from scrolling, porn, gambling, gaming, like none of it's real. But in the moment, it feels awesome, but to our inner core, to the machinery that we are, it's toxic. And then because as humans, as men, we think we're doing everything that we need to do to create the life that we desire, but something's off. Something's not quite right. Something feels flat. There's tension. There's arguments. There's disappointment.

08:17 There's stress. There's anxiety. And rather than looking at ourselves and taking on responsibility, we look at, where's this coming from? Who's causing this? Whose fault is this? It's her. It's the kids. It's the economy. It's the weather. It's clients. It's anything other than yourself. But in saying that, it's all these things that are outside of your control. So the more that we try to change them, the more that we end up stuck. And being stuck is a horrible place. Being stuck means you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's called the double bind. It's a terrible emotional place to find a terrible mental health pinch is the double bind.

09:01 You can't stay, you can't leave. So what do you do? You stress about the fact that you can't stay or leave. And the pit stop analogy, which I use all the time, that Formula One car has to come in and pit on a regular basis. You have to change the fuel, refuel, change the tyres, wipe the visor, change a bit of the car that's broken, put some oil in, like whatever it takes to send the car back out on the track to either keep succeeding and maybe if you put the right focus and attention in, win the bloody race. Skip the pit stop and you're literally gambling that you'll be able to see it through.

09:38 If I can just keep going, if I could just hang on another week, six months, year, if we could just get to the other side, everything will be all right. Meanwhile, the whole experience of life starts running through your fingers like sand. That is a shit show. That. as we often talk about and will come on to in the next point, is a five out of ten life, which means no wonder you are not a very nice man to live with. No wonder she doesn't want to jump your bones. No wonder your kids are bored with you. So then with all those external factors still playing out and us not being able to do anything about it, we get more and more stuck in our ways, you know, more and more, what's the word, sedentary, more and more pissed off.

10:23 Okay. You can't pour for an empty cup. It's as simple as that. You have to go out and refuel, refocus, and look after yourself. So next up, number two, the cost of the wrong life. Now, staying in this worn out, frustrated place will eventually drain all a man's vision and drive and desire. The compromises start to stack up. You start focus, you stop focusing on what you want and start focusing on what you don't want, like a daily frustration of, I don't want this, I don't want that, I don't want any more of this. Why won't she stop this? When will that end? And so our world closes in.

11:05 It becomes negative and resentful. It's like not like, it literally is. You become so out of alignment with what you want, what you desire, even down to your values. And this is the experience of a man losing his voice. The pus word is emasculation, like had your bollocks ripped off. When you don't know who you are and you've got nothing to stand up for, like when you're not being your true self, then you've got nothing. And that is like a hole in the boat. No matter how fast you push forward, no matter how much effort you put in, no matter how great the boat is, that boat is going down with a hole in it. That's where the five out of 10 or five or six out of ten existence comes from.

11:48 How's life? It's all right. It's fine. No, it's not. It's shit. Fine is not what we were put on this earth to do, to live, to experience. Fine is a flipping rock just stuck on the side of a hill, right? But that's not who we are. We are the ultimate creature on this planet. We can create and do and be whoever we want. We can go wherever we want. Think about that for a moment. How dare you be stuck and miserable? Is this the life you dreamed of? Is this your full potential? You know it's not. And like, and if it's not, that's what's going on. And even if you are pushing the envelope, what comes next? What's the next level up?

12:31 A lot of the men that work with me inside the High Value Man Project, particularly if we go down any of the three front doors, burnout, relationship, struggle, or divorce. When you fix that thing, when you address or transform that situation, you level up. It feels great. But then the question comes, what's next? Because it can be great and you can get so used to the level you're at, then maybe great is only a five or six out of 10 of what's really possible. So you get to ask or challenge yourself, what comes next? Who could I be next? What could we create next? Stop being pissed off with what's not working. Get real about where that frustration is coming from.

13:14 What haven't you achieved? Where are you compromised? What values aren't you living by? What decisions are you avoiding? What regrets have taken hold? 100% responsibility looks like you addressing all those areas. Not looking for what's happened to you, but for what you can create next. I guess like Kennedy, you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Ask not what all these bloody else, other people can do for you. Ask what you can do for yourself. Ask, what does being the difference, like if you were literally the difference, what does that look like? That is where you're going to find some energy. That is what's going to drive you forward.

13:58 That's what gets you out of bed excited in the day. And then point three, it gets scientific. It gets into the machinery of what we are to be humans. This incredible machine that we live in is fueled by our hormones, by our reactions and responses to situations. And the chemicals that we need to thrive, not just to survive, but to actually thrive, are all born out of what we're doing, what we're thinking, how we're relating to certain situations, how much time we're spending out in the wild, how much sun we're getting, how much of the good stuff we're soaking up. Because from an evolutionary point of view, that all that,

14:42 we've needed all that to get to where we are at today. So when our modern lifestyle doesn't give us... those responses those physiological responses those neurological responses that biochemistry when we're not doing anything in our life to set those fireworks off you will feel it's not her it's not the job it's not the commute it's not the economy it's not the clients it's you which is hard to hear and if you are like smashing it and doing all these things trust me have a look you know going back to the point above there'll be some kind of frustration that you're not addressing and because of that frustration there'll be some part of these dose chemicals that you're not getting dopamine oxytocin serotonin endorphins these are the

15:29 feel-good and love and reward chemicals that we get from being active and present in in in um in our lives in our lives for ourselves and for our others and the reason why many men will put all their effort into work or even to a hobby right is because it becomes predictable like we it's like like a meat factory you put the meat in the sausage factory they put the meat in the sausage comes out you go to work you do your job you feel good you come home like it's quite safe it's quite set and even if it's not exactly what we want bizarrely something that's not that great can still be a comfort

16:09 we can still keep doing it because at least we know it at least it's predictable our body our our fight or flight survive mechanisms wants us to be safe so if you're not challenging it if you're stuck in a rut putting up with the ho-hum life then actually bizarrely you can feel safe it means that you don't do anything about it and then when someone says what's wrong with you you're miserable you're shit i'm fed up with you i've had enough of you like where's that coming from i work my ass off to provide for all you how dare you well maybe you do but also maybe you become a bit shit maybe you're putting up with too much maybe you're not

16:49 winning so you've got to have a look at where in your life you perform well and what works and is some of that how you're being there what's missing from the area that's not working like could you bring some of that and have the result or the complete flip side of that which you have to do the audit on is are you trying to use that model that works there over here and the classic example would be some kind of drill sergeant in the army like it works to shout at guys flipping eight hours a day if you come home shout at people and expect them to jump when you say so are they

17:29 going to and are they going to appreciate it probably not so you've got to have a look either something's missing that would make a difference or you're putting something in that's fundamentally messing it up you have to be self-aware enough to recognize which of those it could be you can't wait for life to give you the feel-good chemicals that you're looking for that you're missing you've got to go out there and get them yourself the example from a from a leap one-on-one session with a client this week was just about the impact of him planning a date and going and organizing it and taking the picnic and doing this little thing where they made poems using ai

18:13 like it was a beautiful moment and what it did is it gave his wife the space to open up and through her poem tell him a whole bunch of things that weren't really working for her alongside all the things she loved about him now that possibly wasn't what he expected but noticed that he created the safe space for her to do that and out of that if we're talking about dose chemicals he's got the oxytocin of spending time with the woman he loves he's got the serotonin of being out in the fresh air and active and and actually being in action right and then he's got the dopamine the

18:52 reward he did something positive and he got a reward back so then we get a dopamine hit that we yes i like that that's worth doing again and the dopamine is the crap that we want to come back and get more of so you you have to appreciate that our sedentary lifestyle that we talked about above is not firing the human machine and in terms of the high value man project we've reverse engineered this into the fire code so the fire code is the focus that's you and and your physical mental emotional strength that's impact that's your money your business your community that's relationships which comes on to the

19:32 next point in a moment but the people around you that love and support and drive you forward and then fourth and finally is energy the e in the fire code which is fun adventure and peace so when you apply all all these things, when you run the fire code accountability cool, you are triggering these reward chemicals. It gets you fit and healthy, which fuels your testosterone. It brings you closer to connected to the woman you love, which gets you sex, which is also part of testosterone, chicken and egg, because you need testosterone to get it, but the more you get it, the more testosterone you've got. So it's a beautiful thing. It's a win-win. But who's holding you accountable?

20:15 What kind of support have you got? And this is where the fourth point comes in, okay, which is the Diamond Alliance. It's the people in your life. Men that aren't winning at home, right? And generally it cuts across business as well, because when men aren't winning at home, I will ask them, well, who's in your corner? Who's your network? Who's your friends? How much of your family do you see? What about quality time with your kids? What about date night and laughter with your wife? Successful men are so often missing out on those four groups of people. And it doesn't really make sense because you think you've got all this success. Well, surely you would have good people around you.

20:56 And actually that top, top percent of successful people, they do. They understand it. They mastermind. They network. They have coaches. They truly understand the power of having a strong network around them. But there's this middle level, men who are striving, men who are trying to create the business, men who want to make enough money so they can have a nice home and family holidays and really be the dad, the man they want to be. But they have to work hard to create it. And if they let the foot off the gas a tiny little bit, all this stuff that they wanted, all this stuff that they thought defined them, the money, the home, the wife, the kids, the holidays, if they stop working hard, they won't have any of that.

21:39 Seeing our friends, spending time with family, having mentors and a strong network. If all those get in the way of I've got to work hard to make money, then we stop doing those as well. And then what happens? We're left with pretty much one or two sets of people that are carrying it all. And I see this all the time. Relationships that are on their knees because that's all they've got. And commonly, a woman will have her close circle of friends, will have her mother, family, like women don't necessarily always go through this like men do.

22:15 But you work hard to create the results you want and to the detriment of yourself and your family because now she's your counselor, your mentor, your friend, your advisor, your confidante. Like she's all these things that she didn't sign up to be. She wants to be your lover and your teammate, your wife. Doesn't want to mother you. She doesn't want to counsel you and your kids. It's a red flag to me when I hear men talk about my kids are my everything. Of course our kids should be important to us, but they shouldn't really be our everything. Most commonly I hear men say that when other parts of their life are in a mess.

22:57 They justify how they're feeling by, well, my kids come first. I've got to put it all in on them. Doesn't matter about anything else. As long as the kids are okay, then I'm okay. That's not the case. Your kids are okay when you're thriving. That doesn't mean go and play golf every day or spend every night in the pub, right? But it does mean having had a great laugh with your mates, you know, every few weekends, a couple of times, you know, or, you know, once every couple of months. Like it means having people over to laugh and joke with. It means hanging out with your dad and your brother. So that then when you get to be dad to them, they're getting the best version of you.

23:41 Recharged, energized, relaxed, got cool stuff to talk about. Honestly, although it's vital when our kids are little that they see us as that incredible superhero that's there for them, there's also that moment where you come in at the end of the day or from being or from a weekend away with your mates and they run into your arms. That's where you know you've ticked both of those boxes. Trust me when I tell you, when a man tells me that they really don't have many friends or they don't see them as much as they want to and they're not that connected with their family, I generally know they're going to end up struggling. Sooner or later, the relationships that matter most of them are going to become strained.

24:25 So you have to have that diamond alliance. Fit, healthy, strong friendships, mentors that advise and support you. Don't be the smartest guy in the room. Loving life because of what you're up to with all these groups of people. Then the quality of time with your kids matter. Then the... date nights and weekends away that have to be sacred and like locked into your diary with your wife become something you look forward to and aren't like, are we going to argue our way through another weekend? No. And then finally, number five, it is E in the fire code. It is something that underpins really this whole existence that we have on earth.

25:03 If you want to be winning at home, which then means that you succeed in work, then having fun in your life is absolutely pivotal. Having laughter, regular, daily reasons to laugh. What are you listening to? What are you watching? Are you even that classic line from Arthur? Sometimes I just think funny things. Like that's possible with inside all of us, just as much as the grumpy old git is possible inside all of us. The man that can find reasons to laugh and man that can spot joy out of a train window or a car window or like you've got to hunt it out.

25:40 You've got to be willing to see it. Plans to look forward to, memories to look back on. The more you push harder, the quicker the day evaporates. Expensive holidays, they come and go, credit card bills, sunburn, like quickly back into the old groove and the arguments when you get home. People pretending they're having a good time, photos on the gram. No, take the joy, like have the joy and take it on holiday. Don't go on holiday looking for the joy. Because if we take away everything that you've got, like the money, even the marriage, like if you strip that away, can you still be having fun? Have you still got the friendships and the support around you? Fun isn't optional.

26:25 It's not dependent on success or having money or I'll get around to it later on in the month. No, you will be more productive in work when you have that balance, when you've had some joy, some downtime, some opportunity, even if you gift it to yourself. You know, I say to the men I work with, you know, and it relates to myself, if Tottenham are on, am I watching them on telly? Oh, I could well be crying into my pillow over the last two seasons, but am I gifting myself that 90 minutes? Am I putting my laptop away? Have I got my, you know, my daughter doesn't watch football anymore, but she used to. Have I got my kids there with me? Are we enjoying this time? Is it a reward for the hard work that's been put in already?

27:09 Yes, it can and should be. You know, because if we don't fill our lives up with fun and adventure, right? Adventure, go and find it. Go and experience some exhilarating speed. Go and jump off a zip wire or a flipping plane. Like go and have something that kicks you in the like ass, adrenaline-wise. Could be singing, could be dancing, could be, you know, a day rave. It could be a gig. Like whatever floats your boat, get out there and do it so that you feel alive. That's how you show up in your family as the man that you want to be. That's how you win at home. That's how you take that energy into your work. It doesn't come and find you.

27:53 You have to go and find it. And if you're not doing the good stuff, shit stuff will creep in. You know, if you haven't done the other four, then you will generally pick up bad, unhealthy habits. You'll look for things that make you feel good in negative places. And like I said, in modern life, it will be booze, crap food, drugs, porn, gambling, an affair, sitting in your basement playing Fortnite as an adult. Like, no, that is not showing up. That's not being the man in the mirror that really leaves you excited for life. Because if you're not excited for life, people won't be excited around you. So, you know, this is this is the essence of it.

28:37 A high value man knows who he is. He's like happy and secure in his money and in his work. He's got solid relationships around him with people that lift him up, a balanced network. Don't be the strongest guy in the room. People that support you and push you forward. And then, of course, the love and joy and laughter and passion that comes from your family and your wife. It's very rare that fun and peace and adventure just lands in your lab. You have to go out there and find it. Which brings us really on to the final part, right? What's available for you? Winning at home is the 60-minute webinars that are coming up in June.

29:21 Accelerate an Elite 101 is the high-value man system for living. It's not just a coaching program, right? It is that because that's the instructions. That's the IKEA or Lego Lego. booklet that helps you shape yourself into the man that you want to be. But the system for living isn't something you have to learn. It's not hustle. It's not tipping your life upside down. It's not grind. It's a turning the page, recognizing what I was doing here was giving me these results, turning the page and seeing if I take this approach.

29:58 to how I see myself, if I take this approach to the people around me and how I function and operate and the fun and adventure I have, then this is what's going to happen. The results are inevitable. One of the things my dad said to me powerfully during the dark days of my marriage and the divorce process, the problem is, son, I'm just not sure you're having enough fun. And that seems bizarre to say when things are going bad, when the storm is in your face. But what I can tell you about my dad, the Maverick man that he is, is that when he had loads of money and the business was thriving, there was people all around us.

30:39 There was parties and holidays and fun. And then when he had nothing, you know, the Concorde, the Council House story, guess what? We still went and found Lippin days out at Brighton and played pitch and putt. He spent a little bit of money he had one Christmas going to Lakeside, bought a pair of jeans, went bowling and watched a movie. Like it was about the experiences. It was about the laughter and joy. On Sunday afternoons, the people that came and had lunch and got pissed at our house, Sunday lunch, were the same people that were doing it when he had money.

31:20 A few exceptions, of course, but that's life. So who are you being? This is the difference. This is what matters. The structure inside the high value man system for living actually fundamentally starts with a scorecard. You can go and take that scorecard. You can discover where your energy, joy and connection are leaking at highvalumanproject.com forward slash score. It takes a couple of minutes. You get a score instantly and then you get your fully personalized results emailed to you. And then accelerate an elite one-on-one, our system for living program. And then for those that have been through that, there's the invitation opportunity to come and do the next COLA, our Men's Brotherhood, which will run through 2027.

32:04 It's about your clarity. It's about your courage and it's about your commitment to living the life that you desire, brick by brick, step by step. Because when you have those things, life becomes a rich adventure. Everything's always working out for me is an expression. Or as I adjusted that, around me, everything works. And it does so because of the structure and system you put in place. It's because of who you're being. If your experience is less than a seven or an eight out of 10 of life, if your frustrations at home are doing you're not in, if you're constantly rowing and bickering with people, if you're frustrated by your work or your business and you've just got this constant thought of, how am I going to fix this?

32:46 How am I going to fix this? How am I going to fix this? If you find yourselves at parties wishing you were as much fun as you used to be, or the opposite, going flipping all in mental and waking up with a flipping hangover that lasts two days. It's probably a sign that you're not okay with yourself. And that's not what we're here for. I'm a stand that men thrive for themselves, for their family, for their work, really for the whole world. The world needs men to thrive. I hope this has been a value. It's been recorded to accompany the winning at work webinar that's going to be running the rest of the month.

33:26 Go to highvalumanproject.com forward slash win. Do you know what? Go to win at home. I'm going to flip in, adjust or make a redirect that takes you to there, but highvalumanproject.com forward slash win at home. If the webinar lives have finished, you'll probably find a recording on that page. So it's worth going there anyway. You've got to ask yourself, what's at stake? What's at stake if you don't do this? How much longer are you going to put up with where you're at? Because we've been given this opportunity on this rock to have an absolutely epic 70 or 80 years if we're lucky.

34:04 And I want you to absolutely go out there, rip the ass off it and create the life you desire being the man and dad you want to be. Let's go. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads. dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go!