Forget January Resolutions - This Is The Best Time For Success

00:00 Forget January, men. This is the run that counts September to December, 14 weeks to really make an impact. Everybody's about to coast into December and promise themselves something in January. But that is upside down. Forget January resolutions. This 14 weeks is the time to really make a difference. Let's go. Rolf thing. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show. Welcome, men. Good to have you here back on the Johnny Jensen show. I am your host and the founder of the High Value Man Project, Johnny Jensen. Great to have you in the podcast. How did you find us? As I always like to say, it is a pleasure for our subscribers to have you back regularly.

00:43 And for the new guys, yes. What brought you here? Was it a recommendation? Was it the algorithm bubbling up an episode for you? Some weeks the numbers go through the roof and other weeks it's just a bit quiet, but that's the magic. We have guest episodes. This is a solo episode with me. Our guest episodes are Comeback Kings series and quite naturally guest experts as well. But we're here talking to midlife dads, to career-minded and business-owning dads who want to have success at home as much as they do at work, because that's where the real happiness and success happens. It's not just about working our ass off and expecting the results to come at home.

01:26 No, it's about creating it in equal measures because that truly is a man who is leading his life. And when you have the joy, the connection, the energy at home, then that productivity, the enthusiasm, the leadership, the creativity, it carries on into work. You can't really have one without the other before eventually the wheels falling off somewhere. And this episode is really going to dig into what for me is sometimes a challenging time of year. But what I want to present to you in actual fact is it's a real time to crack on to get results and to hopefully have a shit of fun as we do it as well. I always struggle with this time of year. And I don't mind admitting it,

02:12 my kids have their birthdays, one at the end of September, one at the beginning of October. I think that's some sort of like, what is September and October minus nine months? I don't know. There's some sort of January shag there, obviously, a theme. But what it's done is it's cranked up the pressure for me. Pressure like my own perceived pressure, the pressure that I take on. It's like back to school, all the stuff you've got to get ready for that. And then it's sort of like, okay, September, and we're getting back into the groove after the relaxing during the summer. And of course, there's work, being self-employed. There is no really on-off switch, no holidays per se, you know, holiday season per se.

02:55 It's like, oh, right, and we're straight back in. And then it's their birthdays. And then, oh, my God. And then it's the half-term, you know, school holidays come round late October, Halloween and fireworks and the clocks go back and it's just like, ah, winter. For me, that cranks up the pressure. And I don't like it that much. So I have to become aware of it and actually manage it. But here's another version of that as well, which is where I kicked this episode off is the whole January New Year resolution thing and all we've got a fresh new year. We've got a fresh start. What are we going to plan? It's a bit weird because how many people keep that going?

03:38 And where's the motivation? And when in terms of January, you feel like I've got this whole year in front of you. September, though, September is like, boom, we got a 12 to 14 week run here. What can we achieve? You've had the summer, you've had the fun, the sunshine, the long days. You know, for most of us, it is a recharge. And then here we go. The structure comes back in. The kids are at school. It gives us a real chance to focus. So it's about being ready for it because this one has a deadline as well. Christmas is there. It's, you know, sorry to use the C word, but it's there as in, okay, it's coming up, right?

04:19 I want to chill and I want to enjoy that time. I want it to be a celebration of all that we've achieved this year. What does this final sprint of the year look like? And for business owning, career-minded dads, for men like us that are up to stuff, it's like, yes, okay, let's have a push. Let's see what we can get up to. Let's make some money. Let's have some fun. But how? And that is the question for me. Okay. You know, how do I do I do this when I'm faced with a little bit of the overwhelm of all that stuff that I said at the beginning about, you know, back to school and the kids. And my boy this year, 17, he's in a new stage of his sort of school. school life. He's at a football academy now doing a sports science

05:04 higher level, you know, they call it a B-tech in the UK. My daughter's dance. She's back in squad teams. And what that basically means is that they are supposed to be, well, not more than supposed to be some. They are somewhere every single night and need picking up. And that means more organization between my ex and I. That puts pressure on my relationship with Joe, my girlfriend. Not pressure because she's touchy about any of that sort of stuff. No, not at all. But in a commitment, obviously commitment to the kids, but then a commitment to my relationship, a commitment to my fitness. We've got Hyrox coming up at the end of October. We've chosen to

05:43 raise money for Macmillan Cancer again. So there's like, we're taking on pressure. But how we define that, how we choose to see that, even as I'm describing it here for you, I'm talking about it as pressure. Like, what does that do for us? We have to manage our words, our language about it, how we set it out, both practically, day-to-day execution, but also up here in our minds, how we're thinking about it. And all of these things tap into the high value man system from living and how we approach it. Because if we don't handle it right, if we haven't got the right people around us, if we don't have a plan in place, if we're trying to do it all on our own, then it's going to be tough.

06:28 And that's where, yeah, the word pressure does come back in. And if pressure comes back in and we're experiencing it like that, then we're probably going to handle it less well. We're probably going to start snapping at other people. And then we look for to self-soothe. We're going to look for an extra glass of wine in the evening. We're going to think we're a bit tired. We probably can't go to the gym, you know, and so we just have another beer, watch a bit more football. And slowly but surely, we get into the burnout ladder, that slow descent into stuff not happening. The results that we desired across the 12 weeks get tougher because there's less time left.

07:54 You get more tense and more wound up. Then what is that all about? Well, it's a little bit of the machine that we are. It's a little bit of our survival instincts kicking in there because when our brain, when we tell our brain, like, ah, that's stressing me out. That's a lot. That's worrying me. I'm not sure how to approach it. I'm like, aka fear. You know, back in our original days of evolution, when we experienced stress and anxiety, it was normally about survival.

08:30 It was normally about a fear, like a fear of getting eaten or dying. And so in this modern version of that, the fear kicks in, but it's not really fear. And I heard this described as this in firewalking terms when I did my firewalker instructor training. Fear as false evidence appearing real. So we look at this, all this stuff that we've got to do and our brain goes, oh, that's a lot. That's quite scary. Ah, scary. Let's retreat. Let's not take it on. Let's like, let's stay comfy. Let's not go near the fire. But firewalking is a powerful metaphor for it because, yeah, it is bloody hot.

09:12 And yeah, it is going to burn you, but not if you do it right. It's still going to be hot, right? But it's not going to burn you if you do it right. And the same thing goes with this period of time that we have. This run is now, this 12-week run is beautiful if we handle it right, if we put a structure around us. And arguments, you know, arguments work in a similar way to this. Okay. Arguments are generally never about what's happening. Okay. And we have to be aware of this because it becomes that survival instinct, that fear mechanism kicking in. And, you know, someone says something, oh, could you pick this up? And we're like, no, I can't fucking pick that up. I've got to do this.

09:52 I've got to do that. Like, you know, you could do. just pick it up you could just do the thing you could you could look out for each other but it wasn't what she was asking you to do it wasn't really that it was out of your way where the tense response came from was all the stuff that you felt you had to do and all the pressure that you were under so we have to become aware of that as well because otherwise it's like we become a bit of a grumpy old bastard a bit of a bit of an angry man you know you get you get accused of that I heard one of the clients inside the High Value Man project not long into the program and he was talking about his relationship with his wife and he was like oh yeah we're we you know we like a row like it gets pretty heated no and I was like and I've heard other people say that like oh yeah we're quite we're quite fiery like it's almost okay now I'm not I'm not one of those guys that says oh you're not allowed to row right

10:44 but what is it about a relationship that's got that much pressure in it that you end up justifying is oh yeah we're quite fiery no you're taking lumps out of each other because you haven't got your own stuff sorted you're not at peace with yourself chatting to another guy in the in the group this uh just recently 551 i think he was uh mortgage almost paid off kids at an age where they're about to to leave home he's worked his ass off for the last 35 years pretty successful uh worked in different places all over the world and in his own words left the family stuff to her well guess what she turned around about a month and a half ago and said i want to have a divorce and in that conversation he then said to me oh yeah well

11:33 we probably should have spoken about three years ago maybe i should have bought her more flowers maybe i should have washed up a few more times maybe i should have cleaned the bathroom and like wow yeah and that's another whole subject i posted about that on linkedin this week but it's not that you can't share the load it's not that you can't divvy up tasks in the house but if you break up if you get divorced then you're gonna have to do all those things you haven't done so tending to the relationship being present and available and and and and making her feel appreciated is part of it which is a complete flipping side point to this whole um september run to christmas thing but there we go you get two for one so how do we how do we maximize this time like what is it that you need to achieve it follows the high value man system for living the clarity that we have up

12:23 front about what it is that we're taking on inside of the clarity uh section there's a there's an element called setting your path and when with clarity right it's all very well saying oh this is what i wanted this is what we're going to create it's what we're going to achieve you know and anyone who's a project manager or business owner someone who's got got targets to hit will be well aware of of of planning out our project in the high value man we call it setting the path and the reason we're setting the path is because we're making sure that we're not going at it alone right so we're going to get clear about what we're up to about what we want to achieve but then we want to be clear about who is going to be able to support us on that who's done it before who's a mentor we could turn to who's a friend that would give it to us straight in terms of their feedback and their comments or or would

13:15 simply be our be our mate along the way like what what what are we going to do between now and christmas to have some fun how how many times am i going to see my friends you know one of the craziest things about us midlife dads is we can go months and months and months without seeing our mates and and just because time time time takes over things get in the way people you know and we go out and stuff and we do things and but we do it as a couple how much time are you making for your friends you know um because we don't want our wife our partner to be you know everything to us we don't want her to be the person that has to take all of this our mentor our lover our partner our friend our advisor you'd heard me say this many times so then

14:02 what are the habits uh what are the behaviors what are the routines that you were going to need to put in place to have this project have this mission have this target between now and christmas come to fruition like literally if the outcome is x at christmas then what's it going to take to step it back what's it going to take month by month what's it going to take week by week what are the results the measurable results that will have you see that you're on the way you know like the milestones and then what are the three actions that you can list that will lead towards that result breaking it down like that gives you clear milestones along the way and three actions to achieving them not

14:42 just this mad 12-week master plan with a hundred things on it like that's overwhelming doesn't happen and then And then, you know, really sharing it and declaring it with people around you. Because if we don't share, you know, thinking actually, yeah, about our family, about our wives and partner, if we don't share, declare what we're up to with them, how can we be sure that the commitments we've got to them are being handled. For me, like I said, it looks like birthdays. It looks like school holidays. It looks like in terms of work being ready for Black Friday and that whole holiday period there and having special offers and promos.

15:21 Everybody needs to know what is coming in terms of calendar and schedule and commitments so that people aren't frustrated. Yeah, but I thought you were going to be here for this weekend. Oh yeah, but I thought that we were going to go out on that night. Oh yeah, but why haven't you put the kids to bed in the last week? You need to be aware of those things so that you're ready to take them on. And at points during this where you might not be so available, you need to have their buy-in and not just dumped on them, but like actually their buy-in. How's this going to work? What can we do? What do we need to do to make sure that we're spending time together as well in amongst all this? That's how you make sure that you set your path and have it come to fruition.

16:04 And then December. You know, in an ideal world, for me, this has always been the objective. The ideal target for Christmas is that you just get to enjoy it. And not use enjoy it to be whatever you define as enjoyment. But for me, it is about family. It is about day trips out. It is about enjoying the time. It is about winter walks on the beach. And yeah, there's an element of cost in that, an element of finances, and an element of celebrating the year. But for me, the target is around the 20th of December to be able to say, right, kids have just broken up.

16:45 We're going to just enjoy this period of time. And this bit now between September and then is where you get to dance. It's where you get to go to battle. It's where you get to party. And the reason I like it, and I'm affirming that, I'm speaking that over myself is the reason that I like it is that it's a set window. It's a time for you to, you know, because honestly, if you don't, then you're going to hit December feeling frustrated about what you could have done but didn't do. And nobody wants that. You know, if we're honest, we've had those years. We've had it happen too many times.

17:25 And that is why I want you to consider this period of time right now different. It's a different opportunity. I hope that everything I've just shared in this isn't a surprise to you, right? This isn't about new solutions or a funkier way. This isn't about AI suddenly doing all this for you. Yes, of course it can make you more efficient and can optimize this process. Absolutely enjoy it. But you've got to be the captain of the ship. You've got to be the one that takes control of it. You get to break it down and put those people around you. The structure here at the High Value Man Project through this time is twofold. We have the next group, the small group program Forge kicking off in October.

18:05 We cap it at 16 men. It runs through October and November because eight weeks, which means you finish at basically the start of December ready to, you know, win the year, smash out the final results and really celebrate Christmas with your family. The other opportunity, of course, is the Elite 101. I take on maximum of three guys per month into that. And if I'm full, I'm full. So sometimes it actually is less than three. Forge, if you're paying for is 895. Elite one-on-one, if you're paying for is 2,500. So go to highvalue manproject.com and you can book a call to chat through with me.

18:48 You can see more details or you can grab one of the places and sign yourself up from that. I hope that you love and embrace this time. I also hope that you love the new intro and this episode has been perhaps a little bit playful, perhaps a little bit obvious in places, but I hope really powerful and insightful. I'm heading towards episode 200 of my podcast of this show. And so like I said at the beginning, please share it with other men in your life. Give me a review so that we can give the algorithm a little tickle. The High Value Man Project is a mission of mine. It is about seeing us dads thrive, men who want it all.

19:30 And if we want it all, the family and the business, our health and the fun, like if we want to enjoy and live life to the maximum, then we have to start doing it. We have to start living it in a way that gives us the results that we want, which is what this whole. whole community, which is what our whole coaching program here is about. I would love to see you on Forge or working with me one-on-one in Elite, and you know where to go and do that at thehighvalumanproject.com. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Let's go.