Doing Hard Things Makes You The Man You Want To Be

00:00 Doing hard things makes you the man you want to be. So, doing hard things is really the theme of this. And it's when you wimp out, I'm going to use that word, right? When you wimp out of doing hard things, all you're actually teaching yourself is you're a bloke that can't do stuff. You're a bloke that gives up, you're a bloke that feels almost hard done by, like, oh, I can't do this. If you say that in one area of life, you say it in other areas of life. So, when you do hard things, you teach yourself that that is who you are. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships, and results they deserve.

00:45 Get your high-value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go! We have just finished the November Super 7 Fitness Challenge inside the High Value Man project, and that's been 30 days of workout. Now, not a back-breaking workout, we're talking about seven body weight exercises for a minute each. So, it's a 10-minute workout, Super 7 challenge. You can do it anytime, anywhere. Okay, now, how many men actually keep fit on a regular basis? And why would they do that? I'm not a fitness instructor, I'm the founder and the head coach of the High Value Man project, where we are equipping men to thrive in life as the man they want to be at home, in work, for their wife, for their children, for themselves, as well as all the other people in their life.

01:37 It's about men living the life they want rather than one they feel stuck in. And doing hard things, setting yourself a challenge, doing it for 30 days, whatever that thing might be, is so incredibly powerful because it teaches you that you are someone who can do what he says he will do. Now, the brain, as wonderful as it is, is just actually quite a dumb processing machine. If you set it in a particular direction, it will do all it can to get you there. If you teach it that you are a particular person, a particular way, if you've got particular values, it will take that on board like an operating system and endeavor to conduct your whole life in line with that course, in line with that program.

02:25 And the friction you get, the friction that men get often is when they're living out of an alignment, they're living inconsistent with that mission, with those values, with the life that they said they actually wanted. So, doing a challenge, right? We did this for November. You know, some people grow a moustache. I grew a moustache once, I hated it. I've seen, who is it? The footballer Peter Crouch has been on TV this month and he looks awful. He looks like I did. The bloody thing was horrible. It was uncomfortable. Every part of it was hell. And I suppose you could say, Well, that's the challenge. That's what you're supposed to do.

03:07 No, which kind of goes back to the point I had before. No part of it was in alignment with anything that meant something to me. Now, of course, you could say, Well, that's the challenge, Johnny. Do things that resist. It was on my face. It drove me mad. Anyway, fitness is a challenge. Now, as fit as I am, and as much as I enjoy it, there's layers to what I got from this month. Being the head coach, the founder, let's say the leader of the high value man project, you can find it at highvalue manproject.com forward slash group. Showing up every day is a commitment, like setting the time, making sure that I was there, being on time, let alone all the stuff afterwards about downloading it, posting in the group, like a lot of focus and effort, things that are not actually that natural for me.

04:00 Focus and effort, yes, but in terms of being organized, making sure things happen consistently, that is one of my big challenges. So, doing hard things is really the theme of this. And it's when you wimp out, I'm going to use that word, right? When you wimp out of doing hard things, all you're actually teaching yourself is you're a bloke that can't do stuff. You're a bloke that gives up, you're a bloke that feels almost hard done by, like, oh, I can't do this. If you say that in one area of life, you say it in other areas of life. So, when you do hard things, you teach yourself that that is who you are. Then there's the experience. There is the experience, like the surprise moments, the things that you didn't know were going to come up, the conversations you might have with others.

04:45 The, you know, one that comes up I know is, you know, there's power in declaring and sharing this with people in your life that this is what you're up to, because you would want their support and encouragement. But what can be be a surprise is when someone else starts to hold you to an account, especially one of your kids. Dad, I thought you said you were going to do, ah, yeah. And now you're trying to make an excuse for why you couldn't do a 10 minute workout that day, 10 minutes, body weight, anytime, anywhere. You see, there really isn't a reason why you couldn't do that other than you chose not to.

05:23 So the surprising things is how you feel and respond and the mirror you get back from the people that love and support you as you're trying to wiggle out of it. Very different than wiggling out of it in your own mind. And that leads into a level of self-awareness. Like seeing a bit like Superman 3, terrible movie, but there is a great part of it where he has a fight with himself. Clark Kent has a fight with Superman. And, or in fact, Superman has a fight with Superman. But anyway, it doesn't really matter. He has to, in classic superhero style, tear away from that identity that he doesn't want to be anymore in order to become the man that he does want to be.

06:05 And having that level of self-awareness, doing hard things. You might have heard of 75 Hard, right? That is a mental, physical challenge. I have not actually done 75 Hard. Lots of good excuses why I haven't. But T25 is one I did back in the day. That's, you know, that's, that's a workout every day, 25 minutes. And we've done lots of things inside the high value man project or team super as it was before, giving up coffee, giving up booze, giving up bread, you know, any kind of bread products, chocolate sweets, biscuits during Lent.

06:41 You don't have to be religious to do that. It's just a 40-day challenge. And so all of these things help you be a stronger version of yourself mentally, definitely, physically, yes, because we've just done a physical workout. But again, caffeine, this is decaf coffee, stop eating all that sugar and crap. It all has a powerful contribution to your physical and mental state. And then emotionally, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with others. And this all ties into the high value man system for living. Everything we do inside the high value man is born out of this foundational formula called the 3XC.

07:23 Clarity, courage and commitment. Now you can try to have one without the others, but you will find out it doesn't work. And then if you want to know, well, why did I try and do something and it didn't work? This is the reason. Clarity. That's being connected to who you are, what you stand for, what you want in life. It becomes your North Star, as that expression goes. It's the destination you're headed to. It's no matter what, that's where we're going. Now, a man who operates like that with that kind of focus, with that kind of clarity, with that kind of perseverance,

08:05 right? Everybody can buy into that. It's when you flake out and be like, I don't really know what I'm doing. Well, I tried, but I gave up. Like, that's not inspiring. That's not something that other people can get on board with, let alone yourself. So it starts with that foundation. Then courage. Why do we need courage? Courage is not like being the bravest guy around. Courage is recognizing the fear and doing it anyway, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Seeing the danger, the risk, the threat. And that doesn't have to be a flipping tiger, what they call it, saber-toothed tiger across the room, right?

08:45 That fear could be like, I don't feel comfortable walking into that room and standing at the front and doing a talk. Like that is modern day fear. But also we have courage inside of relationships, not talking, not saying the things that we need to say to the people we love, not being clear with people that are a heavy drain on us, a toxic weight around us. All the things that we don't say that we didn't do that aren't the true version of ourselves is where you are being confronted by courage. So when we boil it down, we remove those doubts, we have those conversations, we forgive, we stop blaming, we start living from the place of this is who I am, this is what I'm up to today, that kind of being, that kind of belief, that kind of being your true self, that's courage, because it takes something

09:37 to show up like that and be that man. Now, when you don't do these things, when you're not living with clarity, you're not living with courage, you just drift around like, oh, your energy saps. You lose your mojo. People wonder what the hell's going on. But clarity and courage on their own are not going to give you that uplift. They're not going to take you on a journey, which is where commitment comes in. Now, all those things that we just mentioned, whether it's any of our challenges inside of high value man, T25, oh, it's hard 75, all these things come from commitment.

10:16 You know, everything, learning a language, being kids, learning to not crap themselves, learning to walk, that takes a severe commitment. How many people do you see walking around? Adults you see walking around in nappies. Oh, I couldn't be bothered to learn that. It was too difficult. No, as a little kid, we just did, yeah, we're going to learn that. Commitment is where you find the muscle, the programming to operate like this on a consistent basis. You can't just click your fingers and it has to happen. You know, it's like habits. You can read all different numbers of how many weeks, how many days it takes to create a new habit, 30, 45, 75, whatever it is.

10:59 But, you know, over a 12-week period, if you do something on a consistent basis, that's going to become hard-coded. If you do it over a seven-day basis, you're going to start to get an insight as to what would this be like for me if I carried that on. It's where you start to put fuel into the tank. And inside of commitment is where we operate inside the high value man project from the fire code. The fire code is four key elements that make a man who he is. It's where you find the juice for your commitment. It's focus. That's who you are for yourself. How fit you are, how well-fed you are, how rested you are, what's going on in your mind.

11:44 Like what knowledge are you putting in there? How much crap are you letting out? Whether that's through journaling or meditating or, you know, meditate, you don't have to lay down to meditate. You know, you can flip and be walking. You can be drawing. There's a lot of ways in which you can do these things to find the version that works for you. Then inside of impact, what does it take? Classically, when we look at the high value man system for living, impact is about money, work, community, mastering your money, doing work that inspires you and being a difference to others. You know, and so part of if we're doing a fitness challenge, impact is really seeing what happens when you start your day with a 10-minute workout.

12:31 What difference does that make to your day? And then you start to realize this is the power of doing it that way. It's like someone showing you how to use a spreadsheet properly where you've been doing some kind of long-winded way of doing it. And someone says, oh, you know, you can just do control X or control, you know, whatever it might be, you know, shortcuts on the keyboard. Boom, transformational. So that's impact. That's how you're showing up. Then relationships. When you're doing something like the Super 7 for 30 days,

13:12 how your wife sees you, if this hasn't been something that you've done, then I can assure you, she'll be, wow, what's he up to? And that's before the results and the benefits start to come through. You might also find that people around you doubt that you're going to do it because you've given them so many examples of failing to do what you said you would do. Your word to yourself means nothing. If your word to yourself means nothing, then you have to realize that the word to the, I've just seen a message on our, the game's been cancelled.

13:48 If your word to yourself is trash, then the, you know, your word, how other people see you, your integrity with others is bound to be as well. You might say, oh, well, I've never let them down, but them seeing you let yourself down, guaranteed if your integrity is out in one area, it'll be out in others. And it's how those people see you that matters. And we call it the diamond alliance. So that's your wife or partner. I hate the word partner, girlfriend, children, you know, then your family and friends, and then your mentors and network.

14:25 That's the balance of relationships across your life. Making sure that you're making quality time and inputting into all those people, because your wife doesn't want to be everyone to you. She doesn't want to be your mentor and your counselor and your flipping drinking buddy. Now, that doesn't mean you can't do those things and have those conversations with her. But when you put that all on her constantly, that's not healthy for your. your relationship. It's not healthy for your own self-esteem, let alone how effective that feedback loop is. Probably isn't. It's just one person. So it's one dimensional. It's loaded with love and family upsets and stresses and strains and hopes and ambitions and dreams.

15:08 It's not what she signed up for. You know, in terms of that mentor and network thing, you never want to be the smartest guy in the room. You want to be leveling up Napoleon Hills classic think and grow rich. And it's fundamentally about the people you put yourself around, who you're learning from. So if you want to be a better man, put yourself around better men. And then, of course, family and friends, like the fun and connection you've got with other people in the world, your, you know, that, that blood tie that you get with quality family, you know, and the forged connections that are unbreakable with old friends, with people you really connect with.

15:48 Like you have to have that in your life. And if you don't have it, set about making it happen. And then finally, energy, the amount of fun and adventure you're having in life. When you do a challenge like this, the idea that you do it on your own, it's not really the game. The idea is to bring other people from your world into this, you're doing it with. Oh, well, I saw you today. What did you do? I saw your picture. Where did you be doing that? Like, how did you find it? What's which one are you struggling with? How many press-ups did you do? It's a bit weird having that conversation on your own, right? And then clearly there's going to be, I'm jumping back and forth here between energy and relationships, but clearly there's going to be people there who've done more than you and you can learn from them.

16:31 And there's people behind you who've done less than you and you can inspire them. That's the power of community. That's the power of not doing it on your own. So energy and, you know, it's fun, adventure and peace. This kind of closes the loop on all of the work we're doing inside the high value man project and inside of a challenge because you get to find out stuff about yourself. I didn't think that running would be fun. Well, you know, some people are never going to feel that. But when you suddenly, you're not out of breath when you're finishing the 5K, or that translates into you're not out of breath when you're shaggy.

17:08 Like you're like, oh, okay, now I can see the benefit. The surprising elements of being out running and the early morning dew or you see something, you see some birds dancing, you know, like you don't know what's out there until you go out there and see it, which again is part of how small you've let your life become versus how big you can make it when you step outside of your comfort zone, when you do things that are more than your current norm. And that's why you have to do this. So

17:45 the fire code is actually living commitment. It's a clear framework and structure so that you don't have, it's not about guesswork. It's about doing the simple things consistently to get the big results. As I say, the secrets of success aren't that secret. It's just that most of us won't do it. And that's why we create this game, like this framework is being in the game. As it was said to me once, you know, you don't play the game sitting in the stands, you play the game on the pitch. And that's what this is all about. So for all the men that have been part of the Super 7 Fitness Challenge this month, I salute you. It has been incredibly rewarding for myself. And then there's always a bit of a drop-off. I should say this actually important thing to mention at the end.

18:28 There is always a bit of a drop-off at the end of these things. So commonly, if it's caffeine, you're probably going to go out and neck a can of monster or buy some triple extra large, I don't know, super mock-a-waka-dooda. But consider the results that you've got have been worth it. It would be crazy to simply throw them all away. To stop doing a 10-minute workout now, maybe you won't do it every day. I encourage you to, because a 10-minute workout, not really a full workout. It's just kick-starting your body.

19:05 It's waking your mind and your body up. A 30-minute workout, a 60-minute workout, that's when you really start to sweat your tits off and blow out your ass, which are my kind of catchphrases for, did you do a good workout today? So don't let the end of this be some kind of crash where you just go back to your old ways. That is not the win. This is brick upon brick upon bricks that we're building you up. The next challenge will probably be in January. I don't really do giant ran January because I don't really drink enough to really think that it warrants it. But we will put it to the group, to the men inside the high value man project.

19:43 What should we give up this month? month? What shall the challenge be? And we normally start that at the end of the first week of January. Why? Because I chose to do it that way. Quite often people are on holiday at the beginning of January. It just sets this, when you set yourself up to fail, it's bullshit. You know, we'll cover that in another conversation. And throughout December, we are setting the scene in two ways for 2026. There's the structure and habits of having a successful and effective December, having a happy, joyous Christmas, being ready to land on at the beginning of January 2026 with a mission and a game plan.

20:24 And we are encouraging men to sign up for the Elite Group, which is our 12-month structure. You can find out more about that in the upcoming event this Wednesday. We'll be talking about that and sharing the direction and goals of that. As I said, it's three blocks that we run over the 12 months, obviously with a string, a line of support that runs through the whole period. But it's really a structure to have the best year ever. I'm going to leave it at that. HighvalueManProject.com forward slash group. Share this with other men in your life. If you're not yet in there, come over and join. The base camp level is free. There's resources and tools in there to get you started.

21:06 And all the rest is a choice that's up to you. Don't let yourself drift. Don't let next year. Don't let 2026 be another year of frustration and tension. And, you know, it doesn't mean that you're not successful, but it's about having it all. It's about thriving in all areas of life. None of those kind of, yeah, I wish this was different. It's being that kind of man who says, I'd like that to be different. And this is what I'm going to do about it. When you show up like that, life transforms. If all men showed up like that, the world would transform. And that's what we're up to. Okay, men, 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.

21:51 Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.