Mind The Gap — The Price Of Not Going After What You Want

00:00 Mind the gap. What is the price of not doing what you know you need to do or not going after the thing that you know you want to have? That's where the pinch point comes. That's where you feel your integrity is out and then everything starts to go wrong. Mind the gap, guys. Role theme. 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.

00:44 Let's go. Hello, man. Welcome back to the Johnny Jensen show. It's good to have you here. I am sunshine and sunny time still in the summer here in the UK, sweltering in what is my office slash studio. The Johnny Jensen Show, I am the founder and the head coach at the High Value Man Project. We are helping modern dads create the life they desire, not the one they feel stuck in, creating success at both home and work so they can be the man and dad they want to be. This episode is a hot topic, a great topic. I actually recorded it a couple of weeks ago, but it went seriously tits up.

01:23 Well, I've been still getting my head around Riverside. You know, finally, after what seemed like weeks of time, of energy spent trying to work out what the bloody problem was, I got through to this one guy in their support and he sent me this little, go into the back of Chrome and turn this setting off. Sure enough, went to the back of Chrome, turned it off and everything's been all right since then. Or at least I hope everything has been all right then since then. If you're on any of the socials watching this live and you can't hear me or it sounds like shit, then drop me a message. For anybody who's listening for the first time, it's absolutely great to have you here. As I always say, how did you find us?

02:06 Who shared this with you? And consider that if someone did share it with you, then pay it forward today. Hit that like button. Go and subscribe wherever you're listening and share this podcast. Share the Johnny Jensen show with other men in your world who you think will benefit from the work and the messages and the guests as we continue to have more guest episodes in the show. Share with men in your life who you know are looking to create more than what they currently have. Asking themselves, is this as good as it gets? Because in general terms, it never is. There's always something more. And that's what this episode's about. Mind the gap. It's actually one of the modules in the 3XC formula, which is part of our system for living inside of High Value Man.

02:52 Mind the Gap. It's that distance between what you say you want and what you've got. It's the distance between what you say you want and the effort you're putting in to get it. And depending on how big that gap is, it will do your head in. It will create stress and frustration inside of your life, inside of relationships. It will create tension in your habits and routines, your daily work. You know, not going after what you want is one of the fundamental aspects of not finding fulfillment of lacking purpose.

03:29 I love the definition. If you listen to the show before, I often say this. The definition of fulfillment as I've read and understood it is knowing what you want, but also knowing that you're moving towards that thing that you want. As Victor Frankel in Man Search for Meaning said, you know, a man with a strong enough why can withstand anything. And that's really what we're talking about here. Where did this inspiration for the episode today come from? Well, it came from, I was watching a show on iPlayer, BBC iPlayer. Get it on the dodgy probably wherever you are around the world. I called Mixtape, which apparently is based on a book. Now, it was a bit heavy for me. Not like kiddie fiddling or any other kind of like, you know, cancer or real drama like that.

04:14 But there was quite a lot of upset in this show about people not following their dreams or not in particular, not being with the person they really thought they should be with. There was like childhood sweethearts and this whole saga around how the relationship came to an end and why they didn't stay in touch and how come they were married then to the wrong people. So these two people both in shit relationships trying to come to terms with who they are and what they want. And then they bump into each other again and it's then, it's about then what happened. So it was kind of okay, but it was also like six episodes of that, you know, but it did neatly tie into this topic of mind the gap, that gap between what you've got and what you.

04:59 you say you want. And in a high value man terms, this is fundamental, foundational. Knowing who you are and what you want and then going after it is exactly what we're all about in clarity, in courage and in commitment. That is the 3XC. If any of this today resonates with you or if you listen to the other episodes and you think, yeah, I want more of that, then come and get involved with us here at the High Value Man Project. We run a men's group, a mastermind, if you like, or a flipping tribe of men called the Inner Circle. We're just moving that actually over to school. But if you go to

05:40 basically the best thing to do today, right, is go to the High Value Man project and register for the group there, for the base camp activity there. That'll put you in our database and you'll get an email of when the new group goes live. Or failing that, as you've heard it everywhere else, go to highvalue manproject.com forward slash group and that will redirect you and get you in. We've spent in these episodes, we go through the core tenets of what it is to be a high value man. And it really is about leveling up. It's about noticing the gap in our performance or in our mindset or in our relationships. And it is that what does men's head in? It's that underlying frustration that eats away at us.

06:21 And this topic is brilliant because it's all encompassing. You can look at any area of your life and see, what is it that I want? Where am I today? And what's it going to take to bridge that gap in your fitness? You know, I'm not a massive one for the actual, like, what's your weight. You can look and see what your weight is. You can look and see what clothes you're wearing, what belt loop you're on. You can get a good gauge for where you're at and your own level of personal satisfaction. And it's not, and it shouldn't just be about, oh, I've got to lose weight because I'm fat. It's about tying into that desire. I've got, you're not even going to talk about losing weight. You're going to talk about being dad.

07:01 You're going to talk about being a runner or being strong. You're going to talk about being granddad, like living long enough to be in your children's children's lives. That's the who I am. Then you talk about I am the I am runner. I am athlete. I am strong. I am granddad. I am dad. That's the anchor that pulls you forward. That's the clarity about the direction you're going in. So minding the gap, it's about how do you move from where you are to where you want to get to. And we're going to go through this in about four or five separate elements here. Pretty basic, but so many of us get it wrong.

07:40 And we get it wrong because we'll be looking at what other people need or what we think we've got to do to show up in work every day. And like there's a massive compromise in our time for ourselves or our time for our family because we've got to do that thing at work. Or we're putting all our energy into a relationship that's not working. And because we've drifted apart, she's now got different interests or different values or quite frankly, the relationship isn't what we signed up for. That really was a pressure point for me in my marriage where it just came to the real realization that this wasn't what I signed up for. This wasn't the life that I was invested in. This is a completely different thing to what I thought we were getting into.

08:24 That's the gap. And the longer you live in the gap, the more it eats you up. And so you have to be honest with yourself. You have to be clear about what it is you want, honesty about what it's going to take to move it forward, and then commitment, commitment to push it on. So let's look at, let's look at what my notes are. Where are we going? I love it when I refer to my notes and I realize that I've just rode roughshod through half of them. Okay, but for the benefit of this, right, keeping myself on track, the gap isn't just the goals, right?

09:03 You know what you want to be. It's what it's going to take to actually do it. So you start with a clear outline of what it is that you actually want, who you are and where you're headed. When we're working inside the high value man project, we have it. We break it down into those clear areas of life. It's not rocket science. You have to keep it simple. There's nothing easy about making things complicated. And in the realms of what it is that you want, when you ask a little kid that, they're really straightforward. Oh, yeah, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a footballer. Like, there's no thought of what's it going to take and what's in the way there. They're just driven by that thing. They have total faith and belief in it. What's it going to take for you to get that real about what you want?

09:44 Because only when you get that real are you going to see the gap. You're going to actually come face to face with what that frustration is. And then you can see, okay. i now realize that i've been avoiding this or i now realize that i've been moving in that direction or as i just said before i realize this wasn't what i signed up for instead of having a bloody argument about it instead of feeling on the way to work every day you're going to start to take solid measures about right what's it going to take to to address this now courage courage is the next step It's not about motivation. Motivation can come and go. It can be up, it can be down. It's not about that, right? Ties into commitment neatly. But courage is having

10:32 willing to move through the fear into the other side. Courage is not being stopped by the risk or the danger, right? As in Susan Jeffers' book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. That is courage. Courage to admit that something's not working. Courage to admit that you haven't been taking responsibility in that area. You know, for me, working with men that have been through divorce, having them come face to face with what they can be responsible for inside of that relationship not working. It doesn't mean it's not about fault or blame. It's just a real honest reflection on what I could be responsible for.

11:11 Right down to the to the ultimate level of responsibility. If you asked her out back in the day, then that's where it all started. If you overlooked a number of red flags, if you've allowed yourself to be drawn into multiple arguments about different subjects, if you've lost your temper and shouted, I can be responsible for that in my marriage. Like that's the level of courage. That's the level of responsibility that you have to take. And often the gap is created when men aren't willing to face up to what's happened about what's led to the gap being there.

11:50 Communication, not speaking to each other or being straight with each other about what's going on can actually lead to the gap getting wider. Adopting bad habits and lifestyle choices can lead to the gap getting wider. Not getting up in the morning and doing the exercise leads to you getting more and more unfit, right? So you've got to be willing to be present to the man in the mirror and having the balls to face up to him, having the balls to get real with yourself. Delaying this only extends the damage, basically, right? That example from the mixtape program, they had literally decades of being in marriages that didn't work.

12:36 And that could become a little bit like, okay, well, I already bloody know that, Johnny. That's not going to suddenly fix this. That's not going to suddenly make this move me forward in this area. So then you're going to look at like, well, what's the price of doing nothing? What's the price of staying where you're at about this particular thing and leaving the gap to be there? In honesty, so many of us, particularly around in business choices, you know, let alone our own well-being could be another subject. It's not doing something that leads to the thing getting worse or leads to the thing not progressing.

13:13 Now, that idea of being stuck is just as debilitating. And my mind leans towards how Daniel Priestley, if you've ever read any books, Key Person of Influence, Oversubscribed, or seen him on LinkedIn and he's blowing up on YouTube as well right now. If you see his growth, I've known him because I did KPI 10 about 12 years ago. He still pretty much talks about the same thing. He's been consistent and he's grown and grown and grown. I dare say he's put the right people around him as well. But the price of not doing that or the price of changing and jumping ship and going in a direct different direction would have probably derailed that.

13:57 So consistency, having the wherewithal to actually step up and start on a consistent basis to put the steps in place. The price of doing nothing is increased doubts, increased insecurities, procrastination, really not going to help you in any way at all. And the damage that will do to you in terms of your identity, in terms of relationships, as you lose faith for yourself, as people lose faith with yourself. I'm kind of conscious this all sounds a little bit negative. I guess what I'm pointing out here is, you know, this is a low value existence.

14:36 This is one of the elements of why high value man is called high value man project is that the opposite of that is this low value death spiral where the more we avoid, the more we distract ourselves, the more the more we don't do what is required, then the worse it gets. And so we then move into commitment. Recognizing we have a process inside of this called set your path, recognizing what it's going to take to get towards that result, not necessarily to get to the ultimate result, but to get to the next milestone, to get to the next stage, setting your path. And setting your path is a practical activity of really looking at, well, what is the thing that I want?

15:20 Why do I want this? Like, what difference is it going to make to me? What difference is it going to make to the people in my life, to the people around me? Like creating that why that's bigger than you, big enough to withstand any pressure or challenge. And then what's at stake if I don't do this? Like, what's going to happen if you don't move forward in this area? Don't move to the other side of that gap. What will it be like when I get there? Again, that fuels your commitment. Purposely avoiding there the word motivation fuels your commitment when you look at what's it going to be like truly like for me and others when we get to that other side and then you think who not how who could i put around me who could i

16:04 ask who could i involve that either has the complementary skills or has already achieved it that could get me there and that could be someone that you put personally into your life or it could be someone who's written a book or is uh you know got a load of youtube videos dan martell is again another guy is blowing up on on youtube over the last couple of years but i read his book um buy back your time which seemed to be you know around the start of his youtube growth but that's a person you putting around you his content his expertise his presence even though you don't know him personally putting that around you

16:47 that's setting your path right and then and then look at like what milestones well what will be a tangible result that will see me moving towards that area and that's not rocket science either none of this is rocket science the secrets of success aren't that secret it's just that most of us won't bloody do it you'd have heard me say that so many times you move towards the ultimate goal by reaching those milestones joe and i have managed to get tickets for or entry into high rocks in birmingham the uk and uh we've got about to say i've got 11 weeks we had 11 weeks when i booked it we've now got 10 weeks what's it going to take to be ready for that

17:26 well the first part of that was me looking at my exercise workout routines at the gym and adjusting it so that it fitted the event that's coming up then of course you start to notice well what's the weight what's the time what's the strength how many how difficult was that could i have done that for longer and you know like for example at high rocks you do one of the stations and then you have to do a one kilometer run so changing up from doing a 5k run at the beginning of my workout quite often to splitting it so that i'll do something on the row machine then do the run do something on the ski os then do the run so it's just recognizing what have you got to adjust to put to hit the milestones that's going to get you to where the goal is that you want to get to now

18:11 you won't always see the result that you want instantly and this is vital this is this is part of the journey and enjoying the journey if you're constantly questioning am i there yet am i there yet am i there yet and you know that you're not but you haven't got these milestones in place you haven't got the people around you the who not how then there's a distinct danger that you will fall off the path you'll lose direction you'll lose um energy and focus before you get to the result that you want that's a this is about having faith having faith that what you've put in place the people the structure the system that we're talking about today is enough

18:56 and the only way that we can really stay committed you know in terms of faith terms of our inner belief is through our own mindset and managing that along the way an incredibly powerful way of doing that you know alongside your journaling is something i call i am your i am list and this is a present tense list of i am statements and the reason this works is that we are constantly telling ourselves negative i ams without even realizing it i am late i am i'm getting this wrong i shouldn't have said that i'm not getting enough of this or that you know

19:36 it ties into me asking men what they want at the beginning of our work together and then telling me a load of stuff they don't want we're very present to what we haven't achieved we're very present present to what we want less of. If you get to the end of the day, generally look at your work to do list and notice all the things that you haven't done yet, that you've like, I didn't get this done, didn't get that done. Failing to acknowledge and champion and reward yourself for, yes, I got this, this, and this done today. And so your I am list is reprogramming your mind, like setting up your operating system for success, which then links back into your faith, the faith that doing these things will get me to the result that I want.

20:21 This is all, this is all part of the focus. It's all part of the clarity and the courage and the commitment that you need to bridge that gap rather than falling down the gap, like when you're at the London tube station, the gap. I had some friends came over from Chicago once. Trish. Hello, Trish, one of my oldest friends. They were so buzzed about the mind, the gap. They were like recording it and turning it into part of their, I don't even know what it was back in the day, probably just for keeping rather than a vlog or something. But that mind, the gap is like, watch out or you're going to fall in. Watch out or this isn't going to happen. That gap is going to do your heading. And one of the final elements of making this happen is that support and accountability.

21:06 And where a mentor or the who, not how people will be supporting you in the process, the accountability and the general camaraderie and support is absolutely vital in a man's life. Knowing that you've got the capacity, you've got the tribe of people who are both interested in hearing about it and willing to give you feedback, willing to hold you to account, willing to support you. Because if the only people you've got around you are your wife and kids or your wife and the people who work for you, then the degree to which you feel able and willing to share with them, that they'll feel able to hold you to account or to give input that's going to be of value to

21:57 you will be very limited. It's absolutely vital to remember that your wife didn't sign up to be the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker in your life. She's not your coach, mentor, advisor, doctor, counselor. She's not all those things. She's your friend and she's your lover and she's your playmate. I gotcha guess his friend really, but you know, that's who your wife is. That's who your girlfriend should be for you. And it's not that you can't talk about all these other things, but when she's everything, then not only does it make your world tiny, but it puts an incredible amount of pressure on her that drains your relationship of fun and passion.

22:39 So that support and accountability, you know, the no lone wolf mantra looks like you being part of a tribe, looks like you being a group of men who are on an equal mission, who are ready to level up and create more in their lives and buzz off the fact that they're doing it alongside you. And you can do that inside the High Value Man project. And this is where men level up. This is where you get to have other people say, wow, what's going on? What are you up to? Or you get to buzz off the fact that when you get to the end of the year, you've actually moved forward.

23:21 You've actually achieved some of what you said you were going to do. It doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you make a commitment to mind the gap. The mixtape movie or the series ends, a little bit of a spoiler alert, but it's kind of obvious, right? It ends happily. It ends with people letting go of relationships that aren't working, of healing family and friendships that had been strained and broken in the past, of coming back together and creating stuff. And it's about you being at the forefront of that, because that's as men who we should be, leading in our lives so that we buzz off who the man in the mirror is.

24:07 So that when we talk to our partner, when we talk to our friends, when we've got an energy about us, we've got something interesting to say. We've got some drive behind what we're up to. That's infectious. That's the man they want you to be. And at the risk of going back to the sort of the bleak side of it, in that using that mixtape program as an example, these people were drained. They were absolutely drained by their existence. existence that wasn't working for them. And so, yeah, it did end on a high note. It ended on this optimism, this blank page in front of these two people where they were like, Yes, now what are we going to create?

24:54 Now, what are we going to achieve? What are all the things that we said we were going to do that we can now go and start ticking off in High Value Man Project? That's the bucket list. That's where you create a new chapter for yourself and the people in your lives. And so, where in your life has I hope this has triggered something for you? Where in your life is that gap? Where in your life is the thing that you're not admitting to, or you know, the only person who you're admitting it to is yourself, and it's rattling around in your brain. You're thinking, I can't let anybody in on this, I've got to fix it myself, I've got to cover this up. It's nonsense. The gap gets bridged when you set about putting the process in place that we've been talking about today.

25:41 Use this, it'll be enough. Or, on top of that, come and commit yourself to being part of the high value man project. If you go to highvalue manproject.com forward slash power call, that will give you access to my diary and to a number of power call slots that I open up each week for new members to talk about what goals and challenges they're working on, and for me to give you an initial blueprint, a set of actions aligned with the high value man system for living that will help move you forward towards that goal. And in doing that, you may be like, That's cool, that's interesting, that sounds like something I want more of.

26:21 And we'll talk exactly about how you can get that. So, go to highvalue manproject.com forward slash power call, and we'll get you in on that. Review of the week, review of the week. I need you, particularly people that have listened to the end of this podcast. I need you because you're here, right? You're you're clearly committed. Go look at the show notes and go to the Johnny Jensen show on Apple Podcast or on Spotify and leave me a review. The person who leaves me a review of the week will get a three-month access to the inner circle, which at the moment is $69 a month, and you'll get a power call. Whether you've had one or not, you'll get a power call as I've just explained the benefit of it for that.

27:05 That's how important the review of the week is to me. I want to put the podcast really at the heart of everything we're doing. I'm about episode, I think it's about episode 149. Now, I've either gone past 150 and missed the opportunity to have a big celebration, or about to hit it. What I can say is moving over to Riverside has been incredibly bumpy and really derailed me in terms of my flow and processes and everything. But, nonetheless, I hope this episode has been enjoyable for you. I hope you go and share it with other men in your life. I encourage and request you to go and leave me a review. The link is in the notes, or just search for Johnny Jensen show on your preferred podcast tool.

27:47 Awesome. I'll see you next week. 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 at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.