Playing To Win The Game Of Life with Stewart Roberts

00:00 From Wall Street trader to angel investor, with wife and home of his dreams to burnout and breakdown. In this episode of the Team Superdad podcast Stewart Roberts shares his bounce back journey and how he saved his family and discovered happiness. Roll theme! Welcome to Team Superdad. Real dads creating their best lives ever, more time more money more fun you are not alone! You're on Team Superdad. Welcome back to the team super dad podcast it's great to have you here this is Jonnie founder and creator of the Team Super Dad program and community if you're here for the first time well good to have you and if your back even better

00:47 Because that means we're obviously doing something right. This is a information, entertainment informative dad based episode with an author called Stewart Roberts. Well he's an author, he's written about his story, his dad journey most of all He's an entrepreneur, a businessman and angel investor. A Wall Street trader this guy had it all and he was focused in the wrong places you know? He really believed that the dream was all about having those things and it got to a point of breakdown point where his wife said we're done its over I'm leaving that he suddenly found out

01:33 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts. And that really is the essence of Team Superdad. This journey for all of us is not something that we had a manual for, most of us have a goal or an ambition, a vision of what our family's going to look like but then we give it a go! We try our best if you're lucky enough and it is luck to be quite honest for the majority of us its luck too to find yourself in a relationship that really works with a teammate, a partner

02:20 A wingman, a wife who supports nurtures is aligned with you. You bring out the best in each other you resolve things well... This is it's like flipping needle in a haystack for many of us to get that right and particularly for people like myself who actually inadvertently went out and found exactly what he didn't need in multiple relationships before marrying one of them And that's no disrespect to any of those, a lot of fun and a lot of love but it wasn't right for ultimately the life I wanted to create. That is what Team Superdad is about!

03:03 The knowledge, the support, the accountability, the fun for men to create the life that they want. Be the dad that they need to be and have a great life you know my dad says to me all the time son I'm just not sure you're not having enough fun well that's in relation to the fun he's had across his life is a lesson for all of us to learn and it is a lesson that Stewart Reiterates in this conversation today. So thanks for joining us be sure to share this Subscribe to the podcast I always forget to say that at the beginning I need that like super slick beginning don't I but then I know maybe you end up saying the same thing every time

03:42 Let me know, do you want the super slick intro or do like this chit chat? But yeah. You know the more dads we can bring into the Team Superdad world the better! We run something called The Hero Academy which is a 10 week program...10 to 12 week program depending on bonuses For men who want to really take control, take back control of their life live with more power freedom energy and joy. And that's at work at home with our children and especially this is kind of got lost in recent years about putting enough focus on energy into yourself not so that you're drunk every night or hiding away on the golf course

04:26 Or worse, but so that you can be available for yourself. So that you can be the best version of yourself for other people as well. So yeah come on over and join the community teamsuperdad.com forward slash group it'll be lovely to have you there and once you're part of that You could find out about all the other stuff we do in fact Of course over at TeamSuperDad.com you can see all the one-on-one dad coaching I do The Hero Academy And this free community Share this podcast as you listen along. If you've got any feedback by all means bring it over to the group, it'll be great to see your questions. Stewart is part of that community and we are going to do a more practical hands-on training incorporating some of the elements of his book Visibility which is a brilliant book I'm about a quarter of the way through... well let's say the first quarter's brilliant! And I fully expect uh the end of it to be just as good but this is a great podcast and I will see you for goodbyes on the other side

05:28 Hey Stewart, welcome to the Team Superdev Podcast. It's great to have you here today! Alright alright it's good to be here thank you for the invite Jonnie You're welcome. I saw your post in one of the American Dads groups and you were talking about the book that you'd written, and you were very casual about it It wasn't like one of those guys in a group going yeah get my book man this will save your life But just through the conversation...I went on your profile and we've been having chats over the last week A universally recognized story or experience, but not everybody fixed the situation and then not everybody put it down in a really powerful book that can help other people. So now that is what you've done and that's why you're here today so it's really great to have you here let everybody know where where you are and tell us about your family

06:24 Well, we currently live in Southern California in San Diego. And I have two girls under 10. We just had it celebrated an eighth birthday and so I have an eight-and a nine year old Good okay My daughter is also 9 nearly gonna be ten Her brother's two years older than her, so I have the pleasure of them both doing puberty at the same time. Exactly! Interestingly enough ours are in the same grade it just worked out that way so we have in effect twins and will be hit with that college education

07:03 Bad, especially for you guys. Yeah well in fact college is expensive all over now there's no free ride in the UK either so... Right indeed it is but no we have so two under ten I have a wife of 12 years and very blessed she stuck with me through this journey and wrote a book about it Visibility Playing to Win the Game of Life And it basically airs all my faults and then a lot of corrections on how to fix it Amazing, amazing. And that's what we're going to get into today. There is a link in the notes for... That takes people to your book and listen this isn't how we have it This isn't some kind of PR drive for your book As I said in the intro, I saw you talking in another group liked what you were saying went over to your profile and now we've connected like this

07:55 For people that are thinking about a podcast or whatever, be under no illusion it is a labour of love but for me I get to make connections with great people across the world and yeah helps me out. You know i say regularly you know This isn't about Jonnie Jensen says this is how to be a great dad. I'm just working through stuff myself, you know? I've come on a journey that's been highs and lows, deliriously happy, deliriously scared, miserably married, heartbrokenly separated like...

08:32 It's all part of the process and I want out of these sessions, out of our work in Team Superdad and The Hero Academy for dads to be able to make better decisions. And do so in a quicker fashion with more confidence because then hopefully we can avoid some of the mistakes that impact And we're going to be talking about the impact of families and from a children's point of view, impact their families, their children down the line. So the better we can help them be as strong and focused and happy is it will be better for all of us. Well said I couldn't agree more! Good good so how old are you again?

09:20 It was uneventful, but hit 50 and so it's certainly a milestone. Yeah! And are you going to get chance to have a proper party? You know what we're actually celebrating right now. We're on families on vacation for two weeks I've got a house just on the bay north of San Francisco. So this is sort of a work celebratory event, my wife and I are going to take a couple days and spend some time in Napa and just enjoy the local community here so we're definitely celebrating! It's on my vision board, like one of my destinations is San Francisco and the West Coast. Sorry that and the East Coast No West Coast it's the whole west coast kind of experience I've been to Santa Cruz for a lifeguard competition when i was 16 but that's about as much time as... Oh! And I've been to LA for like three day event But that's about as much time as I spent over there Well you'll have to come back

10:22 I know, there's an epic triathlon that is really hard to get into like the San Francisco Triathlon. You have to you have to get a certain time in something like three other triathlons in order to be able to enter it but the part of the run is on the beach and then you've got the Golden Gate Bridge behind you. It's pretty... Oh! It's majestic. It's really uh..I wish you could see the view we have here. It's just unbelievable. In fact, I was out early this morning doing some stretches on the deck Just really appreciating this opportunity. Truly grateful! Mega, so what I'm going to ask you to do is post a picture of your view in the Team Superdad group People who are listening will be able to see that if you go to teamsuperdad.com forward slash group You'll be able to come and join our free community where we have basically dads hanging out sharing supporting We have some fun stuff some serious stuff

11:15 We have free coaching on a Tuesday and basically it's a support community for dads. So that's teamsuperdad.com forward slash group. Little cough, sorry about that! That means we are live we're not going to bleep that out so Let's go back. What we're going to do is, we're going to unpack your story and then get to the guidance and advice bit. In one of the parts of the blurb for your book it says you had it all like in the realms of things were going well or the cookie cut sort of magazine like man succeeds

11:54 You had the job, the wife, the house and you thought you were doing great. What drove you to that? What was your work or how... To what degree were you succeeding? Well let me give a little context. Grew up in the Midwest, middle class kid and everyone around me had money I'm surrounded by money And I thought that was the ticket for me That's what I needed to be a success in life So I went to Wall Street, studied hard. Went to Wall Street worked hard 15 hour days and looked around and realized that there were all these people who I had admired and they had money yet they were miserable. And so left Wall Street ended up...I'd spent some time in Asia with a large global investment bank and they sent me to Tokyo and Hong Kong on one of the trips

12:50 I had a seatmate who was from Shanghai and he was showing me these unbelievable pictures of Shanghai. So before the plane landed, this was in the mid-90's, I realized that I had to go to Shanghai and ended up moving there. Spent two years there working studying Mandarin and just learning about the culture and people. Anyway that led to starting a trading company which is based out of Shanghai And our timing was impeccable. We had some success and sold out of that for a relatively small exit, but yet enough to be comfortable and came back to Southern California and ran a angel investment group focused on basically it was a bunch of old men with money putting money into deals got involved in this. So I had all these options all these opportunities

13:41 And met the woman of my dream. We bought a, we lived near the ocean. We had it all! I had a car in my driveway that I could only have dreamed about as a kid and yet woke up one day and just found myself angry, lost... My wife wanted a divorce and my world was crumbling And wow, I mean what a reality check right? Where you think you've arrived and I had the ego to match. Yeah! My life was crumbling so that's in short what led to my epiphany and this book. And I realized there were some other men going through this as well So i wanted to see if I could help. How old... when you hit that moment was it a rock bottom moment or you know in terms of your wife saying

14:34 I want a divorce. Some people, they've been in overdrive for so long that they're even quite numb to that. They're like okay fuck you yeah go for it whatever like was that your rock bottom or did you have to go further? Oh it was brutal! I remember...I'll never forget pivotal conversation I had with a good friend and I was on the phone with him I'm going to start with you, Stewart. And I said, what do you mean? What about me? Didn't you listen to what I've said now basically my pity party. Right. Right. And it was from a place of look at all that I've done how come I'm not more appreciated she doesn't understand She doesn't get me and in that conversation it took abou two weeks to settle down. I mean, I was pissed right he was telling me something I did no want to hear

15:55 Wait a minute, let me look at myself. Let me look in the mirror." And after I got over that, I realized he was right! I realized that there was so much where I was falling short but the upside of this is that there's so much that I could be doing that I wasn't doing and that for me was the epiphany that I needed to turn things around. Yeah... You can relate? I can do you know what thing was My struggle and how my marriage wasn't working, the loneliness trying to grow a young business. I was so focused on everything's going to be alright if we can just get out of the desert onto the other side everything will be alright

16:52 But one of the pictures I often have in my mind is being in this sort of like high performance car, like we'll just keep going. Keep going and on. And I'm the one that's driving and further and harder I drive more bits fall off the car. And then just before the finish line, I'm sat there in nothing but the seat kind I Taking responsibility, bit like what you're saying there. Taking responsibility for everything that had happened It wasn't I did anything horribly wrong but it was that I was blaming everything else. I was saying like... I'm doing all I can to keep this together how come no one else is helping out? How come it's so hard? How come it's so unfair and the more I blamed the worse it got

17:54 And rather than having the wisdom or the wherewithal to realize maybe people don't like being blamed, I just became more resentful and resigned. So I literally was digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole. Well Jonnie you've touched on something here and i'm sure you see this with your clients and the men that you're working with but it's easy to blame, it's easy to see the problem as external So, I want to start with the first one. The problem is outside you but the problem with this and I'm not just counting that we're human and we're flawed right? So acknowledge those problems, acknowledge those shortcomings of your spouse or your children but the reality, the challenges is when you put the problem out there

18:45 Are these my shortcomings? But look, I can fix this. I can change this and there's an incredible power there once you... It's almost like a shift of the mindset where okay it doesn't have to be 50-50 and she's not delivering on her 50%. Sometimes it's 100% And you've got to be out there as a leader for your family, for your marriage and for yourself. That is really the hardest thing that people have trouble understanding or accepting but once you get there then it's open season and opportunity

19:25 Absolutely. I've got a framework for something called the Reconnection Conversation and it's in its, uh, conversation to have on a regular basis with your partner is not actually dialogue back and forth. It's just a set of questions Is there anything I'm doing that doesn't work for you right now? Is there anything I'm not doing that would really support or benefit you right now. Is there anything you wanted to say to me in the last two weeks, that you haven't felt able to tell me and what did I used to do for you that made you happy that I don't do anymore

20:08 And like I say, it's not an opportunity for dialogue. It's just to hear what the other person experiences. To listen. The opportunity to listen and boy that's hard to do sometimes! Yeah responsibility when you take 100% responsibility You get to change the things that you can actually change rather than sitting there going When she changes everything will be better And ultimately, and I have come to learn this myself. And it does challenge when I speak to people on the podcast who've got more of a religious perspective and background you know my belief is go all in on making your relationship work but if the two of you have moved apart if your chapters have evolved If you're on different goals and you're aligned in values in different ways then sometimes there's... It makes sense to break up for the right reasons Break-up positively

21:02 And I certainly think that would have been better in my situation. But it takes a lot to realize that... I think we have this vision where, I know I did in my youth and my 20s on Wall Street It was if I could just arrive at this point If I can just make enough money or just overcome this one hurdle Then all have arrived and the rest of my life will fall into place The reality is that we need to choose our struggle Life is a, I think I'm paraphrasing Tony Robbins here but i was at a conference and he mentioned this and it really resonated with me. And he said in short, you need to choose what your struggle is He said It's challenging To run a business

21:47 And a lot of people that it's not for them. It's also challenging to work for somebody else, it's challenging to be in a marriage, it's also challenging to be divorced, it's challenging to be overweight, and it's also challenging to stay fit so you need to choose what that challenge is and then just go after because life is about having a challenge or struggle call it what you want there's no point where we reach I'm

22:35 Tony Robbins and the people he's impacted, but everyone should know that they can grab that and put it into their own life. And you've done a lot of work with men in that capacity I understand too? Yeah! Having people...and this is..I have not had the chance to read the whole book yet but this is about as I'm sure with the title visibility like seeing what needs to be seen so that you can make some adjustments and then being prepared to be wowed I'm on day 25 of a 30-day fitness challenge.

23:16 And it's nothing more than press ups, sit-ups and burpees. But for all my fitness...and I say to the dads in teams who've said your fitness goals are your fitness goals don't be flipping put off by someone benching massive weights and running triathlons like if what you can do today is walk 5k and do 10 press ups then bloody brilliant because tomorrow let's see if we can do six press up but I've been doing that but I've never done it every day So we were talking earlier about the power of habit stacking. So I've been doing this, it's called The Stupid Ad Workout press ups sit-ups burpees a minute each pause for a minute and then repeat three times right? Love it! Um...I've done over 3 000 press ups this month

24:01 Right on, that's amazing. That feels good! I've had to add it up and then double check it just to make sure like if I do because by the time I've done all three reps and the burpees in the press it comes to 130 press-ups a day basically some are on my knees because by the end of it I'm like... Yeah, that's like the power of seeing something through and believing. Like I can't see the result right now but i think if i keep doing this something positive is going to happen It's all about the trend, I like to say. So it's easy to look at ourselves and say okay we're 20 pounds overweight and not where I want to be. I'm not making enough money. I'm not where I want to be in my marriage or not where I wanna be as a parent but if you can focus your point on that trend and say okay every day if I am doing this I know that in 6 months or 12 months I'm going to be here

24:54 And if I keep this trend going, I'm gonna find...I'm gonna reach that goal. That's very powerful to remind ourselves of that. Well back in February after sitting on my ass for two months over Christmas and January and then deciding that this couldn't carry on and I actually did have a commitment to being fit, um, I could do 20 about 22 press-ups in one go For the first time, I've never even been able to do 50 press ups in one go. I can now do it in rep number 1, I can do that but on the subject of routines like what are some of the routine... you know, you've experienced success

25:32 In terms of your career, as you outlined to us it might have been wrapped around some other collateral damage and fallout. But that sort of success must involve some routines, some habits that really worked and in the way that you've managed to create your life with balance both in relationship and family and work right now, you must have some routines that are really working for you What can you tell us about either morning routines or routines for successful living? I'm glad you brought it up. Morning routine, for a long time I didn't get this and I had read about it oh yeah some people get up and do this and that's great for them but I didn't really see the benefit And now I do it religiously every day and if I don't do it

26:22 It's the point where I'll see the consequences. My morning routine, all of us are dealing with regardless of your...where you live or who you are if you're a father and you work and you have in a relationship we're all dealing with the same challenges right? And the tendency is we get up and first thing in the morning, we grab our phones. We're looking at our phones and when you do that, you immediately discount your needs. You're going right into the drama of a day. So what I'll do is I get up usually 90 minutes to two hours before anybody in the house. I need 2 hours before my first... Before I'm sitting down at my desk and I'm working

27:10 And that's my reset, if you will. So now people listening to this might say okay great I'm gonna lose two hours of sleep No You don't lose sleep in this and that's very important you don't Chances are you shut off the TV an hour ahead of time? And you head to bed earlier but anyway, I'll get up at between 5 & 5 30 and The first thing I do is all drink a lot of water Because think of it as a shower for your insides. And then I go upstairs and... Oh, well, I do the same right? For about two and half years now that's been part of my ritual because I saw someone else talking about it and how valuable it was What's what's a good amount or how much to you drink

27:51 You know, I don't measure it. I'll drink two large glasses of the water typically and just start the day hydrated myself Here at that word up in a rental house. I'll go upstairs and stretch And just you know do some easy movements sort of think about this my own Yoga workout if you will for five ten minutes and then I meditate and this is huge This has been This has been a lifesaver for my marriage and in dealing with the kids as well. One of my biggest challenges, Jonnie, is always been reacting right? And I think a lot of men struggle with this is your spouse does something to you that you don't like to hear your kids and your first approach is a defensive one

28:37 Well, I found that through meditation. Meditation prevents me from reacting crazy right? But it works! So i encourage you to download an app there's a lot online and they're free apps but just find yourself in a place where you can sit or lie down for 10-15 minutes with just calm and use it as breathing exercise doesn't have to be anything fancy Just to give you a quick insight, there's one called Insight Timer which is a great app because it's basically free for the majority of the access. There are thousands and thousands of different lengths, different styles, different whatever and just like your suggestion, you can go from really simple to the timer pick a nice background sound like crashing waves or whatever Absolutely. Set up time for 10 minutes and you're off and running. Absolutely keep it simple I like to put headphones on because

29:32 I'm The Get ready, you know I do cold showers. Okay good so I do that as well right? And how many of you... because people get too... this is gold! So first of all any man or any guy thinking meditation's not for me, you know wuss stuff just as Stu said sit there shut up get in the zone clear your mind and if you can't clear your mind think about good stuff

30:33 Right, just paint a picture of your future and get out of the rough and into the gold. And then cold showers right? What do you do? Do you do the whole thing cold or do bits of it cold? Well I started out... there was this study done at Harvard about uh the benefits of cold showers and it was unbelievable essentially in short of it is think of your body as when I'm This remarkable ability to heat and protect those organs. So when you're in a cold shower, basically You're burning more calories because your body needs to heat up too to protect itself And there's just a whole host of benefits from cold showers Just mood changing mood enhancing in a positive way but here to your question

31:43 I started out very slowly. It was, you know what you could stand or what you could put up with now? Now I do pretty much an entire cold shower. I love it but it takes a while to get there and then for awhile I was only doing in the summer now we'll do it winter-summer granted its San Diego Southern California right but so you know I've heard that but you know it's still often 45 degrees when we get out of bed yeah it's same for me in the UK You know I started by ending my shower cold Because everyone can do that, right? You just have a nice shower. It's exactly the same experience but then when you're finished whack it onto cold stand there for as long as you can! 20 seconds is better than zero seconds

32:25 And then sure enough, I now do it longer. And then... Then I got to thinking that I was put the shower on and I'd wait for it to warm up and I was like hang on a minute why don't just get in enjoy the bit when it's cold too hot? So now I have this shower cold when I start and then cold when I finish. If I if I if I don't do that now, the showers not enjoyable because people say oh how can that be enjoyable It's now NOT enjoyable if I don't do the cold bits Well, you feel better. I mean you're wide awake... In fact a lot of people use caffeine to wake up. I've gone to the point where I am just completely caffeine free and i'm not advocating that but the cold shower wakes me up. I don't need caffeine to start my day so that's a different conversation. That is cool yeah! So next part your routine in the morning?

33:16 So, I follow Ben Greenfield and he has this thing about intermittent fasting. So, I try to fast about 16 hours a day and that's been instrumental in losing that last say 3-5 pounds of belly fat. Okay! Stop eating at 6 p.m., if it is possible and then fast until 9 or 10 am in the morning And then what I'll do is by 10, I'll eat something that's healthy. So the first food of your day needs to be something healthy and for me that's usually oatmeal and I'll mix in some protein powder in there and then move on to lunch which is usually a salad maybe with some chicken or something on it as well. Okay good! I'm just getting a link for Ben Greenfield.

34:11 Yeah, Ben Greenfield Fitness. You can go check him out and put it in the notes here. So when I'm traveling it's difficult to get a full workout in but usually I'll do a high intensity interval training workout 15 minutes...I know you talk about this Jonnie about everyday you need to do something physical right? Maybe involves some walk but do something...you don't need a gym. I like to go to the gym when I am home but you really don't need a gym So all of that is also part of the morning. When school's in session and the kids are going to school, I get up it's water, it's meditation then it's a quick exit to the gym. I'll get in usually a class or 45 minute to an hour workout and then it's back home to make the kids breakfasts, get them off to school and my workday starts about 8-39

35:07 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts You know, grabbing your cup of coffee getting up late hitting the snooze button because you're late the night before and just starting the day with chaos is a routine. And if people have a look they'll realize actually they're really good at that routine because it will be two snoozes rush downstairs put the kettle on rush upstairs have an unsatisfied shower quickly go downstairs grab something junky to eat grab the coffee in a to-go cup like

35:47 Run to the station, get on that train in the last possible second. It will be an incredible routine just of almost zero positive value to you. Well and let me share that as well so that your listeners don't think that life is all perfect at this end I mean That was me! We had two little kids at home And i would come home I'm And I would, this was about off. I don't know eight nine years ago and I would pour myself a drink you know to relax and unwind and then pretty soon it was 11 o'clock and i'd watch that second episode and pour myself another drink and I was crawling into bed at midnight My wife would get up at 12 30 for a feeding wake me up

36:49 And the alarm would go off at 6.30 and I was exhausted, so I'd hit the snooze button and sleep as long as I could and then it was rush, rush, rush grab that coffee and some sugar and carbs and head off to work It was awful but that was my routine Yeah yeah So people need to have a look at just their routine right? This doesn't mean you have to turn yourself inside out but just have a routine that works And that sort of burnout that you were experiencing before, and I asked...I mentioned about hitting rock bottom. Hitting the bottom. How did you piece yourself back together after? Because just going back to what you said before your wife said she was gonna leave Your buddy told you to reflect on actually what the hell you were doing and then you had the epiphany in your garage about where life was taking you

37:48 There were men out there who feel that they're like at that moment. What was some of the steps that you took to start to pull away from The Flipping Precipice and piece yourself back together? Great question, I was in an all-time low. I'll never forget it...I dropped my daughter off at school she was in kindergarten she was in a panic and she cried all the way to school And she was acting out. She wasn't comfortable with what was happening and I dropped her off, and my wife had told me she wanted a divorce. She was done with me and there was no hope for our marriage so here when my daughter was in a panic...I was a failure as a husband. My wife told me she was done

38:35 I was overweight. I was out of shape It was just chaos, right and I found myself headed to the bar to try to solve things I would go for a drink or for you know for that That double scotch and and and I looked at myself And I thought what what the hell am i doing? Have they become essentially a cliche right this is this was ridiculous This wasn't who I wanted to be and when I looked around There was no I couldn't find anything. There was no programs that I had found like yours, you know to help men and so I made all the mistakes and had to learn the hard way on so much of this And that's an important point bringing up If a client told me he said, I know what I don't know He said, I'm in terrible pain and want to get through this as fast as possible

39:31 And so, you know plug for your program but gosh if I could truncate that pain or turn around that period of pain and you can save me months or perhaps years of pain because some men never figure this out. Sign me up. I mean what the hell? Why expose myself and or better yet, why make those decisions that are going to have lifelong implications for the worse because I haven't talked to someone who has been there and who understands it, who gets it so you know that's what you're doing That's what you're providing let me plug that because my gosh more men need this than at this time It's a great time for this but back to my pain

40:17 Gosh, again I learned it all the hard way. And uh and i basically read you know...I'm a big reader so I would devour books on self-help marriage parenting but that isn't the long arduous way to go about it. I mean I was reading about a book a week trying to figure this out myself absolutely did it the hard way and then once I learned all of this and then once I had taken these courses And figured some of this out. If you had asked me at the time, what I wanted to do was put it all behind me. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to file that away under a chapter of okay mistakes made don't ever do it again but I looked around and all these other men who I had known who were successful and had these prosperous careers they were all struggling with the same stuff yeah so I figured there's got to be something here which is the impetus for writing the book

41:12 And airing all these challenges as you've done. This isn't easy to do, as you know! Yeah yeah and in the process of writing the book Because the book is wonderfully laid out into chunks, into all of these individual things you had to realise about yourself like I was crap in this area. I was doing a bad job here. I wasn't taking responsibility there and so they're relatable parts to the journey Were you aware of all those or did it kind of like the old proverbial onion? Did as you went through each one you started to reveal the next one

41:51 I think a man reaches the point in their life where, you know when you're in your 20s and your teens. You're growing up and that you have your futures ahead of you right? And you can always look as though okay well I'm gonna be better here and I'm gonna do this or do that but at some point you wake up and you look yourself in the mirror and you realize that you either have become the man you wanted to be or you've fallen short of that mark. That is a reality check that it could be very painful And it certainly was for me. And then you have to go about, well what am I going to do about it? Or you don't and just pretend that doesn't exist and continue to plot on again back to choices right? What do you choose? Do you choose to make it hard or struggle every day or work hard and improve? That's really the decision that comes down too

42:46 Are you looking externally for relief or are you assessing yourself and realizing that relief is right here inside of you? Well, one of the problems that we do as men is that when we hit that moment of oh it's not quite working out. The madness of it is that we double down on what we're already doing Do you know, or you may have either felt that personally or seen it in others. You're like well this is all I know so i'm going to keep working, I'm going to keep having fun, if I keep doing it's gonna be alright but it's just digging faster and deeper. Who was it Mark Twain? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results right? It's crazy yeah we do it

43:33 Men find it very hard to say, actually I think i'm getting this all wrong and who can help me? And even if someone says oh I can help you though and I could speak this from personal experience. I approach my problems as well if I fix work everything else will be alright. The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts There was no way, you know it was just inescapable. You look at yourself in the mirror and you realise that I can't continue to live this way, I can't continue to do this and I just have no choice. Yeah yeah yeah... I'm sorry, sweetie I've got a live call. Can you take that? My daughter's asking your question go for it! My daughter just was in here waving at me so she is absolutely fine. Part of being a dad if she has a question before we talk about it

44:35 So, and then the question comes in what do you do about it? And that's where you and I come into the equation. Read the book take your course there is an easier way to get through this than to struggle through it every day. For me the solution was really a five-pronged approach right? I realized the epiphany back to The Garage, when asked the question about The Garage But it was realizing that success is not just a destination where you arrive. Usually, society says it's a monetary issue right? If I can make enough money...

45:12 Or, do well at work then the rest of my life's gonna fall into place. And you realize that... and this is what I lay out in the book is that success for me is on five fronts and it's very similar. I've seen what you're talking about as well. It's interesting that we both have some of these same ideas but its success with self, its success with health. The health is physical, food intake and mentally The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts Maybe this is weekly, think of it as weekly. These are the five buckets that I need to fill every week and where am I killing it? And where am I coming up short? What you find typically for a man who doesn't do this assessment if you're doing it for the first time probably your really good at one or two maybe three areas but your sucking wind at the other two and people will say well gee I can't be good in everything Stu

46:11 But the reality is, is that the consequences of not having those two areas covered or at least working at it. Is going to be so dire for life and for your situation that you need to work on it and it's just paramount. And a conscious man will address his weaknesses not because that's where he needs to focus all his energy like I have I've spoken with people who talk about working in flow or being productive in your business is knowing what you're good at and delegating the rest. But when we look at ourself, and if we are committed to our family, our work, our relationship having enough money living somewhere nice then you can't let any of those balls drop You cant just say oh im good at work and she'll love me or lump it

47:07 That's not respecting the relationship enough to experience relationship as good. I would argue it's even more fundamental than that, you know if for the man who is 30 or 50 pounds overweight what are the consequences of that? And you're cutting your lifespan and you're not going to be able to show up for your kids in your marriage or for yourself So, think of it that way. Whatever motivates you... I know for me, I mean, I was overweight and out of shape but I want to be around for years to enjoy my kids and family life And a huge part of that is your daily routine as we were talking about getting out and get fit and the food you're putting into your body. Yeah totally! As you were just saying there

48:04 Men who don't recognize the impact of their choices or recognize the impact of struggling in one area. But when you can pause and say, OK what's the impact to being overweight? And so what's the impact at work? I heard a guy say this other day is He's a salesman, but he won't take his jacket off because he's probably got sweat rings. So it doesn't think he looks good in this. But actually say what does that mean? Well that means every time is doing a deal. He's not thinking about the deal we think about how he looks. But when you first asked that question like well of course I'm not thinking about how I look when I do business deal but actually he totally is

48:41 And the same when you're on holiday, when you're getting undressed to get into bed with your wife and she hopes she wants to make love to you. When you're trying outrun your teenager or pick up your toddler like there's... I can't think of any area of life where being overweight isn't a challenge doesn't have an impact as you were alluding to there just keep going until you find one that matters enough Because if dying early isn't enough, then there's got to be another one bigger. Blimey! You mentioned that you had, we both spent... joined some of these discussion groups online. And a repeated question that comes up is I don't have the energy to work an 8-10 or 12 hour day and then show up for my wife and kids. Yeah! And to your point if you're not in shape if you don't take care of your body the consequence, the trade off, your heart

49:43 Being able to do that because you won't be able to do it. And what are the implications for your kids if you can't get out and spend 10 minutes jumping on the trampoline or running in the park with them? What are the implications if you're unable to endure lovemaking, ten-15 minutes of a hearty love session? I mean my gosh! Does your wife want to see you or does your partner want to see you naked I was in a group the other day, right? One of the American ones. Because the American groups are very different than the men in the UK or the rest of the world so they're quite alpha male some of them So this guy showed a picture of him when he got married and he showed a picture of him like now And he's like yeah man she told me I gotta lose weight or she's outta here The majority of the conversation was kind of saying oh you know she's a bitch She's out of order tell her where to go

50:42 He was considerably fatter than where they started out at. And actually, maybe they did have an argument about it or something but to whatever degree however long she'd been thinking it she finally said it and instead of him listening to her and thinking wow how committed is she to our relationship he turned into a screw you! Or at least 90% of the other guys did Well, that's just what we were talking about. For him the problem is external right? The problem is his wife who doesn't understand or doesn't appreciate it but one of things we can do and we were talking about this the other day was you know engage your partner with your exercise You know go for a walk together Go for a run together encourage each other rather than fat shame one another say hey let's go for a walk

51:34 Or, let's eat early. Or let's do the fasting. Let's try things together! That has worked wonders for us and it is another way to connect too because you are both in this together You're both feeding off of one another and helping each other out And taking responsibility Being the person that says I want to move this situation forward Are you with me? Because those kind of shared activities are, they do feed into a relationship. But they're not going to... you're not starting by saying oh let's find something that is wrong and try and fix it You say do you know what maybe there is some tension and strain here in our relationship

52:13 We can come to that. Can we find something good that we can both go and do together? Quite often, tension will if not completely leave it will reduce by putting in some good stuff. Absolutely! Make time for it every day. Yeah well is this your there's always a way? Is this tap into your kind of there's always away mantra? So I'm glad you brought that up You know, for a long time if you had met me in 2015 as I said. I was miserable and i had every reason every excuse as to why it couldn't change where I was living the city we were living in the job that I was working my marriage everything was and I had an excuse for all of this right? And instead what what we've done and I've helped my wife and I are both doing this now

53:07 But embrace the idea that there is always a way. If you are unhappy, if you're unhappy at work with your job... Yeah You can think of a myriad of reasons as to why you can't leave that job but there are also other things you can do. There's a side hustle, there's other opportunities. Vacation is a topic and I'm bragging about we're in this beautiful vacation house north of San Francisco. I'm not paying for any of it! It's all free And we've done it through a home exchange. So, a little plug there but... But I decided yeah it's home exchange there are lot of them there is HomeSwap what have you but the family that owns this house on the bay is in our place in San Diego

53:55 So, not only do I not have the opportunity cost of having to carry that expense while we're traveling but also I don't have to pay $10 or 15 thousand for this vacation. It's free! And this gets back to...I wanted to do these things but didn't necessarily have the wallet for it or I didn't have the capacity for it. It is very easy to say, ah, I can't afford We can't do it. But as soon as you dismiss it, our minds have this incredible knack to figure stuff out okay? So if you keep something top of mind... I want to live in another city and most men don't know what they want If you ask yourself what is it that you want You can articulate to the ninth degree everything you don't want but Can you articulate what it is YOU WANT

54:47 Because the more you spend time focusing on something, the more you get of it. So I encourage you focus on what it is irrespective of money, irrespective of your current obstacles, focus on what you want and you will find a way and we can talk more about this in a variety of capacity how this affects your health? How this affects your travel? How this affects your marriage? But it's, we're so powerful with our ability to do that. It's been transformative for me. The human machine, our brain, our body you know it's... We are geared towards things working out you know and I see when I do my kids football or coach little kids in playing football

55:34 The direction you're facing, if your football skills soccer skills, you know whatever throwing a ball hitting a ball. If your skills are quite rudimentary the direction you're facing is where the ball will go and it's the same thing with where we want to head to in life what we've focused on the direction and things that we want to create people who wanna meet if we don't stand and focus in that direction the likelihood of it happening are hugely reduced And the reason I bring up such a simple and ridiculous kind of example is that people are quick to say, well that ain't gonna happen is it? Well I just think about stuff and it works out. Well not quite that simple but if you think about the opposite you're definitely not going to get there like I want to have money but I just can't...I'm not good, I haven't got an education, I don't have enough money, I'm in the wrong town or in the wrong...you know exactly like you said I work too late, I can't spend 20 minutes with the kids we're quick to focus on what we can't do

56:32 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts. Preface your conversation, say I want to share something with you that might be a little bit off the wall but I just want you to listen to me and hear me out. Don't kill the idea so I'll give an example of how this worked in our lives So one of things that I wanted to do...I traveled a lot growing up or as a young adult in my 20s and 30s on five continents did a lot of travel That was something very important to me When we got married and had kids all that stopped

57:18 And part of it was kids in diapers and the routine, and I get all that. But then when the kids were north of five, I looked at my wife and said, I'd like to start traveling again. We both had work to deal with and commitments and a mortgage we're paying And so we thought, well how can we do this? How could we go on the road for a time period. One of the things that we did when we sold our house is put everything in the truck and left it in the truck and then left for Europe for two months. So the mortgage wasn't an issue. Everything was stored and we took the kids out of school because it was an opportune time I want to say it was pre-COVID just before COVID but we traveled in Spain and Portugal for 2 months

58:08 And also, you know we didn't do three days in a town but we spent a few weeks in Barcelona and some other cities. We were able to make it work financially and we're also able to make it work... To realize that after that two months we had proven ourselves the travel was nice but it's nice to be back home as well So, but instead of discounting that whole experience which back to my conversation with my wife was how what would you say to traveling for two years and at first it scared the hell out of her. Right? What do you mean traveling for two years who did I marry right but then after that two months

58:49 of compromise, if you will. I realized that I didn't want to travel for two years because it was too much but yet instead of squelching that opportunity she left the door open and it kind of died on its own." Right? So allow yourself and allow your wife that latitude so you can have those conversations without shutting each one down even if you completely disagree. I mean that really is alien to some people that you could swing out that wildly Even a little thing about being on the shoulder of giants or lift, you know giving being the wings for each other. Being the wings upon which they fly but that is beautiful You said in our conversation earlier about asking people and asking your partner what do you want? What do you want? And interesting that

59:45 Inadvertently find yourself saying no, as almost like a habit. Whether it's inside your head or in part of the conversation... No we can't do that now we haven't got time for that now. As opposed to just saying yes and seeing what happens looking like finding an answer, seeing is yes and going get in the car I take what I say to my kids all the time The sun is shining they say can go to the beach? Well the beach is about 45 minute drive from us but why say no You know what I mean? Even if we go and we spend an hour there, it's like especially for young children. They like the idea they can have an idea and then it can just happen. Like yay! But too often will say no And you've just shared a bigger example there

1:00:29 But if it's part and parcel of who someone is, or they've tuned into that themselves. Like why am I a bit unhappy? Why am i feeling a bit stuck? Oh yeah! I used to travel a lot and that lit me up. Okay great well what would it be like if I put that back in okay what can happen now? I think falling in love with each other over and over again is essential And to do that you have to fall in love with yourself over and over again Absolutely, absolutely. Another example of how this has impacted our lives... I read this book The China Study a number of years ago about the food we consume and the argument is for plant-based diet so i told my wife about three years ago said hey I want to try it and she looked at me like I was kind of weird and she said okay let's just do for 30 days

1:01:21 So we went to the store and we started to look around, like how do we eat? How do you do this? Where do we start right. But my point of this is that I was very blessed that she was open minded to it And so we did it for 30 days and now if you look at our diets or the food we consume, it's not all plant-based. But we've cut way back on the animal protein. Cholesterol has dropped considerably but I'm grateful that my wife said to me, You know what? It's thirty days! Let's try it!" But it was a radical idea, right? If your spouse comes to you and says oh let's change everything we eat. You know it's crazy but instead if you can do away with the shock factor and stop yourself from discounting her And say you know what lets just try it lets give it 30 day college try Yeah and just as we kind of get to the top of the hour

1:02:20 I mentioned a second ago about falling in love. Your wife said to you, we're done with getting divorced. What's it been like to fall back in love and to recreate your marriage? You know wow that's uh let me see if I can truncate my response here um...you know when I started to make these changes so I mentioned I was reading all these books and I was attending these masterminds and taking these courses And when I started to figure things out for myself, I thought look at me. I've changed and my wife was like yeah look at you! You've changed haha! She didn't believe me for months and this is what happens to us right? We make changes and then if you've been some way for a long time and then all of a sudden for a week or two your different

1:03:13 Do you think your wife or your spouse is all of a sudden going to say, oh yeah. You've changed. You're this new person. Woohoo! Right? They don't believe you because for eight years or seven ten years you've been this way if you're an ass...you are an ass. You're not gonna change that it takes time it's an incremental approach as we've been talking about so but if you stay the course it's back to looking at instead of assessing yourself in the situation versus looking at the trend And I continually look at the trend. How am I treating my wife today? Despite what she's saying to me and, and at this point when we were headed for a divorce it was nasty not gonna lie to you she was done with

1:03:55 And she was almost toying with me at times. Oh yeah, you're the new you right? But I stayed the course and every day I delivered love in how I approached her. It was little things it was getting her a cup of coffee it was how I changed with the kids it was working on my anger it was working on me really! It was being committed to okay this is how he would normally respond in this situation but look he's not blowing up now And after six months, eight months the change was undeniable. And then it kind of... and then the natural tendency is we look at our spouse and say okay I've changed now it's your turn yeah right? That's kind of a joke too because we all have to evolve on our own time but if you are making dramatic changes in your life, in your marriage, in your family, It is undeniable over time

1:04:49 So I encourage you, in your class Jonnie, if men will just implement what you're teaching and they'll stay the course. You will see the change over time. It's unavoidable, but you've got to stay the course and that's the hardest thing. That's back to what you were talking about is...you gotta get up every day and do it! Work out, get up everyday be conscious of the food you put in your body. You gotta get up everyday irrespective of how nasty or nice your spouse is to you, you need to be comfortable with who you are we don't change how we act to people based upon how we're treated on a given day

1:05:26 I mean, you know because then you just wake up with a whole pile of regret. So it's that incremental approach and my book outlines all these tricks and details about how i did it now you can do it And happy to share that with people they can go online pay full price or they can go to my website and buy it for $1 It's offered for $1 now. Okay let's make sure we get the in there What's the website? StewartRoberts.com slash book and it's a small investment, $1

1:06:09 The reason I give it away, but the reality is if people don't pay for it they usually don't value and open it. So open the book read it It's full of things you can do right away to improve your marriage and things that work for me. Okay brilliant Get the link up Stewart Roberts At the same time, I'm classically illustrating man's or mass male ability to multitask. We will get that note. But Jonnie you these are these are things that you're working on every week with the men in your group? You're all over this too! Yeah and you know what has come out from this conversation is

1:07:02 The The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Stewart Roberts

1:07:41 Create a pathway for men dads to confidently make quicker decisions, to effortlessly be a better man and dad. To have more fun and feel alive themselves rather than burnt out frustrated or resentful I mean just those words alone as you hear them like oh yeah I'd rather have those ones than those ones And we can create it. And sadly, the male suicide rate around the world is just so painfully high and that's because men do know to a certain degree I'm not happy with this, I'd like it to be better but there's such a disconnect between how they get from A to B that they take the ultimate choice which is too sad for all of us Well society tells us perpetuates this notion that men are supposed to have it all figured out and the reality is that we don't

1:08:34 And the women in our lives are usually much better at this than us, in terms of understanding their shortcomings and working on them. But we don't have it all figured out and it's a constant effort that you have to work on every day. The question is how do you do it? So again turning to your course and your group and helping men hats off to you for what you're doing because if you can truncate that pain And shorten it, that transition period with some very hands-on activities. Wow! That's a lifesaver. Think about how much money you're saving people.

1:09:10 How much time, how much pain. And legacy as well like absolutely in our children's through and I you know we talked earlier about fun just finally we're kind of way over the hour but just finally fun men are my human beings like to have fun but men especially like to have fine night that the flipping You know, boys hanging out getting into mischief. College guys going to play in sport, getting drunk partying you know even when you get into work and you got that energy of the young guy in business it's much more diverse workplace now but back in the day was just like there is a gang of us we're making stuff for making money where we are having fun its wild We have to be conscious as we start to get older

1:09:58 So, if we still want that male bonding, that quality time now. We just got to evolve what we're doing during that time to be slightly more wholesome and rewarding. Let me give your listeners something that's worked for me. I sucked at having fun. That was just...I was all about work. I was all about making money and I found myself in my 20s waking up and I wondered why didn't I have the beautiful girlfriend? Why didn't I have the right friends? And so here's something you can do. It's very difficult, arguably to make friends later in life right? But this is something that has worked for us very well is we got two friends together men that I had admired for their accomplishments largely external and invited them over for dinner

1:10:46 I served them drinks and a steak dinner. And then after that, we sat down and said, I have an agenda for tonight. I said, I want to be better on all these fronts. I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better father. I want to be better with my health. Each of you I admire for, and I went through their accomplishments I said, I want to learn from you and I want to learn from you. And we built this group and over the course of a year since I've been in San Diego, we've been doing it as well. Now we're up to about 12 men so the idea is that you meet... It's the second Tuesday of the month and it's on the calendar. You don't have to worry about trying to get it together every month we meet. Now I'm missing this month because I'm traveling but the rest are still going to meet

1:11:31 And you go to someone's house and you rotate, you take turns. So the idea is that if you have 12-13 men, you only have to host once a year and it's a fair amount of work but you do it once a year, you rotate homes, you have interesting conversation, you connect, you break bread together, you have food, you have laughs, drink...and its'a great way to stay connected with other men in your life who you admire or want to learn from I love that. Of course, I love that it's very much at the heart of Team Superdad is about the people that you put yourself around. I didn't flipping come up with that any more than you did! It's go back as far as the Bible if you want like get 12 people around you that you can do good stuff with and and go for it

1:12:22 Yeah, we are the sum of what they call about... Don't be the smartest man in the room or with some part of five or six people who spend most amount time with. All these kind of things people would have read or heard or seen on YouTube videos but yeah what you're saying there is that you just pulled a group together and saw where it could take you It raises your game Every month I learn something new One of men in the group was born with club feet And in two months he's doing this 100 mile run, 100 mile race. I mean could you imagine? I can't imagine doing a hundred mile race and yet this guy was born with clump feet and he's doing it! Unbelievable stories... You will hear that the tendency for men is when we get together and like to beat our chests and tell everyone how great we are and how important we are but if you get to know other men who are accomplished at a deeper level what your find or anybody what you'll find is that

1:13:21 We are all sucking in some areas. We are all weak in some areas and there's power in that, there is power in facing another man and saying okay this what I need to work on and it's killing me right now but it also breeds accountability because if you can share that with someone and put out there and articulate that it makes you accountable. Okay? I don't want to be like this. I do not want to do this anymore I hope that That is what people, you know not everyone listens to the end of the bloody podcast right but I will encourage people to be sure to do exactly that because everything we've said tonight whatever day part of the day you listen this but everything we said has been summed up in that final wrap-up there. Don't scream at your wife!

1:14:34 Thank you, Stewart. I think what we're going to end up talking about is in our Tuesday sessions we try and put together a practical Four or five actions to take, and we talk about those actions. So subject to you agreeing to it would be great to do a session on Tuesday for the team SuperDad guys. We'll take two or three four maybe elements of these things and really put some practical steps in as a checklist, as an action list for dads to take. I'd love to be part of that thank you. Brilliant brilliant

1:15:25 Enjoy your weekend. The Euro final is on this Sunday, so hopefully England are going to beat Italy. Apologies to any Italian listeners but yes we hope that they're gonna win that I wish you the very best of the weekend with your lovely family they sound like a great team for Team Roberts Thank You Jonnie real pleasure thank you so much Team Superdab members, be sure to subscribe to the podcast. I can bring up the right button here will play out the outro Yeah, be sure to subscribe for the podcast Monday nights remember are the wrap-up where we have a lot of fun and wrap up that was with some of the dads from The Crew including Glenn and I Until then Stu all the best sir! Brilliant brilliant what an awesome guy and blimey his story is so parallel to mine which obviously different role different country

1:16:22 Different amounts of money by the sounds of it, but no difference in terms of goals. The vision we have for our family, our lives... ...the ambitions for our future and so I think that's the same for all of us or certainly the kind of person that will be listening to this podcast The kind of person that will be part of the Team Superdad community and the Hero Academy We don't want to settle for second best And we don't want to be the flipping exhausted Do it all, trying to keep everyone else happy. I absolutely love that conversation and can't wait to meet Stewart face-to-face hopefully in San Diego because i've not been too well up in there i've been to last Los Angeles but i've not really been for a holiday on the north west of America

1:17:10 Well, so that is something for us to look forward to. We chit-chatted at the end about doing a live event about scheduling one of the live events over in San Diego and San Francisco and that is definitely a dream. Tolly Burkhan, the western father of firewalking is based over there as well So it would be epic to get him involved If any of that sounds interesting, well stay tuned and come and be part of the Team Superdad group. That is teamsuperdad.com forward slash group Be sure to share this and tune in because the next episode will be the wrap-up where Glenn and I occasionally other dads from the community Talk crap have a laugh and catch up on the week that was so hopefully when you Catch us there England will have won the Euros and we will have a hangover which would be awesome

1:18:01 Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next one Team Superdad out, bye! This has been Team Superdad Find us at teamsuperdad.com Join the program and create the best life ever for you and your children You are not alone You're on Team Super Dad