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 Super Dad podcast, Stuart Roberts shares his bounce back journey and how he saved his family and discovered happiness. Roll theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Welcome back to the Team Super Dad podcast. It's great to have you here. This is Johnny, founder and creator of the Team Super Dad program and community.

00:42 If you're here for the first time, well, good to have you. And if you're back, even better. Because that means we're obviously doing something right. This is the information, entertainment, informative, dad-based episode with a author called Stuart Roberts. Well, he's an author. He's written about his story, his dad journey. Most of all, he's an entrepreneur, a businessman, an angel investor, a Wall Street trader. This guy had it all. And he was focused in the wrong places. He really believed that the dream was all about having those things.

01:24 And it got to a point, a breakdown point, where his wife said, we're done. It's over. I'm leaving. That he suddenly found out that all his hard work and endeavors had been slightly misplaced. And that's what it's all about. You know, if you're a dad who is looking to create the life he desires, then the pursuit of one thing over another will unlikely lead to the results that you want. 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 is going to look like. But then we give it a go.

02:08 We try our best. If you're lucky enough, and it is luck, to be quite honest, for the majority of us, it's luck to find yourself in a relationship that really works with a teammate, a partner, a wingman, a wife who supports, nurtures, is aligned with you. You bring out the best in each other. You resolve things well. You know, this is, it's like a 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.

02:49 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 that I wanted to create. And that is what Team Super Dad is about. 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. It is a lesson for all of us to learn. And it is a lesson that Stuart reiterates in this conversation today. So thanks for joining us. Be sure to share this, subscribe to the podcast.

03:34 I always forget to say that at the beginning. I need that like super slick beginning, don't I? But then, I don't know, maybe you end up saying the same thing every time. Let me know. Do you want the super slick intro or do you like this chit chat? But yeah, you know, the more dads we can bring into the Team Super Dad world, the better. We run something called the Hero Academy, which is a 10-week program, a 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, and this has kind of got lost

04:17 in recent years, about putting enough focus and energy into yourself. Not so that you're drunk every night or hiding away on the golf course 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 can 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 you.

04:59 your questions. Stuart 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 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. Hey, Stuart, welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. It's great to have you here today. All right, all right, it's good to be here. Thank you for the uh for the invite, Johnny. Oh, you're welcome, man. I saw your post in one of the American Dads groups, and you were talking about uh the book that you'd written.

05:47 You were very casual about it. It wasn't like one of those guys in the group going, Yeah, get my book, man. This will save your life. But uh, just through the conversation, I went on your profile, and we've been having chats over the last week. Um, it's just 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, 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 you are and tell us a bit about your family. Well, we uh we currently live in Southern California in San Diego, and I have two uh two girls under 10.

06:32 Uh, we just had it celebrated an eight eighth birthday, and I saw an eight and a nine-year-old. Good, okay. My daughter is uh is also nine, near going to be 10. Her brother's two years older than her, so I'm have the pleasure of them both doing puberty at the same time. So, exactly. I have uh, interestingly enough, ours are in the same grade, it just worked out that way. So, we have, in effect, twins, and we'll be hit with that college education, 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, right, indeed, indeed, it is. But no, we so two under 10. I have a

07:14 wife of 12 years. I'm 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 and how to fix it. Amazing, amazing. And that's what we're going to get going to get into today. There's a link in the notes for that takes people to your book. And listen, this isn't how we came. 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.

07:54 So, for people that are thinking about a podcast or whatever, be under no illusion, it is a labor 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 Johnny 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, I've come on a journey that's been highs and lows, deliriously happy, deliriously scared, miserably married, heartbrokenly separated.

08:31 Like it's it's it's all part of the of the process. And I want out of these uh sessions, out of our work in Team Super Dad 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, mistakes that impact our families. And from a children's point of view, impact their families, their children down the line. So, the better we can help men be as strong and as focused and as happy as the better we're all going to be. Well said, well said. I couldn't agree more. Good, good. So, how old are you again?

09:13 I will be 51 next week. So, I had a big birthday last year during COVID. It was uneventful, but hit 50. And so, it's certainly a milestone. Yeah. And are you going to get a chance to have a proper party? You know what? We're actually celebrating right now. We're on Families on Vacation for two weeks. We'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 of days and spend some time in Napa and just enjoy the local community here.

09:51 So, we're definitely celebrating. I saw my vision boy. Like one of my destinations is San Francisco and the West Coast, sorry, 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 I, I've been to LA for a like three-day event, but that's about as much time as I've spent over there. Well, you'll have to come back. I know. There's an epic triathlon that's really hard to get into, like the San Francisco triathlon.

10:28 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. It's majestic. It's really, I wish you could see the view we have here. It's just, it's unbelievable. In fact, I was out, I was up early this morning. I was doing some stretches on the deck and just really appreciating this opportunity. Truly grateful. Megha. 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, you'll 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.

11:12 We have some fun stuff, some serious stuff. 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 bleed 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 sort of the guidance and advice bit. In one of the part of the blurb for your book, it sort of 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? To what degree were you succeeding? Well, let me give you a little context. Grew up in the Midwest, middle-class kid, and everyone around me had money. I was surrounded by money. And I thought that that was the ticket for me. That was 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 and yet they were miserable.

12:38 And so left Wall Street and ended up, I had spent some time in Asia with a large global investment bank and they sent me to Tokyo and Hong Kong. And one of the trips, I had a seatmate who was from Shanghai and was showing me these unbelievable pictures of Shanghai. So before the plane landed, this was in the mid-90s. I realized 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 the people. Anyway, that led to starting a trading company. It was based out of Shanghai.

13:14 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 an angel investment group focused on basically it was a bunch of old men with money putting money into deals. Got involved in this. And so I had all these options, all these opportunities, and met the woman of my dream. 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.

13:58 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 and my life was crumbling. So that's in short, what led to my epiphany and this, the book. And I realized there were some other men going through this as well. So I wanted to see if I could help. And how old, and when you hit that moment, was it a rock bottom moment? Or in terms of your wife saying, I want a divorce, some people,

14:38 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? bottom or did you have to go further? Oh, it was, it was, it was brutal. I remember, I'll never forget a pivotal conversation I had with a good friend, and I was on the phone with him, you know, complaining about how everything was basically no one appreciated me, right? We had this big house. My kids had everything they could desire. We had, you know, we traveled when we wanted. We had, you know, nice cars in our driveway. I had provided all that. Yeah. And he said, and I, and I was basically telling him all my wife's shortcomings.

15:22 And he said, okay, I've heard about that and I've heard about her, but what about you? And I said, what do you mean? What about me? Didn't you listen to what I said? No, 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 that conversation, it took about two weeks to settle down. I mean, I was pissed, right? He was telling me something I did not want to hear. 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 that where I was falling short.

16:08 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. Can you, you can relate? I can. You know what? The thing was, my struggle and how the, you know, my marriage wasn't working, the loneliness, trying to grow a young business. I was so focused on everything's going to be all right. If I can just keep going, I'll get like, if we can just get out of the desert onto the other side, everything will be all right.

16:53 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 I'm the one that's driving. And the further and the harder I drive, more, more bits fall off the car. And then just before the finish line, I'm sat there in nothing but the seat kind of like, what's happened? Where's everything? Because it didn't slow down enough to realize that things are not working out. And I certainly, I mean, this isn't a place for my story, but taking responsibility, a bit like what you're saying there, taking responsibility for everything that had happened.

17:36 It wasn't that 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. 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, Johnny, 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 where it's easy to blame. It's easy to see the problem is external, is outside you.

18:20 But the problem with this, and I'm not discounting that. I mean, 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 challenge is when you put the problem out there, you can do nothing about it versus when you turn back and you look in the mirror and you say, wait a minute, not only are these my shortcomings, but look, I can fix this. I can change this. And there is an incredible power there. It's almost like it's a shift of the mindset where, okay,

19:00 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. And 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. Absolutely. I've got a framework for something called the reconnection conversation. And it's a conversation to have on a regular basis with your partner. It's not actually a dialogue back and forth. It's just a set of questions. Is there anything that they're flexible depending on how many times?

19:44 times you've had the conversation, but it's something along the lines of: 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? And like I say, it's not an opportunity for dialogue. It's just to hear what the other person's experience is. To listen. An opportunity to listen. And boy, that's hard to do sometimes. And 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.

20:32 And ultimately, and I have come to learn this myself, and it does challenge when I speak to how 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 your values in different ways, then sometimes it makes sense to break up for the right reasons, break up positively. And I certainly think that 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 it in my youth in my 20s on Wall Street.

21:16 It was, if I can just arrive at this point, if I can just make enough money or just overcome this one hurdle, then I'll have arrived and the rest of my life will fall into place. And the reality is, 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, he said, you need to choose what your struggle is. He said, it's challenging to run a business. And most, and a lot of people, 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.

22:00 It's also challenging to stay fit. So you need to choose what that challenge is and then just go after it because life is about having a challenge or a struggle. Call it what you want. There's no point where we reach a place in life where we have enough money or we have the perfect marriage or we have the perfect kids where we sit down and say, ah, now I've arrived and I can relax. That doesn't exist, right? But yet we kind of fool ourselves into thinking that that's what we're shooting for. Absolutely. Oh, I like you. Powerful. And people can relate to Tony Robbins and the people he's impacted. But everyone should know that they can grab that and put it into their own life.

22:42 And you've done a lot of work with men in that capacity, I understand too. Yeah, having people, and this is, and I've not had the chance to read the whole book yet, but this is about, and 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, to be open to the wow of seeing it through. I'm on day 25 of a 30-day fitness challenge. And it's nothing more than press-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. And for all my fitness, and I say to the dads and teams who've dads, your fitness goals are your fitness goals.

23:26 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-ups. 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 Super Dad workout: press-ups, sit-ups, burpees, a minute each, pause for a minute, and then repeat three times, right? Love it. I've done over 3,000 press-ups this month. Right on. That's amazing. I've had to add it up and then double check it just to make sure.

24:07 Like, if I do, because if, because by the time I've done all three reps and the burpees and the press, like it comes to like 130 press-ups a day, basically. Some are on my knees because by the end of it, I'm like, oh. But 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. I'm not where I want to be. I'm not making. making enough money. I'm not where I want to be in my marriage. I'm not where I want to be as a parent.

24:44 But if you can focus to your point on the trend and say, okay, every day, if I'm doing this, I know that in six months or in 12 months, I'm going to be here. And if I keep this trend going, I'm going to find I'm going to 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 in January and then deciding that this couldn't carry on, and I actually did have a commitment to being fit, I could do 20, about 22 press-ups in one go. And now, 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 one, I can do that. But

25:25 on the subject of routines, what are some of the routines? You've experienced success 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 in, both in relationship and family and work right now, you must have some routines that are really working for you. So, you know, 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.

26:10 And I had read about it. Oh, yeah, some people get up and do this and that. 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, it's the point where I'll see the consequences. My morning routine, I mean, all of us are dealing with, regardless of 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 and we're looking at our phones. And when you do that, you immediately discount your needs.

26:54 You're going right into the drama of the day. And so what I do is I get up usually 90 minutes to two hours before anybody in the house. I need two hours before my first, before I'm sitting down at my desk and I'm working. And that's my reset, if you will. So now people listening to this might say, okay, great. I'm going to lose two hours of sleep. No, you don't lose sleep in this. And that's very important that 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 and 5.30. And the first thing I do is I'll drink a lot of water because think of this a shower for your insides.

27:36 And then I go upstairs and I do the same, right? And for about two and a half years now, it's been part of my ritual because I saw someone else talking about it and how valuable it was. What's a good amount? How much do you drink? You know, I don't measure it. I'll drink two large glasses of the water typically and just start the day hydrating myself. Here we're at a rental house. I'll go upstairs and stretch and just do some easy movements, sort of think of it. This is my own yoga workout, if you will, for five, 10 minutes. And then I meditate.

28:14 And this is huge. This has been a lifesaver for my marriage and for dealing with the kids as well. One of my biggest challenges, Johnny, has always been is reacting, right? And I think a lot of men struggle with this is, you know, your spouse says something to you that you don't like to hear, your kids, and your first approach is a defensive one. Well, I found that through meditation, meditation prevents me from reacting. Crazy, right? But it works. So I encourage you, download an app. There's a lot online. There are free apps, but just find yourself in a place where you can sit or lie down for 10, 15 minutes with just calm and just use it as a breathing exercise.

29:01 It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Yeah, I like just to give you, there's one called Insight Timer, which is a great app because it's basically free for the majority of the access. There's thousands and thousands of different lengths, different styles, different whatever. And just like you're suggesting, you can go to a really simple, to the timer, pick a nice background sound like crashing waves or whatever. Absolutely. Time for 10 minutes and you're off and running. Absolutely. Keep it simple. I like to put headphones on because I can block out any other sound. And the key is that no one else is up in the house because if anyone else is running around, it's very hard to do.

29:40 So I need to be quiet. And for those of you who have tried it before, I said it doesn't work or they've struggled with it, just do it for five minutes. And there are a lot of things online you can follow. But I promise you, if you do it and stay with it, it is life-changing. It's the point where my wife will say to me, you know, if something happens or something goes wrong, she'll say, did you meditate today? So it's that instrumental. And then I'll go through this get ready. You know, I do cold showers. I'll do. Okay, good. So I do that as well. And how long do you, because people get too, this is gold.

30:18 So first of all, any man, any guy thinking meditation is not for me, you know, wuss, you know, stuff, just as Stu said, sit there, shut up, get, get in the zone, clear your mind, right? And if you can't clear your mind, think about good stuff, right? Just paint a picture of your future and get out of the 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? Do you do bits of it cold? Well, I started out, there was this study done at Harvard about the benefits of cold showers. And it wasn't really. It was unbelievable. And essentially, and short of it is think of your body as a, when you have a, think of having a house with all the windows open, running the heat full blast.

31:04 If all the windows are open and the heater is running full blast, the heater needs to work that much harder in order to heat your house. Well, your body works in a similar way. You never hear of frostbite of the brain or frostbite of the heart because the body has 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 to protect itself. And there are just a whole host of benefits from cold showers, just mood changing, mood enhancing in a positive way. But to your question, I started out very slowly. It was, you know, what you could stand or what you could put up with.

31:47 Now I do pretty much an entire cold shower. I love it. But it takes a while to get there. And then for a while, I was only doing it in the summer. Now I'll do it winter, summer. Granted, it's San Diego, Southern California, right? But 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. 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. And then sure enough, I now do it longer.

32:28 And then I got to thinking, I was put the shower on and I'll wait for it to warm up. And I was like, hang on a minute. Why don't I just get in and enjoy the bit when it's cold to hot? So now I have the shower cold when I start and then cold when I finish. And if I don't do that now, the shower is 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, I just, you're wide awake. Yeah. In fact, we can, you know, a lot of people use caffeine to wake up. I've gone to a point where I am just completely caffeine-free. It doesn't, and I'm not, I'm not advocating that, but the cold shower wakes me up. I don't need caffeine to start my day. Yeah. So that's a different conversation. That's cool. Yeah. And this is such.

33:13 Okay. So next part of your routine in the morning. 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 getting that, losing that last, say, three, five pounds of belly fat. So stop eating at 6 p.m. at night if it's possible. And then fast until about 9, 10 a.m. 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.

33:51 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 Green. Ben Greenfield. I got it here. Yeah. Yeah, Ben Greenfield Fitness. You can go and check him out. Let's put it in the notes. So when I'm traveling, it's difficult to get a full workout in, but I'll do, usually I'll do a high-intensity interval training workout, 15 minutes. I know you talk a lot about this, Johnny, about, you know, every day you need to do something physical. right? Maybe it involves a walk, but do something.

34:35 You don't need a gym. I like to go to the gym when I'm home, but you really don't need a gym. So all of that is also part of the morning. So 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 a 45-minute to an hour workout, and then it's back home to make the kids breakfast, get them off to school. And then my day starts about, my work day starts about usually about 8:39. Nice. And the thing that people need to get about that is that not having a routine is a routine.

35:15 Absolutely. It's just a crap one. Absolutely. Getting up, checking your phone, you know, getting, you know, grabbing your cup of coffee, getting up late, hitting the snooze button because you were up too late the night before, and just starting the day with chaos is a routine. Yeah. 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 a have an unsatisfied shower, you know, quickly go downstairs, grab something junky to eat, grab the coffee in a to-go cup, like run to the station, get on that train the last possible second. It will be an incredible routine, just of almost zero positive value to you.

35:57 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. I would, we had two little kids at home, and I would come home. My wife was exhausted because she had been with the kids all day. I would often make dinner and my wife just wanted to go to bed because she was tired and she needed to prepare for the evening feeding. So I would eat late and then I would go upstairs. And I remember I was watching a series, Breaking Bad. And I would, this was about, I don't know, eight, nine years ago. And I would pour myself a drink, you know, to relax and unwind.

36:36 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, 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? And it doesn't mean you have to turn yourself inside out, but just have a routine that works.

37:18 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, you know, because just going back to what you said before, your wife said she was going to 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. There were men out there who feel that they're like at that moment. What were some of the steps that you took to start to pull away from the flipping precipice and piece yourself back together?

38:00 Great question. I was at an all-time low. I'll never forget. I dropped my daughter off at school. She was in kindergarten and 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. 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 my daughter was in a panic. I was a failure as a husband. My wife told me she was done. 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.

38:46 I would go for a drink or for, you know, for that double scotch. And I looked at myself and I thought, what the hell am I doing? And we've become essentially a cliche, right? 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 I had to learn the hard ways on so much of this. And that's an important point bringing up. I mean, if I had a client tell me, he said, I know what I don't don't know.

39:25 know. And he said, I know I'm in terrible pain and I want to get through this as fast as possible. 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? 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.

40:06 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, gosh, again, I learned it all the hard way. And I basically read, you know, I'm a big reader. So I would devour books on, you know, 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 once I had taken these, you know, 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.

40:51 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 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, you know, because the book is the book for is wonderfully laid out into chunks, into like kind of all of these individual things you had to realize about yourself.

41:34 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 of those or did it kind of like the old proverbial onion? Did it, as you went through each one, you started to reveal the next one? I think a man reaches a point in their life where, you know, you're in your 20s, in your teens, you're growing up and you have your futures ahead of you. Right. And you can always look as though, okay, well, I'm going to be better here and I'm going to do this and I'm going to 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're falling short of that mark.

42:17 And that is a reality check that can 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. You just pretend it doesn't exist and you just continue to plot on again back to choices, right? What do you choose? Do you choose to make it hard and to struggle every day or to work hard and improve? And that's really the decision that it comes down to. Are you looking externally for relief or are you assessing yourself and realizing that relief is right here inside you?

42:55 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. I'm going to keep doing like, if I keep going, it's going to be all right. But it's just, it's, it's like just digging faster deep and who is it, Mark Twain. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Yeah. Right. It's crazy. Yeah, we do it. But very men find it very hard to say, actually, I think I'm getting this all wrong.

43:38 And who, like, who can help me? And then even if someone says, oh, I can help you, though, and I can speak this from personal experience. I approached my problems as, oh, well, if I fix work, everything else will be all right. I just need to go on another business course. And so I went on a business accelerator or I got a business coach. And each of those courses were kind of more of a challenge because I wasn't addressing the elephant in the room, which was me. Well, and that was me. There was, there was no way, you know, it was just inescapable. You look yourself, look at yourself in the mirror and you realize that I can't continue to live this way. I can't continue to do this.

44:19 And I. I just have no choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I've got, sweetie, I'm on a live call. Can you ask me a question? Go for it. My daughter just was in here waving at me. So it's absolutely fine. Part of being a dad, if she's got a question, right? So, yeah, and then the question comes: what do you do about it? And that's where you and I come into the equation. I mean, read the book, take your course. There's an easier way to get through this than to struggle through it every day. And for me, the solution was really a five-pronged approach, right? I realized the epiphany back to the garage that you asked the question about the garage, but it was realizing that success is not just

45:04 a destination where you arrive. Usually it's society says it's a monetary issue, right? If I can make enough money or do well at work, then the rest of my life's going to 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're both have some of the same ideas, but it's success with self, it's success with health. And the health is physical, it's food intake and mentally. And then it's success with family and in marriage and finally work. And so if you look, if you assess your life,

45:45 maybe this is weekly, think of it as weekly as 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? And what you find typically for a man who doesn't do this assessment, you'll find if you do it for the first time, you'll find probably you're really good at one or two or maybe three areas, but you're sucking wind at the other two. And people will say, well, gee, I can't be good at everything, Stu. 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.

46:24 And it's just, it's paramount. And a conscious man will address his weaknesses, not because that's where he needs to focus all his energy. Like I have 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're 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 can't just say, oh, I'm 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. It's, you know, if for the man who's 30 or 50 pounds overweight, what are the consequences of that? And, you know, you're cutting your lifespan and you're not going to be able to show up for your kids or in your marriage or for yourself. So there, you know, think of it that way. Whatever motivates you. I know for me, I mean, I was overweight. I was out of shape. But I want to be around for years to enjoy my kids and my family and life. And a huge part of that is your daily routine, as you were talking about, getting out and getting fit.

47:53 And the food you're putting into your bodies. Yeah, totally. And you know, as you were just saying that, I was thinking about 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, okay, well, what's the impact of being overweight? And what's the, so what's the impact of work? I heard a guy say this the other day is he's a salesman, but he won't take his jacket off because he's probably got sweat rings or he doesn't think he looks good in his. So, but actually, say, well, what does that mean? Well, that means every time he's doing a deal, he's not thinking about the deal.

48:31 He's thinking about how he looks. But when you first asked that question, he's like, well, of course I'm not thinking about how I look when I do a business deal. But actually, he totally is. And the same when you're on holiday, when you're getting undressed to get into bed with your wife and she hopes, you hope she wants to make love to you. When you're trying to 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. And as you were alluding to there, just keep going until you find one that matters enough. Because if dying early isn't enough, then

49:12 there's going to be another one bigger, blind me. mentioned that you had, you know, we both spent joining some of these discussion groups online. And a repeated question that comes up is, you know, I don't have the energy to work a 10-hour, 8 to 10 or 12-hour day and then show up for my wife and my kids. And to your point, if you're not in shape, if you don't take care of your body, the consequence of the trade-off, your heart is going to be being able to do that because you won't be able to do that. And what are the implications for your kids if you can't get out and spend 10 minutes jumping on the trampoline or running the park with them?

49:54 What are the implications if you can't go, you know, if you're unable to endure lovemaking, you know, 10, 15 minutes of a hearty love, a love session? I mean, my gosh. And, you know, does your wife want to see you or does your partner want to see you naked? You know, I was in a group the other day, right? One of the American ones, because the American groups are very different than the men, 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, right? And he's like, yeah, man, she's told me I got to lose weight or she's out of here, right?

50:34 So, and then the majority of the conversation was kind of saying, oh, she's a bit, she's out of order. She tell her where to go. 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 it into a screw. 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 him.

51:17 But one of the things we can do, 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, you know, say, hey, let's go for a walk or let's eat early or let's do the fasting. Let's try things together. That's worked wonders for us. And it's another way to connect too, because you're 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.

51:54 Are you with me? Because those kind of shared activities are, they do feed into a relationship, but they're not going to, you know, you're not starting by saying, oh, let's find something that's wrong and try and fix it. You're saying, do you know what? Maybe there is some tension and strain here on our relationship. 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. Absolutely. Make time for it every day. Yeah. Well, is this your there's always a way? Does this tap into your kind of there's always a way mantra? So I'm glad you brought that up.

52:38 I, you know, for a long time, if you had met me in 2015, as I said, I was miserable. 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 it, right? And instead, what we've done, and I've helped my wife and I are both doing this now, but embrace the idea that there is always a way. If you are unhappy, if you're unhappy at work with your job, 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.

53:23 Vacation needs a topic. 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 home exchange. So a little plug there, but that's quite right. Yeah. But I decided, yeah, it's a home exchange. There are a lot of them. There's home swap, what have you. But the family that owns this house on the bay is in our place in San Diego. 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 15,000 for this vacation.

54:06 It's free. So this gets back. back to i i wanted to do these things but i didn't necessarily have the wallet for it or i didn't have the capacity for it it's very easy to say i can't afford it we can't do it but as soon as you you dismiss it you 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 most men don't know what they want. If you ask yourself, what is it you want? You can articulate to the ninth degree everything you don't want.

54:43 But can you articulate what it is you want? 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 we are so powerful with our ability to do that. It's been transformative for me. The human machine, our brain, our body, we are geared towards

55:27 things working out. I see it when I do my kids' football or coach little kids in playing football. The direction you're facing, if your football skills, soccer skills, whether you're 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're focused on, the direction, the things we want to create, the people we want to 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 going to happen, is it?

56:10 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. I'm in the wrong, you know, like exactly like you said. I work too late. I can't spend 20 minutes with the kids. Like, we're quick to focus on what we can't do rather than finding a way or even playing with the idea that there's a way. Well, here's another issue that comes up. And maybe you're, maybe you have this mindset, but you'll say, well, every time I bring it up with my spouse, she'll shut me down. Okay. So try this with your significant other.

56:52 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 you an example of how this worked in our lives. So one of the things that I wanted to do, I traveled a lot growing up as a young adult in my 20s and 30s. I was on five continents and did a lot of travel. That was something that was very important to me. When we got married and had kids, all that stopped. And part of it was, you know, 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 I said, I'd like to start traveling again. And we both had work to deal with and commitments

57:37 at a mortgage we were paying. And so we thought, well, how can we do this? How could we go on the road for a time period? And one of the things we did when we sold our house, we put everything on the truck and left it on the truck and then left for Europe for two months. And 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 two months. And also, we didn't do three days in a town, but we spent a few weeks in Barcelona and some other cities and we were able to make it work.

58:21 And 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 to ourselves, oh, the travel was nice, but it's nice to be back home as well. So, but instead of just counting that whole experience, which back to my conversation with my wife, was 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 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.

59:01 Right. So allow yourself and allow your wife that. latitude so you can have those conversations without shutting each other one down, even if you completely disagree. I mean, that really is alien to some people that you could, that you could swing out that wildly. You know, even a little thing about being on the shoulder of giants or lifting, you know, giving being the wings for each other, being the wings upon which they fly. But that is a beautiful, you know, you said in our conversation earlier about asking people, asking your partner, what do you want? What do you want? And interesting that you can

59:45 inadvertently find yourself saying no, as almost like as a habit, whether it's inside your head or in part of a conversation, no, we can't do that. No, we haven't got time for that. No, as opposed to just saying yes and seeing what happens, looking for like finding an answer, seeing yes and going and getting in the car. I'll tell you what I say to my kids all the time. The sun's shining, they say, can we go to the beach? Well, the beach is about a 45-minute drive for 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. They're like, yay. But too often we'll say no.

1:00:26 And you've just, you know, shared a bigger example there. But if it's part and parcel of who someone is, or they've gotten, 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 is 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.

1:01:07 And the argument is for a plant-based diet. So I told my wife about three years ago, I said, hey, I want to try this. And she said, you know, she looked at me like I was kind of weird. And she said, okay, I said, let's just do it for 30 days. So we went to the store and we started to look around. We're like, you know, how do we eat? How do we do this? I mean, where do we start? Right. And, but I was, 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. Yeah. Cholesterol has dropped considerably. But I'm grateful that my wife said to me, you know what?

1:01:52 It's 30 days. Let's try it. Let's just, you know, it was, but it was a radical idea, right? If you're, 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, you can do away with a shock factor and stop yourself from discounting her and say, you know what, let's just try it. Let's give it a 30-day college try. Yeah. And just as we kind of get to the top of the hour, I mentioned a second ago about falling in love. Your wife said to you, we're done. We're getting divorced. What's it been like to fall back in love and to recreate your marriage?

1:02:35 You know, wow, that's a, let me see if I can truncate my response here. 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 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. You know, she didn't believe me for months. And this is what happens to us, right? We make changes. And then, you know, if you've been some way for a long time and then all of a sudden for a week or two, you're different. Do you think your wife is or your spouse is all of a sudden going to say, oh, yeah, you've changed. You're this new person.

1:03:18 Woohoo, right? They don't believe you because for eight years or seven, 10 years, you've been this way. If you're an ass, you were an ass. You're not going to change that. It takes time. It's an incremental approach, as we've been talking about. 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 will continually look at the trend. How am I treating my wife today? Despite what she's saying to me. And at this point, when we were headed for a divorce, it was nasty. I'm not going to lie to you. She was done with me. And she was almost toying with me at times. Oh, yeah, you're the new you, right? But I stayed the course.

1:04:01 I stayed the course. And every day I delivered love in how I approached her. It was the little things. It was, you know, 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 colours, and then the natural tendency is we look at our spouse and say, okay, I've changed. Now it's your turn. Yeah. Right. And that's kind of a joke too, because we all have to evolve on our own time.

1:04:40 But if you are making dramatic changes in your life, in your marriage, in your family, it is undeniable over time. So I encourage you, you know, if in your class, Johnny, 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: you've got to get up every day and do it. Work out. Get up every day and be conscious of the food you put in your body. You've got to get up every day. And irrespective of how nasty or nice your spouse is to you, you need to be comfortable with who you are.

1:05:21 We don't change how we act to people based upon how we're treated on a given day. 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 and how you can do it. And I'm happy to share that with people. They can go online and pay full price, or they can go to my website and buy it for a dollar. It's offered for a dollar now. Okay, period. Let's make sure we get that in the link. What's the website? As you can tell, StuartRoberts.com/slash book.

1:06:00 S-T-E-W-A-R-T, stuartroberts.com/slash book. And, you know, it's a small investment, a dollar. The reason I give it away, but the reality is if people don't pay for it, they usually don't value it and don't 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 worked for me. Okay, brilliant. Get the link up, Stuart Roberts. At the same time, I'm classically illustrating man's or mass male ability to multitask.

1:06:45 We will get that note. Johnny, these are things that you're working on every week with the men in your group. I mean, you're all over this too. Yeah, and you know, I hope what has come out from this conversation is that this isn't stuff that we didn't already know. It's just stuff that we didn't really want to do. Or how to do it, how to go about doing it. There you go. There's a better answer here: how. We thought, okay, that might be good, probably easier, probably better for us all. I'm just not quite sure how I can make that happen. And so we carry on doing what we're doing. And it doesn't work out. So

1:07:28 Team Super Dad came about as a result of my experience, which, as you said at the beginning, took too long, was too painful, and cost way too much money and love. And so if we can create a pathway for men, dads, to confidently make quicker decisions, to effortlessly be a better man and dad, to have more fun and to feel alive themselves rather than burnt out, frustrated and resentful. I mean, just those words alone, as you hear them, you're 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.

1:08:13 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 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. 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.

1:08:54 group and helping men, you know, hats off to you for what you're doing. Because again, if you can truncate that pain and shorten it, that transition period with some very hands-on activities. Wow, wow, that's a lifesaver. Think about how much money you're saving people, how much time, how much pain and legacy as well. Like, absolutely. Our children through. And I, you know, we talked earlier about fun, just finding we're kind of way over the hour, but just finally fun. Men, I mean, human beings like to have fun, but men especially like to have fun, like the flipping, you know, boys hanging out, getting into mischief, college guys, going out playing sport, getting drunk, partying.

1:09:39 You know, even when you get into work and you've got that energy of the young guy in business, it's, you know, obviously it's a much more diverse workplace now. But, you know, back in the day, it was just like, there's a gang of us, we're making stuff, we're making money, we're having fun. It's wild. We have to be conscious as we start to get older that we still want that male bonding, that quality out. We just got to evolve what we're doing during that time to be slightly more wholesome and rewarding. So let me give you, let me give your listeners something that's worked for me. Okay, good. I sucked at having fun. I mean, 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?

1:10:24 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's worked for us very well. Is we, I got, I got two friends together, men that I had admired for their accomplishments, largely external. And I invited them over for dinner, served them drinks and a steak dinner. And then after that, we I sat down and I 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. And I said, you, each of you, I admire for, and I went through their accomplishments.

1:11:07 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 the year, and since I've been in San Diego, we've been doing it as well. And now we're up to about 12 men. And so the idea is you meet this. 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 of them are still going to meet. And you go to someone's house and you rotate, you take turns. So the idea is 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 an interesting conversation.

1:11:48 You connect. You break bread together. You have food. You have laughs, drink. And it's a great way to stay connected with other men in your life who you admire and you want to learn from. I love that. And 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, you know, go back as far as the Bible if you want, like get 12 people around you that you can do good stuff with and go for it. And yeah, there's, you know, we are the sum of what they, you know, they call it about, you know, our be the, don't be the, don't be the smartest man in the room or we're the sum part of the five or six people we spend the most amount of time with.

1:12:34 All these kind of things people would have read or heard or seen on YouTube videos. But yeah, what you're saying there is you just pulled a group together and saw where it could take you. It raises your game. Every month, every month I learn something new. One of the 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 100-mile race. And yet, this guy was born with club feet and he's doing unbelievable stories. You will hear that the tendency for men is when we get together and we like to beat our chests and tell everyone how great we are and how important we are.

1:13:14 But if you get to know other men who are accomplished at a deeper level, what you find, or anybody, what you'll find is that we are all sucking in some areas. We are all weak in some areas. And there's power in that. There's power and facing another man and saying, okay, this is 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 it out there and articulate that, it makes you accountable. Okay, I don't want to be like this. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to yell at my wife.

1:13:50 i don't want to yell at my kids i don't want to be uh and but you start sharing those things and it's it's like wow this is who i am and i need to change this and i can change this very powerful yeah what a beautiful way to end as well um i hope that that is what people you know people not everyone listens to the end of the bloody podcast right but uh i will encourage people to um be sure to to do exactly that because everything we've said tonight uh whatever day part of the day you're listening to this but everything we've said has been summed up in in that final

1:14:30 uh in that final wrap-up there don't scream at your wife yeah oh my gosh that's another whole um uh thank you stuart thank you as uh i did uh i think what we're going to end up talking about i'm certainly going to invite you to do is um we in our tuesday sessions we try and put together like a practical like four or five actions to take and we talk about those actions so um uh subject to you agreeing to it it'd be great to do a session on on a tuesday for the for the team super dad guys we'll take a two or three four maybe elements or of these things and and really put some practical steps in as a as a as a checklist as an action uh um as an action list for for

1:15:18 for dads to take i'd love i'd love to be a part of that thank you brilliant brilliant um enjoy your weekend uh the the the the euro final is on this sunday so hopefully hopefully england are gonna are gonna beat italy apologies to any italian listeners but uh yes we hope i hope that we're gonna win that uh i wish you the the very best of the weekend with your lovely family they sound like a great a great team uh for the team roberts thank you johnny real pleasure thank you so much uh team superdad members uh be sure to subscribe to the podcast i can bring up the right button here we'll play out the outro yeah be sure to subscribe to the podcast um monday nights remember are the wrap-up where we have a lot of fun and wrap up the week that was with some of the dads from the crew including glenn

1:16:04 and i until then stew all the best sir right on brilliant brilliant what an awesome guy and blimey his story is is so parallel to mine which obviously different role different country 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'll be listening to this podcast the kind of person that will be part of the team super dad community and the hero academy we

1:16:44 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 stuart face to face hopefully in san diego because i've not been to well i've been there i've been to last uh los angeles but i've not really been for a holiday on the north uh west of of america well so that is something for us to look forward to we chit-chatted at the end uh about doing a live event about scheduling one of the live events uh over in you know in san diego in san francisco and that is definitely a dream

1:17:24 tolly burkan 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 super dad 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 uh 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 will be awesome thanks for listening i'll see you on the next one team super dad out

1:18:04 bye this has been team super dad 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