The Wrap Up #9

00:00 Welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. It's Friday. This is Johnny. It's the wrap-up. I've got new mics. So hopefully we're sounding better than ever. 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. Hello, welcome. It's Johnny. It's Friday. It's the wrap-up. Good day to you wherever you are. Friends, family, Team Super Dad, members around the world. What date are we on? It is the 4th of September 2020.

00:42 What are we up to? We're on the Friday wrap-up. We're on Friday wrap-up number nine. Have a little show of that, shall we? Yo! Good to have you all here. As always, I can't believe another week has gone by. Loads of kit stuff exciting this week. Where's my new boxes? Got new microphones, new microphones. So that may well be sounding awesome. New like mixing desk thing to work out how the hell that works as well. So there's a good chance you can't hear me. Although I have tested. So I'm pretty sure you can hear me.

01:20 Hopefully hear me better than ever. You know, when people do podcasts and live streams and things like this, there's generally like a learning curve. And hopefully that learning curve goes up. But it also means you generally, you buy bits of kit and then you get you get along with it and then you realize that someone else sounds even more awesome than you. It's like going to a festival and you think you've got a really good tent and then the buggers next to you have got an even more epic tent. So you start to realize, okay, my tent's not as big as your tent or as cool as your tent.

01:56 So I've made a list, as always, we've got a whole bunch of things to talk about. Dating, dating, we've got kids' puberty, back to school and Corona, climbing at some local rocks, which were just covered in crap and litter and everything. Going into the city, building up the podcast, regular guests, and a Team Super Dad update. So that is the rundown of today. It's today's Friday wrap-up. You might have seen on the live stream on Sunday, Bank Holiday Monday, so just a few days ago, Lewis Howes had his thousandth podcast this week. Lewis Howes, he's got an awesome podcast called The School of Greatness.

02:37 So I won't repeat myself too much, but he started his podcast like in 2013. He's had some amazing guests on. And just like I was saying about all my kit and how things have evolved, his journey has been amazing. His first podcast was done on an iPod with headphones and just kind of crappy. And he's on his thousandth episode now. So what's that? 2013, seven years. That's five. Obviously, there's seven, seven, five and two, seven. That was eight, five, two, five and two, seven. Seven years, thousand episodes. You know, it's really a measure of sticking with something and keep going. Not just because you get good at it, but because of the attention it attracts and the momentum it creates.

03:22 The reality is that no matter what race you're in, not many other people are going to keep going for seven years. So there's a pretty famous Will Smith interview. I think he's talking to Oprah. That's a pretty cool interview, basically. And they were asking about his secret to success. And one of the things he said was that he's got way more determination than anybody else. And it's kind of, he mentions a treadmill. He says, if you're going to get on a treadmill and try and run me, try and outrun me, try and race me. He said, you better know that the moment you get on,

04:04 you're either going to win or you're going to die trying. And that is just his rock solid determination, his vision and goal to be absolutely awesome, all that he does. So that's what we're up to. That's what Team Super Dad's all about. I spent the weekend last weekend on a course, another course. Sorry to my bank balance and to my bookkeeper. But this Ted McGrath course, he's been emailing me for years. I've had so many little bits of his overall product ecosystem, I guess, that it was inevitable that I ended up on one of the bigger ones.

04:43 And so I spent the weekend there and there's been weekly check-ins. And subject to check-ins, if you're watching this, say hello. Let me know who you are and where you're at. I'm going to put Facebook on and see who's there. I'm in StreamYard. So you can see in the post, if you click on that post, you can. can come on into the conversation. I'll see where you are at and what your comments are. Say hello. Let me know where you're going. It is literally the last week of summer. My kids are not going back to school till Monday. Everybody else's kids have gone back to school. And we'll come on to that in a minute. But give us a like, give us a comment. Let me see where you're at and what you're up to. It will be great to have you involved. At least let me know that I'm not here on my own.

05:28 You know how it is. The reality is I get a lot more, a lot more listens on the podcast and on the replays of the live streams. So welcome. If you're on the live stream, leave a comment as well. And for those that haven't heard before, Team Super Dad is a community for dads creating their best life ever, busy, business-owning dads who want to transform their health, wealth, and happiness. Come and get involved. Team Super Dad.com, the F5 and the Hero Academy is part of what we do with our accountability and our coaching. So it's all absolutely awesome. And there's a big launch coming up on the 1st of October. Oh, and the event, the launchpad event coming up in just a couple of weeks. Get over to teamsuperdad.com, get fully involved.

06:11 So yeah, so this week, that was a Tebma Grath course. Yeah, it was just, it was just cool. All the people from all around the world, live streams, Zoom meetings, this whole kind of Zoom fatigue thing, I think, is a bit abollix, basically. If you ask me, crap meetings are exhausting. And you can just as easily have a crap meeting on Zoom or other video tools as you could in face-to-face. The only difference is that people don't normally go on the internet afterwards and say that meeting was crap. Whereas because you've been online, you can suddenly start blaming Zoom and everything. But let me tell you, been on Zoom calls for three or four days with hundreds of other people. And because the content was good and the event was engaging, I was tuned in the whole blooming time.

06:56 So don't be put off by that. Of course, we're all looking forward to face-to-face events coming back as soon as possible. But I don't know, when will they? I mean, I've got on my list about going into intercities and when will it happen again? I don't know. I'm not fearful. I think it's pretty confident in saying that. But you get so whenever you get out of the habit of doing something, it's hard to get back into the habit of doing something. So going into a city, if there's no meetings to go to or no events to go to, kind of why have I got to go into London?

07:34 And, you know, I don't say that lightly. I think that I got invited to something last weekend, a social out on, oh, come on. Big Common, North London, by the Crystal Palace. I can't remember. It was in North London. The biggest, the biggest common in North London. Like, anyway, so Simos had invited me up there. There's this whole yoga and drum circle and music. And it would have been awesome. But I had the course on and B, I was like, shall I go? Shall I not go? I should have gone.

08:13 Well, no, I should have gone. I couldn't have gone, but I look forward to going next time. It is part of the social life reboot. We've all got to get out there and do more things, have more fun. But it's just interesting catching myself and talking to other people, seeing other comments around about have you been into a city since lockdown ended? When are you going to? You got the mayor of London talking about the impact on London businesses, cafes, shops, restaurants, sandwich bars, like all really struggling by the amount of people not going into London, not working in London. I've got friends in marketing agencies, traders, and they're all working from home now.

08:55 And no one's really that keen to get back into the office, primarily because they've worked out they can do it from home. So I think for those people who wouldn't want to cut out three hours on the train, that is the reality. And, you know, that tails neatly into, dovetails neatly into going back to school. There's been a lot of conversation in a lot of dads' groups, parenting groups about people sending their kids back to school. Are they worried? Oh, the bloody news. I rarely turn the news on, but occasionally it's either on or I catch this. I flick past it and there's someone I want to speak to. And they had the UK Minister for Health on the other day and the BBC News was giving him an absolutely hard time.

09:37 And as far as I could see, they were pretty much asking him to predict the future. And he's like, I can't predict the future. We're going to give it our best. And I don't know. If you bang into your politics, you're going to have definitely have an opinion on whether the UK government is doing a bad job. It seems to me. in America, that's pretty much a clearer subject about whether Donald Trump's doing a bad job. But you have to remember in America as well, a lot of the cities and the states, they are governed by their mayor or the governor of that state. So, yeah, Trump has a lot of power over the US and there's a lot of policy they could all do with becoming aligned with.

10:20 But equally, everyone's just trying to get on with it. They're trying to make the right decisions and get through this time. It does occur to me back in 1908 or whenever it was that we had the Spanish bird flu, they didn't have any of this technology. And to whatever degree, it was really bad. And then time passed. We haven't been worried about it since then. So I figure time's going to pass again. But for some people, definitely worried about their kids going back to school. The only thing I'm worried about is I want my kids to just have fun. I want them to be relaxed and enjoy themselves. And if they're having to wash their hands constantly and put sanitizer on, I mean, before lockdown, in the two weeks that our school was, you know, giving sanitizer and stuff, my kids' hands were red raw.

11:08 And I'm not okay with that. I'm not going to have them put sanitizer on their hand five times a day to the point their hands are bleeding because they're so dry. So we've all got to take some sensible measures there. And for me, it starts with them going back to school for sure. They are, they are, their well-being, their mental health is definitely supported by them being in school, playing with friends, not taking lumps out of each other 24 hours a day. They need to be back in school. And I'm really glad that they're going back on Monday. Cheers. So where does that go on to next? Oh, yeah, we'll talk about the kids. Okay, so we'll talk about puberty behind me.

11:47 Do you know, like parenting, the subject of parenting is so important for us all, for conscientious parents, people who want their relationship to their kids to be positive and fun and open. You know, that's, that's pretty much for me, the three most important things for me and my kids, positive, fun, and open. So they don't have to find reasons to lie to me. They don't have to keep things hidden from me. Like kind of my promise in that regard to them is that I will try as best as possible to not overreact, to not come down hard on them about things where it was better off that they were honest with me so that we could have a sensible conversation rather than then hide it from me and us work it out that way.

12:36 So that's always how it's been. And we've always had a lot of fun together, going out, swimming, cycling, cinema, playing games, football, cycling, the whole shebang. Like we always laugh a lot, eating dinner together, watching TV, box set series together. And now, particularly over the last few months, they've hit puberty at the same time, which didn't even occur to me that was going to happen. One of them's two years older than the other. So why would it? Unless you've got a boy and a girl. So unbelievable. I'm trying to work out why they're both being little shits to each other and me, basically.

13:17 And then it just dawned on me a few weeks ago. There was some other conversation about things that are going on with their bodies. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's happening to both of them at the same time, which totally makes sense when they're being grumpy, moody, gobshites to me. And I'm thinking, why are you being like this to me? You've never been like this to me before. And yeah, that explains it. So it's just practically, you know, they always want to go in opposite directions. No, we're doing this. No, we're doing that. And I'm stuck in the middle, particularly yesterday when we're up a rock, Toad Rock in Tunbridge Wells, like a whole sandstone, I don't know, rock, rock place. It's weird. It's just in the middle of, it's not in the middle of nowhere.

14:01 It's kind of just on the edge of town. And there's these big rocks. So when you're standing up on the edge of them, you're about, I think the high ones, you're probably 15 foot up. You know, you're probably second floor window. You know, if anyone's been to Toad Rock, say hello. Anyone likes climbing, let me know. So we're like scrambling. We're not on ropes or anything like that. It's sand rock. So we're scrambling up them. And Jaygo's going, I'm going this way. And Rosie's saying, I'm going this way. And I'm in the middle thinking, if either of you or both of you fall, I'm screwed. I'd rather, at least if it's in the same place, I might be able to catch one of you, let alone going in the opposite direction, which would be fine enough if they then, in this beautiful countryside, you know, idyllic moment, places.

14:49 places where i went to when i was a kid climbing the exact same rocks they're now arguing about which direction we're going to go in and so i just i don't i can't cope literally after seven months of lockdown seven weeks of of school holidays they're they're like my attitude towards kids going back to school is they need to go back to school because i can't go mad i'm going i can't get on with any work i can't like have some routine and and i don't want to hear them shouting at each other taking lumps out of each other

15:27 like going in different directions and crying i've i bring them back together and like for me in terms of the conversation you know all i can do is is advise them that they're not advise them that's a word isn't it remind them remind them of things that matter to us as a family about honesty about giving each other space about having fun and about being open is that when you allow each other to be themselves when you allow each other to be grumpy or to be upset or to want some quiet time then that's perfectly okay and then when we're then when when you're arguing listen more than you talk so that you get the chance to make a choice how you react rather than just react and and blind me i could have done with that advice a few times in my relationships and so

16:18 the the importance of listening more than you speak and choosing your reaction and sometimes even though you really want to be right not saying anything just allowing the situation to roll on so that because that's better than an argument you know i keep i say to jago so many times just rise above it dude just let her be herself you know having a boy and a girl having had my experiences of relationships i i i feel like i have a a greater understanding of women now than i ever done and i and i should have because that's just old age right but so often uh it would have done me well to just

17:02 shut up basically i don't mean shut up and be walked all over but you know there's there's there's things about being a woman there's things about being a man men like to lead they like to feel that they're looking after someone they like to show people how to do things especially people they love right and then ironically quite often women don't like being told what to do or being shown what to do and so as i'm trying to teach a boy and a girl a brother and a sister how to be with each other i'm asking her to appreciate him more to appreciate the fact that he wants to show her things and to lead the way and i'm trying to explain to him sometimes you've just got to let her be right because

17:47 a she probably is and b there's something well what am i trying to say b there is just a lot more to be had out of the relationship by not nitpicking over every little thing and so that when they're arguing and then when i'm getting to the end of my tether of of however many hours it's been so sometimes i try and tell them to shut up shut up and other times i think right i'm just gonna let them get on with it and see where it leads to but ultimately both those things end up with them crying and shouting at each other so i'm still working on it it's it's a fact of life that our children go through stages and we have to adapt to those stages um they they change quicker than we are aware of just like it took me a while to realize that oh my gosh they're both

18:40 going through puberty at the same time it then takes a while for us to adapt and understand our children again and and and move into the next phase because that's what it is it's the next phase and i'm excited by it because we're watching different tv programs we're having different conversation my boy is pretty gobby now you know he's he's he's biting back and saying things to me which in the grand scheme of things are pretty funny you know it's quite good he's a little bit of swearing and a little bit of edge to his conversation it's quite funny but equally he's he's then crying over the tiniest of things so that is puberty right so blimey back to me i guess dating

19:23 you know we we've uh i'm trying to be as as as honest open and honest there we go i'm trying to be as honest about my dating situation as as we can there there is there's just not a lot to say about it because there's not a lot lot happening really um my social life is as lockdown eases my social life is is kicking back into action like like a lot of people's is um but yeah whether it's dating apps or dating events or being brave enough to have honest conversations with women i already know um this this is uh this is the important thing i don't i don't know that i want a relationship basically i think that

20:14 it would do me well to date people for a while i think that's good advice to anybody in america certainly my experience is that people you know that like you see on tv people date before they go steady right and i think i think that's true that's a surely you can go out and have dinner with with more than one person you can go out and have dates with some with people one date would be good result for me right now but you know the idea or the concern that the moment you go out with someone that's that's it um is is something that i i and yourself shouldn't be stopped by i was listening to a dating podcast the other

20:54 night i've i've created something called the pod amp which is if it's a it's a group on whatsapp where we all listen to and review and share each other's podcasts so i've listened to the most insane number of podcasts over the last few weeks some of them are so bloody boring and it may be you're going to give me feedback and tell me that these are so bloody boring i hope not i bloody hope not i'm working on getting some regular guests in other dads that we can banter with and talk about but i was listening to this dating podcast and it was so boring it was so boring in their intro they said we've got a real passion for dating and then and then and then the podcast is utterly boring but

21:37 in but in amongst that there's there's some good points and good tips and you know this is the point i'm making is that picking making poor decisions in the past staying in relationships that i shouldn't have stayed in as long as i did um doesn't have to mean that i can't date people now doesn't have to mean i can't go on relationships now and i need to have the confidence to say to someone let's go out let's go and let's go and have a drink let's go and have a walk let's go and have a cup of tea let's go and whatever it might be um and be equally prepared to say that's not really the one uh you're not really feeling it um but it's been nice to know you meet you and to whatever degree

22:20 appropriate let's stay friends so is that normal i don't know i'm trying to find out from lots of people exactly what the dating world looks like uh i generally seem to see people people moaning about it more than anything so i don't know send me your tips and advice if you're a dating coach or expert come on the podcast uh and we will look to crack this nut once and for all um it's it's uh it's winter's coming up i bloody hate winter i absolutely hate winter different if you lived in the mountains as my brother has gone and done but uh yeah so