what does it mean to live life to the fullest train to your potential and perform at your best. Leave nothing on the table. That's a non negotiable is that I I strive to be better every day because if I'm not on top of my game, how is anybody else gonna follow me down the road? Keep demanding more of yourself to live up to that potential and to stay hungry. Training is progress. You know when I look at the word training, I think of steps, baby steps to get somewhere that you want to be and that is basically your life journey. It's a mindset in itself, man, it's like it's not just about, I know that for you, a lot of that's about the physical but we're constantly in training, whether it's growing our skill sets, whether it's growing our physical bodies, whether it's growing our relationships whatever and all of that is a training ground and that kind of goes back to the mindset that we just talked about. You underestimate yourself and you don't even start. But then once you start, you often surpass what you thought you could do perform at your best mate. That's that's sort of what life is all about. You don't have the knowledge and have the fitness, the healthy ambition and drive that no matter what comes along.

When that next phone call comes, I can just say yes, I don't have to worry, just go and do it. Hey guys, welcome to the live train, perform podcast, I'm your host? Sean Cobra and joining me today is pap. Andrew Papadopoulos. That how you pronounce your last name bro, spot on an otherwise known as Pop. I've been following Pop for a couple of years. He's a heavy hitter in the fitness industry. He's got a significant um following on his social media platforms uh and that is for a reason, I've had a look through some of his programs and the content that he puts out and it's good quality stuff and he's someone that I look up to in the fitness industry. Um so it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome, awesome man, I really appreciate it. And uh yeah thanks for having me on the podcast. Let's get started brother, I want you to give my audience a quick and dirty five minutes on who you are, how you got into the fitness industry and what you're doing in the industry right now. Yeah, five minutes. Okay, let's try to keep out of those timings. Um My name's Andrew Pop uh start some started with humble beginnings really I got out of the army and I was waiting to become a paramedic.

And so I did my did my course, I was doing my training. I had my enlistment date and over that duration of waiting. I just had a typical job as a skilled laborer. Um you know, thinking that that was okay, I was finding in that in that instance because I had a plan and and and I guess aspiration in front of me and that that Elizabeth day came but in that duration of being a skilled labor and the people that I came across and other paramedics I befriended. It just seemed like a career that I didn't want to pursue as I actually wanted to be someone who was proactive, not reactive of course an emergency services. You're always reactive. And so I thought what if I can combine my love for fitness and pushing myself my experience in the military um, and into a business. And so I came up with the idea battlefield Australia B. F. As an acronym, well known. Um and you know, at the time and I was sleeping on my sister's couch. I had no money next time I had no money at all and I was in a pretty bad way.

Um pretty hard circumstances and lucky enough to of my military and long life friends loaned me $5000 each and that was enough money to get my certificates by a creepy white non descriptive van, some city equipment, my permits that I needed to train people outdoors. And I got started and I had like a 10 week progressive fitness program and I started this boot camp and it was a lot was drawn from the military experience and pushing yourself and trying to teach camaraderie and different principles like that and work those group dynamics. And it grew really quickly and you know, it came with its challenges of course, but from there, you know, I stumbled upon a tv show called Search for Hertz, which was on ESPN and essentially they had me going around Australia trying to get training against other athletes and sporting teams, doing like 100 kilometer run in the Blue Mountains, 24 hour obstacle race. All these crazy things I've never done before and that really tested my, my mentality and who I was and it got me in the spotlight, you know, he gave me a bit of momentum. Um I was getting into Sydney moore, I was doing more coverage on television, um I was getting in covers of magazines um and that platform there helped boost battlefield Australia, help boost my own profile.

And I just continue to ride that momentum until now. Um you know, doing doing more, more things to that degree. And it's been such an epic journey. I've got my own online training program which we can touch base later on because the everyday 3655, there's a part of me really regretted leaving the military and for various reasons. And so I was able to, I started up a charity called Trick for vets, which we can touch base on later on. Um, and then I started, I was a head coach for active escapes, which is a fitness retreat that runs around globally that runs globally, sorry, but just in this current context domestically only, and maybe it's just been taking every challenge as it comes and I guess that's my five minute dirty rubber made, that was quick and dirty. I love it. What did you actually do in the military might and how long were you in for? Well look, I finished school and I wasn't, I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to go to university, I wasn't, I wasn't sold on the idea. A few of my friends jumped in on gap here, so I jumped in on the gap year program as an infantryman and I just fell in love with it.

Um it was something that I just uh you know, I thrived in having that structure, that collective mindset. It exposed a lot of my own weaknesses, but also strength and I took, I took as much out of it as I could and then just unfortunately family circumstances I pulled out after the year. Um but just some of those, the, I guess the slices that I've got experience in there um and the people are offended who were either in their full time or in the gap year program themselves really changed who I was and set me on the path I am on today. Mm That's cool man, there's something I talk about a lot on the podcast is the lessons that I've learned that the military taught me. Um the structure, the routine, the standard operating procedures and things like that. Um you know, what are some of the biggest tools that you took away from your time in the military that you've now applied to your own life? Mhm. I think that's really just living a life of service, I think in the military, you know, you're you're asked to to potentially make the greatest sacrifice, which is not really asked in any other specific roles that I know of potentially, you know, obviously emergency services, but in the context of an infantryman, I really took away the the idea that you're always looking out for the person to your left and right and you look after them, they look after you, so that co dependence I thought was really, really powerful.

Um and you know, in any sort of leadership role, delegation is important, but also understanding everyone's strength and weaknesses and using those at people's attributes to the best of their advantage, but advantage for the group uh in its context and outcome that wants to be achieved. And I got to I got to use those dynamics and and and that understanding in the fitness world and and teaching civilians, you know, some of those elements and and you know, telling them not to go Jack on one another and look out for one another and um you know, there are a lot stronger than they believe they are. So um that's that was really important to see that it sort of created the the ability to actually step out in a comfort zone and expose yourself and and to be completely honest with yourself and see where you really are, which is I think really hard for people to do out, not just outside the military. I mean that's where the fitness, the fitness, I guess we'll can can really bring that to the front but to a lesser degree. Um and I think that's some of the biggest lessons I got out of it.

Yeah man, I love that. Um I spent six years full time in the military um as a sniper for the majority of it deployed to Iraq East timor Afghanistan. And the interesting thing for me was like I was a highly functioning, highly skilled soldier that had all these qualifications in the military. But then once I discharged I had nothing man, like even all of the leadership courses that I did all the weapons courses and combat first aid and all of this type of stuff man, I literally had no paperwork when I discharged from the army, but what I did have was a funk load of amazing life skills, you know, from all of those deployments and all those things that you're talking about because as you said, like nobody is bigger than the team and the team aspect of um you know, particularly being an infantry soldier where you have to look after the guys either side of you man, no matter regardless of whether you like those guys or not at the end of the day, like you're on the same team and you need to put your differences aside to achieve the mission, achieve the goal, achieve the task and bring each other home.

Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's 100% right. I think that's uh, that obviously translates really well into corporate into your own endeavors, into social, you know, the social uh intricacies that there is with meeting new people and like you said, even if you don't get along with someone, you don't see eye to eye, there is a bigger objective at play. Yeah. And that comes down to mutual respect and professionalism, man, it's like you need to put your differences aside to work together as a team because the team is bigger than any individual. Um, what I want to talk about next is swiss side, are you familiar with their app and that organization? Uh, the organization? Yes, but not the app. Okay. Um, so suicide is a proactive mental health program designed to allow people to structure in eight pillars of health and wellness, uh, to essentially be better at life. Um, and those principles are sleep, nutrition, discipline, time management, fitness, personal growth, mindfulness and minimalism. They've got an app that has, it's kind of like a netflix, I guess user interface where you can click on each one of those pillars of health and wellness and it will pop up with a program like myself, for example, have a fitness program on the app.

So it'll pop up and then you scheduled into the calendar and I walk you through a training programs and strength works and speed works and power works and mobility works and accessory work, energy system conditioning, etcetera, etcetera. And the same thing goes for mindfulness, same thing goes for minimalism, personal growth, etcetera, etcetera. And the majority of the um the programs that are on the app actually provided by veterans, this is really cool man. That's powerful killer program. Yeah bro, I might actually link you up with Adrian and max, the Adrian, the founder of Swiss Eight Man of interviewed him on the podcast before. It's an incredible interview and it was basically started because one of his mates ended up committing suicide and he'd been in contact with his mates and they were all going through some dramas once they discharge and they lost their purpose, their self identity and all that sort of stuff. And they were always talking man, they're like, we need to get a farm, we need to get a place where the boys can meet up and go fishing and hunting and like hang out around the fire and talk sh it and just be around each other again because again, you've got that camaraderie where the team is always bigger than yourself and once you discharge from the army, like you don't, you no longer have that camaraderie, you no longer have that team, that purpose.

Um so unfortunately one of the boys end up committing suicide and Adrian was like, man, we need to get some, we need to get some tools out there right now. And the best way to do that is to develop an app. So, um, yeah, I'll have the links in the show notes, but I'll probably t you up with Adrian um after this conversation, but um, out of those principles, those eight pillars of health and wellness, is there one of those that stands out for you that, um, is your priority right now? And have those pillars been in a different order at different stages of your life? Yeah. Look, first and foremost, I think to have all eight pillars or whatever elements that you are focusing on in your life at a complete balances. You know, as uh as likely as all the planets in the solar soldiers into a line, you know, it's, it's difficult and if that's what you're going for and that's your ambition, go for it. Absolutely. But, you know, you can't really blame yourself or be in a place of be disheartened because you don't have all those elements are perfect balance. Sometimes you have to prioritize your business, sometimes have to prioritize your relationships your own health at different times of life, depending what circumstances are calling for.

For me, sleep is paramount. I just know that if I don't regulate my sleep, if I'm not giving, getting that necessary sleep and, and for what I need, but I'm just going to be a bag of ship for every other pillow that's there. It's gonna need to bleed into everything else. So if I can look after that sleep, I will. And of course there's there's moments where you've got to put everything on the line, you've got to go to bed late, you've got to get up earlier than you wanted to and that's just a part of knowing your greater purpose or greater mission. Um and whether that's going to be into your business, your your fitness, your social circles and stuff like that, minimalism is something that I think I would love to adopt. I try to adopt that in regards to, you know, stimulants. Um as in listening to podcast, listening to music, constantly, having something in the background. I've done that. I've gone down that road where I just never had my own time to my own thoughts whether it's running cleaning the house, driving whatever it was. I mean, I was taking my phone into the showers, taking, taking into the taller ones, doing a ship like that couldn't be without it.

And then I became uncomfortable with my own thoughts. So be able to segregate that time. Give myself my own time was really important. My wife and I just recently moved from the east coast of Australia to W. A. And to see all the ship that we were we had hoarded in our house that we didn't need was quite confronting. Um And that's kind of maybe kind of think twice like you know what what do I actually need? Uh We've all been out camping, all been out bush, whatever it may be, realized. You can you can really just go on with just the bare minimum and we definitely do cultivate too much. That's a great point mate. Um I when I got out of the army in 2012 towards the end of that year, like I've done my PhD course and um started out in the industry, started my own business. Um But I was just kind of getting off the ground. I met a girl in Darwin who moved in Tasmania and I ended up following her down there um to give the relationship a chance. And I recall man like I you know, I was I was a poor kid, I grew up in a poor family. Um I left home when I was 14, started working. Um you know left home, left my state, left school, um started working.

So I've already been out of the out of home for like 56 years before I even joined the army. Um But once I started making money I joined the military, I deployed, I spent six years there was like 12 years man that I'd accumulated all of this sh it and I had a house full of like all of the toys and then once I moved down to Tasmania was like I'm going to um I still had a removals up my um up my sleeve with the military, it was within a year of discharge. So I essentially packed up everything that was important to me and got it shipped down to my mom's place and then sold everything else man. And it was it was crazy like watching all of my stuff that I had this connection to, that I built up over the years that you know for me was you know had a meaning and for me it meant that I had started making my own money and I was forging my own path as an adult and you know, it was a mark of success I suppose. And once I started selling all of that stuff and you know, I had a bunch of cash in my hand, I was like, oh cool. And like I pretty much haven't bought too much stuff since then, man, I've kept my my lifestyle pretty minimalistic since then.

Um Did you go through anything similar to that when you went through that process of moving from the east coast to the west coast. Yeah, I think for me it's more about not exactly what items I had, you know gained or purchase. It was more about my relationship to that. Um And so what did I get from these audits? Was it something that was, you know uh was reminisced. Reminisced something in the past. It had some sort of value in that sense, Or was it more or something of a social status like, oh, this brand or this something, this makes me feel more important than, you know, once you kind of really assess and look at each, I have been going, I actually forgot that I even had that, you know, you realize you don't need it. Um, but there was not like I had so much gym equipment. I've got a gym on the East Coast. Um, and so, and because the current circumstances, the current climate with Covid, you know, that was everyone wanted a piece of equipment, so that was easy to get rid of. But really like, we just took things like 66 or eight cubic meters of, of, of stuff came across on the train and we just flew the rest.

We've got a kitten, she came on board with this mate, and now we're currently building a house. So we're shacking up with her parents place. So we got really nothing with us at the moment. Um, but you know, life at the fullest. You just realized you don't need, like, even though we're going to house and we're doing all those things are gonna get cars and all that stuff. It's like, it's just so not important. It's not important at all. I mean, and, and that's, again, I'll preface that. Again, it is your relationship to it. Um, you know, where you're drawing your self esteem, um, you know, we've got to be happy with who we are, we've got to be satisfied with who we are and we, you know, we can be, we can aspire to be more and we want to have those ambitions. That's fine. But I think if we feel like that we need those things to feel a certain way or to accept ourselves, we're gonna be cutting corners every time. It's possible we're going to be doing, you know, we won't be making sustainable habits or routines will be just trying to do whatever we can to get there because we can't face ourselves in the mirror and we can't take it any longer so that I've had that personal experience myself in in a few different ways over the years.

And that's what I'm really trying to push out to. Whether it's my audience or people in the 365 or whatever, maybe. Mm that's a great point. Manuel said, um, something that came up for me then, as you're speaking was hedonistic adaptation. You know, where people say, when I buy this car, that's a sign of success and I'm going to be happy then and then they have that for a week and they feel good about themselves and then, you know, they get that adaptation where that thing no longer brings them joy and they're looking for the next thing. All right, well, I'm going to upgrade my car, I'm going to buy a motorbike, I'm going to buy a jet ski or whatever it is. And it's like you keep going through that process again and again and again and again and the same thing with making money. People think once I make X amount of money, then, you know, I'm going to be happy. And of course, like if you're coming from poverty, a little bit of extra money will make a world of difference in your life. But once you start making decent amounts of money, like making more money doesn't necessarily make you happier and in fact, can make you sad to it can play issues, it can it can impact mental health, you know, it's the same thing with weight loss clients or body composition goals or whatever it might be.

You know, people think that once I get there, that's going to make me happy and then they get there and they're like, all right, now I'm done, what's next? Or you know, they're constantly looking for the next thing and they never actually achieve their goals. Whereas what you said about being happy with your internal environment, being able to sit by yourself with your own thoughts with no distractions, man, that is fucking powerful stuff, mate. Because when you can do that, you realize what you actually need in your life and what you don't need in your life and you know, another great point that you said there is, it's good to have these aspirations and you can have these things. Um And an example of this is you know I haven't bought that much stuff since I've been in Thailand. I literally came to Thailand man um with a backpack thinking that you know I might be here for six months, I might be here for a year, I might, you know, I really don't know what's happening where I'm gonna end up. But I had a backpack and since then, you know for quite a little bit of stuff and I've got a scooter, I've got a motorbike, I've got a car, I've got a drone, I've got a GoPro, I've got some toys and things like that. Those things are niceties. I could literally go to the airport right now with you know I call it my grab bag, you'll know you'll know what a grab bag is.

Um But people pay me out for carrying like a like a bum bag man. I'm like well that's my grab bag if I wanted to bail out the country right now I could go to the fucking airport and leave everything behind and not have any issues with it, you know, so again I'm not I'm not connected to the things that I owned, they're nice to have and they serve a purpose but they don't they're not part of my identity. Yeah I think that's what's important, you know people can if someone gets treated as farc if someone wants to lose weight, if someone wants to, you know, run a billion dollar business, a million dollar business, if someone wants to, you know, a cure five different houses, whatever, like that's that's on them and that's fine. I think you're right. You touched on the point where, you know, coming from a background of low socioeconomic sort of environment, I did too. I grew up in Housing Commission and I grew up with a lot of mental illness or surrounded by a lot of mental illness, a lot of trauma within my family dynamics. And so having that deficit always, like, you've got a deficit growing up, you know, feeling that you're a few steps behind everybody else that wasn't particularly your from your own doing, you want to make up for that, and that's where I can see people will uh they'll have their own deficit.

So if you're someone who was always obese overweight as a kid, you know, you want to be that Jack ripped guy or girl to someone was always always teased on getting bullied at school, you want to be that ultimate fighter in the cage. Now, I'm going to pick on you again, you know, if you have that poor kid, I've secured all this wealth now look at me, so people are always trying to, yep, put fix this deficit with different pieces and they're looking at as that life is a puzzle and I think I just need to fill that in but you know they're disregarding what else is in life and there's so much to look at and they may be comparing themselves is probably where this deficit even came in the first place thinking like okay I don't have this and that it seems like everyone else around me does that I'm obviously at a disadvantage, we're not necessarily so you know really good acknowledge that I like to use is that we're all we all have I guess you know a canvas in front of us and we have our own colors, our own color board. And these some of these colors are built within us, they're they're conditioned in our environment but we also pick up and learn these colors through experiences and through other people.

Um But the problem that happens is that you know this is your canvas and your way your interpretation of who you are in life and if you're looking around what other people have and you're trying to mimic and copy what they have. You're never going to do it because it's their it's their individuality, it's their colors, their experiences, their D. N. A. It's all that stuff. Um And you know that that they're itself goes okay well I'm gonna focus on me, I gotta focus on what my task is and I may not know exactly what it is now but I've got to look at what's in front of me, not at other people, but at the same time also be aware that people can give you really ship colors or they can give us to help fix or complete your part, your your your your your I guess mm I love that analogy. Um and to kind of wind up this portion, I've spoken about people who have won the lottery in the past and For the most part, like 90% of people that have won the lottery are fucking dead broke bankrupt again within two years, man. Because they again, going back to people who typically buy lottery tickets, they're normally from a lower socioeconomic class.

So they buy lottery tickets, they win the lottery. They haven't learned through the process of they haven't gone through the process of learning how to save, learning how to budget, looking at expenses, looking at how much you can save and kind of refining that process of being able to manage money, manage finances. So when they do come into a significant amount of money, they haven't learned those processes. So they continue living the same life they live. But now they've got a lot more money because now they can spend it on whatever they want and you know, within two years they broke again and you know, I'll tie this back into the fitness industry as well. If you look at, I had a conversation with one of my friends and one of my coaches as well a couple of days ago about um the biggest loser, you know, the tv program. Um and Again, of people that go on that show within two years, they've put all of that weight back on plus, some right? Because they've literally just been smashed through training, they've been calorie massively calorie calorie restricted, but they haven't been taught anything outside of that.

So for them to get results and for them to keep those results, they need to do the same thing over and over and over again, you know? But there's a point of diminishing returns where you're putting in all this time, energy and effort and now you're on a treadmill, you're not going, you're on a hamster wheel, you're not going anywhere, you know? And then when people stopped going anywhere, they're like, oh well it's not working anymore and then they just go back the other way, you know? So there's a lot of lessons in the process and I think, you know, the journey is super important. You might not always reach your destination, but the journey is where all the lessons are. The journey is where the magic is the journey is where you find what works for you and what doesn't work for you. Is there anything you want to add to that mate? No, completely great in terms of, you know, it's it's easy to, to, my mother always said you can't manage $100 you can't manage a million dollars. So there's always lessons to be learned in the beginning and at the start and I think too many people will look at someone like yourself and think, oh, I'm gonna be doing exactly what, what he's doing right now. You know, you're gonna be doing everything he did at the beginning, you know, to get there and, and that's so easy.

Like you take a client and they see someone dead lift three and two killers on the floor, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna throw that 13, 15, 16 year old, hey, here's three kg, you want to look at Jack, did that guy go and do that? So there's obviously a process that's methodical, that has correct intention behind it and that's with any facet of our lives. Yeah, that's another good point man. Um and I'll relate this to my life at the moment. So I've actually had back to back injuries over the last probably six months for the first time in years, man. Um and and granted like I it was essentially in training or competition um about six months ago, I tore my hamstring playing in rugby tournament, the ground was like soaking where it had been raining, um I sprinted through, I was expecting the ball to bounce up, hit me on the chest, it sat down low, I through the left leg out and as my foot hit the ground, I essentially went into the splits, boom tore my hamstring out of the tournament. Um so you know, I didn't train for like a month after that, I actually had a three week trip around Thailand where I drove around, that's why I bought a car and I was like, well I can't travel overseas, so I'm going to buy a car and travel within Thailand, so I just did three weeks man traveling around Thailand, had an awesome time, didn't do any training.

But dude, like The week after I told my hamstring 110,000 steps in that week, I was super active, you know? Yeah, um and then I got back to, got back to poke it where I live and you know, went through the rehab process, rehab. My hamstring, got myself in a good position to get back into training again, started B. J. J, started boxing. Um and then my professor who was doing B. J. J. With went over to fight island with one of our fighters in the UFC, so he was away for three weeks and I started doing classes and I know what I'm liking classes, man, I prefer to do PTS because I actually learn and I'm forced to kind of slow down, Where is it going to class, I'm sure that you're the same mate, like you just, you know, you get competitive with yourself. Yeah, and dude, I was rolling with a purple belt and you know, he was going for it, he was going for an arm bar man, I'm talking absolute begin a white belt, He was going for an arm bar and I had a gable grip and I was like, you're not getting me bro and just muscled my way out of it. But what had actually happened was he pulled my shoulder and my, my clavicle had shifted and then like partially dislocated back on my the sc joint stone Incaviglia curricula, excuse me.

Um, so like everything just jacked up. I was like shoulder doesn't feel right and then all the muscles of the back and around the spine just like tightened right up. So I had to have a physio and dry needling and stuff like that, managed it. Um but essentially didn't train at all for like a month man because I knew if I walked into class, if I went to rugby training or whatever, it feels all right, I was pushed through it once I warm it up, I'll just push through it. So, you know, I didn't, I didn't do any training and I've been back in the gym for like 10 days man and it's funny to see how much my body has changed in the last 10 days, you know, I didn't train for a month, you know, lost a little bit of muscle mass, put on a little bit of body fat and then like in 10 days getting back into the gym and training again because I had such a solid foundation because I've been lifting weights and I've been training for 20 years, had that solid foundation. So as soon as I started doing that again, my body's went, oh cool, I know what I'm doing now, I need to build more muscle, I need to get stronger, I need to get fit, I need to get faster, start shredding up, start dropping some body fat man. So I think that's a great point.

That kind of ties in everything that we've just spoken about is like you need to build that foundation first because once you have that foundation then it makes everything else easier and if you lose, you know, you talk let's relate this to business. You you think about some of the um you know the heavy hitters in the world that are multi millionaires, multi billionaires, you know, they've made a funk load of money and then they've lost the funk load of money and they're like all right, well that didn't work. How can I make this money again? They've learned those lessons through the process, they weren't afraid of failing. So that's that's an important aspect. I think that people need to hear and start applying to their own life as well. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. Um It definitely does take money, it does take money to make money make money to make money, but you've got to start with those simple principles, how did you feel not training for a month? Uh good question. Um, I felt fine because I've made that decision. I was like, I'm not going to train for the next month. I know that something is not right.

Instead of training around it, I'm going to give myself time to rest, recover rehab so then I can, you know, address my movement patterns and in any muscular imbalances and dysfunction so that when I do go back into proper training again, then, you know, I'm going to meet a good place. So sometimes you need to take a couple steps back so you can take a number more steps forward. But yeah, I think that's a that's a great question, man, because, you know, so many people go, well, if I don't train for a month, then I'm going to lose all my gains. You know, and it's, if you have a solid foundation, yes, you're, you will lose a little bit of that. Okay, But you don't just stop training for a day or a week and you lose everything you've built like it does take For the most part, most people can train or not train for up to roughly 10 days. It's going to be obviously a little bit of individual variants here, but Most people can not train for up to 10 days and will likely walk back into the gym like feeling better, moving better because now they've reduced inflammation.

Now they've actually given their body a little bit of arrest, probably driven the parasympathetic nervous system a little bit more, which is where they get that recovery and then they get that adaptation on top of that, you know, so, um I think that's a, that's a great point man, a very, that's an awesome question bro, I love that. Yeah, well look, it's, it's definitely a necessity to have to have some time off and it's going to be like you said, case by case basis, whether someone's an elite athlete or, you know, the weekend warrior, how much time do they need and to take off and what kind of routine do they need to follow? It is going to be predicated on, on that individual and what they're doing, you know, if you're gonna be comparing elite power lifter competitor, a novice, you know, elite powerlifters are gonna be pushing their bodies so much more and they got to be recovering between the left. So, um, you know, I know for myself uh originally, um you know, quite some time ago, I had a lot of problems, I had problems with having days off and I was serving an obligation to my training and my nutrition and neither overtrained because I went out the night before or I deprive myself from food because I didn't train, I had this really unhealthy relationship to, to those those elements and, you know, that was something that I had to get around because my identity was built built from, from, from a young age of what I looked like and you know, that's how I got it was noticed and that's how I end up getting paid and found work.

And so I started building this, this identity identity, that's like people like me because of what I look like, like, do you have anything else to offer was like that, I've got something else off, surely. Um, and to really change that, it took some time, but that's been the best thing ever and whether, you know, I'm going from doing ultra endurance work too, you know, building up power and strength again, these ebbs and flows and training, they all demand so much from your body that there needs to be some sort of give somewhere and I think just as you do get older and things start to get a little bit creaky, you've got past injuries to work around and life gets busier, you have to start trying to juggle everything at once, and that's what we're talking about with those eight elements, it's not impossible, but it's very hard to get all imperfect balance and unity. Yeah, man, great point. Um, a couple of things to unpack there, I've just written a couple of things down, we'll come back to um, discipline in a moment, but let's talk about those eight pillars, instead of those eight pillars, Do you have your own pillars that you kind of look at, within, you know, you're essentially wheel of life?

Well I don't have anything that I have written up on a board, um that or any particular, I've gotta matter, but it doesn't really focus around pillars per se. Um, I just, for me, I I I really do work well within structure, I can adapt quite well to changing circumstances, you know, lives forever changing. Um and uh, oh, I guess I'm someone who plans well ahead, you know, you look at my calendar, it's just like dot point point point point, you know, lunchtime dot point dot point don't point and I'm just going through ticking away and that's that's a really good way for me to do things and everyone else works, definitely, I understand that, but that's my capacity, you know, you tell me to do something, I'll go and do it. Um and I have to be someone who has to be very disciplined with time management, particularly if you're self employed and if you're working from home or you have multiple, you know, things happening at once, it's so easy to disperse yourself and dilute your energy and attention to things and then get backlogged and you're spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

So that took me a long time to, I understood the concept, but action, it was something that I took some time. So whether I was go day by daily monday, I'm focusing on X. B. A focus on X and then you go to monday to saturday or monday to sunday depends on if you are working seven days a week, which is not a rare thing. Um but that gave you that extreme focus to get everything done. And of course you, you might take an email here and in a phone call here, of course things change not to be, I guess married up to, That's another point. I know I'm going around but create a plan not to be married to that plan, understand that there will be circumstances not of your choosing or things will happen that you need to be able to counteract and engage with further for the ultimate outcome. So just be ready to pivot, which I think everyone learned in 2020 as well. Yeah, for sure man, um now I want to tie discipline into that because you did mention that before.

Um obviously guys like us that have been, you know, training for a long time again, I've been training for 20 years um for rugby and um in the gym uh etcetera etcetera and you know, that month or both times where I got injured within the last six months and I had that month off, I had to change my mindset and it took me a lot of discipline, it takes me more discipline to not train than it does to train because training is something that's so ingrained for me and I've connected the dots with how it makes me feel and the results that I get from it, you know, I'm not training to burn energy. I'm not training to build a heap of muscle, you know, that is a byproduct of it and there's gonna be times in my life where I'm really fucking dialed in with my training, I'm dialed in with my nutrition, I'm focused on making gains, but I'm not spending all of my time there. I might spend maybe a month to three months in that gain mentality where I'm counting my macros, I'm counting my calories, I'm ration my food, I'm having, having my breaking my food down at different times of the day for depending on what I'm doing.

I'm really dialed in with my sleep and my hydration and training and all that type of stuff, You know? But for the most part I'm spending 6-8 months of the year in kind of a maintain face where I'm training because it makes me feel good, you know, and I'm not trying to maximize anything. I'm kind of like keeping myself in this general physical preparation phase where I'm essentially able to live the life that I want without um, you know, any restrictions and we'll talk about this in a moment for you as well. Um well relate this to the thing that you said that it was that the search for hurt program and come back to that in a moment, man. Yeah, we'll come back to that in a moment. But before we do that, I wanna talk about the, your discipline in regards to your time management. You're obviously a very busy man. You've got a lot of stuff going on, your working on his projects and you know, you spoke about diluting your energy and your resources. Um, and I'm the same man, like I'm, I'm very disciplined, I'm very structured. I've got, you know, my the night before, like I'll go to bed and before I go to bed I'll write out my schedule for the next day and then I'll check that off in the morning and I'm like, cool, I've got some, this is what I need to get done.

These are the things that I want to get done. I'll list them in order of priority. So if I do the first two things I missed the third, that's fine. That gets pushed to the next day, you know, But then there's actually going to be some free time. I'm like, cool, I'm going to go and eat food here and listen to a podcast or I'm going to go and do some meditation is going to go lay by my pool and get some sunshine and things like that. And for me like that discipline gives me freedom when you have so much stuff going on. So many projects you're working on, you need to be disciplined with your time, You need to manage your time as efficiently as possible so that you can be productive man because there's a massive difference between being productive and being busy and that comes down to prioritizing what the most important things are, what you need to get done that day and then what you want to get done that day. Can you talk to me about your process with your time management and some of the tools that you use to get the most out of every single day? Yeah. Look for a long time. Uh nine a.m. Was my starting my start to the day, So I would get up at five AM and that gives me even sometimes 4 35 5 30. And that would give me 3.5 to 4 hours of getting, getting my time, everything I wanted to get done for the day.

So if I wanted to be discipline and maintain that consistency across the board with my training, meeting up with somebody maybe going for a walk with my wife after my own training, I could get condensed that in that period and that would also set aside any of the jitters or you know, that you may have going, how am I gonna get my training? And I know I've, I've known I've programmed into 3:30 p.m. But however, like these things just keep accumulating. So for me, I like to get it all done first thing in the morning and I operate quite well first thing in the morning as well, like you I have a list and you have my priorities at the top and then I have my bonus items at the bottom and they're all right be pushing back um So that doesn't build any anxiety. Um and I have that just this calendar in my phone that sometimes I remember something jot it down and then I can just review that evening and for the and planning for the next day. So I function well like that working from home is something that is, that can be very difficult.

Like I wanted to I had to learn how to separate my private life and my work life, otherwise I'm sitting on my laptop and I'm meant to be sitting next to my wife or I'm at dinner and all I can think about is work. I walk into the lounge room and all of a sudden I'm just thinking about work, so I need to have an office space to kind of keep everything separate. That's where I found great productivity, you're not bleeding yourself across, you know, multiple things, you know, I'm not trying to have a conversation with someone not trying to watch television program with your family and also trying to work at the same time. So I think if you're able to segregate that, like that's a huge win. Um and then also obviously just future planning and having some fail safes like okay well what are you gonna do when this doesn't happen? Have you given yourself extra time? Have you given yourself enough allowance in time and being able to have that really kind of precise time management is huge for me because like you said, I've got multiple things going on. I'm gonna wear multiple hats trying to all at once. I'm just drowning in workload.

Mm hmm. Um, let's move on to your coaching philosophy and your training philosophy. Talk to me about how that's developed over time and where you're at with your coaching and training philosophy at the moment and then that's going to transition into, um, the search for hurt stuff. Yeah. Look, I think for a long time, you know, like any young man who's fit and ready to get after it, it's just about pushing yourself as hard as you can every single day of the year. Uh, and that, and that eventually dissipates when you see that when you become a coach. Uh, you understand there's, there's nuances in this case by case and then, you know, not only their physicality but their emotional and psychological elements at play in terms of how much they're willing to give, how much can they give, um, learning, you know, whether it's pureed ization or knowing a bit of Evan flow like people can't always be on, you can't read line every single day of the year. So just kind of educating myself through whether it's picking up courses, listening, watching talk discussions and then experience with clients and seeing what works and what doesn't work.

I had that unhealthy relationship where I felt like I was obligated to do something. I felt like that people see me as a certain way and I've got to uphold this. You know, Pat just ran 21 case and jumped on the wrong machine and lift up these weights and now he's gone for a surf. And you know, and I was thinking, oh God, if I got to uphold this and then I realized, you know, there's a lot more to life than just your physicality and what you can do. Um and so being able to have more well rounded approach. I'm really happy with that hybrid training philosophy. Um but also training is to assist and aid in your life, you know? Yeah, I don't live to train, are trying to live. That was probably the biggest change in my mentality where once training was my life. Um and and don't get me wrong, training is a big part of my life. It's part of my income. Um it's part of my sanity in some ways. And it's also part of my what gives me joy, It gives me great satisfaction being able to travel, explore uh, you know, this beautiful planet in different ways.

That might not be um you know, uh able if if someone isn't training. Mm I love that. Don't live to train. Train to live. That's something I say all time man is like, you know, training should either complement your lifestyle or it should counteract your lifestyle. Um mate, so you obviously were approached for this ESPN program, search for hurt. I'm assuming that you had obviously been training for quite some time before that and then you're thrown into um, you know, different scenarios, different circumstance, different training modalities that you may potentially have not been exposed to before. How had your, again, building that foundation? I'm assuming you had a pretty solid foundation to be able to go and do these things that you've never had exposure to before and do all right with it. Talk to me about that process funnily enough, you know, I was quite uh quite an agile, well rounded individual in terms of like just cardio output, strength um, and so on.

So there wasn't one thing that I favored, but I was got coming up against, you know, iron men and women, you know, people who were just elite in the obstacle obstacle racing scene with a lot of experience, a lot of endurance, uh, background behind them. So I was definitely thrusted into a world that I didn't have the same amount of experience. Uh and that, you know what, I had different, I think what was different between us all was that I had this mentality that I it wasn't that I wanted it is that I needed it and I was almost a sense of desperation because the start of the series, we had to all, whoever said that video audition in and they cut it down to the final 12, 6 males, six females. It was a decider where one male and one female only would be selected to go on this 10 month program. And so every time I was in the hurt locker during this 24 hour bee sting in the gym, I would just think I don't want to be yelling at people for the rest of my life on this oval that I'm currently doing. Like I want more and I think this could be a great opportunity platform for that for that.

I'm not saying that that's because I thought I was better than that. It was more like I knew that there could be something from this and I knew that this was, could potentially be a launching pad. So you know that, that first, that first day have been exposed to that. What was it was like 21 kilometers on the rowing machine, 100 k's on the bike and 42 K run, we do half an hour on each apparatus that would move on to 100 bucks jump babies of time, half an hour, half an hour, half an hour beep test, half an hour, half an hour, half an hour road climbs and dead ball carriers and stuff. There's always carrots to chase. It could be, I could be on the rowing machine who gets the most meters takes a kilometer off their run. Who burns the most calories. The bike takes fun to me that they're wrong machine, you know distance. So there was this huge surge of competition and like knowing that you know everything is on the line now and I was up against a stacked field of individuals but besides my leg's cramping and I couldn't move and all these other things, I was, I was still selected because they could see the determination on me no matter how much my body started to fall apart.

Yeah, man, forgive me for my ignorance. I'm going to have to look that up and maybe you can send me a link for the highlights for that. Is that on like Youtube or something? Yeah, unfortunately it should have all the episodes on Youtube. So I tried to look at myself, the main producer kind of a, it didn't go down so well was serious four and he wanted to because it was season two that I was on season three. Season four came to America was a bit of a problem with it also, it was a bridge kind of burned. So I don't know whether all the episodes have gone, there are a few available on which will send you the links. Yeah, we won't won't go down that path and we'll just give the link for people to go and have a look at Yeah. Um that's cool, man. Now what I want to talk about now is you're actually an ambassador for be spunky as am I and I love their product, I'm a big believer in what they're doing. Um can you talk to me about how long you've been taking the product for and you know, the benefits that you see in your own life from taking their reboot product and any other products that are taken of theirs.

Yeah, absolutely. Um you know, I'm essentially just strictly on their reboot product, which when I was a first approach maybe a couple of years ago with this briefing saying, hey, you know, you want to be an ambassador for these guys might be spunky, I'm like spunky but the Fox this ship, I'm like I don't know about this and and uh so I actually wanted to organize a sit down with both both the owners, Sean and Sam and I wanted to sit down and question him and query and and I wanted to try the price myself, you know, every brand that I'm associated with Sean, it's not through, you know, it's true, obviously an introduction, but I'm not going to be throwing something out to people that I've never tried and tested myself. Um and we're after having a good chat to Sean and Sam and hearing where they're coming from and what changed like Shaun's own experiences with a man who has gone through pretty much every supplement, it's under the sun, you know, growing up in an age where body builders were gods on earth, um uh God's gift to Earth, and then I was thinking, okay, this guy has legitimate reason and motive to help other people.

He's seeing the changes he's had in his own life, and I said I could afford to take this because you know, you don't have to be someone that is an elite athlete or who's constantly active, but someone who just wants to effectively manage how they respond to their day to day stress a little bit better. And so I took the product for a couple of weeks, I think, came up to a month and I got back to them and saying, hey, I've noticed a great difference within my sleep and also my libido, to be perfectly honest, I don't know whether it's more psychological than anything, but everything was for me after a month, I'm like this everything is firing up, I'm feeling good. Um and I think maybe my sleep had a big, big part to play in that, and so I've been taking the product for almost two years now, and it's something that I'm really proud to be a part of with guys like yourself and you know, there's a whole list of really well known, well deserved chance who are doing great things in their own, in their own space and to hear, and and talk to so many of the clients who have come through the spunky taking the product reboot and hearing their stories and hearing how they either found out for myself or somebody else, you know, it's like this is a great community that's being built and we're doing good things, you know, it's not just wonder drug that if you're not looking after your sleep, your training, nutrition and all of a sudden you're gonna be starting, put on pounds of muscle, but it's definitely something that's going to help sharpen all those tools that you're working really hard on and it's going to give you that fighting chance to optimize your body's own natural ability for its testosterone production.

Yeah man, that's a great answer and very similar story to myself as well. Um it was about this time last year I was actually in Byron Bay on a yoga course, a veteran heavy yoga course, essentially learning the tools and techniques of you know, mindfulness to take back to our communities to help people deal with anxiety, depression PTSD. Um and I got a message from Sean who lives in Byron Bay and was like, hey mate, you know, we've got this company be spunky, we'd love you to come on board and you know, first of all trial the product and blah blah blah, and I was just saying, I was like who is this dude? Unfortunately didn't, unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to actually have a conversation with him, we're doing, you know, 16 hour days man, I just couldn't get away for a coffee, but you know, he dropped off some product and I brought it back to Thailand with me and started taking it again and you know, the interesting thing for me was um I actually went caffeine free on the yoga course over two weeks and I bought into the vegetarian menu and I didn't eat any um any meats or anything like that, you know?

And once I got back to Thailand I started taking caffeine again, I started eating meat again, but I also started taking be spunky and dude, like again, I spoke about it before where I wasn't training, I I've essentially been on holidays for six weeks, I went to Japan, went snowboarding with some mates, went to bali, um did a couple of training sessions, I probably did like four training sessions over a six week period, you know, went back to Australia, saw my friends, my family and then did the yoga course and you know once I got back to Thailand I started training again again, like within two weeks man, my body just my body composition just changed dramatically. I put on a heap of muscle and like lost a heap of body fat, like just just got really shredded really quick. Um and you know, I'm not sure if it was because I was taking be spunky or if it was because I started eating meat again, I started taking caffeine I started training again, but it was a combination of all these things but um you know it definitely aided in my ability to manage my stress levels which then improved my sleep and you know the properties in the reboot in particular that I really like is like the Ash Uganda and these different adapter eugenics that allow your your body to essentially um regulate itself far more efficiently, which then affects your testosterone production and your energy levels and your libido and you sleep and managing stress and all that type of stuff.

So yeah, it's a really cool product man and I'm definitely um proud to be and ambassador alongside guys like yourself as well and it's a product that I've been taking pretty religiously for around about a year now, there was a period of time where Sean sent me some of the product and it went through DHL or something like that and it got caught up at like thai customs man, so I didn't receive anything, so I didn't have the product for like probably two or three months there um And dude like it was it was interesting because you know, for me the sign of a good product, you know, I don't push supplements, but if you've got those other things dialed in your sleep is good, your nutrition is good, your hydration is good, your training is good, you're managing your stress, all that type of stuff like you know once I stopped taking it, I felt the difference, man, I could notice the difference. And then once I started taking again, I was like, again within a couple of weeks, I was like, look, man, like, I just feel so much sharper, I feel so much better. Um so yeah, it's definitely a product that I believe in, and as you said, I would not promote or endorse any product, that one I don't use myself or to, I don't believe in.

Well, that's one of the biggest things, right, is that, you know, maybe some of your listeners could hear both of us talk about this product review and I think, oh, well, that's gonna sort my life out if I just start taking this pill. Um but they need to think about all the stages that came before we even picked that product up. You know, we're in good shape, we're doing all these great things beforehand. This is just the kind of, the icing on the cake and a lot of people just looking for that sweet, sweet icing. But funny that you said that I actually, I'm almost the end of my two week period of caffeine for the first time in, ever since I started picking up drinking coffee. So, I always said to people like, I'm not addicted to coffee, I can always give it up. You know, it's not a problem. I've got, I've got a handle on it, and I was only, have you ever having one, maybe two coffees a day. So I wasn't over expose myself to stimulants. Like I was really having a pre workout as well. I usually only get into pretty worked up when I'm at my peak period of training. But there was this, I've never had more than two days, two or three days without coffee and that's more because of circumstances.

So I've taken the almost two weeks off, the first 2 to 3 days was absolute hell. I just felt like I was coming off some hard drug and I could think about was coffee and I was actually having naps through the day, which I don't have, I've had that feeling for a long time. And uh and then I started to really level out and now I'm, you know, I'm waking up feeling good. Um you know, I know because a lot of people spoke about his constant energy guy gets consistent energy and I'm always like, shut up, whatever, nothing beats coffee, but I feel this consistent energy. But I know there's another level because I've been there, I know you can peek and um you know, today I was just doing some deadly fish, finished training and I just know that I wasn't approaching the bar the same way if I had some sort of stimulating and that's, that's true and that's why caffeine is such a great ingredient to take advantage of, but again, with anything moderation and understanding you know where to have it and how prevalent should be in your life. So I'm thinking about maybe having like a two week block every 3 to 4 months of going without just to regulate it just so that my body is a little bit more sensitive to get higher yield to each dose and I know psychologically that I'm not depending on as well.

Yeah that's a brilliant point man. Um And that's it essentially is a drug right? Like you know so as you as you take more and more that effect that you get becomes less and less. So the best way to re sensitize yourself is to come off it and you know you don't need to go cold turkey like I did or like you did you could essentially win yourself off instead of having three coffees a day, do two coffees a day and then one coffee a day over a couple of weeks and then go about half a coffee and then you come off for a couple of weeks. Re sensitize yourself and then you have that first sip and you're like oh I'm buzzing again I'm Just wary of your time mate, we do need to start wrapping up so I can let you go, I know you've got a lot of appointments and so do I but I want you to talk about the philosophy that's driving your 365 program. Yeah man um for me and my philosophy for the 365 program is a branching off my own personal philosophy, which is, you know, you don't identify yourself by your circumstances, but rather on how you respond to them.

So it all comes down to choice. I've had a really tough upbringing and you know, everyone has a story of my upbringing seems piss paul to compare to other people, I'm sure, but knowing that my own personal adversities and things that I have to go through, I could've went down a completely different path quite easily. But it really came down to uh, you know, being a no, I guess having to respond in a way that's going to be better for myself and, and, and I could have identified myself as this poor kid is this kid who is trying a trouble circumstances that uh, that is justified to make poor decisions. However, I knew that I wanted more in my life, I knew that there was another way of doing things and so I worked really hard to do that and that's where I feel like that being able to be completely accountable to yourself and being able to have that ability to not point the fingers at other people and not point the things that the world around you is of most benefit for that individual.

And when I'm, you know, created this training program where I wanted to have, you know, a nice, I guess flashy high production value program, but also the real genuine side of who I am and what I wanted to deliver. So I share a lot of every week share vulnerable messages. I talk into the camera. I have video conversations with clients and members and I cultivate this community of people who know that, you know, I'm not superhuman. I've gone through ship and I'm sharing things that people may not expect and you know, they can take it or leave it. When I first created the program, I thought everyone's going to be a deep sea diver and wants to know the nuances of the human psychology and training and nutrition and, but you really have a bit of boat people who thrive on that and have your shallows surface swimmers who, who just want to just give me the funding program and maybe a bit of this nutrition and I'm out of here and that's fine too. So I had kind of catered for the two but that was the biggest game changer for myself and I carry that today, no matter what happens into my life?

I never thought about not feeling sorry for yourself and having self pity, but it's about understanding how, okay, hey, this just happened. How does affects me? How do I feel? But how do I get around it? How do I major, how do I move forward? That's the biggest, that's the biggest thing to take away. Mm I love that man taking ownership of your own circumstances and understanding that, you know, Yes, ship things happen. But you've also made decisions that have led you down that current path. And you can also make decisions that are going to change your, your trajectory in life. Um, that's awesome man. Um, something I want to talk about their just quickly um, is, I'm sure you found this as well is a lot of the time. The people that, as you said, the shallow surface swimmers that are just looking for the training program and the nutrition, the macros and ship like that, they're the fucking people that get the least out of any program because they haven't set the foundation. They're just going, well, I'm not going to change anything in the rest of my life. I'm just going to follow this program. I'm going to track my Mac rose and I'm good to go. It's like, well, it doesn't matter what, you know, how much you're eating and the type of training that you're doing if you're not sleeping properly, if you're not managing the hormones properly, if you're not managing your stress correctly, you're not hydrated correctly.

Like, you know, and the people that do go on that deep dive and they do understand the fundamental principles behind one being healthy first, before you then challenge the organism to adapt through training. You know, those people typically get the best results and the most long term sustainable results as well. Yeah. Well, what I learned Shawn was that I can't force feed people information, you know, you can talk as long as you want about whatever the subject you want. And with some people gonna listen, some people aren't going to listen. And I just found out that people are at their own, their at their own stage in life and if they're not, you know, if they're not ready to listen to it, you know, I wouldn't even classify as they're not willing to listen to it. They're just not ready. They're not ready to listen to something. That's fine. That's their prerogative. What can you do to help best steer them influence them in some way. Don't don't sort of try to rip yourself the pieces to try to help them. Don't try to tell them that their fucking wrong and they need to listen to what you're saying.

Um, don't discontinue what you're teaching or don't disbelieve yourself because someone's not taking it on board. If you've got a product or a philosophy or some sort of belief that you're really invested in and, you know, it works, then you just got to continue to hold that and share it with whoever will take it on board and not everyone is going to take it on board, not everyone is going to be on your side and some people are going to be against you, that's fine. That's just a part of it. So I think that's what I really kind of learn from the experience was that I felt a little bit deflated that not everyone was as sold as I was on my own thing, but I did see the tremendous benefits it had on those individuals who did want to take it and that's great, but I also knew that the people who were coming in just for the, you know, the peripheral items, they were still getting some benefit, they're still getting some great programming, they're still getting, you know, they they're someone who probably may really maybe already established in themselves to know how to control the calorie calorie intake and know how to manage their training loads and they know their technique, they don't need someone reiterating things they've learned maybe potentially years ago, so that that's fine, and that's where I kind of just had to really figure that out for myself, and also I've got to, I've got another 20 minutes, mate, they've pushed back another 30 so that's good, sweet man, I was like, I was like looking at the time going dude, there's so many things I want to talk about right now, but I need to let you go, but that's cool man, um uh no, that's a great point, um you know, I haven't considered that probably as much as I should about people that have built their own foundations and they are in a good place and they look at someone like yourself and myself and go well these guys are clearly in good shape, like I just want to get some quality programming and some, you know, nutrition guidance from them because I do have the rest of my life squared away.

So what's the next stage, what's the next thing that I can work on that is going to take me to the next level? So yeah, that's a great point man, and that's, I mean to be honest, like that's one of the reasons I started this podcast, right, Like I'm very, I'm very good at replying to people on social media. So when I don't have anywhere near as many followers as you made, nowhere near as popular, but um you know when people do slide in the DM and they start asking me questions, you know, I try and answer every single person and it does become very time consuming, especially when people are asking these, you know, black and white questions, man is like, you know, what type of training should I be doing, what, what diet should I be following, blah blah, blah blah and I'm like, well I know nothing about you, so I can't give you an accurate um any accurate guidance because I don't have the information available to me to make an informed decision, you know, so the reason I started one of the reasons I started this podcast was so that when people did ask me these questions instead of me having to spend time replying to it and explaining that I can't give you a black and white answer because I don't know anything about you and I need to ask five questions to get some context before I guide you in the right direction.

Now I can go hey what do you want to know about? And then I just send them a podcast link to send them an episode link man. Um And the other thing is like when I have my online clients right I say to my online clients listen to these podcasts and I'll like when people start with me I'm like listen to the first two weeks, you know the 1st 14 episodes, the 1st 21 episodes where we go through building the foundational principles of goal setting, you know basic health markers, objective tracking, progress, tracking, subjective progress, tracking hierarchy of value, motivation, direction, um creating consistency, power of habit, um you know accountability, all this type of stuff man and then we'll go through the the nutritional pyramid of importance where it's an introduction. Then we go through energy balance macronutrients, micronutrients, different diets, calorie, cycling, carb, cycling et cetera and then supplements at the top. And that is the foundational stuff. And I'm like I said in my online clients listen to those episodes because when we get on our phone calls you've got that general information that I put out to everyone.

And now when we've got enough get on our calls, we can make it a lot more specific to you. If you can understand the general principles now, we can apply specific principles to your circumstances. Well it helps contextualize everything for them having that base. And then, you know, when you start going to some of the nuances or individualize it to them, they understand, okay, I understand. I've got that general information to push to action, which is really good. Um, and I guess maybe it doesn't matter like what some people forget about with the instagram or any sort of platform and thinking about followers. People forget that those numbers that are on the screen are actually people besides one of the spam bots are there of course. But you know, whether it's, you've got 50 people, like if you were to say I've got 50 followers and someone's laugh at you, Would you write off 50 people, would you laugh at them go, you know, I'm talking with my time. Like if you have to look at everyone in the face and every one of those people have a story that have families that have a particular circumstances and if you can provide some sort of guided some sort of positive influence and whatever manner that's a performer, maybe that's funding something awesome.

And so whether it's 50 people or five million people, there's not, there's no one's not better than the other and you have responsibility to do something that's going to uplift is going to better enhance and create greater value. Of course there's accounts that just talk rubbish. This is about having a laugh and stuff. That's one thing. But if you're looking to provide something of health and you know, whatever guidance and maybe then that's that's a responsibility to have no matter what size of following following following is. And I think one great thing that I learned for time management when people ask questions in DM you do have like an automated response and some of the common questions you can create, but also video messaging is really powerful. I don't know if you've ever used it made like I just turn on the camera and what I can say in. So it gives you 4 15 2nd videos, but I can say in a minute compared to typing function saves me so much more time. Plus it's personal. People like what this person is to the time of the day to specifically answer my question.

I'm a fan for life because that's, that never happens. Like people in my day to day don't give me a minute of their time, let alone someone I know has gone out of their way to do that. So anyone who's listening to this, If you ever thought how do I connect better to, to to the people who follow me, then that's why it's a really powerful tool of doing it. Yeah man, I love that. I'm gonna definitely start doing that as well. Um that kind of ties into right before we actually hit record on this. You sent me a message and um asked if we could push it back because you had other appointments and things like that. But obviously they've, they've changed it and Stuff, but I hadn't actually been on my phone where we started recording this at 12:00, 12 pm Bangkok time and I hadn't actually been on my phone all morning because you know, I manage my time man and you know, and again, this is why the podcast I could send people like quick link that's going to push them in the right direction without spending time, um answering them individually. But yeah, I'm definitely going to implement the video thing Now.

The reason I say that is because I manage my social media time, I only allow myself 90 minutes every day and I've got on my watch, I set my timer for 90 minutes every day and as soon as I pick up my phone, boom, I start that clock man and I know I've only got 90 minutes, so I don't waste time, right? And I go, I go through my WhatsApp first because that's where the majority of my clients contact me. So I go through my WhatsApp first and then I'll go through my instagram, I might do a post, I'll reply to messages and things like that and then we'll go through messenger and then I'll go through my facebook, By the time I get through my Facebook is like 2030 minutes, boom phone goes down. Then move onto the next thing. I'm recording an interview, I'm editing an interview, I'm doing some study on whatever, getting some tan time by the pool, I've got an online client call or whatever it might be. So that's how I kind of manage my time. So that's definitely something that I'm going to implement as well. Do you have any um techniques like that where you manage your social media time? Look, I really admired that 90 minute window I've tried in the past to create specific parameters like, okay, this is how much time I can spend.

And I realized I was getting obsessed with creating these parameters and you know, having these shut off times and the app will lock you out, you know, saying, you know, you've done your our, you've done your two hours, whatever it may be. But then I realized I'm like I'm just hindering myself in terms of, I've got stuff to do. Like I I need to be on this, this is a part of my job. I think it's like saying, you know, your own a shop front of store jim, you're like, oh guys look amazing open between 12 and three because I'm trying to manage my time that I know you're gonna open up all day. But how do you manage your time that whilst the doors are open? So that's what I came to conclusion and it's really about like you said if you open up an app what are you thinking doing? Like don't open up and just start automatically scrolling or looking over things you've already seen 10 times. There's gonna be a reason. So I I have have got that kind of mentality now is that if I'm going to open up something I've got it's either it's that list that we have a priority list that we spoke about. Like contact clients. You know put up a post um emails whatever may be.

So that open up saying I've got a mission I've got a task and I don't want to be just fooling around doing nothing okay. Things might come up whilst you're on that up if it's if it's of any sort of value to take care of it if it's not just put it away. So that's how I I deal with it. I don't I don't get up in the morning and go straight onto these apps particularly being you know you're four hours behind Australian Eastern Standard time. I'm three being behind is the worst. You know you wake up and I actually I should turn off my notifications. So wake up emails and I'm like everyone's waiting for me to respond to stress that I don't want. Um So I don't I'm not opening that until nine a.m. My time it's been a real big win. Of course there's some cases where there's a video call zoom or whatever that needs your attention, that's fine. But for the majority, yeah, I give myself that time in the morning and in that time in the evening I've got to switch off because that's obviously letting myself in the bed, I've got to have some time to myself. I've been an individual who gets up.

I'm just constantly on till the time I go to bed and my productive productivity level like you said is low, I'm busy by productivity is low, mm hmm. Great point about intent. And that's why I set those 90 minute parameters for myself because if I, I might go, I'm going to do a 30 minute block at 11:00, I'll do a 30 minute block at three o'clock, I'll do a 30 minute block at seven o'clock or whatever it might be. You know, that gives me that Those parameters to work within. So I know I've got 30 minutes to get my ship done now. I need to get through all of these messages. I need to get through all of these different apps and reply to all of these different people and you know, some things I'm gonna need to take a little bit of extra time to action and um, you know, look at emails and reply to them and put together training programs and things like that. But you know, if that's the case, I'm like right what can I get done right now? These are the important things that I need to get done right now. Boom I stop my clock and I move on to that project but then if I do get through all of my social media stuff and I've got like five minutes left of that 30 minute block then sweet then I'll have a little bit of a scroll and reply to, I might comment on some of my friends posts and things like that or send a message to people and all that type of stuff.

But I like I like catching my work and having kind of time dedicated to working on my phone and then working on my laptop and then doing some study and then editing a podcast or going to my tire lessons or whatever it might be man, I love that batch ng of work so it's not kind of spreading my energy and resources and attention in multiple different directions. Yeah it's a great way to learn and it's a great way to manage and I think that's that's where it's at short sharp elements where you have that intention and you just stagger it and instead of trying to do 10 things at once sounds good to me makes but at the same time you know what you're saying? I give myself five minutes to be a human might have a bit of fun like that's what we've got to remember like it's all good, being this high proficient individual who's fucking getting shipped done, that's awesome. But is there anything else in your life that you're able to be spontaneous? You're able to let your hair out, so to speak. Um and that's where you know, I might have a different way of doing it to you and vice versa with other people.

So I think we all, we all can't be exact copies and replicas of each other, like you know, you've got these great guiding principles for your clients and people who listen to podcast, which is fantastic because that's going to build their own structures in their own environment for them to have what they need in their life and also have that fun essence along the way as well. Yeah man, another great point. Um you know, it comes down to principles, if you give yourself some rules and regulations and principles to follow some parameters to work within, then, you know, it's far easier to manage your time, but also allow yourself to have that free time to be able to kind of, you know, be spontaneous and you know, go down to the beach or head out for a picnic or whatever it might be. Um But yeah, that discipline for me just gives me freedom um and for everyone, like the tools that you use are going to be completely different, so you know, yourself and myself have provided some tools in this episode and I've provided heap of tools in multiple other episodes, um particularly the 1st 21 odd episodes. Um but the point that I want to make here is that every single person is different and we're going to give you some tools to think about the tools that you apply, you need to make adjustments to them, you need to make changes to them, You need to find what works for, you find things that you can do consistently over long periods of time and once you can do that consistently and you're ticking those boxes, you're creating these small wins every single day, every single moment.

Then you add something else on top of that for me man, life is about fucking achievement, like what can you achieve? What can you get done? Like if I'm ticking the boxes and I'm winning the day, I'm creating more wins than I am losses throughout the day, then that's a, that's a fucking good day, man. And if I'm doing, I'm creating more days where I'm winning throughout the week, I've had a good week and if I'm doing that over the course of a month, that's a good month, I'm doing that over the course of a year, That's a funding Goodyear, man, that's like how I simply frame it in my mind to get the most out of every day, but also give myself the flexibility to be able to live my life and enjoy things that come up and be spontaneous. Well that's exactly right. I mean that's the essence of the 365 every day, 365 people ask you guys have to train every day. It's like no, you know, every day is an opportunity to put one ft in front of the other. And it's all about, we talk about being in a net positive and that's exactly what you just said, you know, you might not be switched on and getting shipped crushing sh it every single day. But if you can look back at the year of 2020 or whatever you decide and know that hey, I was able to pick up this and move forward in this, in this area.

Yeah, I slipped back in this, but I can I can refocus on that. You're able to have like those objective and subjective sort of uh uh tools where you can kind of understand where your situation or having that situational awareness of yourself and your environment, you're the world's your oyster again mate. Well, said, I want to talk about any outstanding mentors you've had in your life, people that have had an impact on you as you as a person, you as an athlete, you as a coach, as a father, as your father. Not, no, sorry, as a husband as a man. Yeah. Talk to me about your mentors whose whose someone or list off some people that have had a significant impact in multiple areas of your life. Yeah, look, I think um you know, starting back at a young age, uh my family dynamics was quite, it was quite hard in terms of, you know, everyone in my family who had some sort of mental condition, whether it was schizophrenia, bipolar, whatever disorder it may be.

So, I didn't have that, I didn't have that element of, like, you've got your family to kind of lean on when things are tough, because part of the heart of the hardship that I faced was due to families dynamic, which is no fault of their own, it's just what it was, and so I really had to kind of be really introspective at a young age and mature uh and find myself in this in this mayhem. And I really, kind of, I I guess I really sought to talk to myself, I didn't have any super positive influence at that age where I could just give someone a call or speak to, you know, I had a great school and had great teachers and there's there's definitely a list of teachers who were a positive role model in my life, but I think at the beginning it was really just finding that being able to understand how how everything is affecting me and how I can respond to that, and that has been a huge, I guess platform for me a foundation in terms of how I've gone through every, every part of my life, it's always been a self soothing self um self discussion um and I, you know, I'm not gonna say that I'm my own mentor, but being able to rationalize things and try to to to make make sense of things was a huge part.

I think having reliance on other people is massive because To think that you have all the answers and that you see everything with 2020 vision is um I would say silly is naive because there's quadrants, you know, there's four quadrants in our life is what we know about ourselves, what other people know about us, is what I know about that someone else does that no one else knows about us and and then and then there's stuff about us that no one else knows and you kind of want to be able to expose as much as yourself as possible, you want to kind of be able to answer as many questions as possible, and you've got to seek guidance from coaches and and from from other people from outside influences. So I think for me, eventually after a number of years, my brother who's 12 years older than me, he became a great mentor of mine in terms of seeing his his path, you know, he was someone who was quite a type personality, Alpha male wanted to crush life and everything and then, you know, his life took a turn and he became this really soft spoken, really sought after, you know, listening rather than talking, um and seeking knowledge from people he may have disregarded in the past and so having that mindset that I, I saw someone who I admired being 12 years old, maybe being my brother, seeing someone who's strong and powerful and then going for this, this, this turn in his mindset and persona and everything that was, that really affected me thinking like, am I I've gone, am I going through this and I go full circle?

Like am I going through the same path that he has? So having some discussions and being able to be a little bit more um uh taking it, taking a different path has been important. I've had coaches in terms of training, whether it's a running coach. One particular running coach for example, he was a guy who um you know, I guess, I mean, I guess maybe what I'm trying to get to sean is that I haven't always had a positive male influence in terms of father. Um my dad was a great, it was a good guy and he did his best for me, but it wasn't the typical father you probably would expect in typical circumstances. So I guess I got bits and pieces from different men in my life who who were in some sort of leadership role and I really sought to go out of my way to not, I guess I would say impress them. Like, hey, can I, I'm going to really work hard here. So I can get that recognition. Um And that's gone through and I guess and I'm talking through this now and I'm coming to my own realization talking through it.

And that's that's something that I still go through this day. Is that not having that upbringing that was typical has made the personal and today, But I don't see it as a weakness. Um And there are individuals in my life who have come and gone but they've always left something we've been and I feel that we always leave imprints with one another. Whether it's good or bad or whether it's from a long term or short term and that's been through. I mean my different careers have had in my life And the different experiences of people. Mm hmm That's cool man. Um You know, I don't know. My father um My step dad was abusive and he was my father figure in my life. And you know, he was somewhat of a mentor for me because I looked at him and I was like, what are the traits that he has that I don't want to have? I'm going to make sure that I don't follow in his footsteps. So as you said man, everyone has an impact on you? Everyone leaves an imprint. And at the end of the day it comes down to our perspective. You can't change your circumstances but you can change your perspective and you can take lessons from everything that come up in life.

Um, what do we talk about next is how do you define success? Mm. Yeah, that's a great question. And it's gonna be, I think whoever's answering he's going to answer in their own way, and I don't think there's a wrong way to answer it, so to speak. If someone says success is the amount of money you can can acquire them and that's that's their priority, and that's their prerogative. I think for over seven billion people to have the same goal would make us a would probably end up ourselves as a species. You know, we've got to have that biodiversity. We've got to have that diversity mentality, that's what makes it special. That's why we continue to innovate. You know, I don't find x really interesting, but someone just put their entire life on that and that's benefited everyone. So, I think defining success is going to be very individualistic for me, uh, my success is being able to live a life that is in service of others. If I can build myself in a certain way, that is enhancing the quality of other people around me, then that's that's everything to me.

Um, and then that can be as simple as whether you're working within charities, Whether you put a smile on someone's face, whether you've been working with someone for years as a coach or a mentor or whatever it may be. I find so much more fulfillment, taking the spotlight off me and on to other people. And and that's not saying that you can't put time into yourself, like yourself, you continue to up skill and enrich your own self so that you can be a better benefit to other people. That's where I found that the magic where, like I was saying earlier, when I can spotlight purely on myself because that's what I thought was important. It became obsessive became toxic and I started to lose perspective of what was important. So again, success for me is, you know, working and certain being of service for other people. Final question before I let you go mate, the name of this podcast is Live Train perform, which stands for Live Life to the fullest, trained to your potential and perform at your best. What does that mantra meant to you? Look, it's a great, it's a great title.

I mean, we want to maximize their own potential is really important and we all cut our own potential, whether it's through our habits, whether it's through our past experiences. And it really, that title to me, tells me that it's up to the individual to make their future, to make two really uncapped their potential and that's why I've always been an advocate of like if you really want something, then you've got to be surrounding yourself with people who have either done it or behind you or challenging you, You're gonna find whatever avenue it is to be able to achieve, we'll set goals and ambition. This has been an incredible conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I'm obviously aware of time. I do have a client call, you've got to, you've got appointments as well. So, um, I want to say thank you very much for your time mate. I really appreciate it. I'm going to have all of your links in the show notes. Um, is there anything you want to finish off with? Look, just again, thanks for having me. I'm always an open book. I'm always up for any conversation and I, I am someone who thoroughly enjoys, you know, these conversations.

So if you're outside the podcast, well, happy to jump on the call again. It's been, it's been awesome about to kind of speak to you and I have been messaging each other on online, so thanks for having me again. And, and and if anyone else who's listening to this has any further questions, just reach out whether it's on my instagram and part, um or Andrew underscore underscore or anything else. I'll always get back to you. Awesome. Thank you brother. Now where I enjoy talking the same cheers mate. Boom. There, we have a great conversation with Andrew Papadopoulos, otherwise known as path. I really enjoyed this conversation. If you enjoyed it as well, please pass it off to your friends and family, Anyone you think that can benefit from the message. I will have some of the topics that we spoke about in this episode, linked in the show Notes, the Swiss eight website. I'll also have Beast monkeys website along with perhaps website and his social media platforms. Any five star ratings and reviews are much appreciated. Guys, point to note is that I have put out roughly 100 episodes of the podcast so far.

Um, I am about to Move into Phase two of my business plan. So I'm gonna be pulling back on the podcast content at some stage over the next couple of weeks so that I can start building out the next phase of my business, building my website, getting some programs and nutrition, e books and things like that up on the website. So please bear with me guys much love peace.