You're what is up guys welcome to today's episode of reflections where I go into a topic that I've been reading about or learning about over the last couple of weeks to months. So in today's episode is going to be about 10-15 minutes long and I'm going through the current book that I'm reading which is start with why Now the reason I want to go into this topic is because I think it's extremely important to understand your why of why you're doing something okay. Most people just focus on the what they're doing and how they're doing it, but they don't pay any attention to the why they're doing it. So something I want to talk about today is why I started this podcast. But before I do that I just want to read an excerpt from the book. Start with why by Simon Sinek there are only two ways to influence human behavior. You can manipulate it or you can inspire it very few people or companies can clearly articulate why they do what they do by why I mean your purpose cause or belief, why does your company exist?

Why do you get out of bed every morning and why should anyone care people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it? We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe their ability to make us feel like we belong to make us feel special safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us for values or guiding principles to be truly effective. They have to be verbs, it's not integrity, it's always do the right thing. It's not innovation. It's look at the problem from a different angle, articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea. We have a clear idea of how to act in any situation. Happy employees, ensure happy customers and happy customers ensure happy shareholders in that order. Leading is not the same as being the leader, Being the leader means you hold the highest rank either by earning it good fortune or navigating internal politics leading however, means that others willingly follow you not because they have to not because they are paid to, but because they want to.

You don't hire for skills. You hire for attitude. You can always teach skills. Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them. They hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not unless you give motivated people something to believe in something bigger than their job to work toward. They will motivate themselves to find a new job and you'll be stuck with whoever's left trust is maintained when values and beliefs are actively managed. If companies do not actively work to keep clarity, discipline and consistency imbalance, then trust starts to break down all organizations start with why, but only the great ones keep their white clear year after year. Now this principle of starting with why not only applies to business but to everything else in your life, and I'll give some examples of how I use this in terms of strength and conditioning and health and fitness, but also how I've applied these principles throughout my life, because I can look back at multiple pivotal moments in my life where I've made um life changing decisions um that have taken me down a completely different path, and I didn't understand why I was making those decisions at the time.

It was kind of a gut feeling, it was an instinctual thing. However, looking back and understanding the science now, it makes a lot of sense to me. Every time I've made these pivotal decisions upon reflection, I can understand why I made those decisions. So I'll give some examples of these big, life altering decisions that I made throughout my life, and then I'll work my way down to smaller decisions that I make on a daily basis that impact my day to day life. So, I left home when I was 14 years old, and that was because my step dad was abusive and I was mixing in with the wrong crowd, and you know, I was doing drugs and drinking and stealing shit and just being a pain in the arse, and I knew that I was going down the wrong path, and I realized that if I didn't get out of that situation out of that environment, then I would have Gone down a completely different life paths. So I made the decision to leave home when I was 14 years old. Now when I was 17 I made another pivotal decision.

I moved to Sydney on a rugby scholarship. Why I did that was because I had an opportunity to go to Sydney and express my skills and try and make it as a rugby player. When I was 20 years old, I decided to move back to Darwin and joined the Army. And the reason I did that was because I realized that I was a good player. But if I was going to make it as a rugby player, I would have had to dedicate my um time, energy and effort into being the best player that I could be and I was a good player, but I was probably going to be a fringe, maybe semi pro player at best. So I realized my limitations and I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to dedicate my life to a higher purpose than just myself. So I made that decision, moved back to Doe and joined the army. Now, once I got out of the army, the reason I left was because we were told that we were not deploying again. The wars were coming to an end in Afghanistan in Iraq. There was no peacekeeping missions that we were involved with in the Australian Army at the time and I wanted to change careers.

I wanted to change directions. I actually wanted to join the firefighters and I applied for that and I didn't get accepted. So I had to do my pt course, which I was doing concurrently whilst I was getting out of the army um and then I became a coach and the reason I became a coach was because one, my first preference of joining the fire is didn't work out and two, I had a passion for training and I really enjoyed having my mates come to the gym with me, I enjoyed having training partners, I enjoyed um coaching other people through training sessions, strengthen auditioning to help them get better at rugby and um as soldiers better themselves, physically and mentally. And I thoroughly enjoyed the process of passing on these mindset tips and physical training protocols and all that type of stuff and watching people dedicate themselves to making themselves better in the gym, which also carried over into, you know, them leading a better quality of life, so That's how I got into coaching and that passion has grown over the years.

Um I'll circle back to this in a moment as that is part of the reason why I started this podcast, but in 2013 I ended up leaving Darwin and moving down to Tasmania to be with a girl that I'd only known for a couple of months, and the reason I did that was because I was kind of floating in Darwin had only just started my pt business and I met this girl, she was really cool and I thought, you know what, I've got nothing to lose, I'm just going to go down to Tasmania and I'm going to see if this works because I wanted to give that relationship a chance and we ended up staying together for five years. Then in 2017 we ended up going our separate ways. Our values had changed the direction that we were moving in, had changed, we were no longer as aligned as we once were. So I made the decision or we made the decision together to go our separate ways and remain friends and I moved to Thailand and the reason I moved to Thailand was because I wanted to put myself in a position to be able to work with professional athletes. So once I realized that I wasn't going to become a firefighter and I changed my drive, I changed my direction, my purpose as a coach was to one day work with professional athletes and I always thought that I was going to work with rugby teams and I did work with rugby teams throughout the years, and that built my base level knowledge of strength and conditioning um but once I got the opportunity to come to Thailand and have an intern contract at Tiger Muay thai, I took that with both hands and I've been here for just over three years now, I'm now the head strength and conditioning coach there and I absolutely love what I do and the reason I love my job so much is why I love my job so much.

Because I see these athletes that put in the work that put in the effort, that dedicate their time, energy and effort into making themselves not only a better fighter but a better athlete. That is my job as a strength and conditioning coach. I make them better athletes and those athletic qualities then transfer over to the ring the cage, whatever. And the reason I coached the way that I coach is because it is extremely rewarding to have an athlete by into the process and reap the benefits of it. So, an example of this is peter Yarn. I've been working with him for just over 2.5 years and when he won the UFC bantamweight title against Jose Aldo about a month and a half to two months ago, I was at the pub and I was with some friends and only a few people know this, but when his hand was raised it took about a minute for it to sink in. And then I literally just stood up with my arms in the air and was just overcome with emotion and I actually started crying because I'd seen all of the hard work that he'd put in behind the scenes and he bought into the process and he bought into the program and it was amazing.

It was one of the um one of my most proudest moments of my life to see all of the work that he had put in and to know that I had contributed to that success. Now, his why for doing what he was doing and putting himself through so many harsh and difficult training sessions was because his dream was to become the UFC champion and his, why lead my y every single time we went through a training session, every single exercise that I chose and prescribed was in line with his, Y okay, why am I doing this exercise? This exercise is for building stability so we can bulletproof the joints. This exercise is for building strength so that we can produce more force. This exercises for producing more speed so we can be faster. This exercise is for this circuit is for building his anaerobic energy system so that we can maintain high intensity for longer periods of time. So everything that we did was driven by my y which was guided by his wife and when you have a strong enough, why then you'll figure out the how and the what now?

That's an extreme example. But I get just as much reward and fulfillment from my general population clients, not only people that I've worked with face to face over the years, but also my online coaching clients. And I've even had people message me that I've never met before that follow me on social media and listen to this podcast that have literally said you helped save my life. You are my inspiration. Thank you so much. And it's messages like that that I receive intermittently that sometimes brings a tear to my eye. It's it makes me proud of what I'm doing and it makes me want to continue doing what I'm doing because my whole goal with this podcast is to provide good quality information to cut through the bullshit. There's so many snake or salesman out there that try and fucking take your money in exchange for the quick fix or the magic pill or the silver bullet or the six pack abs in six weeks or and if that other marketing bullshit now, who's to blame for that?

Is it the people providing the bullshit information or is it the consumers, this is supply and demand. If people are willing to pay for shit, then the people providing shit are going to supply it because the market speaks now, how do I combat this? I need to fight fire with fire. My goal with this podcast is to put out good quality information not only on physical fitness, but health as well and mental health is a component of overall health. And this podcast is actually listed as a mental health podcast. And again, going back to why that is why I am an ambassador for Swiss eight, which is a proactive mental health program designed by veterans to allow people to schedule in and structure the most important things of their day and that includes sleep, nutrition, discipline, time management, fitness, personal growth, mindfulness and minimalism.

And these are all important aspects for Becoming better at life. Now. The reason that Swiss eight was started was because the founder Adrian Soda one of his best mates took his own life a couple of years ago and this is an issue that is ongoing in the veteran community. We lost another one of our brothers only two weekends ago. So the goal of this podcast is to get that information out there to the people that need it to allow them to take back control of their lives. And this is not only a problem in the veteran community, but it's also an issue in the wider community. And the second reason I started this podcast is because I get vague questions from people all the time and I wanted a resource to be able to push them too, so I could give them some clarity and give them the tools they needed to apply certain principles to their own lives and take what's necessary and make it there is make it their own and make those tools and principles work for their own life.

Now, I don't get anything out of this podcast. The only thing I get from this is those messages that people send me and that is reward enough, but the time that I dedicate into creating these episodes, it's a lot of time. I've invested a lot of time, energy and money into creating these episodes for this podcast and at some stage I will monetize, I will build out my platforms, I will build a website and co locate all of my information from all of my social platforms, my Youtube and the podcasts and everything like that. But my goal and my purpose for this podcast is to build myself as an authority in the space, someone that people can trust, someone that people can respect. That provides a no bullshit view and direction to allow them to be their best person. And when I do build a website and I do co locate all of this information and I do start selling e books and training programs and online coaching and all of those other things, then I hope people can trust me and respect me and start purchasing those goods, but that's in the making.

I'm not focused on making money. I don't really give a fuck about making money with this podcast right now. Yes, I will monetize at some stage, but that is not the goal. My goal is to help people navigate the ups and downs of life. So if any of my content resonates with you, whether that be via this podcast, my social media platforms, my Youtube channel, etcetera. All I ask is that you like share save and subscribe and recommend it to your friends, family, Anyone else that you think will benefit from the message. And if you share these podcast episodes on your stories, please make sure you tag me on instagram at coach underscore Kobe's k O B s. Any five star ratings and reviews are appreciated guys, that helps them to get the message out there, to the people that likely need to hear it the most. That's it from me today. Guys, ask yourself this question every time you're doing something or you're about to do something or you have a big, life changing decision to make, why?

Why am I doing this? How am I going to do it? And what steps do I need to take to realize my goals peace?