Amor Fati - Love Your Fate
Good morning, everybody. I hope you are doing fantastically well. Now, I got a bit of an ulcer in the back of my throat. So if I have to stop in a bit and just take a breath, you know, leave me be. It is painful, but nothing's gonna stop me doing these podcasts for you guys, or Twitter Radio.
Speaker 1:So now let me get into this podcast. You'll notice the theme this week. I'm not really saying about the protein studies and the carbs and all this stuff because I feel week four and five is all about the mindset. It's the breakthrough. It's not giving up because the valley of despair is something, it's a real thing happens in nearly every industry, everything you do.
Speaker 1:And it tends to kick in right now, it's like, my results are not coming fast enough, I want to give up. But what mind is fighting or chimping or mind is like black and white thinking, it's like, nah, it's not working. Leave it, you wanna give up because you're like, I've always given up so I'm gonna give up, it's what I do. And it's a battle. It's a battle to keep going and you've got to rationalize, you got to rationalize, you got to rationalize, you 've to understand your first thoughts, your first feelings, your impressions as they're called are not really serving you.
Speaker 1:You can decide to accept them or not, that's the golden thing to do. You can accept these things, that's the difference between us and animals. Remember, we can have an impression, have a feeling of a thought, most of them are automatic. We can go, hold on. I'm not gonna go with that.
Speaker 1:No. I'm not gonna go with it. Because you could go, I'm a loser. I've I haven't started my day off well. See, I'm a terrible person.
Speaker 1:You go, actually, wait a second. My chimp mind is going mad. That's not I'm not gonna agree with that. It's just it's just five minutes. How many of us have had a bad five minutes in the morning and we've gone, oh, my day's gone to shit.
Speaker 1:You you you've it's five minutes. Your day is still today. How many teams have come back from losing all game to win in the last minute? So many in sports. Happens in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1:We can see it happening in a sports game. That's kind of how the days can go as well. The days can be off to a slow start. You could be losing, but you can find you know, you can get out one big thing done at the end and it can cause a huge surge momentum. Happened to me yesterday.
Speaker 1:Slow slow day. Kept going out of meeting with, Eat Planted and it was pumped me up. They're gonna come to our event and do our stuff there. And then another meeting about our event and an app development meeting and usually they make me feel like lethargic and stuff because it's a lot of talking especially every morning is like a workout into a radio and then tasks and then talking more. But because it was such good ideas, it pumped up and if day finished strong and it started off, meh.
Speaker 1:Meh, meh, meh. You know I'm saying? So the old task now is to keep going and understand you've to zoom out bigger picture. You have to zoom out bigger picture. You have to do it.
Speaker 1:See, we're always gonna go through these struggles but the reality is nobody's come in to save you as many Zooms, as many turtle radios, as many voice notes we can help and provide support with actually can't help you cross the finish line. It must be you to do that. You have to do it. You can take a horse to water, you can't force her to drink as they say. And please don't be that horse that's been taken to the most beautiful pond and refuses to take the water.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what we're trying to do with you guys. We're gonna give you everything you need and you have to put yourself through you have to push yourself over that finish line. You gotta do it. You gotta muster the courage to do it. Now, every single person is successful in this plan even the super rich, they'll eventually will have to come down to some kind of problems and dilemmas but I'm gonna try and In terms of my own story, maybe I'll share a story maybe that's not fitness related just to show show you that it's it is about just dig digging in, being rational, having some grit, and having belief in yourself.
Speaker 1:It really is about belief in yourself, like I had no right to believe in myself in the early days. And I'm gonna try and go specific here like I was I was in the middle of like writing a book about stoicism and fitness and how it all connects and I was writing these parts out. And what really struck out to me is when I'm looking back at the struggles and I'm gonna use debt to you as an example and debt can be the same as fat storage like loads of debt, loads of fat to lose. It seems like an impossible task to get out of especially with other overwhelming things on top of things. I honestly remember like you know back in 2016 or 2017 it was and you know everything was going great for me with Rugby Warfare, was growing, I was in London, I was able to afford to live in London, business was growing, I was in WeWork, always wanted to work from a co working space, had this kind of idea of my head meeting so many people, know, meeting DHL and going to a DHL event and they wanted to work with us.
Speaker 1:It was all this kind of things were going right, things were going right. And then of course as a human being you make mistakes and take a few wrong turns and then you end up in a predicament where the business has gone from flying to overextending. All things are going class, let's change how we do things and that's what I did. So you think about you guys now, you're doing this for four weeks and you're I'm not sure it's quite working but I feel in better, my mind says better, go but I needed to work faster. So then you flip the script and you change it all and that's going to cause a huge problem.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly what I did when I started building momentum. I had a specific way I was bringing in clothing, testing them out, putting them out, getting pre orders in, then doing bigger orders. Was basically a foolproof system I built. I made sure the customer was involved in it. And then I went to, well, I got enough funds now, why don't I just buy everything upfront in bulk and then buy a huge amount more range and and to go from a range of like six items that I go to like 35 items.
Speaker 1:Why don't you just do that? And that's what I did. I changed everything. And guess what happened? It nearly killed the business, nearly killed me.
Speaker 1:The reason is all that stock, all the amount of money caused the shipping cost to be way higher. The import duty was way higher. The cost of package and everything you don't see was way higher. So me trying to get to the finish line faster, me trying to make more money faster eventually ended up me being £50,000 in the hole always 42,000 whatever it was. And I needed to get out of that hole fast.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, DHL would close the accounts down and I couldn't send products out. And then there I was just before Christmas feeling on top of the world, warehouses full of stock, feeling I'm gonna smash it to eventually do an end of year accounts. And actually looking at myself going, I'm in a massive hole here that I didn't see coming because I tried to overextend and I tried to get too much done at once. And I was, you know, saw those like, know what changed the goalpost in a sense and the same just think of in your sense. It's like going from a slow and steady approach like you're doing with us now to a crash diet and dropping your calories going I wanna lose weight fast, I'm gonna do it for two weeks.
Speaker 1:The unforeseen circumstance, the unforeseen circumstances of that, right? You know, you can't see them right now but they hit you hard. Low energy, lack of energy, irritation, agitation, anger coming out of nowhere because you got no flipping energy. You know, putting everything putting everything on fat loss, everything else goes secondary, pushing people away, being angry at other people, you know, not focusing on other parts of your life and these things have consequences. And you know, I said to myself for those times like, what the hell am I gonna do with this?
Speaker 1:I'm living in London. I've got a huge amount of debt going on. I've still got my own personal debt from university. I didn't go to university with any money. I was in massive amounts of debt there because I was stupid and took out loans to survive.
Speaker 1:And there I was more money going out than coming in. The business was stock there really wasn't selling because I tried different things, too many different things at the same time. And I remember coming across the phase, which means love your fate. And it is just about loving whatever comes your way and there is I've just mentioned this story before but there's a story of Thomas Edison, he had a massive lab full of his inventions and one night his son runs in and goes, daddy, daddy, there's a massive fire at the lab and he has to come and see it so the father goes and there's a fire and his father said, you know, Thomas Edison is there looking at the fire pretty much with a smile on his face and his mother comes and he's like, why are not worried? And he's like, well look you never No, he says to the son go and get your mother because she's we're never gonna see a fire like this again.
Speaker 1:And you're like, aren't you men to go nuts? Why aren't you trying to save everything? He's like, that fire's there, that lab is gone. Nothing I can do about it now. What can I do next?
Speaker 1:He just said, I'll enjoy the fire. Look at this, woah, look at those colors from all the different things. And he saw it as a way, you know, love what happens, it might be shit, it might be amazing but it goes into the fire and you do what you can with it. And that's what he did, he set up again and created a new lab, come up with new inventions, went on to make millions and didn't panic, didn't go all red, had a cool head like I mentioned last week in a moment of panic, in a moment of panic for most people. And I read that story and I had this Amalfati coin which I used to have with me, I've given it away.
Speaker 1:I remember Love My Fate, I was like love it, like this is something that's come into my path, you know, I made decisions I thought were the right ones and if there's someone to get over these it is gonna be me, like I've been put to the test right now. Can I pass the test? Can I do what it takes to get out of this hole? Or will all the work, all the grit I've done over the years of building a brand, building all up come to nothing because of one mistake? You know, just because I overextended once.
Speaker 1:And that's what I remember thinking I think right, what is my next step? Like what is this small next step I need to do to get this massive mountain of debt smaller? I was like I need to do a total evaluation. I need to look exactly what's going out to the business, what's going in. I need to look at everything.
Speaker 1:I need a complete stock take and then you see exactly where I'm sitting today. And that's exactly what it's like when you take your weight, you take your measurements, you take your photos, you start tracking for the first time you go, that's enough. I need to see where I'm at. I need For for goodness sake, I need to know exactly where I'm at. I need to know what's coming into my body, what's going out and I start here.
Speaker 1:And this is where we all start. Everybody starts from there. And then it's that one step next. What is the next step I need to do? What is the next one big thing I need to do?
Speaker 1:For me at the time it was, how much stock do I have in the warehouse? I've got x amount of stock in value if I sold it at full price. How much would that stock make if I put it on sale? And is this time now to try and sell it full price? Or is this time now to double down, get the money back, fresh slate, go again?
Speaker 1:That's the That's what I did. I said, that's it. I'm gonna gonna try and get the stock out. I'm gonna try and get out the doors. I'm gonna try and make the most of this tough time.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna weather the storm and I'm gonna break even basically. This is the time not to make money, not to make profit. I'm gonna break even. And that's kind of how these weeks of the middle are, these valley of spare weeks. We might not be making gains in these weeks.
Speaker 1:We might be making those high profits, those high fat loss weeks, but we're staying in the game. Right? We stay in the game. We don't make gains but we are gaining because we are still in the arena. So see it as that way if you can just hold on.
Speaker 1:The good days are coming I'm telling you. No matter what profession you're in, what career you're in, if it's a fat loss journey, it's a business journey, it's it's in education, you have these slumps and it's the people who just hold eventually thank the gods they manage to do it and then they come out on the other side and they are even stronger and better than they were before. And that's what resilience is and that's why my rugby offer t shirts a lot of got resilience on them. It's a word I love. I think we all need to have resilience, we need patience with a purpose.
Speaker 1:Okay? We need a cool head and we need to do these in these times. We need to do these in these times and these they can be overwhelming if you let her run away. Be like, I haven't lost enough weight, you can let her run away and go, I'm never gonna lose this weight, I'm never gonna do it, it's gonna suck, it's gonna define me. You can do it, that's a choice.
Speaker 1:That's your choice to do that. I mean you can automatically think it for a second but it's your choice if you wanna run off with that and think, ah, you have to be better than that. You have to be better than that. And you have to be able to say, you know what, I need to break it down. I need to take it one day at a time.
Speaker 1:I need to be this person. Like I say, the present moment is the only time you have. If you wanna be that person, if you wanna be a resilient person, do the resilience for today and you are a resilient person because today is the only time that exists. Think about it that way. And tomorrow you wanna be a resilience person, cool head, calm, does what it takes, you do it for the day, you are that person.
Speaker 1:Simple as that, you do that, you do that enough times, you've built up proof, you've built up integrity and it will become second nature to you. It will become second nature to you. That's the important part is like just you know proving to yourself one day at a time that you can do it and I'm sure most of you now got at least a few days under your belt that you can do it. You've had those kind of perfect macro days. You've had those perfect macro days and, it's happy days.
Speaker 1:And just see it as well as like see this process as renovating the house as well. You're not going to lose 50 pounds straight away in one go. When someone typically renovates a house, it's step by step, it's like a room gets done and most people can go all out and you've got enough money but a lot of people will do like a living room first and then they'll sit in the living room, live in the living room and they always say if you renovate in a house you want to live in the room for a bit so you know actually where the plugs wanna go, you know where things need to go. It's the same with this fat loss journey like you lose a bit of weight, you go on a streak and then you live in that body for a bit and you go, you know what, how am I feeling this way? How do I feel here?
Speaker 1:How do I feel in these macros? Do I need to go more? Do I need to go lower? Do I need this Can I stay here for a bit? Maybe I do need to go lower and then you go on another bit of renovation essentially and you live in that for a bit.
Speaker 1:It's never about just keep going and going and going and going. Because you notice you've some there'll be a sweet spot where you feel really energetic at a certain weight and you feel the macros are perfect and you might be like, you know, I feel awesome and yeah, I might wanna lose a bit of weight but is sacrificing feeling awesome gonna worth it all of the time? Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's not. If you got big weeks of work coming up and stuff like that, do you wanna be feeling top energy awesome?
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you need to be a maintenance for that, maybe not need, you don't need to be in a fat loss phase at those times. So it comes and goes like that. And that's it for today you guys. I hope that was useful for you. We all go through it and I'm positive that you can get through these days, these dark, gloomy, hard days and the spring is on its way, somewhere is nearly around the corner so there's a lot of hope on the horizon and I, I'm feeling very optimistic and I can't wait to see all of you in a turtle event or as many of you as possible, the end of Octagon event saying, know, War Scott, nearly gave up so many times where I kept going and thank God because I'm here right now.
Speaker 1:I'm so proud of myself. If you can visualize that day turning up being you know, I'm so proud I kept going, wasn't perfect, It's never gonna be perfect. But I'm so proud of myself for sticking to this challenge and taking so much out of it beyond just whatever fat we got on us because we're way more than the fat. We are not skin Beauty isn't skin deep, is it? It's not.
Speaker 1:But enjoy your day. Ground yourself again today. Get your one big thing done, and there we are off to the races. So enjoy yourself. I'll speak to you on Book Club later or tomorrow.
