Hi everyone. I hope you're really good, really good. I hope you're having a great time. I hope life's good. I hope your body's good, your health's good, your relationship's good, You're having some fun, You're learning a bit of stuff, falling down, getting up, you know, surviving, thriving, good days, bad days, peaks and troughs, bit of mayhem, bit of chaos, bit of joy. But I hope in the middle of all of those very normal human things you are doing good.
That's my wish for you. So today I want to talk to you about this idea of a used by date. We know what to use by date is when we talk about food and products and all that stuff, of course we do. And the genesis for this conversation. This morning I was at the cafe and a young dude who's lovely dude. It's a bit of a surfer. Dude, is a bit of a free spirit. He's twenty five. He spent three years driving around Australia. Can you believe that three is driving around a st just hanging out.
He did a degree before that in I think commerce and anyway, he brought me my coffee this morning. We had a big chat and as is often the way, for whatever reason, maybe it's me, maybe it's them, maybe it's meant to be. But we got caught up in conversation. Don't tell his boss that. And he was just telling me about what he does and what he wants to do. And you know, the interesting thing was he he's twenty five, so he's not eighteen or nineteen. But he's been working
on and off the whole time. And so even when he was studying, he was working, when he was traveling, he was working. But for the most part working. But he doesn't have absolute clarity about what he wants to do. And I said, well, that's the world's biggest club, so don't panic about that. Don't worry about that. You don't
need to figure that. This is my thinking anyway. I could be wrong, but I said to him, you know what, you're going to be working for a long time, and you want to find something that, either in the now or in the short to medium term, that you know that hopefully you love, if not, at the very least you really like it. If not that, then hopefully it's
kind of tolerable and has moments of pleasure. But we're talking about this idea of finding your thing and finding your job and finding your purpose and knowing essentially what you're going to do for the next thirty or forty years. And I said to him, he knows what I do. And I said, you know, I talked to people regularly,
and this is true. I've had this my whole life, where I talk to people who are forty forty five, fifty fifty five, and some of those people still don't know what they want to do in inverted commas with their life, or they've been doing something for a very long time time that they don't love, that doesn't fulfill them, that doesn't give them joy, that doesn't you know, it ticks a few boxes, but when you consider how much you work in the middle of that, you would think, well,
if possible, you want to do something that ticks more than just the financial box. And he was a little not worried, but thinking about, you know, the pressure to find your thing. And I said, you know what, maybe maybe you're going to find your thing and that thing is going to set you on fire. You're going to fucking love it. It's going to tick all the boxes you're going to it's going to be amazing, and then
in five years, you're going to find something else. And I said to him, you've got to think about the fact that things in life other than milk and bread have a used by date. And when I say to people, you don't need to find your thing and then that's you for the next forty years. Who said that, Like, where does that idea come from? That you need to find a career? And we know now that people turn
over careers a lot. It's very different to the old days, but still there's a lot of thinking that I need to find my ideal lifestyle. I need to find my optimal relationship or training protocol or way of eating, or I need to find my purpose and that is going to be me for the next forty years. Guess what, one, Maybe you don't have a purpose. Maybe you have several purposes. It's not just a single thing. I wouldn't say that I only have a purpose. And also, you know, you
think about where does my purpose come from? Like who decides that? Do I decide that? Is that some preordained etheroryal, mystical, magical, spiritual kind of thing that I need to go searching for in a fucking caftan and then discover it on a mountain and then come back from the aforementioned man into my life and then execute the purpose, the divine purpose that has been bestowed upon me. I don't send any evidence for that. Maybe you do. I don't seen
any evidence for that. Doesn't mean we can't have guidance or an internal sat Nav or a spiritual experience or guidance, just means I think more than likely you're going to figure out what your own purpose is, and probably your purpose is going to align with your values and your goals and what you love to do and what you think is important and what you think matters. But back to this idea of we need to find our thing
and that needs to be us, I completely disagree. And the reason I disagree is because this is my personal philosophy, by the way, and just see if it resonates. If it doesn't, of course, as always ignore me. But I remember, you know a time when I started working in gyms, when I was a kid, when I was eighteen years old, I didn't really have much knowledge, much experience, much qualification. It was different. It was a different time and different reality.
In nineteen eighty two, when I started working in gyms. But for me, it was nirvana. It's like it was fucking great. Like I was a fledgling bodybuilder. I was obsessed with myself, and I was obsessed with training and muscles and getting strong. And if I wasn't training, I was talking about training. If I wasn't talking about it, I was thinking about it. If I was thinking about I was planning for it. And I was talking to other people and I was helping a few people. And
then then I got to work in a gym. I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm in the place that I want to be most. I'm doing the shit that I love. I'm talking about sets and reps and dumbbells and bar bells and squats and drop sets and fucking progressive overload and all of these things that to me at that time were magic. And I'm helping people train and I'm talking to people about their goals and all of this shit.
And honestly, at that point in time, even though I was making a very modest wage for me, it was awesome. It was amazing, and I loved it. And where I was where I was meant to be. That's where I
was meant to be. At that point in time, and I didn't know, you know, I didn't know the benefits that were going to come with that, and I would in the middle of working in that space, and essentially my job was to teach people, to train or to write people programs, and to encourage them, support them, sell a few memberships, sell the odds, staminated reception, remember staminated. Those were the days. Sweep the squash courts, pull a few pubes out of spa. That's right, I said it.
Put the pool cover on tape, the pool cover off waxum chlora, and and all the fundamentals of working in a kind of a big ish commercial gym back in the day. But in the middle of that, I was also I was learning how to make decisions. I was learning eventually, by the time I was twenty one or two, I was managing gyms. So then I was learning a little bit around management and leadership. I was learning about solving problems. I was learning about different bodies and different
personalities and different experiences and different versions of reality. I wouldn't have articulated it then like I can now, because I didn't totally understand what I was learning, and it was bloody brilliant. It was for me the best job. It was the best job, and it grounded me, and it gave me a foundation to understand a little bit about business, a little bit about the dynamics of relationships and personalities. It gave me a chance to observe people
doing stuff to change their body, thinking, habits, behaviors. It opened the door on physiology and psychology. I couldn't I couldn't really tell you what was happening on a physiological level from a scientific point of view at that I could have kind of, but really it was more experiential. I didn't have an exercise science degree at that stage, and I didn't have the knowledge and understanding that I now do. But you know, I was a puppy, I was a learning I was a baby. I had my
training wheels on and it was amazing. And then I got to a point where, you know, that was good, but it didn't blow my socks off. And at about that time I started to train a few people one on one and I started this thing called personal training.
And then wow, this is different. Now this person's a project, and now I'm not just working with the body, but I'm working with the human who lives inside the body, and I need to understand what drives them and motivates them, and why they give up every three weeks, and why they've started this whole process thirty two times, and what are their goals and what are their needs? And what's their version of this? And how do I inspire and motivate and encourage them And what is the role of
motivation and what's the role of me. Am I the solution or am I a resource? And all this interesting shit. And then, as you know, I went on to most of you know, I went on and I opened up a studio and all that stuff, and I had great times. But I got to the point where Jim instructing it was like, eh ah, it was amazing, and then it was good, and then it was okay, and then it was like, ah, this is kind of not blowing my
socks off anymore. And that's not good or bad. And it's not that Jim instruction that writing programs and putting away dumbells and grooving around the gym talking shit in my fucking tracksuit. It's not that that was bad. It's just that I had kind of evolved, I kind of learned a fair bit and I was ready for new stuff. And so for me, Jim instructing it kind of reached that threshold where I'm like, this doesn't excite me. Now, I don't love this anymore. And that's not good or bad.
That is part of the natural evolution of you or me. Now not everybody is like me, of course, and some people will do a job and they'll kind of get the same level of fulfillment for forty years, and that ain't bad of course. In fact, that's kind of amazing. If you can do something that every day you show up and do a version of the same thing and it gives you joy forever. Well, I'm a bit jealous, but that's not me. I need I need kind of I need variety, I need progression, I need new things.
And I started this then called personal training, and that was amazing. I'm like, this is incredible, and I'm going deep with people and I'm kind of project managing their life from this getting in shape point of view, obviously not their career and all that. But having said that, pause, what's funny is when you're in that personal training role and then people you build a relationship, you develop rapport, you build loyalty with clients. They trust you, they like you,
they respect you, they listen to you. All of a sudden, I'm like, this person's talking to me about everything. I'm not just teaching them how to do squats and how to lower their body fat. It's like, well, now we're talking about We're talking about bigger, broader stuff, talking about life, talking about feelings and emotions and relationships. Then all of a sudden, I progressed from from really being all about physiology and bodies to all now I'm really interacting on
a higher level. And again I got excited because it was new. It was an evolution, it was a development, right, And then then you get like, well that this is good, but what else? And you know then what else was Well, maybe i'll employ it personal too, And because I'm really busy, I'll employ someone. And I ended up employing young Maddie,
my first trainer, Rip love you, Maddie. And you know, we got to the point where he was busy and I was busy, and I'm like, wow, shit, maybe we needs And then all of a sudden, this thing evolved and now I'm fucking I'm a business man. I'm like, how did I become a businessman, so me just being the solo personal trainer at kind of that evolved and
that reached its use by date. I did it for quite I did it for years, and then I went all right, I'm going to have somebody who can do the sessions that I I can't fit in, work with the people that I can't fit in. And he did great, and I did great, and then we've got someone else. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh boom, I've got a team of personal trainers and I've got
this facility. How does this even work? And so that evolved, and I won't bore you, but that eventuated into a twenty five year journey which was constantly changing, and the business was constantly evolving and adapting, and I was constantly learning and fucking up and getting up and good days and bad days. But there were periods along the way, constantly, and not just in my work but in my life more broadly, where I realized I'm done doing this or I'm done doing this this way. In terms of this,
I've reached my used by date. And it's not that doing this particular thing is bad, it's just that this doesn't excite me. This doesn't light my fire, this doesn't challenge me, this doesn't fulfill me the way that it did. And so as I have things needed to evolve around me. I needed to do things differently. And again, like I said, some people don't have that need that I have to be kind of doing things. And I don't mean things
have got to change every week. But I remember training people and I had, you know, I had this place on the Pean Highway in Brighton, which is in Melbourne. I had this ten thousand square foot facility. It was fucking beautiful. We had the best part of a million dollars worth of equipment. I mean, it was amazing. It was an amazing facility and I was super proud of that.
And we had a great team, and I employed over twenty five years, I had four centers, and I employed about five hundred trainers or they worked under my banner as consultants, but about five hundred personal trainers were the Harpers brand, which was nice. And I learned a lot, and I grew a lot, and I fucked up and I made mistakes and I did dumb things and I
did great things. But then one day, you know, I realized I don' this, I don't hate it, and it's okay, you know, it's all right, But you start to realize. I started to realize, you know what I like doing more than just like helping people get lean or change their body composition. I really like speaking because I've done
a few talks to a few groups. And I went, maybe maybe that, And I got to the point where I was in my own gym with people around me who are great, great energy, you know, super smart, and I'm like, I don't love being here. I don't love this. And that's not bad. That's just that happens. Now. When something like that happens, you go, wow, I'm in my own business. I'm making pretty good money. Things are good. We've got lots of trainers, lots of clients, the business
is working. But in the middle of this, it's not blowing my socks off. It's not blowing my socks off. And I kind of got to I got to a used by date with being on the gym floor, and so I toughed it out for a bit and I went, what else do I want to do? And I went, I really enjoy And I'd started to do a bit of speaking, and I did, and every time I'd get in front of an audience and do some stuff. And by the way, I wasn't very good. I wasn't very good at all. I was kind of shit, to be honest.
But there were moments in my fifty minutes of presenting. There were probably five minutes that were okay and a couple of minutes that were fucking golden, forty two minutes of well, three minutes of ouck, you need to improve. But there was like a little light at the end of the tunnel, and I got to the point where I realized that me and the fitness industry in that capacity were almost done, and that evolved. I had to use by date with that I had. I had a
use by date with the way that I trained. I used to train like a fucking crazy person, constant heavy weights, and all I did was heavy this and heavy that, and all I wanted was I just want to be fucking massive and ripped. And we won't go into the psychology, theology or a emotion of that, because that's another podcast. But I trained a certain way and I loved it, and I love being kind of big, and you know, I love being like one hundred kilos with fucking muscles
everywhere and all that shit. And I didn't always manage that, but that was and then I got to the point where I went, eh, I don't love this. I don't love the way that I look, I don't love the way that I feel. I don't love this kind of So even my training, I reached it. And it wasn't even because of injuries, but I just reached it. Used by day with that, I started to do different things
and I went, oh, fuck, this is fun. I really enjoy doing something that isn't just big, barbaric neanderthal fucking waits me in the gym, just doing the you know, groundhog Day. And I think that, you know, we can get into our a psychological and a behavioral pattern that is it's okay, it's okay. Sometimes it's not even that. Sometimes it's black. And I don't think we necessarily need
to keep reinventing ourselves on a weekly basis. We don't, but I think we need to acknowledge that some things in our life just have are used by date relationships. For example, now I'm not talking about a marriage, I'm not talking about jump. Oh, you're having a bad day
jump out of the marriage. And I'm not talking about that, but I'm just talking about you know, when you have a person in your life's a friend or a colleague or someone that you hang out with a fair bit and there's a connection and there's whatever, and you have all had this where that relationship gets to a point where, ah, it's not the same, it's not the same. Could you could be them, could be a bit of both. Doesn't have to be bad or confrontational or toxic, it doesn't
need to be that. But it's like, ah, I feel like this relationship, or this version of this relationship, it's kind of almost done. It's like there's a used by date. And I think sometimes whether it's a relationship, or whether it's a job, or whther it's a way of eating, or whether it's a way, whether or not it's a lifestyle, like I think we need to recognize when things aren't and I use this term broadly, when things aren't working,
when things aren't working for you. And this is where we open the door on paying attention to not only what our body is saying and our emotions are saying, and ow that that internal sat nav, that wisdom, that inner wisdom, and it's really it's really easy to ignore that in the busyness and the mayhem and the continuity
and the groundhog danus, the momentum of our life. You look up and you go, fuck, I've been doing something I don't really enjoy a lot for four years now and it's really not working on a range of levels for me. Maybe I need to hit the pause button. It's really easy to do that. But this is where, as I said, we start to open the door on this idea of paying attention to all us. I said, the physical, mental, emotional, but also what's my life telling me?
What are my outcomes? What are my relationships telling me? What are my results telling me? With whatever, with my training, with my money, with my energy, And to be able to say, all right, well, what do I want the next five years of my life to look like? Is what I'm doing now? Is it working? And if it's working, right, carry on business as usual. If it's not working, do I need to change it totally? Do I need to change it a bit? Maybe seventy percent of it's working,
but thirty percents not. What's the thirty? What can you do about the thirty? I never got to the point where exercise didn't work for me, but it was just the way that I exercised. I used to be a chronic people pleaser. I still love people, and I still want to serve people and help people. But I will also tell someone to fuck off if they're being a prick, and that's okay. And I might literally tell them to fuck off or metaphorically, and that's okay because I'm not
an emotional doormat and you're not an emotional doormat. It's okay to be strong, compassionate, loving kind and say fuck off when it's appropriate. And you may not literally say fuck off, but your version of that or this is not okay. This is not okay. And to be able to step back and to step back metaphorically and maybe even practically sometimes from the mayhem, from the busyness, and say what's going on in my head and my heart? And does this career? Does this does this thing serve me?
Or am I just? Am I just treading water? You know, it's not that something is necessarily bad, but it just might be four out of ten for you, Like if you're doing something that's by the way, and if you doing and you realize you're in a whatever, a job, a career, I don't know, a habit, a behavior, or an operating system that doesn't work for you. You don't need to change it tomorrow, but maybe you need to think about, well, if this isn't really working, what might work. There was
a time when I was super duper social. And it's not that I'm anti social now, but I realized that I used to do a lot of stuff just because I wanted people to like me. I would I would go to social things I actually didn't want to go to because I didn't, you know, I wanted to belong and I didn't want to piss people laugh, and I didn't want to be rejected. And maybe this is a maturity thing, but you know, like I don't want to
go me personally. I completely understand people who want to be environments where it's in environments where it's fucking going off like a frog in a sock and there's booze and there's partying and there's dancing, and it's high energy and it's fu and chaos. I get. I do not on any level think that's bad. What I think is that's not for me. And it was almost in I reckon like a week where I went, I'm not doing that anymore, and people will go, what's you know? Why
don't we're going? Do you want to? And I ended up saying I think you're great. I just don't want to do that. People go, we're going bowling. Do you want to come? I go no, and they're like what, I go no? I go your ace, But I hate fucking bowling. So you go bowling, and maybe you and I catch up for a coffee another time. And it's okay. It's okay not to do everything that everyone wants you to do. It's okay not to stay in a toxic relationship.
I know that is a complicated thing, but you know, any relationship, it could be somebody at work where you really need to change the dynamics of that. Maybe not get out of it completely, maybe you can't, but maybe you need to change the way that that relationship operates. You know. With the podcast for example, somebody said to me the other day, how many podcasts are you going to do? I don't know. I might do five more, and then I go, ah, I'm done. I don't think
that's going to be the case. But I can promise you irrespective of how much money I make through sponsorship, which you know it's varies drastically. But if I was making a bunch of money but I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. Right now. I love podcasting. I love doing what I'm doing now, sharing, teaching, I love I love hopefully encouraging and supporting you in who you are becoming, what you want to do, be, create change.
I love all that. I love talking to fucking fascinating people, and I don't think that's going to wear off anytime soon. But if in a year I go, yeah, I'm done, then I won't do any more podcasts. I'll go find something else, you know, And that's okay. So this idea that you know, we need to find our thing, we need to find our thing, and we need to stay with that thing. And you know the truth is that maybe the thing that you love and right now you may still love it, you may love it more in
ten years, or you might in six months ago. It doesn't float my boat. And just because someone else thinks you should be doing that, or you feel guilty or obligated to do that, that doesn't mean you've got to do it Now. I'm not talking about shirking responsibilities as a parent or anything like that. I'm just talking about this personal journey that we go on. So my advice to you, if you're still listening and if you are hucking well done, is to think about, am I doing
this thing? Whatever the thing is, whatever the component of your life is. Am I doing this thing because this is the thing that I should be doing. This is the thing that works and not just works on one level, but works on a multitude of levels. You know, Am I doing the thing that floats boat? Am I growing? Am I learning? Am I evolving? Am I recognizing the used by date of this thing? And I? Am I
living consciously? Or am I just treading water? Am I just doing mediocre and not using my talent, not using my potential? Can I do more? What is the more that I can do? What is the more that I should do? What is the more that I want to do that alignes with my values? What's the more that I want to do that's going to make me the best version of me? Am I excited? Do I want to get excited? Do I want to tread water? Or
do I want to grow and learn and evolve. Do I want to lean into the mayhem and the madness and the mess so that I can build resilience and knowledge and understanding and competence and skill, so that I have not necessarily a constantly comfortable life, but a fucking exciting, challenging life. So I encourage you to think about the used by date of everything in your life and whether or not it might be time to open a new door. Ah My, go and eat some chicken. See you next time.