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Welcome to The Chase.
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Hello, Ben. How are you?
Hello, Patrick. I'm good.
How are you? I'm great.
We're gonna answer a listener question today.
I'm excited about this.
We're gonna talk about kids and having kids and having more kids.
And I thought it reminded me as I was thinking about this question, it reminded me a listener Karen Young sent us her kids book.
It's called I am I feel it's a coloring book.
And she sent us a really nice note.
So I just I just wanted to read it real quick as a way to say thank you.
She said, where did it go?
You're actually cited in the book.
She cited Chasing Excellence, the book.
She says, Dear Ben and Patrick, thank you for inspiring me to chase excellence over the years.
And now I can take some of the principles I've learned from you both, along with my experience in early childhood, to inspire the next generation and their adults, too.
And she's in the great land of Australia.
And if you want to learn more about this book and about Karen, go to educatorcoach .com .au.
or find her on socials karen underscore educator underscore coach again the book is called i am i feel a guide to emotional regulation through affirmations so thank you karen for sending us the gift all the way from australia and ben i have a copy for you i just cool i've been seeing you since i got it say it all right when i read it i'll read it in an australian accent no please do oh i've got a question from janik he's a member of our chase club shout out to janik He says, I'm a 33 year old man and a father with one, one and a half year old boy.
I'm very active and try to live by the five factors of health as much as possible.
Parenting has really been challenging for me as it takes up a lot of my time, which means I often have to sacrifice my training at the gym together with other activities I used to enjoy, not to mention the impact it's having on my sleep.
I'm at the point where I'm doubting having more children because of these challenges.
The thought of starting over with an infant is very hard for me.
How did you handle everyday life with small children?
did you cut back on training or other activities you used to enjoy, or is it a matter of accepting the new way of living and knowing this will not last forever and times will change?
All right Janik, shout out.
Janik's very active.
I see him post a lot.
Okay. First off, congrats on having a one -and -a -half -year -old and being a father.
life you created life i have made life it's like uh tom hanks and i have made fire is that what is that the one we cast away yes exactly yeah there's no big deal from the 90s everybody maybe is that from the 90s i don't know maybe oh my god you're probably right that's wild 12th child.
Um, but yeah, Janet, okay.
So first off, maybe before we answer the specifics of the question, this idea that, um, you know, when you have one child and it's like, you're doubting having another, um, my experience was similar, but it wasn't stemmed from the, it didn't stem from this, um, change in, um, stress or lack of sleep or mine was like, I, I, this is really what I was like I have never felt this level of unconditional love right which is like this love for this thing no matter what this little baby does like I've never felt this and my self -doubt about having number two was like I can't imagine it would be unfair
for me not to love the second child that much and I don't know how that's possible it's just like I don't know how I can can do that because it's all here and what you know just kind of maybe solve or solve but explore that issue with people is obviously uh love is not like uh pouring from a watering can it's it's infinite right and it's not it's there is no fixed amount that you have to divide up in any which way um so this is my way of saying to janik that different struggles but man i'm really glad that uh had a second child so um i know you're going through some changes and maybe some challenges
and maybe some crap uh pun intended um but the first kind of realization is that life, business, whatever happens in seasons, right?
And there's times, seasons, there's times for growth, there's times for work, there's times for buckling down and enduring, there's times for harvest, there's times for rest, there's life, it's not a linear path.
It's going to come in these different waves.
And the one you're in right now is not the one you were in before.
You're in a different season.
So just kind of recognizing that and realizing that this doesn't last forever.
So part of this is just knowing, you know, I think of this in terms of, you know, in terms of like business, even family.
I think of it, you know, that idea that the call is coming, like the call in the middle of the night that something has happened and the proverbial call, right?
It's like in air quotes, it doesn't have to be a call, but you're going to have to go and do it.
You don't want it to happen, but there's going to be a time for all of us that's necessary for us to heed the call and rise to the challenge.
And whether that is your kid is sick and you need to, in the middle of the night, take them to the hospital, whether that's the fire alarm going off in your house and you have to get your kids out and you're not going to sleep very well.
These are all very, very short things, right?
that are going to affect you for one night, but how you respond to that is big and it's coming.
It's going to happen to all of us.
All of us are going to experience that in different forms or fashion.
Sometimes it doesn't happen in one night and you know, the work thing is a great example where there might be two or three weeks stretches where you're crazy overwhelmed, where you're anxious, where you're stressed out, where you dread work and the work environment and the workload and what you're doing and you just, you want to do anything other than what you're doing.
Those things pass. One is you experience for a day or a night, the other experience for weeks.
Sometimes it's longer than that.
It's truly a full season.
in, we had a down spell in our business, something like COVID happens, or where Jannik is, you know, you're now 18 months into this and it's a long one.
But again, this realization that it's seasonal and it's not going to last forever, you're going to come out on the other side.
And when you stop stop fighting that when you kind of surrender to the seasonality as a realist mindset of like, hey, this is part of it.
You stop feeling like you're losing is really what happens.
And instead, you can start winning and you can win.
You can win in different ways.
The way you were winning before was you're winning at training.
Now the energy, this kind of goes the opposite way I was just talking about with the watering can.
Now, instead of pouring as much as you did into training, some of that is now a requirement that you have to pour into your child and probably even more so into your relationship and your home life.
But that's still winning.
And if we reframe that, understanding that this season requires this, it's very different than, well, now I can't do this, so I'm losing.
That's not the case.
It is you as a holistic person.
Part of that is your training.
But it is far from the totality.
So step one is kind of this realization as Oprah Winfrey says, like, you can have it all.
You just can't have it all at once.
Like, you can be really fit and train a lot.
You can have a great family life and a child.
You can have a second one.
But we're not going to be able to get everything at all times.
The other was saying that I've, and I'm realizing maybe I stole that from Oprah, but the other is like, I've always said like in life, in business, you can get what you want, but you can't get it without the bumps in the road.
It's going to be hard. It's going to be probably painful, but you can get what you want, but you can't get it without the bumps in the road and you can't get it on your timeline.
So what most people do is they experience a a bunch of bumps and they give up or they say, Hey, I want this, but I only want to go through this, um, child, um, rearing time.
And I, man, I wish this was just like a six month period.
Like it's not up to you.
Don't choose the timeline.
You don't choose how big or small the bumps are.
So that really gets to kind of like my second point, um, which is the idea is in terms of training is dial it down.
Don't drop out. That's the, that's what it ends up becoming.
It's not about, um, uh, what you were doing before and measuring yourself against that.
It's what can you keep doing?
And what you keep doing is instead of two hour trainings, maybe it's 20 minute trainings.
Maybe instead of hour trainings, it becomes five minute trainings.
and while you used to be able to dedicate a lot of time and a lot of energy to this because you now have these sleepless nights it's just realizing doing what you can with where you are with what you got which what you got is 20 minutes 10 minutes 5 minutes and if that is the case I really recommend two things the first is what is the most efficient way to use that what can you get the most bang for your fitness buck for your time time component um which is I'll just kind of lay out an example um something that doesn't take any warm -up uh because a warm -up is a primer to get you to the really
meaningful thing so what can you do without a lot of warm -up and what you do that's going to kind of give you this big total body boost and power and the way I think of this is um pick Pick your favorite movements.
I like push -up, pull -up, sit -up, squat, right?
Because you have upper body push, upper body pull, trunk flexion, and a total lower body thing with the squat.
If you want to sell out lunges for squat, no big deal.
If you want to do leg lifts for sit -ups, got it.
If you want double bench for push -up, get it, right?
So don't worry about specifics, but choose your three, four, five favorite movements and do five to 20 reps for five to 20 rounds, right?
So the low side of that might be, I'm gonna do five reps each of those for five rounds, right?
And cool, you're gonna be able to do that in a couple of minutes.
But maybe it's the bigger one, which is we're gonna do 20 reps of those for five rounds, 100 reps of all those.
And the idea behind this is like it's not – you work up to 20 and 20.
That's not the goal.
But you work towards one end of them.
If you were to try to get towards those hundreds, right, which would be five rounds of 20 each, that's 100, or you go 20 rounds of five each, that's 100.
And that's enough variance.
If you just kind of think about doing those movements, you're going to – If you were to add in a run, maybe a one -minute run after every round, man, I'm telling you, Yannick, like you're going to feel okay.
The big thing is don't do things that take a lot of warm -up time.
Things like squats and jerks and snatches and even like something like box jumps might take a lot.
Instead, just what can you get in and do them and then get that kind of like threefold like muscular, cardio, that neuroendocrine like higher intensity thing done really quickly.
So that would be the first one.
You got to dial it back.
So not big training sessions.
What do you not need a lot of warm -up for?
And if you want to use dumbbells and stuff, just really light.
I love that as well.
well um and the second part is thinking about like exercise snacks so that might mean just while your kid is crawling around on the floor you're banging out a set of 30 push -ups and those little things while they don't feel like training sessions they're kind of powerful i mean like you're working on banging out a set of push -ups close to failure.
Just kind of if you were able to do that once or twice a day with a couple of different movements, put a pull -up bar in your kitchen between the doorway to the kitchen and the living room and just bang out a set close to failure.
The muscle growth hypertrophy and also what happens with like glucose regulation just from these little snacks is really powerful.
So if you were to do that thing, You only need five minutes of intense, really, I'm going to train, five reps done for a bunch of different rounds or 20 reps done for a few rounds and a little bite -sized snacks throughout the day.
Keep a kettlebell in your living room.
Pound out a set, again, a big, big set, something like 30, 40, 50 kettlebell swings, which, again, will only take you like one to two minutes.
But what that does is a lot.
lot and you have to kind of like stop measuring yourself against your past self right it's not about you versus where you were it's about you trying to continue to do the right things that's it like dial it back don't drop out don't compare yourself to who you once were let's pause to say thanks to a few sponsors and we'll be right back to the conversation we're brought to you by our our place creators of revolutionary kitchen tools that help you take control of your health through the habit of home cooking, head to from our place .com slash excellence.
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Okay, now let's get back to the show.
One thing I was thinking about as you were going going through that and to shift gears just a little.
I was thinking about the conversation we had with Chris Irwin about fear.
And I think I was thinking about that because I was in, I was exactly in the same boat that Janik was in after our first was born.
I didn't even want to consider the conversation about having a second.
And a large part of that was because my oldest wasn't a great sleeper.
And so it was months and months and years of, am I ever going to get enough sleep again.
Yeah. And so it was it was a hard conversation.
But like you, for other reasons, but like you, I'm more than happy that I was talked into it.
But I was thinking about the conversation with Chris.
And I was thinking about myself in that in that position in that boat, in the very similar, if not exactly the same context as Janak.
And I guess I would just ask him, what are you afraid of?
Because it seems like you're resisting something, you're afraid of something you're afraid of something not happening or you're afraid of something happening if we were to have another kid because janik knows and you said this right at the top like how could i love anything that add another one and you will you will realize that you have an infinite wellspring of of love in you and you know that already having one kid and so it's not uh it's not a question of like i gosh i don't know if if i don't know if i want another kid because because you will, because that's what they do.
They bring that much joy to our lives.
And so the question then would be like, well, what am I afraid of?
And I love everything you just laid out because I think when I think back to myself, it's, well, I'm never going to get back to the gym consistently.
Well, I'm never going to get enough sleep.
Well, I'm never going to fill in the blank.
And when you can actually articulate this, and again, I wasn't able to, I was sort of just in a 18 month confused state of fog because I couldn't articulate this because because I didn't recognize, Oh, what's happening is I'm afraid of something.
What am I afraid of?
If you can articulate what you are afraid of, you can start to build countermeasures and strategies against that.
A perfect strategy is what you just laid out then with that, that sort of that training paradigm shift for, for Janik, whether it's movement snacks, whether it's pick your favorite, you know, five favorite, whatever it is, that's a strategy against the fear of I'm never going to work out again, or I'm not going to work out as consistently as I used to, I'm never going to have muscle ups again, whatever the heck it might be.
When we give ourselves a strategy that stands in the face of or that recognizes the fear that we have, we begin to see past the fear and we begin to see how it's possible that we can do the thing.
And yeah, we're talking about a kidnapper.
This could be any number of things.
Once we're able to identify what am I scared of, I can put something in place to say, uh, okay, if I do that, it's not so scary.
And then suddenly the thing that is so scary, isn't as scary.
Uh, I'm going to take a stab at what he's scared of, because for most people, this is the scariest thing and it's the loss of identity.
affinity. Janet was a hard charger.
Janet, Janet was, um, somebody that, uh, prioritized sleep, um, training.
He ate really well.
He had lots of energy, um, fittest guy amongst his friends.
Yep. Had a bunch of activities he used to enjoy.
That's right. And when, yeah.
And now he's not that, um, because it seems like the challenge is like time and tiredness, but it's not, It's actually the challenge is a changing of identity.
Yep. We don't want to let an old version of ourselves dictate whether we are winning or losing because we need to be – it's kind of a weird dichotomy of like I'm the type of person that, fill in the blank, is the most powerful statement we can make because as humans, we have this massive desire for self -confirmation, to prove to ourselves that we are that type of person.
If you truly believe I am the type of person that, that's what your action is just going to follow.
And that works both positively and negatively.
I am the type of person that doesn't smoke cigarettes.
Guess what happens when a lot of people smoke cigarettes?
Like no way, man, no thank.
It's it's only because of that.
It's your identity.
I'm the type of person that people laugh at at parties.
Guess what? You're going to be lighthearted and make jokes.
I'm the type of person that gets up at 5 .30 a .m. and goes to the gym for two hours.
Guess what you do? I'm the type of person that can never get ahead and work and jump.
Identity is a really powerful powerful thing.
But if we're not flexible enough, it can really act as a self -limiter.
Because when you say is just like we talked about the different seasons, you shouldn't be the same person you were at 35 as you were at 15.
We want to grow. We want to be able to contribute to the world in more meaningful and powerful ways.
you being a very fit capable human being is awesome you being a pretty fit and pretty capable and amazing dad is way more awesome like way more awesome so we don't want to let your previous identity the way you are measuring up against that determine whether you're winning losing losing on the scorecard because the scorecard has changed you are now responsible for other things other than your own fitness and the truth is there is nothing more meaningful impactful and important in the world than fatherhood this is for males right i would say motherhood if you're a female it's the most important
thing so if that means training takes a back step Yep.
Dot, dot, dot. For a little while.
That's more than okay.
That's good. Now, the second part of this is one of the big important things of being a good father is modeling good behavior.
Good behavior in this sense is doing the hard but necessary things to stay fit.
You have a one and a half year old they're not going to absorb things right now but you're trying to keep the habits of don't drop out do what you can with what you got so that when they are two and a half three and four they see you as that capable dad they see you as the person that trains and exercises and eats well they see you as the type of person they're not they're not going to do what what you say, but they will never fail to model what you do.
I can't hear what you're saying because your actions speak so loudly.
So we don't want to do is allow this previous self, this previous scorecard to determine whether we're doing the right things or not.
We want to be flexible, malleable enough to, to, to adapt to the new, more meaningful.
This is what you've been training for.
More meaningful, more responsibility.
Do your very best with what you can, with what you got in terms of the training, in terms of the presence, in terms of the patience, in terms of the humility, in terms of the compassion, in terms of the love that you can bring to your family.
Squeeze in the training where you can because eventually it's going to be the thing that you're going to want to model as well.
And if you drop off, completely off, it's much harder to get back on that bandwagon just keep it going doing the hard but necessary work along the way it's how like I don't want to say it's like it's just kind of lowering that the expectations again we talk about a lot lowering the expectations of yourself in terms of the training spot but without kind of like falling it's you you're it sounds I'm not saying you can low it's It's OK to lower the bar is I guess what I'm saying.
Give yourself permission to lower the bar of I don't need two hours.
I don't need to be able to back squat for 45.
I don't need to be able to run a 530 mile.
I just need to be able to stay really fit, capable so I can I can model that.
Thank you for the question, Janik.
Hope that was helpful.
Thank you very much for tuning into the show.
Make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening or watching so you do not miss another episode.
For more frameworks and daily practices, visit chasingexcellence .email.
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Until next time, keep building health, finding freedom, and living with your heart on fire.
