Episode #791
Why do we struggle with maintaining consistency in their daily lives?
What internal barriers hinder our progress toward achieving our goals?
In this enlightening episode of the TPM show, Doug Holt and Tim Matthews, delve deep into the crucial aspect of consistency, shedding light on common excuses and self-sabotaging behaviors that hold individuals back from reaching their full potential.
Reflecting on their own experiences and interactions with high-performing individuals, they provide practical insights and actionable advice for listeners to implement in their own lives, empowering them to break free from limiting beliefs and cultivate habits of consistency and growth.
In this episode, you’ll learn the significance of morning routines and intentional reflection in fostering consistency and progress.
Discover how to overcome common excuses and self-sabotaging behaviors that hinder your journey toward success. Gain practical strategies for establishing high standards, embracing discomfort, and unleashing your full potential in pursuit of excellence.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 00:01
Rate yourself on a scale classic scale of one to ten. And then what consistently do you get to do in each of those areas, especially the ones that are falling a little bit lower below the threshold to raise them up? Right? What are the routines you get into? And then surround yourself with men who are doing those things. That makes it even easier. They’ve done so many studies that, for example, if you hang out with runners, odds are you’re going to become a runner.
Conversely, if you hang with guys that just eat pizza and drink beer all day, you are probably going to end up eating pizza and drinking beer just by association. So that’s the power of The Brotherhood and the other men that are in the movement, just being together, establishing those relationships, and being around other high performers who are always bettering themselves.
Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the TPM show. I am joined once again with my co-host with the most, Tim Matthews. Good to have you back on, man.
Tim Matthews 00:55
Yeah, I appreciate you making the time. I know you’ve got a tight schedule. Argentina’s coming up. You’ve got a hell of a lot on your plate in the lead up to getting prepared for that. And then I know you’ve got some time with the family as well after that. So I know it’s not easy for you to make time for this. Ideally, it would be in person. Right? But we’re not here. We are. So I appreciate you making the time.
Doug Holt 01:19
Yeah, man. You’re welcome. Always love doing these with you. And I think by the time this actually comes out, I will be flying back that 24 hours flight back from Argentina, the inner circle event. So for those guys are listening to this that aren’t involved or aren’t alumni or directly involved in the movement, the reason I’m going to Argentina, along with, gosh, three other coaches, so we got Arthur Magoulianiti, Brad Holt and Mark Hainsworth. We are leading, I want to say we have 40 some guys that are going to be there.
So men that are in one of three of our programs, The Brotherhood, it’s a twelve month mastermind group. The inner circle is a higher level group. They’ll stay on an extra few days and then some of our one on one client are going to be joining us as well. And so we’ll be going out there for epic, fun adventure as well as some education. We have three days of education and training, advanced training for these guys planned that Arthur and I are going to be taking them through.
So I’m excited about it. And time you guys listen to this. I’ll probably be coming back home. My wife will be handing the kids readily to me, my four year old, my six year old ready for me to take them over, go right back into dad duty.
Tim Matthews 02:27
Yeah, it’s going to be an epic trip. An epic trip. I’m excited for the content that you’ve got planned as well. I think the guys are going to get massive shifts from it. Don’t want to big it up too much. Well, in fairness, this comes out after the event, so it’s fine. But yeah, I think the guys are going to really enjoy it. And then, yeah, like you said, you will be straight back into dad duty. And yeah, it’s a lot, but you do a fantastic job. I always love seeing you in action as a father, always learn so much.
Doug Holt 02:56
Being a dad can be great, as all the dads on here know. But also, there’s a flip side to it. It’s kind of like being married, right? Being married can be great, but there can be a flip side to that, too. I was up late with the kids last night, hence the bags under the eyes. It’s been about four nights in a row with dealing with kids at night.
But anyway, let’s talk about consistency and not the consistency of not sleeping like I’m doing, but the consistency of doing the work. And you had a great. We were having a conversation offline, but at least before we hit record here, kick it off for us, Tim.
Tim Matthews 03:33
Yeah, so obviously, as I say, obviously, the listeners may not know, but one of the areas that we talk a lot about in the programs in the background within TPM is this idea of grounded masculinity, and we’re going to be bringing it more onto the show. And one of the key pieces of that is consistency. And it came up yesterday with the men in the inner circle.
So every week we take them through a breakthrough and accountability call, if you will. And yesterday we took them through some breath work practice, which is one of the key components getting into their body of grounded masculinity. And afterwards, they all had different experiences, but they all had very profound experiences. The insights that they got, they got themselves.
As coaches, we didn’t guide them or ask them any particular questions at all, but typically within the practice, insights come up. Right, Doug, you’ve delivered a lot of these and, like, just for you, the guys also get powerful, profound experiences and insights.
So naturally, when they share all these experiences, the question then becomes, why the hell do you guys not have a consistent practice? And they all look dumbfounded. Guys, can you just listen for a minute, everything you’re all sharing about the insights and how profound this is, it’s stupid. It’s illogical that you would not have a consistent practice. If you found something in your business that produced you these results consistently, every time you did it, chances are you do it again and again and again.
So therefore, why are you not doing the same with your own practice? And they couldn’t answer, but the penny dropped. It landed for them, which I’m pleased about. I think that’s an issue that a lot of men that we work with anyway, face this idea of consistency. They struggle with it. And I think, especially within grounded masculinity, a key component of it is it’s a practice. It’s not something you can do once. It’s like your fitness and your experience is going to look different every day. Like your workouts, they can look different. Sometimes you’ll go heavier, sometimes you won’t. Right? But the key is you show up and you make the practice a practice. And, yeah, I wanted to talk about that and lean into it because I think, like I said, a lot of the listeners probably also struggle with consistency.
Doug Holt 06:09
Yeah. Why do you think people struggle with it?
Tim Matthews 06:12
Excuses. I don’t have…
Doug Holt 06:14
Say more.
Tim Matthews 06:15
Yeah, a lot of them will say I don’t have time, which I think there’s time constraints for sure, but like you always say, show me your calendar, I’ll show you priorities. A lot of them have time. They just choose not to do it. So I think that’s one issue. And I think the other issue is the other excuse they tell themselves is, well, I don’t know how that doesn’t fly for the guys within our community, because they have so many master classes, they can access and listen to breath work, master classes and such. They have playlists that we’ve given them.
So, yeah, okay. They may not necessarily have tons of different guided audios, but on the flip side, they’ve also been guided through lots of experiences, so they know how to do it. If they gave themselves a little bit of credit, I think, as well. It’s one of those basics, isn’t it? Something that’s so easy to do and so easy not to do.
And as a result, I think they often begin to chase shiny objects and instead of being an inch wide and a mile deep, they become a mile wide and an inch deep. So they never really give anything a chance to get going. They don’t really get into momentum with it because they’re onto the next thing.
Doug Holt 07:32
Interesting. So what do you think? Tim stops a man, for a man that knows what he should be doing, right. I’ll use the word should purposefully here, knows what he should be doing, has the time, right? Could be using the excuse of time. Could be using excuse of how. But what do you think actually is the impetus for him not taking action? What’s the real reason?
Tim Matthews 07:58
Could be a couple. Right? One that come to mind, though, is self-sabotage. I think a lot of the guys that we work with experience this, right? They’ll start to do something that works, and then sometimes they’ll just stop doing it, whether it’s in the relationship, whichever territory it may be, they can often just stop doing the thing that works, and oftentimes in the relationship. That can be because they get into a good groove of things working, and they’re not used to it being calm within the relationship, just like they’re not used to it being calm in the business.
So therefore, they’ll find a way to create some chaos so they can swoop in and save the day from which they’ll then gain significance. They can be the hero again, and they also get addicted to the chaos and the excitement that comes from it. Yet it’s not a cycle that they necessarily enjoy or serves them. I think that can be true as well, within this particular piece. And feeding into that is upper limits, right?
Self-image, how they see themselves and what they feel worthy of receiving and what they’re intentionally inviting into their life because upper limits can come in for them if they allow it to be unconscious. Right? It can come in and take effect, which can then lead to self-sabotage. But equally, at the same time, they can push through that as well, especially the men in our community, because they have coaches, they have association to other men. So there’s really no excuse for those guys because they have so many resources to be able to break through that.
Doug Holt 09:36
Yeah, it’s really interesting when you talk about. You’ve talked about a lot of subjects here. One is we have excuses. What people say, it’s kind of that idea. People say, I don’t have enough time yet. We all have the same amount of time in a day. That becomes priorities. Right? What are your priorities that you’re choosing to do? And something that I’ll talk with the guys about, and I’ll talk about this in my own life, is standards. What are your standards? What are the standards that you live by?
And one of the things I stepped in to ran an alpha reset, which is our flagship immersion experience we’re doing right here at the TPM Ranch. And I say this a lot. And the funny thing about this is I said, hey, have any of you guys tried heroin? And you always get. No. I had one guy’s like, yeah, actually, fentanyl. And he was a recovering addict. Great guy, great guy. And I said, okay.
But I just continued on. If I offered you heroin now, would you take it? He’s like, heck, no. And everybody else, of course, no, no, no. And I also asked him, I said, look, if you are blackout drunk, first I say, who’s been blackout drunk? Every guy raises their hand. They’ve been drunk, at least not blackout, necessarily. I said, great, you’re drunk, you’re inebriated, and I lay heroin down and offer it to you. How many guys are taking it? Everyone’s adamant, no way, I wouldn’t touch it. Absolutely not. No possibility that I would do that. So, great!
So, you know, you’ve established heroin as this thing that you will not touch, no matter what the circumstances, including the guy who is recovering. But I’ve done this with literally hundreds upon hundreds of men. Always the same answer, no way, no matter how out of it, I am drunk, whatever. I’m not touching heroin. It’s a no go for me.
So if you can do that with heroin, why can’t you do that with other areas of your life? Why can’t you create other standards within your life that are? No. Goes back in my former life, in the fitness industry, I still know a lot of guys who are my age who are fit as heck, because for them, if they don’t see their linear Alba, which is that line that goes across your abs, that’s too fat for them, that’s just a standard.
And I think we get to define what our standards are as men. And it could be, in your relationship, your marriage. Like, maybe your marriage can’t fall below an eight on a scale of one to ten. Maybe that’s your standard, and when it does, you do something active about it. Or maybe it’s your level of happiness, maybe it’s your fitness. Maybe we go through all five territories, right, Tim? So, self-health, wealth, relationships and business, where are your standards and where do they lie? And I think most men haven’t defined, and so therefore their standards. It’s easy for their standards to slip.
Tim Matthews 12:23
Yeah. I love that. You make a great point. Goes to the point of how you see yourself, right? How you see yourself in the world and how you show up. It has to be intentionally created, not just once, but every day. Right. You get to intentionally carve that out. We have a lot of guys ARS, Alpha Rise & Shine. One of the principles and tools we give the men in The Activation Method for relationships, that becomes a standard for them, that becomes a non-negotiable for them. It’s great to see, right? But they intentionally create that every day, even when it’s not easy and it’s hard to get up to go for that walk and whatever else is involved in it, and they create consistency.
Doug Holt 13:13
Yeah. So when you look at this, you look at these standards or consistency that are coming here. Give the guys a couple things that they could be consistent about. If a guy’s listening to this and he’s resonating, he’s saying, hey, look, I haven’t been consistent, but I’m not sure what areas of my life I should start looking at. Where would you start?
Tim Matthews 13:33
I’d start with Morning Routine. That’s such a game changer, actually getting something in place that works for you, everyone. It’s going to look different for everybody, right? Be it the duration, be it, what’s included within it. But just one of the things that the men tell me often that really makes a difference for them within the Alpha Rise & Shine is that morning walk, right? Just getting up and getting out the door for just ten minutes, fresh air. They wake up and from that they’re able to then go and journal or breathe or whatever it may be, but just start there and whatever it is for you, 30 minutes, 45 an hour, whatever it may be. But that’s one thing that I think would be a huge game changer.
Doug Holt 14:18
Okay, so we got the Alpha Rise & Shine or the Morning Routine. You got two more here. So, okay, guys doing a Morning Routine, there’s a lot of them out there. Obviously, we teach the Alpha Rise & Shine, which guys can go back through old podcasts and listen to. We break down why it’s Alpha and what alpha stands for.
Give me two more, Tim, that you’re seeing especially. Let’s take it up a notch. The guys at the inner circle who are playing, it’s our highest level mastermind group. They’re playing a very high level. Those guys are crushing it. They’re getting a lot more coaching and accountability to push them and held to a higher standard. However, if you were talking directly to those men as a group, give those guys two more.
Tim Matthews 15:00
Their ability to reflect, they do this well, they’re okay with this, but actually having a consistent schedule in place where they’re reviewing their week effectively, and they do a good job with the coil, the chat of intentional living, they always come prepared to those calls with the coil score and their wins and their lessons and how they’re going to get uncomfortable the following week, however, they could do a much better job of it. I was literally just got off a coaching call with a very successful entrepreneur, and that’s what he identified for him as the one thing that would move the needle, because he would live in the gain a lot more. He would stack the wins. He would pass that energy on to his team. He would realize a lot more things. So reflection is one of the keys, not just weekly, but monthly, quarterly, to keep them aligned.
And the second thing would be to the inner circle guys, the transition from work mode to relationship mode, whether that’s the alpha decompression, but that’s something that they often struggle with, switching those energies up. You’ve spoken about having that sign on either side of your door when you enter office. It says it’s game time. When you leave your office, it’s playtime. Right?
We’ve spoken about using clothes and other things as ways to really anchor in the fact that you’re ending your workday and you transition into a different role and a different energy. And that’s something I think those guys could do a little bit better with, especially when it comes to them being more flirtatious and spontaneous and playful with the wife or the partner.
Doug Holt 16:53
Well, there you go. Excellent! Yeah. When I think about this, and I’m sorry. So coming through, I got guys printing letters right next to me that they apparently didn’t print. They’re looking in the window, hence me shaking my head no, I’m not shaking it to you. It’s too funny. Real life stuff, right? We have an alpha reset going on right next door in the main building on the TPM Ranch, which is fabulous, except for little nuances, sometimes little details. I think it’s really interesting. When I look at my life and consistency right now, I would say I’m the least consistent I’ve probably been in 20 some years.
And the reason, my excuse, I guess, would be that I’m chalking it up to a season. These last two years especially, but a season in life going through. And I think, as men. From my own reflection, I love your idea of reflection is looking at, is this a season or is an excuse? And if it’s a season, great. You can own that. And there’s a season for everything.
In fact, I was talking to one of the guys in The Brotherhood, Pacheco, yesterday, and or just a message to him. He’s got a new baby, so he’s not sleeping. His wife’s not sleeping. I was like, hey, it’s a season. You’re in a season. You’re in a season where this is coming. You knew it was coming. Own it, accept it, surrender to it, as you would say, Tim, and move on. But the key with seasons, in my opinion, is a season has an end time.
Otherwise you can continuously be in that season. You need to have kind of a line in the sand, if you will, saying, this season’s over. For me, this season’s ending at this time. And the issue for a lot of guys, myself included here is it’s easy to allow a season to drag on. Right? It’s kind of like working out again. When you start working out again, you get sore again.
Well, if you’ve neglected your marriage, it’s going to be tough getting back in the groove. Date nights are going to be a little cumbersome if you’ve neglected your business. Sometimes it’s tougher getting back in the office and working those long hours. If you need to do it, whatever it is, for you or for most of our men, it’s the opposite. Right? It’s tougher not to work. It’s like, wait a minute, what do I do now that I don’t have to be in the office at seven to seven? What do I do with my time?
And so I think when you delineate a season, right, we talked about consistency. You get to go back into those routines. And to your point, Tim, Alpha Rise & Shine is a great way of getting it started. And sometimes you ruffle know, because people get used to you behaving in whatever way you were when you weren’t being consistent. Or if you add in breath, right?
Something probably has to come right of your day, just the reality of it. And it could be something simple like you eat breakfast with a family. Now you do breath work, or you go for a walk and now you do breath work, whatever it is. But something gets to change. And I just want the guys to know when they get that pushback, that’s okay, right? You’re here to be the best version of yourself so you can show up better for everybody else.
Tim Matthews 20:00
Yeah. That piece. On reflection, I firmly believe that you are your greatest teacher, especially someone like you, brother, who knows what questions to ask himself. You’re in such a great position, right? That person that is able to do that because you know yourself better than anybody, typically. We know the stories we tell ourselves. We know the excuses we make. We know our patterns. We know all of it.
However, if we don’t give ourselves those moments to zoom out, it’s very difficult to gain perspective. And therefore, it’s very easy for every day to blur into the next. And before you know it, you don’t realize you’ve been in a certain way for however long and time has just passed by.
So, yeah, those moments in time to reflect, I don’t reflect. I guess I do reflect on the day as much, but it’s more so in my ARS but those weekly ones, especially the wins, so easy to just forget. The wins, so easy. Especially as business owners, entrepreneurs, spend so much time solving problems. So easy to forget. And that directly feeds your energy. If you always feel like you’re behind, then it’s very easy to then become more short tempered, more irritable, lowers your mood. You can take that mood home, you can take it into the team.
So, you know me, I’m a massive fan of reflection. And, yeah, typically something’s got to come out if you’re going to put something in, but it’s very difficult to be consistent without reflection. It’s like fitness. Those people, Linear Alba, that’s their litmus test. Right in that moment, they’re reflecting, hey, is my linear Alba showing or not? If they never checked in on the linear Alba, they’d never have anything to reflect on and they wouldn’t know whether they’re on track or off track or not. Thingy example, obvious example, but it’s so true. That’s part of their reflection in the health and fitness. So without it, you’re going to struggle to be. Anyone is going to struggle to be consistent without some kind of reflection.
Doug Holt 22:11
Absolutely. To be clear, I’ve never, my entire life, seen my Lindy Alba.
Tim Matthews 22:16
Yeah, me neither.
Doug Holt 22:18
I don’t think it exists. Awesome advice. So, I mean, guys, when you’re coming out of this and you’re listening to this episode, any of this resonates with you. I think what you want to do is sit down, reflect, but look at the areas of your life. Look at the five territories. Self-health, wealth, relationships and business. And I’ll throw in their fun, right, because a lot of the men that we talk to have forgotten how to have fun.
So look at those areas and then rate yourself on a scale, classic scale of one to ten, and then what consistently do you get to do in each of those areas, especially the ones that are falling a little bit lower below the threshold to raise them up? What are the routines you get to get into? And then surround yourself with men who are doing those things. That makes it even easier. They’ve done so many studies that, for example, if you hang out with runners, odds are, you’re going to become a runner.
Conversely, if you hang out with guys that just eat pizza and drink beer all day, you are probably going to end up eating pizza and drinking beer. Just by. I mean, that’s the power of The Brotherhood and the other men that are in the movement. Just being together, establishing those relationships, and being around other high performers who are always bettering themselves.
Tim Matthews 23:26
So true.
Doug Holt 23:27
Tim, any parting words for these fine men?
Tim Matthews 23:30
Yeah. One thing I’m going to add, when you reflect, you can’t give yourself a seven out of ten. Eliminate seven from that scale. Seven is on the fence. Either be six or lower or eight or above. Commit to being good or bad, not indifferent.
Doug Holt 23:44
I love that. I’ve been using that a lot lately, and everybody picks seven. It’s crazy. Where are you in your marriage? Well, not marriage lately, because the guys we work with is lower, but where are you in other areas? And guys are always like, seven, seven, seven. Like, okay, what if you couldn’t be a seven? Where would you be? And I would say nine times out of ten, they drop down to a six.
Tim Matthews 24:02
Very revealing. When you take out a seven.
Doug Holt 24:04
It is. It is. Well, Tim, I love having you on here again, buddy. Looking forward to you getting back into the US. We’d be sitting right at the table behind me having these conversations, these discussions. They’re fun doing them here while you’re in the UK and I’m in the States. But same time, it’s always great having you here at the TPM ranch. Gentlemen, as we always say in the moment of insight, take massive action. We’ll see you next time on the PPM show.
All right, guys, that’s a wrap for this episode. But as I always say in the moment of insight, take massive action. You see, there are two types of men that listen to a podcast like this, those that go on from one podcast or show to another just hoping things are going to change and realizing that they’re going to be in the same place month after month, year after year.
You see, I was this guy so I completely get it. You may just not be ready. But there’s also a second man, a second man that listens to a show just like this. And this is a guy who takes massive action so they can shorten the learning curve, compress time, and get RESULTS to be the WOLF. See, WOLF is an acronym for Wise, Open, Loving, and Fierce.
Now ask yourself, which one am I? And just be honest with yourself there. And there’s no judgment on my end. But if you’re ready to move from deactivated DEER mode, which is Defend, Excuse, Explain, and React to activated WOLF, Wise, Open, Loving and Fierce, then go over to thepowerfulman.com/grow. And go there now. In fact, I’ll make it super easy for you. I will even put the link right in the description here so you can just click it and go over there now to learn more. Guys, in the moment of insight, take massive action. Go from deactivated to activated, because like I said, life is too short for average and I’ll see you on the next episode!
