S2E03 · Solo Chats with Wallace

Hey legends, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. Now today's episode is a little bit different, I don't have a guest on, unfortunately. I've just gotten back from a bit of a walk with Lucy and during that walk I was kind of having to think about where we should take the podcast, what the plan is. I've been fortunate enough to have hit the 100th episode, which I'm super proud of. It's a big win for me and for us and for all of our guests that we've had on and hopefully for all of you guys that listen and pay attention to it.

I guess during the walk and over a few chats over the last couple of weeks we've been thinking about where we're going to take it and I guess this probably ties in nicely to the fact that it's a new year, it's a great opportunity for us to sit down and plan out what we all want to achieve, whether it be work, work life, health life, social, whatever. We had a great goal setting seminar at Virtus last week and I thought I'd take the opportunity today to have a 10 to 15 minute riff about where I'm at, where we're at.

Hopefully this resonates with you guys a little bit and for those of you who subscribe to the weekly wrap, the weekly email that gets sent out from the Virtus inbox, most of you would have, hopefully, I would like to think so, have read what I put in last week but basically I put together on my 28th birthday a list of the 28 things that I know to be true. Now this list has become a bit of a tradition for me to do on my birthday. I first started back in 2017 so this is year 3

and basically I write a list of the, back then it was 26, then last year it was 27 and this year it's 28, of the things that I think I know. I like the symbolism, symbolism, symbology, symbolism, that's from Boondocks, great movie. The symbolism of the list and coming back to that point each year to kind of see where my head's at, I still haven't read back through the list of 27, list of 26, I might do that after this podcast but my list of 28, I thought that as a bit of a detour, something

a little bit different than our regular conversations on the podcast that I kind of chat through it and then potentially we can convince the great man Simon Cooper whose birthday it is today to jump on and maybe do something similar with his email that he sends out to you lucky recipients that are on his email list. I guess a birthday is a good time to stop and reflect and kind of, with all the love that's thrown our way, it's a great opportunity to appreciate all that we have. The last 12 months has definitely been the

biggest in my life and those big moments will come out through this list but I always find it interesting, I wrote this at the start of the email, that we get older and birthdays tend to become less important. We stop celebrating them and I think that we should look at it maybe a slightly different way, we obviously don't need the presents and the cakes and the party bags and things like that that we used to have when we were kids but a birthday is not an extraordinary opportunity to reflect and look forward and appreciate all we have.

First one on my list was becoming a parent is all it's cracked up to be, KP is a wonderful mum and that was the first thing that came to my mind in terms of the big things that happened in the last 12 months and I want to make sure that I avoid being that new parent that tries to tell everyone what it's like but I kind of, the best, and this is a very inadequate analogy but the best analogy I've been able to come up with so far is if you've just watched your favourite movie

of all time and you want everybody to see that movie but you understand that through time constraints and different situations that not everyone is going to be able to see that movie and you want everyone else to feel that same way that you feel when you watch your favourite movie or read your favourite book or watch your favourite TV show and I feel as though being a parent is really similar to that, it's something that now I want all my close friends that haven't had kids yet to experience it partly so that we can go

through that journey together but on the other hand so that they can experience what KP and I have been lucky enough to experience over the last I guess it's 11 months, 10-11 months since we found out KP was pregnant and then 6 weeks of glorious Lucy time which has been incredible and I just want to say that one of the reasons why it's been so incredible is because of the immense amount of support we've got around us, they say it takes a village to raise a kid and I'm so appreciative of the village that we've

created around us that Virtus has contributed to and Common Folk and our different friendship circles, it's been incredible and I just want to say that KP has been exceptional, I knew she'd knock it out of the park but she's certainly, I'm sure she'll say that she's surprised herself but yeah she's taken it to another level to what I thought she was capable of which is a pretty cool thing to be able to see your partner and someone I've been with for the bulk of my adult life or for all of it, I've been with KP

for almost 11 years, it's incredible to see someone you love so deeply go through something with you and do so well so good from KP, I just realised that if I go through 27 more of these that long each, this is going to be longer than a 10-15 minute chat but anyway, number 2, sincerity, kindness, integrity, love and gumption are the big 5 personality traits I admire in others, I think it's in a time where we kind of focus on what's different and what we don't like about each other and that goes for the people

in our circles and outside our circles, it's a nice little reminder that these things, it's a nice reminder to tell yourself what you appreciate in others so then one, you can try and act that way yourself and you can be those things yourself but at the same time you can kind of surround yourself with the people that you want to be around and sincerity, kindness, integrity, love and gumption are the things that I guess I certainly want to surround myself with and want to surround Lucy with as she grows up. Next one, number 3, this

is plucked from a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear and it's a book that if you like highlighting your books you'll go through a couple of highlighters as you go through it, it's an incredible book to help you become the person you want to become and this line is from about a third of the way through the book and I'll paraphrase a little bit but you can become the person you want to be but you'll have to prove it to yourself daily by doing the little things that that person would do. So if you

want to be a person that's fit or if you want to be a person that's good with money then you prove it to yourself by doing those sessions and by budgeting and by saving and then that habit over a period of time and usually that period of time is much shorter than we think that person becomes you as you exemplify that person and I think it's so incredible that I find it a big responsibility but we're incredibly grateful that we at Virtus are in a position where we get to talk to people about their biggest

wildest hopes, dreams, desires and all that kind of stuff and the biggest thing that I've noticed over the last four years at Virtus and ten years in the industry is that the people that get where they want to get to they become that person well before they actually achieve their goals and it's incredibly important. The next one was work and rest are synergistically linked and this is something that I wish I'd told myself four years ago when we started Virtus that the more you work the more you're going to have to rest and it's something

I'm still balancing on both sides of the coin but if we can understand that to work hard we need to rest hard and if we rest we need to make sure that we back it up with some work. Having a little bit of time off with Lucy I definitely got stuck into the rest is best mantra and wasn't necessarily doing the work I needed to do so you'll get caught on both sides of that depending on what's going on in your world but if we can understand that there's going to be a balance then we can lean either way depending on what we need.

The next one is from Carl Paoli number five I was listening to his daily check in that he's doing at the start of 2020 I don't know how long he's doing it for but one of the things he said that really resonated was before pressing go on whatever you're doing check that it will bring ROI and joy so ROI and joy so ROI is obviously return on investment if you put time or money in something you want to make sure that it's going to pay you back in some way but the big thing and it's

definitely the way I try and live my life is that you need to facilitate joy from that thing if you love what you do no matter whether it's work or training or watching the stock markets or whatever it may be if you love what you do even if it's hard work you're going to keep going back to the well and you're going to keep contributing to who you are and what you're trying to achieve and I guess that comes with those last couple of points that I mentioned. Number six daily journaling is life improving and

this is something I couldn't emphasise anymore I struggled with I had the desire to journal but I didn't have enough desire to actually get stuck into a habit until probably about ten months of banging my head against the wall and I don't know what it was that actually clicked but the structure that I use with it now is I have a nice journal they all look the same I have a nice pen I use the same pen for all my journals and I number each page so every day I write one page worth of a

thought a feeling I kind of pull on threads and see where they go and I think I'm five hundred and something days in I should really know that seeing I write it down every day but yeah five hundred something days in and it's an incredible habit that has improved the way one that I think about the world and the way I can process ideas and difficulties and challenges and things but just as now I've got a body of work with I think about seven full two hundred and forty page journals that yeah are able to

help me help me either reflect or look forward or plan for the things I want to achieve next one number seven solitude is independence use this superpower to navigate your way through the craziness of the intention grabbing culture we live in obviously everything we do at the minute is attention grabbing whether it be work or social media or you know friends and family wanting your time if you have the capacity and ability to take a breath take a break and separate yourself from that craziness and give yourself some time to go inwards then your life

is going to be much more you can have a bigger capacity to give when times are crazy I think number eight simplicity is an art form I'm not going to add to that because it's very self explanatory number nine most of life's problems aren't technical we know what we need to do we just decide not to do it make your harder choice change your story do the thing now this is one that it's easy to understand but it's difficult to actually employ like we know that from a technical perspective if we want to lose weight

that we that we need to be in a calorie deficit that's kind of step one and the only step for a calorie deficit will lose weight but the act of actually counting calories and staying consistent and maintaining that for long enough to actually make a difference that's where we tend to fall down now Lucy's crying so I'm going to go check in on her and I'll be back and we're back next one number 10 before you start something know what winning looks like and this came directly out of the goal setting workshop we did the

other week was most of us want to improve like we all most of us are dissatisfied in some way shape or form and that's not a bad thing I think I talk about it later in one of the points but if we know what winning looks like then we can we can reverse engineer our way to to that if whether it be a you know a savings goal an achievement goal a weight loss goal whatever if we can reverse engineer it and we know what winning looks like then we can we can add up adequately

create not only a plan to get there but also the daily habits that are going to change that next one do hard things sign up for the marathon start the business commit to your thing then figure out how to execute this is positive pressure is something that I think helps almost anyone achieve their goals if you if you have to do a thing and you tend to do the work that comes behind it Cooper and I a couple of weeks ago did the two bays trail run 28 k's I'd run a marathon off it off

a day's notice which was a nice little ego kick but also that was a hard thing that I had to you know buckle up and keep moving for four and a half hours but we signed up for the 28k run knowing that it would be incredibly hard and it exceeded those expectations but I did the I did most of the work that I needed to do obviously Lucy interfered with that a little bit but I did most of the work I needed to do and now with football season coming up over the next month or

two I'm in a much better shape to physically than I would have been otherwise and mentally as well because I had something to train for all great questions of life in paradoxes all great questions in life are paradoxes there's always going to be two sides to every story or every decision you make if you spend more time at work you're going to spend less time at home and I think that's if we understand that the things that we choose are the things that we choose and you know that we can't have everything then we give

ourselves at least a little bit more capacity to appreciate what we do have and enjoy what we do have it's okay to be able to see both sides of something and choose one just make your choice this was when I was started writing this list so number 13 I was writing it and then my laptop died and I lost half of the list because I didn't have my charger with me and then the three people that had max at that table all had different charges which was a little frustrating so Apple Samsung etc get your

shit together and create universal cables the world does not need more adapters number 14 this is back on that point we're talking about before you can both be dissatisfied with life and love yourself improvement does not need to come from self-loathing I think we should all create a life where we're stoked to be a part of it but also feel the the need or the desire to improve the way things are I'm sure like life's great now but if the world can create different technologies and different capacities to connect and things of that nature then

the world's gonna be a better place in five years and it is now and you know one thing that always irks me is that certain generations say things were much harder in my day and you know for me and I think it should be for all of us that should be the point if we can create a better life for our kids and their kids and the generations that come after us then we've done our job we've contributed one of the quotes I do love is that society becomes great when a man plants a tree

that he knows he will not sit in the shade of and that's something that I think we can all find ways to contribute to the world that's going to be gone that's going to be here long after we're gone leadership is hard it's something that I definitely am aware of and anyone involved in any team sport or a team situation at work or you know understands that leadership is a choice but at the same time it's it's almost a choice you have to make if you want to improve what you're doing and you want to

connect and grow together it's leadership isn't easy answers it's hard decisions and hard conversations and it's something that I'm doing my best to be be better at in all the different situations that I'm a leader and you know funnily enough writing lists like this and writing in my journal I feel as though helps me with my self-awareness with which hopefully will trickle down and help with my leadership capacity in all different areas number 16 life is chaos you're responsible for building and building meaning meaning and structure into it I I have an existential crisis about

once every 10 days and one of the things that keeps coming up and you kind of think about the meaning of life and why we're here and all that kind of stuff and I just think that I don't know if there's a meaning to it all like no one can know and that's the kind of cool thing about thinking about these things but I buy into the chaos theory that everything just happened and we're just making the best of it and because of that we have the responsibility but also the opportunity to build a framework

and structure to create a life that we want to live like we look at famous people and people that have seemingly made it and they're no different to us they're no smarter they're just you know decided to believe in themselves to create the life they want to live and I feel as though we can do exactly the same thing whether it be contributing contributing to a community chasing your dreams hitting your goals doesn't really matter but life is chaos number 17 everything worth having is going to take much longer to acquire it than you'd like

to this is just this is life good shit takes time and you know we can set goals and and plan it to take six months than it takes 12 but unfortunately a lot of people drop off at month nine so know that if it's something you really want that you're willing to work for that it'll come it'll just take time the next one number 18 hit your 10,000 steps a day it'll make you a better person I bought a watch just after free season last year is to help me with my running and one of

the things that I've found to be the most benefit is my steps looking at my steps is just a check-in at you know whether it be lunch time or whether it be 9 a.m. in the morning or or 10 o'clock at night to go okay have I keep my steps today and you know 10,000 is my aim it's currently 3 o'clock and I'm at eleven and a half thousand so we're ticking boxes today and I just think that if you hit 10,000 steps a day every day of the year then whether your goal is to

get fitter stronger healthier lose weight be happier it's going to give you the tools to get there it also means that if I miss a day then you know I'd love for for it to hit it every day but I don't I didn't get it on Saturday actually Saturday tends to be mostly most of the time I don't hit on a Saturday but if I don't hit it doesn't matter I start the next day and make sure I hit the day after which is I guess important for any goal any target you have listening is

better than talking life is hard and if we have the capacity to listen to the people around us we can unlearn but also give everyone else a chance an opportunity to talk about what's going on in their world and and work through their problems and if if asked for it we can give advice if if not it it helps to listen know the bad things will happen prepare for them especially during the good times now I'm definitely going through a really awesome time at the moment we moved into a new house towards the end of

last year after a couple of years working towards it and and having Lucy and being able to come home and spend time with her has been incredible but knowing that this too shall pass even though it's good stuff good stuff or bad stuff it's there's gonna be both and if I can increase my capacity to be able to deal with the bad stuff all the times are good means remaining vigilant with things like journaling and self care and movement and all those kind of things then hopefully I'll have a bigger capacity to do that I

think we can all kind of work towards today is the best day of the week and it doesn't matter what actual day it is today is the best day of the week this mindset will drastically improve your life and how you approach each day it's it's something that I've almost unintentionally tried to do is that if someone asked me how's the day going I'd say best day of the week because being up early and being around a cool group of people every morning when I coach at 6 a.m. that that mindset one it helps me

bring the energy I need to to everyone else which you know if 6 to 15 people can be having a better start to the morning because of me then that's a win because they'll affect everyone else a little differently as well but that allows me to kind of get into a mindset of I can make this day the best day of the year or the best day of best day of the month or best day of my life if we have that mindset then you'll have many more good days than bad days and the bad

days you'll realize you know they're more so bad moments than bad days number 22 never underestimate the benefits of a moment or two of quiet self-reflection now for me it's journaling or just meditating outside sitting under a tree but if you can take a moment or two to take a breath and and think about where you're at what's going on how you feeling what's going well then I think you're going to have the capacity to do and be and give more through the rest of the day going for walks getting my steps up come for

walks with Lucy this helps immensely be reliable and be consistent two of the best things you can do to for yourself for your future self and for the people around you is to be reliable and be consistent if you know what you're going to get people know what you're going to what you're going to give then you're going to be contributing to something that's much much bigger than just now just the present moment you'll never regret committing the time to understand how something works now this is something that I'm not a very engineered engineered mechanically

minded person usually I'm just like yeah that thing works I'm happy with that but what I've realized through trying to fix a few things and and trying to become a little bit more more of a handyman in certain ways I'm still horrible but we're working on it is that if you stop and you know we have a world of information in our fingertips with our phones and everything now if you stop and and just give yourself time to kind of go okay well how does this thing work like one thing I'm staring at a microphone

right now and I have no idea how it works so maybe I'll Google that later if I understand that then it's just another jigsaw puzzle to how the universe works and you know no doubt if you understand how one thing works it'll help with your understanding with something else problem-solving ability and your capacity grows that little bit a little bit bigger trust and willingness are imperative for any group progress now you can think of a small group like might be a relationship or it might be a group of friends or work or a team or

you can think bigger collective group whether it be everyone in mornington or whether it be everyone in victoria or australia or the world we need to have trust and willingness in our ability to both contribute and to do the work and that when things are great that we're all going to chip in and then when things are bad we're all going to be there to support each other and I think it's really important that if we trust each other and have willingness to commit then things will be better number 26 find things in life that

are a means within themselves I think we all and it's something that something that I work on is trying to figure out the meaning with meaning of life and and but for me it's more so that the understand the universe a little bit better I think this is the best answer that I've come up with slash read so far is that the meaning of life is because you can figure out whatever meaning you want to assign to it and if we can do things that have meaning and that fulfill us then you know that the

meaning doesn't necessarily matter too much because we're creating our own number 27 I'm an incredibly biased individual actually I think we all are I know I'm biased I see things through one perspective and if anything I hope that things like this podcast and and the weekly rap and you know being able to listen to different people allows us to to see things from a slightly different perspective we all assume that what we see in the sky is the same we see we assume that we look at colors the same way we assume that we hear

things the same way but at the end of the day we all have a different lens in which we view the through which we view the world and it's important to realize that and remember that and understand that everybody looks at the same situation a little bit differently and I think that helps us it should help us be a little bit more empathetic to what everyone else is going through number 28 lists of fun I I love writing this list and you know I'm really excited for next year to write another one and I hope

all of you guys that listen to this enjoyed this kind of format of kind of me riffing and talking rubbish and I use the the list as something to provide a little bit of structure and framework to it but if you enjoyed it then you know maybe we can do a few more that's it for me be amazing at the end of the actually at the end of the list at the end of my email I write a little quote here's the quote for this one the older you get the deeper the love you need

London Cohen be amazing guys have a great day [BLANK_AUDIO]