S2E08 · Systems for Success

If we can build systems into our life to go, okay, well, I've just had that problem, it might be from a business point of view, it might be a staff member leaving, for example. Okay, well, how do I better navigate that situation next time? What's the system I can use? How can I dot point it out or step by step process it out to better deal with it next time? Good things usually aren't unique events, whether it be personal life or business. So if we can go, okay, what did I do last time? What worked? How can I better this system?

Then you've always got a framework that you're building and working on. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite. Let's do this, come on. Mounting. It's too damn hot for a penguin to be just walking around. And here we go. And here we go. We're in. Simon Cooper, welcome back to week three of season two of the Virtus Performance podcast. It's a mouthful. Welcome, Wallace. How are you? Good, man. I'm going very well. How's the, uh, how's the last week been, uh, the last week it's been, it's been heavy. I think, um, a lot

of projects that we're working on at the moment at Virtus, which is exciting, but I think the we've got a lot of ideas bouncing around our heads and putting them down on paper and then starting to bring them to life is a little bit harder, maybe. Um, definitely, but good times. The last week of the COVID games, yes, we're running at the moment and we'll start to lean into a new project for all of our members in the next couple of weeks, which is very exciting. Love everything about that. Yeah. How are you feeling? Uh, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good.

A little, uh, like you said, we've got a lot of stuff on the go. Um, and I actually generally got it the other day, but I've got this little, uh, little flow charting kind of thing, which I realized after doing it is almost a ripoff of Ray Dalio's five step process. But anyway, but we've got so many ideas floating around. The next step to an idea is planning and the next step to planning is action. And then the next step to action is problem solving. And then it's an idea and it's just, just that flow through those.

And I reckon I'm stuck a little bit in the planning stage, uh, probably ideas and planning. Like I've got all these projects on the go, you know, like courses and the next program we're doing for the, for the Virtus family after COVID games. Um, and I guess that's all come to a head this week being the last week of the COVID games that I probably haven't actioned as many things as I would have liked. So, so that's the, that's the gap that I'm feeling at the moment, but yeah, for anyone, for anyone listening, who isn't aware what the COVID games is, jump on the website, search COVID games.

Uh, it's a, it's a little, uh, what would you call it? Not a competition. It's a whole life challenge, whole life challenge based around community and connection. Well, put that on the t-shirt why didn't we use that as a primer for it six weeks ago? So today we are talking about systems for success, and I think the way that we've just started this episode is maybe a good way to start to frame what, uh, systems for success mean to us, uh, especially with at the moment where we need to have these systems to carry us through these challenging times that we're going, uh, that we're going through.

So, um, and Locky's run a couple of workshops on systems for success. So maybe three, two. Yeah. So I guess like that's the thing we've been running these initially they were framed as goal setting seminars at Virtus for a couple of years. And then I guess through my own learning and understanding and, and the way I've kind of defined maybe success or goal setting in the past, I've kind of shifted a little bit. So um, did anyone face to face was the first one started lockdown? The first one, we did do a face to face workshop framed around goal setting, which, which we ran together.

Yeah. And then you've done two virtual ones. Yeah. So I guess the first one that I kind of changed, like the name, which isn't a whole massive thing, but changing the name from like goal setting to system success, I kind of realized that all of the things we want to achieve are not necessarily achieved because we put that goal out there. They're achieved because we create systems and processes habits in our lives to be able to fall back on when things aren't going well. Like we've all been in the headspace of wanting to start a new diet or wanting to get leaner or wanting to train for a marathon or train for a specific event.

But where we tend to fall down is if we don't have those processes and systems to, to fall back on. So the way the, the way the seminar is designed, it's around teaching everyone who is wholly capable of achieving all the crazy shit they want to achieve, is teaching them how to build systems into their lives to allow them to do that. Like I start the seminar with the definition of a goal versus definition of a system. And the definition of a goal is really simply just outcome orientated. It's figuring out what an object of your desire is and it's working and especially going, looking at with the end in mind.

Whereas a system is just a set of principles and procedures that allow you to, to achieve that goal. So it's not like I've thrown goal setting out, out the window but I think the, the meat of goal setting needs to be around building systems and identifying how you can, how you can win consistently to allow yourself to get to that goal that we all set. So what would it, what would an example of a system versus goal be? All right. So a goal might be running a marathon, right? We've all done it. Some of us have done it.

You've done it. Kind of counts. I guess. Kind of counts. I've done it. Don't do it. It's a trap. It sucks. It hurts the whole time. Unless, unless you're a runner and then, yeah, but that's exactly it, right? So I, and this is, I promise I'm not pumping my own tyres up, but I ran a marathon on a day's notice. Right? KP had a, had wanted to run a marathon for a while. I bought it for her birthday because you know, these are the kinds of things we do for each other's birthdays. And a friend of ours, Paz, was meant to be running with her and he threw his back out a couple of days prior.

I think this on the, it was on the Sunday and on the Saturday afternoon, KP goes, do you want to run with me tomorrow in Paz's place? And I was like, oh, it always, I guess kind of said, oh yeah, I could run a marathon. What obnoxious egotistical footballer doesn't say that eight times a year. But when I was faced, when I was faced with it, I went, holy shit, can I actually run a marathon? And I guess what proceeded over the next 24 hours was, yes, I did run the marathon, but it was significantly harder than it could have been or maybe should have been if I had the systems to back it up.

So to give everyone that doesn't know me a background into my training, I've been focusing on football for the last, what am I, 28, 10 years. Before that I was a runner, but middle distance at the most. So middle distance, cross country at the most. So the idea of running a 42K race or run was very foreign to me. You know, being in the gym industry, I definitely lent into strength training over the last few years. So knowing that I had that base strength and fitness to lean on, I knew I could do it. Plus the healthy bit of ego, I guess, was also there to know I could do it.

But definitely, like the longest I'd run before that was I think 15K in an actual race and probably ever. So jumping from 15K to 42K is a bit silly, and I definitely wouldn't suggest any of my athletes do it, but going back to goals versus principles or systems is the goal is to run a marathon, whereas the system is to - it's basically the training that backs it up and the underlying training. So what I would much prefer is that rather than training for a marathon, stopping at the end, say one of my athletes or

me or you, training for a marathon, stopping at the end and not running anymore, we in-build these systems of training into our lives, strength base and aerobic base, et cetera, et cetera, to allow us to, you know, on a couple of days notice to be able to throw ourselves into an event like a marathon or a trail run or something like that. - Yep. So there's all these - I guess there's different systems that you can kind of create for yourself that build your overall capacity to achieve those - the goals, like the objectives. -

It's a capacity question, and I think that's - the mindset of an athlete is very events-based and it's very, you know, whether it be football playing footy on a Saturday or the pre-season preparing for round one, or whether it be, say, an Olympic athlete basing their training around the four-year block of the Olympic cycle. It's very goal-orientated. But during that goal orientation, they're consistently building systems, creating a bigger capacity, levelling up their abilities to do things over and over again so that each four-year cycle, you know, Ray Dalio's loops, which if anyone hasn't seen it, just Google YouTube Ray Dalio principles and you can dive into that.

But Ray Dalio's loops surround always constantly improving. If you focus on systems, then everything you do is money in the bank for the next thing you want to do. It's compound interest. And the football training and the strength training, although not ideal to run a marathon, just having those things, they helped me execute on that, you know, albeit stupid endeavour for that Sunday morning. - Yep. Yep. And you touched on it there. The other feature of a system is that it's replicable, so you can outline the process and you can repeat it over and over again, almost regardless of what the outcome or the goal is.

- Definitely. When we're faced with an obstacle or a problem, for the first time, we have a crack at that problem the best way we know how. That problem, in some way, shape or form, is going to reappear in our life, whether it be a breakup or a business failure or whatever. There's always going to be those problems that keep reappearing. If we can build systems into our life to go, okay, well, I've just had that problem, it might be from a business point of view, it might be a staff member leaving, for example. Okay, well, how do I better navigate that situation next time?

What's a system I can use? How can I dot point it out or step-by-step process it out to better deal with it next time? Those things usually aren't unique events, whether it be personal life or business. So if we can go, okay, what did I do last time, what worked, how can I better this system? Then you've always got a framework that you're building and working on next time. It's like when we learn how to do deadlifts for the first time, we're not going to pick up 200 kilos, but it takes the bar RDLs to the training plates, to the 60 kilo, to the 80 kilo, to the 100 kilo, it takes that time to build the capacity.

All we're doing is building a system around our ability to control and perform a deadlift. So it's almost like layers. It's like Shrek or Onions or whatever. It's just building layers upon layers upon layers to allow yourself to do more and be more. Yeah. Or do things more efficiently as well. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the thing is probably two conversations around systems. It's like one's to be able to, like the capacity one, and one's the refinement and to be able to do things better and whether it be maybe the efficiency and capacity are the two sides of it.

Yeah. But another good example of this is when we had to close our doors in response to the pandemic, like the first time we did it, there's a first time that we were exposed to those conditions. So we had to figure out the system of actions we had to take to do it effectively. Like we had to contact all of our members. We had to modify memberships. We had to subscribe everyone to the online programming. The first time, and that took a lot of effort and energy in order to build that system. When we were able to open again and unfortunately close again, we could just replicate that system.

We could do the same system again, but we had the framework in place. We had the playbook there. Yeah. We just jump on a Google Docs, get the playbook, tweak a few things to how we could do it better. And there we are. We're ready to go. Yeah. It's like history. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme. I read that the other day and I love it because, you know, like what happened 102 years ago, the Spanish flu hit a big pandemic. And there's so many, like you look back at something like that and there's so many similarities that could inform the way we do things now.

You know, obviously there's certain governments and organisations that maybe haven't followed the playbooks that their predecessors left, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, if we look back and go, Oh, like if I have in my head that we're going to open up again in four weeks or six weeks or whatever, whatever that time is, and we don't, I need to have systems to be able to be resilient enough to be able to work on that. And you know, we spoke about resilience a couple of weeks ago. But if we look at say Spanish flu, 1917 to 1920 ish, like it lasted more than three years.

So we're in the, the, the first year of what could potentially be a three year pandemic. You know, worst case, obviously science, science is, has drastically improved since then. But you know, the reason why it ended back then was because everyone either died or developed an immunity to it. So hopefully we don't get to that point here, but we need to look at that and go, okay, well, there were four waves in 1917 to 1920 where kind of, I guess, going through the second wave at the moment, you could say of COVID and, you know,

regardless of whether people think it's a government hoax or it's 5G or Bill Gates is a lizard or whatever, none of it really matters from a, how do I act, how do I act today perspective and how do I better navigate through this time? Like how, I guess this is a question for you, but how do you, and for everyone at home, most of us are working from home at the minute. We're doing this podcast virtually, which is not ideal, but it is what it is, but how much better do you feel today about your,

you know, your office set up and where you're working from home and what you're doing and your routine than you did say day one of stage four? Yeah. Significantly better. Um, like I have a designated space that I go to work now and I have all the things around me, the resources that I need to be able to do my job effectively. Um, I have, yeah, I reckon bloody oath, got my, uh, post-its next to me, got my new webcam, got my microphone, coffee. We're all good. We are sweet. That's exactly it. Like the way you set up your desk, that's a system.

The way you start your day is a system. The way you, uh, execute on the tasks you've got is a system. And like we were saying before, both of us feel like we've got too much stuff on the go. So we either need to refine the system around how we execute our work or we need to create one or, or try something else. Um, and I guess that's the benefit of systems. Yeah. And the other benefit of systems is that they're resilient as well. Like you mentioned when talking through the definition of what a system

is, is that, uh, it's like our default, um, uh, default process that we turn to when things get hard and when things get hard, we want to be able to bounce back from that and still kind of move forward on whatever we're working on. So having these resilient systems, having these resilient systems as like a backup to fall back to is, um, something that we can kind of like trust or rely on to keep carrying us forward. Definitely. And if there's a, and if there's a better way, all we have to do is upgrade the system.

We don't need to overhaul the whole process, um, which again is happening in certain parts of the world at the moment. Revolving the whole thing and checking it out. Like we like, we've got something to learn from everything. And I have no doubt that like most of us, um, and obviously there's the, the fatigue that comes with second lockdown and all those kinds of things, but most of us have adapted to this way of living in different ways, shapes, shape, and form. Um, like we're dealing with it, the social isolation and the inability to do

certain things may be better on the most part than we did stage one, but it's all it is, is because we've been able to develop things to help us. Um, like this whole, these 10 episodes of the podcast that we've got planned to, we've already done this one in the quick seven we've got left. All of it is just tools in a toolbox to help you help you create, uh, create the life that you want to live basically and help you be able to create the capacity you want to live. Those are just the underlying, uh, steps you take to make sure that you execute on those, those things.

It's basically just a plan and it's when this happens, this happens, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we're able to then execute the way we want to execute. Um, I know that if I follow my morning routine, which is a system of getting up, going for a walk, going for a run, coming home, um, journaling, meditating, having brekkie and having a coffee. If I can take all of those things in the right order, I am going to be significantly more capable for the rest of the day. Um, then I may have been, if I

slept in or if I skipped one or two of those, um, you know, the, this is the most arbitrary system in the world, but I just use an analog box ticking system for my things I wanted to do this week. Um, this is probably what I'm going to do next week for work to help me get on track with what I need to do. So it doesn't need to be complicated. That's the thing. It can just be a simple checklist. Well, that's smart. So I find simple works really well and it's kind of a go to, but then it's just leveling up when things become, uh, normal or when systems become ingrained.

Um, ideally it allows us to stack more systems on top or, or expand the system to allow it to do, allow it to do more, um, and there's obviously reinforces for each system, things that whether it be a reward or whether it be like a reminder or, or a box you tick, whatever it may be. Um, if we've got the systems that, you know, allow us to do these things and we get to where we want to get to and those goals that we set before, um, they're supported by not only a desire, but they're supported by the frameworks that allow us to do the thing.

Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of, so we've got these systems in place and we're talking that this whole conversation is framed by systems for success. So what does, so kind of touched on the system side of it. What is the success part mean? See, this is the very objective part of this conversation because everyone's going to be different. Everyone's definition of success is going to be slightly, slightly different to the bloke next to him or her. Here's how I look at success. Uh, I'll say how I look at success and then tell you how we're taught

to look at success, which I think are two different things and it's taken me, uh, probably 10, 12 years of self edification is favorite word moment, self edification to figure out what my definition of success is. And I feel like a couple of years ago, I kind of cultivated what it might be. And then, you know, I feel like I can divide it pretty well now and success for me is basically waking up in the morning and going to bed at night and doing what I want in between, ensuring that that time is spent, spent

supporting my values, which are around connection and around, uh, you know, leveling up and cultivating awareness and spending time with friends and family and, and having fun. Um, there's a big freedom aspect to, to a success, I think, um, which is almost overshadowed sometimes by maybe the wrong things, which, uh, you know, lots of cash and, and, and material possessions. Um, and I guess we grow up, you know, maybe it's how we, how we're influenced by social media, even though social media wasn't necessarily a big part of our lives when we were growing up as, uh, you know, nineties kids or whatever you want to call it.

But what we see on TV shows and movies, we see these extravagant lifestyles. And for most of us, when we think of success, that's what we think of. But for me, it's just being, being happy content, but also being challenged enough to make it all, uh, interesting, interesting enough to keep going. Um, and if someone says to me, said to me five years ago or three years ago, do you think you're successful? Then I'm going to, I'm going to R about it and I'm going to go, I don't know. But if someone says to me, now, do you feel as though you're successful?

I'd say, yeah, of course I am because I'm doing the things that I want to do. I'm not, I haven't reached the myriad of goals I've set for myself, but I've I'm, I'm on the way there. And even if I don't hit them, it doesn't matter because this, I guess the system of my life and the processes and the things that I'm doing every day, uh, support, you know, the things that set my soul on fire. And they're the reason why I, why I love jumping out of bed in the morning, even though I suck at jumping out of bed in the morning, but there's the systems are what helps me do that.

Like if you're asked that question, do you feel successful? Are you successful? How do you feel about it? How do you want to, how would you answer it? I definitely, I'm an R about it. I think the reason is, uh, is because I have goals that I haven't fulfilled yet. Um, like there's, and maybe that's a cultural influence that, that has sort of, um, framed how I perceive success or what I perceive it to be. Uh, there's definitely parts of my life that I think I'm successful in. Like I've had a fantastic education and I have a loving family and I have wonderful friends and a community around me.

Uh, and so I'm super grateful of, of those things. And in those aspects, I would say, yeah, I'm successful. Uh, and, but, and I'm also very aware that the goals that I've set aren't tied to success either. So as soon as I hit those goals, I know that the bars is going to be raised that little bit higher. And then I'm going to be looking for the next thing to say on, then I'm going to be a success. So, uh, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Like I would say that I'm living in a little bit of dissatisfaction with where I am now.

And that's almost drives me to pursue those, those things that, uh, that are my goals, whether or not they mean I'm successful or not. Yeah. Second question. Second part of that question. Are you happy? Well, that was, and that was the other thing I was going to say, uh, I think happiness is definitely maybe a, uh, determinant of success. I think if you're happy living your life doing the things that you want to be doing, then that can be defined as success. And I am happy, like, like I said, I've got all these things around

me that I am super grateful for and that I'm, I'm very fortunate to have, uh, and I could easily continue living my life the way I am now and, uh, and be happy. But there's still that like lingering dissatisfaction that there's things, more things that I could do or more than I can be. Yeah. That makes, that makes me think that there's, there's obviously there's layers to success or there's different sides of it. Like the, it's almost like to success. If we go to two sides, there's being content and happy and grateful and appreciative for what you have and having the perspectives to be able to see all that and enjoy it.

Then the other side is to have that level of dissatisfaction where you're like, I can make this better. I can be more, I can do more, I can, uh, increase my capacity, um, to allow me to, to strengthen or, or, or rich in those things is rich in a work in rich in rich and it's just spelled it differently. Put the end at the end at the end. Um, so there's those two sides and if we mix them up together, it's just around, well, I love who I am and what I have, but I'm on a, I'm on a journey to do and be more.

And that's the, I think that's the big focus around the systems of success, uh, model or mantra is it's just, it's all, uh, you know, it's all journey based. It's not outcome based because there is no finish line that like idea that there is something out there that will make us happy forever is, you know, a fundamental misconception around life, um, and around, uh, happiness or whatever word you want to put in front of that. Yeah. So that means there's, there's different elements to, to this conversation, almost there's a conversation around looking forward and having, uh, a set definition of what success looks like to you whilst also living presently and being grateful for what you have.

Uh, and maybe even maybe you look back in the past and see what systems worked for you and reflect on those things, which will enable you or inform you of how you can, uh, keep reaching for that success. Definitely. And we got like that, we almost don't want to fix definition of success because it's fluid. It changes like my definition, that kind of talk. My definition of success when we opened Virtus was, you know, significantly different to what it is now, Virtus still exists in, in a very similar form to what it did five years ago.

But I guess the drivers that allow us to contribute to it are very different, like there's a lot more focus around community and family and, and, and things like that. Whereas, you know, early on, it was very much focused on very much focused on athlete development or, or performance or those sides of it. There's no right or wrong answer, but it's just, you know, past version of Wallace is different to current version of Wallace and it's going to be different to future version of Wallace. So he's got, so I've got to figure out, I guess

how to, if I know there's no finish line, okay, well, how can I create meaning along the journey to be able to allow myself to feel, you know, a mix of challenge, fulfillment, meaning, purpose, happiness, all of those kinds of things, because if we, if we, happiness can be, you know, the opposite of success sometimes. Like if we chase that short term happiness, that short term gratification, and we could get into definitions of happiness to help inform this conversation. But then we've got to like, there's so many different aspects to it and everyone, I think,

in terms of like take home, a take home exercise or something is just write down what is success to me on a page and, and start listing some things and start writing them and figure out, okay, is success buying that $100,000 car or boat or is success, you know, having a community and a family that loves you, or is it both, is it buying a $100,000 boat that allows you to take that community and family out so that they love you more? I don't know. There's no right or wrong answer. But I think you, everyone, every individual's got to figure out for themselves what that definition looks like now or at the moment, because it'll change.

Yep. Yep. And like, even you giving that little example there makes me think that the, the buying the boat or buying the house, that's a goal compared to like, that's a goal compared to success maybe being, having the success is where you have the capacity to do that, right? Like you're, you're not connecting your success to the boat, you're connecting your success to your own capacity to be able to afford the boat or to have the job that allows you to afford those things. Yeah, exactly. But then we've got, we've got to look at, okay, well, is having a boat worth being miserable at work?

If that's the case, or are you better off being able to spend more time with the kids, for example, take them down to the beach and splash around in the shallows, knowing that you might not be able to afford the boat, but you've got an extra 15 hours a week that you can spend with them. Like some there'll be, and everyone will go through these points in their lives, I assume, that there'll be times where the job's worth it, and there'll be times when the job isn't. We're in a fortunate position where we get to talk to so many different people about their goals and what they want to achieve and things like that.

And there's some people where I kind of say, well, what do you want? And this is the what do you want question, which, you know, what does winning look like? Winning is to be able to pay off a mortgage in five years. Okay. Well, is the job that you don't love at the moment going to help you get there? Yes. Is that goal there for a reason? Yes, it's there so I can support my kids and be mortgage free when I'm raising my kids. Well, then, okay, well, maybe being in a job you don't love for the next couple of years is worthwhile to reach that thing.

But there might be a tipping point in two years where, okay, it's not worthwhile anymore. And that's where just self-awareness and cultivating awareness, and you can have a system for whether it be quarterly goal setting or quarterly, you know, I've used the brain dump example I think on here before, where you kind of get some you cultivate some self-awareness about what you actually want, which part of the the process or the which part of the journey you're on and you kind of you can you can have a checkpoint where you reassess and change your mind. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. Change directions. Yeah. And that that implies a heavy sense or heavy dose of reflection that allows us to look at where we are now where we want to go. And like who we want to be. You talked before about like levelling up and the the way that we go about doing something one way the first time is going to be different to the way that we approach the same goal or approach the same pursuit the next time and the time after that. It definitely definitely I assume maybe you get better after raising the first kid.

You use those things to raise the second kid. But knowing that the frameworks there, but the second kid is probably going to be fairly different. Like an example. I played a lot of Pokemon when I was younger. Right. Love that shit. Pokemon Yellow was my jam. I probably got my first Gameboy in like 1999. And I've still got that Gameboy and I've still got the game. And funnily enough, when Lucy was still a potato, she was about this big. And she was about two or three weeks old. There was a lot of sitting around the house.

You guys are taking care of this. This is pre-chaos that was 2020. But I decided to get the Gameboy back out and play Pokemon. And I've probably gone through that game countless number of times. But it reinforced the idea around systems and around learning and around how you face problems or challenges the second and third and fourth and fifth time around. If you're playing a game - and I like the idea of linking life to video games in different ways. I'm by no means a gamer. But if anyone wants to get beaten at Mario Kart or FIFA or Pokemon, come at me.

But the idea around a game where you start off with a tiny little Pokemon that has no experience and you have to get - ideally, the goal is to get to the end of the game. But the whole point of the game is the process, which is just travelling, learning and levelling up over and over and over again. And I'm sure the first time I tried to have a crack at Pokemon Yellow in 1999 when I was seven, I was probably rubbish and it probably took me months and months and months to get to the end of the game because I didn't know what I was doing.

Having a crack at it in 2020 as a 28-year-old dad version of myself - - 20 years on. - I generally would have got it done - I would have finished the game in less than 24 hours because I knew the systems and I knew the processes to get there. So I knew to spend a little bit longer getting experience points and learning and teaching my Pokemon how to do things and levelling up. And I knew that before I get to this gym, gym boss, that I need to be on a certain level, otherwise I'm wasting my time.

So I'm dealing with both that efficiency, I guess, pillar that we spoke about before, but then there's also the capacity pillar, which is around levelling up and getting experience points and adding on top of it. Every little battle my Pokemon gains experience and learns something else. But I've got the overarching system of going, okay, well, we do this before we do this, and then we do this before we do this. And if we look at life the same way, it's just like, you know, there is no end of the game. And I guess you could

argue that to get to the end of Pokemon, there's a whole lot of man hours got to go into just training every Pokemon to get to the top level. But life is an infinite game. There is no finish line. Yes, we'll die one day, but I truly believe that I'll come back as a ladybug or something. I don't know. - Or maybe you'll come back as a Pikachu. - Oh, I hope so. I have no idea what I'll come back as. I don't even know if I'll come back. Maybe that's a podcast, a bonus episode. We'll talk about what we think happens after we die, but maybe it's a bonus exclusive.

Yeah, it's either that or we'll talk about whether Bill Gates is a lizard or not. I feel like I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about my friend Bill. What a man. Anyway, I guess we can look at life the same way we look at video games. It's just around levelling up, failing, having a crack, learning from that failure or from the Pokemon battles or whatever it is, and moving forward and moving forward and moving forward. Then everything we do is influenced by what we've done. So I think transcendent include is a great term for that.

These little babushka dolls over here, one of them's got transcendent include on them. But it's just the idea that everything we do is a transferable skill. So if I decide to go and do a course on cooking, there's going to be things in that cooking course that teach me maybe a system or maybe a process of how to do things better in the rest of my life. If I decide to lean into gardening, which I'm actually thinking about doing, don't tell KP, I'm actually thinking about doing during this lockdown to get a nice bit of foliage behind my office window.

I'm looking into things like that. I'm sure there's things that gardening will teach me about how I look after my athletes at purpose and how we look after each other and how I look after myself. Things around patience and cycles and good nutrition and things like that. These are just systems and ways that we can implement good things into our daily life to do more and be more and have that higher capacity or have that level up. - Love it. That's all for me. - That was good. - Yeah. - You like that? - Yeah. - I blacked out a little.

- Yeah, you said some good things. So let's... - I have to listen back. - Let's call it there before we ruin it. Next episode. - Big rocks. - Talking about big rocks and how to, we're continuing this conversation around systems and habits and how to live better. So you'll notice that there are a lot of themes that link into each of each of these episodes. Part of that's intentional, but most of it's just double lock and accident. And you know, maybe this shit works a little bit, but I guess the idea around the big rocks is that what are the, what are the big things that we can do to look after ourselves better?

What are the big things we can do to increase our capacity and, you know, the big rocks that we're going to be talking about next week are sleep, hydration, nutrition, and what's the other one? - Hydration? - Sleep, hydration, nutrition. What else we need to do? Stress management? I don't know. We've got to read down somewhere. - Exercise, maybe? - Exercise, movement! How do we miss movement? We're in the gym business. Jesus Christ. - Is that the thing we do? - Yes, that is the thing we do. So yeah, get stuck in next week because it's going to be eight.

- Yeah, we'll give you some tangible strategies that you can take away and integrate into the systems in your life. - And we'll give you some, I guess, some boxes to tick and some ideas around, okay, well, how can I make sure that I'm achieving the things I want to achieve so that I can do the things I want to do, whether it's chase after your kids or get to Tokyo 2023, doesn't bloody matter. Thanks for listening. Thanks for getting around it. Please like, share, subscribe, do all that kind of stuff. And comment on Simon's long hair if you're watching on YouTube because it's looking delicious.

- The headphones are holding it back, so thank you, everyone. - See you, guys. - There is one more thing. It's been emotional.