Shawn Stevenson : Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson and I am so grateful for you tuning in with me today.

This has been an adventure for me already. Listen, I've trained at gyms all over the world, I've been to some cool places, different countries and trained in different gyms, obviously all over the country here in the US. But living in LA now, I'm wondering is this some kind of an epidemic with people being unable to re-rack the weights? Is it like some kind of a mental barrier? I don't know. Am I just being too hard on my new city, but other places I have gone there is a little bit of civility, re-racking the weights.

I was just at this gym, it's close to my house so I'll go there on the fly and they've got a sign up at the gym, it's a chain gym, franchise gym, and the sign says, "Please don't drop the weights." Heaven forbid you drop weights, you're doing some deadlifts, and throw on the weights around, we don't want that here. But please, absolutely toss weights all over the place, leave them scattered. No, don't toss them, lay them down.

These guys were lifting, doing squats, 3 plates on each side of the bar, just left it. The etiquette, alright. And I just felt like what if a grandma comes and she wants to use the squat rack, because you know there's only one in a lot of these gyms, and she's got to try to unload 315, right. So a little courtesy.

Maybe I'm not trying to— I'm not a complaining person, but it's an observation, all right. But that's what you get when you are not able to control the circumstances. So gyms are awesome and it really just kind of depends on your personality type whether or not you enjoy going to a gym, but now today, there are so many cool things that you can do.

There are different types of gyms, of course you got the franchise type gyms, you've got specialty gyms, you've got box gyms, CrossFit boxes and things like that, so many different things that you can take advantage of, but remember this, remember this always— when it comes to working out, the most important form of exercise is the exercise you will do.

And so you might not need to go to a gym, that might not be your cup of chai, it might not be your cup of Pau D'arco or Cat's Claw. But for you is finding out like, listen I really love to rollerskate, so giving yourself permission to do that. I love to play basketball, I love to play squash. Squash might be your jam, right. And so just giving yourself permission to do the thing that you will do, that you enjoy doing.

And if you can sprinkle in some strength training, it is super valuable if not the most, highest leverage form of exercise when we're talking about the actual implementation of the exercise, strength training is pretty powerful. And so speaking of my franchise gym, I drove there today, I was going to get it in before the show, and it's LA, so another thing I've noticed is, yeah the traffic is real, it's real out here. It's quick to get there but coming back, and so I drive to the gym and guess what— it is closed. Closed. At 9 a.m. Why? They're doing remodeling.

But again, I can't control the situation so I'm just like, "I can't believe this so now I've got to drive back in traffic and this is the height of the traffic." I would have missed the height being in the gym, training. And so I drove, got back through it, put on a podcast, make the time worth it and beneficial, I get back home and I'm like here's the thing that I want to take from this— I had an objective, I had a goal, I had a destination, but the strategy or the path to get there had to be adjusted.

And so many times in our life when things don't go our way, we just throw in the towel. And I'm a person, the thought came up of like, "I'll just scrap it and I'll do it tomorrow," like tomorrow will be easier the day is more— no, do something, do something, it doesn't have to be the big, brawley plan to work out that you had planned, just do something, right. Because you create habits of not doing as well, it's not just the habit of doing something, if you create habits of not doing or habits of quitting or throwing in the towel.

And so I got back to my house, I saw all these beautiful, primal kettlebells looking dead in my face and they were like, "Come pick me up." And I was like, "Okay." I saw my battle rope, I hadn't even opened my battle rope since I moved a few months ago. I'll use a battle up at the gym but they don't have the one I have.

I have big red, okay, my battle rope has a name. I didn't even name it, Onnit named it. And I think it's like 50 pounds, 40 pounds, it's a big fella, so it's called Big Red. And I put Big Red through the handles of the kettlebells, I did some carries with my kettlebells, I did some kettlebell swings, and I did some battle rope exercises.

And something else that I want you to remember is that we have different types of muscle fibers and I did a masterclass episode on this talking about the science behind high-intensity interval training, that has become just massively popular today.

I've been teaching and working with clients for this at least a decade and it's fascinating because we have different types of muscle fibers, we have slow-twitch muscle fibers, fast-twitch, various intermediate type muscle fibers as well and to really optimize our physique, our health, our functionality, we need to be able to train all of these different types of muscle fibers, show them some love.

And so this is why I love the battle rope so much because we can utilize our fast-twitch muscle fibers with our legs pretty easily doing sprints, doing sprints on the stationary bike, things like that. But it's not very often we have something for our upper body that can really activate those fast-twitch muscle fibers so effectively.

So this is why I love the battle rope and I have got my battle rope from Onnit, and I highly recommend you get you one as well, get yourself the primal kettlebells, they are so attractive, they are the coolest kettlebells that are out there.

And also, of course, we know that Onnit it has Earth-grown nutrients are the base of all of their supplements, so whether it's post-workout protein, whether it's the pre-workout from the Shroom Tech that I've been using for years, double-blind placebo-controlled studies affirming about a 9 percent increase in cardiovascular output, so you can do 9 percent greater endurance benefit from taking Shroom Tech Sport.

Again, Earth-grow nutrients in these supplements, head over check them out, you get everything that I just mentioned, all of that for 10 percent off the fitness equipment, supplements, foods. Go to Onnit.com/model, that's O-N-N-I-T.com/model, you get 10 percent off everything they carry. O-N-N-I-T.com/model, now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week.

iTunes Review: Another 5-star review titled "Again and again" by Bert_J_M. "I recommend these episodes to so many people because of how much they've helped shape my perspective in such a positive way on a vast range of topics. I often find myself listening to an episode 2 or even 3 times because of how much amazingly useful information there is. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't say it enough. Thank you."

Shawn Stevenson: Wow. And thank you so much for leaving me that review over on Apple podcasts, it means so much to me. And listen, if you've yet to leave a review please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review for the show, I appreciate it so very much. And on that note, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day.

I just shared a story about training and my guest today knows a thing or 3000 about training. This guy played in the NFL, The National Football League for about a decade. And he was voted the NFL's fittest man. Twice. And he was playing at the kicker position, he is a punter, kicking position, normally I'd say kicker, there's a difference, punter-kicker, but he's just out there crushing it, but not just with his physical fitness and his performance on the field but he had a bigger mission.

He'll share today some of what his goals look like but now to see them coming to fruition today is so powerful because we can, again, we can get off track of the ultimate destination that we want to arrive at. And he's going to pour out his heart and soul here today with a lot of passion. He's driven by his very strong faith and he just made this incredible transformation.

The last like year and a half or 2 years ago when I saw him, I bumped into him and his mindset was different than it is today. I think a big part of that is which are going to hear is he's really placed a bigger focus on strategy and structure.

Because for all of us there are so many things we want to do in our life, we want to have a career that we enjoy, we want to have great relationships, we want to be healthy and fit, we want to have time to sleep well, we want to have great relationships with our kids if we have kids, we want to you know, to be able to make a living so we can have experiences and do different things we want to do. There's a lot.

I understand that because sometimes it can seem like, "Oh that's another thing I've got to do." "Oh, that's another thing that I'm not doing." We've got to strip all this stuff away and understand that we all have the same 24 hours and there are people who are truly extracting all of the juice out of that 24 hours, healthfully because of strategy and structure.

And so I'm really pumped to share this conversation with you today. Steve is again just such an inspiration for me and today it's just a chance to open yourself up and just allow inspiration because that's what he's delivering. Alright, so now we're going to jump into this conversation with the incredible Steve Weatherford.

Steve Weatherford: I am not as concerned with his little baby mullet, that next time it will be a really beefy American squirrel on the back of my head, but for today it's just a small hint.

Shawn Stevenson: Beefy American squirrel, oh my god. I don't know if this has ever been said before.

Steve Weatherford: Can we just start the show early?

Shawn Stevenson: I love it, man, I love where you're going, the direction with the hair man, it's a movement, it's a movement in and of itself.

Steve Weatherford: Thank you. Yeah, because at the end of the day, man, I can be on a stage just like everybody else and then the people see you from the front and they are like, "Alright, here's another, it looks to be in shape so he's either a military guy or a former pro athlete, he's got the hair," but then when I turn to the side what I envision in my mind is this haircut, is this style when people see these locks.

They're instantly just going to smile because there's going to be no way they're going to see it and think that I'm taking myself seriously. And instantly it's going to be an ice breaker and they're going to want to know more about me. Not because I have muscles or I'm this or a super bowl ring, they're going to want to know about that hair.

Shawn Stevenson: I love it, this army, the hair.

Steve Weatherford: So I have a vision for my hair to be the ultimate ice breaker. I just want to be approachable.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, I love it, man. I love that so much. You are, man, like that's the thing about you, I just love you so much and just hanging around you your energy is instantly just, you make people feel at home, you make people feel welcome even when you come in here with my team and just, I love it so much, man. You brought your family with you, a little nugget, a little piece of your family.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah, an installment, layaway of my family.

Shawn Stevenson: So your son and we were just talking about the last time that I saw you and this has been about 2 years ago when you were on the show. And he got out there, he was playing basketball. How is he now?

Steve Weatherford: He is turning 12 tomorrow. So that's why he is with me, so you and I had spoken and I was like, "Man, you know what, you've got to put him my heart man like I want to have you on my show," and you know, do a volume 2 type of thing and then I turned this whole thing into like a birthday celebration for my son.

So thank you for agreeing to do this with me today, because that allowed me to be able to have another opportunity to where it's like 2 birds with one stone and honestly I believe that is what life is about, is making alignments that actually make the things that you want to do easier to do. So when I say alignments about like friendships.

When I called you it was probably a pretty weird text message, I'm like, "Hey God placed it on my heart I need to have a conversation with you." You were like, "November 19th," I'm like, "Alright, cool, I'll see you there." Do you know what I mean? So, dude, I want to honor you and thank you for just trusting me that God placed something on my heart that we're supposed to talk about today.

And honestly, I still don't know what that is, but thanks for trusting that and just like giving me space to be able to tell the story that is going to happen, that I don't know what it is, but I wanted to reverse that honor. I receive it but I want you to have it as well because I admire you for so many reasons that have nothing to do with this podcast.

If people that are listening to this right now could get an opportunity, not to know, because I'll tell you right now so you'll know, but actually, get an opportunity to feel your realness and your uniqueness, you're never trying to be like somebody else because you see guys winning.

When I think of you, when I get a text message pop up from you or just like I have a random thought and you get these weird text messages that you get from me, I want you to know I don't do that for everybody else, I want you to know that God speaks to me about you and that's why you get these weird text messages from me, some of them are videos and some of them are voice memos, but I just wanted to start the show off by giving you the honor that you deserve.

Because you are unique and I don't do the things, like the weird things that I do I want you to know everybody doesn't get that part of me and it's because God has highlighted you in my life and that's why I believe I'm here today. I'm just really excited to have this space but to share the space with you because alignment in 2019 has been such a powerful word for me.

I've been doing my best every single time I have an idea or I think of somebody in my mind taking bold action without really knowing why I'm texting this person, but just when I feel like God put somebody in my mind I just take action. I just let it figure itself out, kind of like what we're going to do here today, is we're going to figure this thing out but I just wanted to thank you and honor you for just trusting that it was going to be something substantial.

Shawn Stevenson: Listen, I receive that, man, I was not expecting my heart is overflowing, man, thank you so much for that. Like you just said, just taking this in the direction that is going to be an adventure, but I think the adventure begins where we are right now and where we are is you traveled up here from down around San Diego, you took that trip, with your son, your oldest son and your wife and you guys are going to do a really powerful experience in alignment with this moment.

And you're taking him to a Lakers game today and we were just talking about, and you're the first person that I've heard articulate this outside of something I kind of mentioned in the show before, but for me, just 10 seconds it was, when I was, I just turned my health around and I was passionate about serving, helping other people, but I was watching every Cardinals baseball game on television. St. Louis is called baseball heaven, right.

But it just struck me one day, I'm sitting there doing my homework, watching, trying to do programs for my clients, and I realize I'm watching them be great, I'm making sure, I make schedule my time so I can watch other people be great.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I wanted to express my own greatness. And you shared that you're not a big fan of like going to sporting events, which kind of for people might throw them because you are a former superstar and the NFL Super Bowl champion. But that's not your bag, why is that?

Steve Weatherford: First, I want to correct your language, it is not a self-promoting me, I'm not a former champion in anything, I'm a champion in this day, I wake up every single day to remind my son that he's a champion, so I love you, I'm not a former anything man, I am a current.

And it's not because of a team that I was on and I want to get to that question so give me that question again, but I just wanted— that's one of the things I believe maybe is a message for some of us just, not some of us, all of us and that's the language we speak out of our mouth but also the language that we let people speak on you.

I know you mean it from a loving place, but just interrupting and from a loving place and letting them know the language they speak to you, how you want to be addressed. And that's a mindset to me, every single day when I wake my son up because I had an incompleteness to my childhood my dad was amazing, but he never told me that he was proud of me, never once and never told me that I was a champion.

So every single day that I wake my son up I shake his chest and sometimes I put it on Instagram story. I shake his chest and I say, "Wake up champion, dad's proud of you but we've got work to do." And so I know I just went off on that tangent I want to get back to your questions to tell me what it was.

Shawn Stevenson: I love that, man, thank you so much for articulating that because I think a lot of us see our life in these chapters and don't see the continuous thread of being a champion. And I said former player, by the way, not a former champion.

Steve Weatherford: I get it, but in my mind when people say like, "He's a former Super Bowl champion," or, "A former pro athlete," in my mind you didn't say anything wrong, that just teed me up for something that I've been thinking about and consciously and intentionally trying to speak over my son.

To your question, you were asking me what it was like to play sports and you and I were talking before we hit record about, I never went to a pro game until I actually played in one. And the reason being it wasn't that I didn't want to go, I just didn't have that opportunity to go.

But then when I had an opportunity to play in it and my son wants to go to the Lakers game tonight, to me it's not something I'm super excited about and I've always been too busy to really go to sporting events. But after my pro career is over, now I have opportunities to go watch people play college football or other NFL games, NBA games and MLB games. They're not that much fun to me.

And I'm not saying that like, "Oh, I've been there, I've done that," it's honestly, it's because I'm like so hyperactive when I see people doing things I actually just want to go try it with them, not because I think I can do a better, but I just, I'm in love with action, I'm in love with boldness because it always leads to something new.

I feel like I am continuously like hungry, I finally got to a point in a season of my life where I'm satisfied and hungry at the same time like I'm so fulfilled with what God's given me, but I'm so hungry for more. I just want to be in the game, I guess that's what I'm trying to say is like watching it on TV, I do that with my son because that's kind of like our chance to bond on something, but I don't like watching athletes play sports.

I love listening to speakers speak because I believe there's something there for me, but watching people play sports unless it's great and I can get inspired from that, watching other people's greatness just makes me want to go be great with them. And so it's a restless feeling when I watch sports.

Shawn Stevenson: That's powerful, man. So what I'm hearing is over the past few years, or is this something that was early on but you really know yourself, you know where you're getting to know yourself.

Steve Weatherford: I'm trying to, thank you.

Shawn Stevenson: And being able to hear that message from yourself that you get restless watching pro athletes do their thing, and I just want to paraphrase this for everybody what you said, it is a great source to extract some inspiration, but for some of us, we need it, for some of us it can be great training for our mind; for some of us we need to get in the game. And for you right now, being able to watch speakers speak yeah and to watch greater messages, that's where you're at.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah, that's the season I am in. And I'm sure when I was a kid, my son's age, I would have cut my arm off to be able to go watch Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson play. But right now, I guess I want to watch and I want to be around what I would have become greater at.

And I'm in a season of my life right now where because of alignments that have been my word all year, because of alignments I've been able to create partnerships in my supplement company, I've been able to create partnerships in different businesses that I owned 100 percent of.

And honestly, I kind of felt like I was a slave to them, meaning like it's not going to be successful or it's not going to grow or things are going to get better without me, and as you know man, when you get involved in these different things, it doesn't matter how passionate you are, if you are passionate about it it's almost even worse because then you're torn in between these things.

And if you accelerate one business, you're even looking over your shoulder and be like, "Man, this business could be done better," and so then you run over here and you work on this business and then you look over your shoulder and you notice your marriage is completely falling apart.

You run over here and you work on your marriage and then you look over your shoulder and this other business about to go into foreclosure or you can't make the note — Do you know what I mean? Insert here and it's a game that meant, especially freakin' men play with ourselves because we value our existence, our worthiness on what we're able to produce.

And so that really drove me crazy because when men, and especially like somebody from like Terre Haute Indiana like me, you're a Midwest guy man, you know how important people view a hard worker, almost like the most honorable dude in the Midwest is a guy that has like worn-out jeans and a circle in his back pocket from a skull ring that has been sitting in his tractor and you know he's got holes that are just worn in it like these jeans that you and I have on, but we paid money to have holes in ours.

But that's the type of guy in the Midwest that is like a man's man. And a man's man isn't hyper-aware of himself the way that you and I are continually trying to become, but they're incomplete as men because they view their whole value as protect, provide, preside.

There's nothing in there about the evolution of the culture of your family and breaking generational curses and mindsets, and not repeating those behavioral cycles that were done to you, to your kids just because you grew up a certain way doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to get done.

I believe a man's man is almost kind of like conditioned to do it, like your dad did it, because we make excuses for our dad, if your dad like had too much to drink at family gatherings and you go to a family gathering your dad has too much to drink what are people going to say? Well that's just dad, you know, it's just dad, they chalk it up to being just dad. What about if my mission is to call the men forth that don't want to be, they don't want to be, "Oh that's just dad."

They want to be the person that breaks that generational curse, you don't have permission to do the same things that drove you nuts as a kid, as an adult just because your daddy did it, you know what I mean? And so I'm just super motivated about that because I feel that that just speaks to the hearts of entrepreneurs.

Because how often do we pinball back and forth and continually never feel fulfilled because we have that perfectionist syndrome of like, "If everything's not tied up and everything's not tight, everything's not automated, everything's not planned out, and everything's not strategized, we can't rest." We're setting ourselves up for failure, you know I mean? Because we've created a game that we can't win and it's just an exhaustive hampster wheel.

And I've done it, and I'm coming out of that season and gaining more clarity and being able to look at my life as like bubbles and where I'm spending my time. I have 4 ways that I gauge whether or not it's somewhere I want to be spending my time, for example, like my podcast.

There are 4 ways that I rank it. The first one is going to be a heart symbol, like how much of my heart is in podcasting? The next thing is how much money does that bring in? The next one is how much time does that require of me? And then the last one is how much impact does that have?

And so when I create these different bubbles on a whiteboard and I look at it with my wife and my assistant, and my team, and my backbone and my mentors, we're able to see if where I'm spending my time is exactly where I need to be spending my time because our goal in my life and in our life as a company, and as my personal brand is every single bubble that I'm spending my time in, is a 10, all the way across the board except for time.

So I want to be a 10, I want my heart to be on fire for podcasts. I want it to bring in a ten in money, I want it to acquire as little amount of time as possible and I want it to be a 10 in impact. So I'm not going to be able to change my podcast to make it that way unless that is my intention.

And so what I think mapping it out with all these different bubbles, one could be podcast, one could be my supplement company, one could be content creation, one could be speaking, one could be one on one coaching, you do those ranking systems where is your heart at for it?

How much money does it bring in? How much time does it require? And how much impact does it make? And if you create a system for your life, like what I'm drawing out for you and you actually look at it, I bet you'll start spending your time differently. Do you know what I mean?

We got 86,400 seconds today but man, I'm looking at my watch right now, that's today, I'm looking at my watch it's November 19th when we're recording this thing right now. Dude, we've got like 6 weeks left, less than 6 weeks left in this decade, in this decade. Don't look at it like a year, we got like 6 weeks left in this decade when this thing comes out I don't know how much time people are going to have.

But the point is be bold to action, you know I mean, it's great to measure things out and get clear on where you want to spend your time, where you want to be on fire, how much impact you want that thing to have. But then once you get clarity on it, take bold action.

And for people listening to this right now, like it happens right now, it doesn't happen like, "Oh, that sound, you know what, doing my vital signs and mapping out those little bubbles sounds like a good idea, I am going to do that next week." You know what I mean?

Dude, hit pause and do it right now? Get clarity right now and then come back and hit play again and then tune in for the rest of what God's going to tell you on his podcast, because I'm telling you that right there has just given me an insane clarity of what I really want in my life. And then where I want to spend my time to be able to live my life by design versus by default.

Because if I don't pay attention to every single one of those bubbles and maybe there's something that my heart is a 2, and the impact is a 2, but maybe it's bringing me 10 cash and 1 time. For something like that, how do I make my heart a 10 for that because it brings in money, so how do I change that model so I'm on fire for it?

Because it already seems to be something that brings in money, so can I make that impactful? And can I make that something that makes my heart sing, and if I can't, cut the arm off, because you're not losing something by letting that go, you're actually creating more space in your life for your passions to live. Does that make sense?

Shawn Stevenson: Absolutely. So do you use these 4 categories with your family structure as well and strategy?

Steve Weatherford: Oh, no doubt dude, every single Tuesday, my wife was just here, I wish she was here to share this, but we take 6 hours, I know it sounds like a lot but it started at 2, and then the next month it went to 3, then the next month it went to 4, so we've been working on this for a while.

But where it sits right now is I have 6 hours with my wife every Tuesday, we spend the first 2 hours on our family and just picture, dude, I've got 5 kids, so I just picture that like a business. So the first thing we do is we sit, we don't sit with every kid, but we talk about every single kid like where are they at with their personal development, where are they at in school, like, where's their spirit, are they discouraged, are they motivated, are they challenged, like where are they?

So what that does for all these 5 kids and the leaders of the family is my wife and I are able to collectively get singularity a vision for that kid, because I'm out doing my thing and she's out doing her thing, and a lot of the times we're doing it together but we're not sitting here, she's not sharing every single thing about that kid during the week.

So what it does for every single kid is every 7 days I'm able to circle back on where that kid is with my wife, so the collective effort that her and I make towards that development of that kid is right on pace and it's right on pulse, we know exactly what we are doing for that child.

So we do that for each individual kid, it takes about 20 minutes each kid and we're just doing it passively relaxing. The next thing we do is we spend an hour proactively looking at our business. What fires do we need to put out in our different businesses? We have 3 different businesses that we manage by the grace of God, they are all 7 figure businesses and we love all of them.

So we take care of problems for one hour strategically together and then that allows us to know, she takes care of a lot of the backend with our team in Orlando and I obviously do a lot of the front end, we're able to come together on where that's at. And then the next hour is we talk about our marriage, like the backbone and the foundation for all of this stuff.

And for anything that's been weighing on her heart over the last 6 days, this is her opportunity where I just give her space, Shawn, I just give her space, man, I'd be like, "Babe, like how are you?" And this gives her an opportunity to just sit back and just do a body scan, do a spirit scan, you know what I mean, like how are you?

And when she shares that with me, she knows I'm not going to like try to jump in and problem solve it, she knows this is her time to just speak. If it ends up turning into a vomit session where she is just complaining, complaining, complaining and complaining, I'm not going to jump in and be like, "Don't speak like that, we don't speak that language in our family," kind of like I did a little bit with you is like, "This is how I want to be addressed" type of thing.

And I don't do that to her, I just let her do her thing and that just allows me as a husband and as a leader of my home to be able to feel where she's at, not to just listen to her words which is like as husbands and CEOs and stuff, that's what we do, listen to words and then we tactically try to figure those things out and give guidance and vision, right? I don't, that's not what I do with my wife right here, you know I mean? This is not a problem-solving session, this is her just telling me where she's at.

Shawn Stevenson: So how hard was that for you to do?

Steve Weatherford: Oh, dude, it was like the most uncomfortable thing ever, because when my wife is saying like, "This bothers me and this person said this," and all these different things as men, dude, I'm getting like, I'm getting a stick in my spine, I'm sitting up straight, I am puffing up my chest because I want to be reactive to the pain my wife is experiencing.

It makes sense, dude, we protect and we provide, we preside, right the men code. But with maturing and actually asking her like, "How is this going to work well for you?" She's like, "Honestly, I don't need you to solve my problems. I don't need to fight my battles, I just need you to listen to them." And then once I was able to freakin' master just shutting up and giving her space, you know what I mean?

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Steve Weatherford: Dude, it's the easiest thing for men because we think we need to go out and do, you know, go out and conquer, go out and problem solve, go out and put out the fire, when honestly, men we're driving ourselves crazy because really— and the women listen to this, can I get an Amen, all you got to do is just listen, man, give them space. In order to have an amazing relationship, Shawn, you need 4 things.

And this is not just for significant others, this is in the business workplace, this is being the team captain of the New York football Giants, whatever it is. In relationships, there’s 4 very simple, very simple relationship kind of core principles, these are the things that people need, they need 4 things— they need to feel loved, supported, seen and heard.

You want to build a better relationship with your son? Make him feel loved, supported, seen and heard. You want more intimacy with your wife or with your husband? Make them feel loved, supported, seen and heard. You want a promotion at your job?

Make your boss feel loved, supported, seen and heard, you know what I mean? You want to get the most out of a team of 30 people? Make them feel loved, supported, seen and heard. It is a magical recipe to winning. It's a magical recipe for fulfillment. It's a magical recipe for connection. Loved, supported, seen and heard, like that is the code in my family.

Shawn Stevenson: And so, what is the side effect for you doing that? Because when I hear this, I know that the argument is that this takes time to do this, it takes intentionality to do this. What's the benefit for you?

Steve Weatherford: Everybody wants 20-inch arms, men want 20-inch arms, women want a tiny waist and a nice shapely rump. That takes time! You're not going to do it in 30 days. So for me, when I'm actually strategically looking at my life, when we were talking about the vital signs, we're thinking about really just thinking about your time as currency, like what I'm putting into this bubble, what am I getting out and I'm not just, it's not just a quantifiable metric that I'm getting out that's money, because notice the last thing I put on there, the most important thing I put on there is the first and the last thing— your heart and your impact.

If your heart is in impact or your heart is a 10 and your impact is a 10, you can find a way to make money with it, Shawn, that's not, it's so easy to make money with what you love and with is impactful, that's what you're doing right now, think about what you're doing.

We are in Los Angeles and if it wasn't for this microphone and people to hear you, you wouldn't live in Los Angeles you know what I mean? You'd be in St. Louis doing whatever you were doing before you decided to follow your calling to do this. So when you think about it, when you think about it like that, it was an impact thing for you, it was a heart thing for you.

And guess what, we're in Los Angeles right now, this is one of the most expensive cities ever and this studio is amazing, you've got 3 camera guys, you've got Connor, you've got Eric, you've got Brian, right? You got these 3 guys and you're employing them because you followed your heart and what was impactful, and guess what now you generate enough money with people wanting to support your cause and the things that you believe in that you're making his dream come true, and Eric's dream come true, and Brian's dream come true, because you followed your heart what set you on fire and what was impactful.

And God gave you a way to make money with it. That's the same thing I'm doing, you know I mean? Dude, we are winning because without you really even knowing it, you're following the road map of your vital signs, so you have clarity of vision and that's what allows you to go like 5000 RPMs at that this vision in this dream that you have and still have like the peacefulness to get your freakin' sleep, because I know that's important to you.

Shawn Stevenson: These 4 ingredients, it creates a recipe of happiness, success, fulfillment. That's what we get as the side effect of taking the time and the energy necessary to share these things with our families. And I want to go through this or you're a boss—

Steve Weatherford: But even deeper than a fulfillment, all that stuff, Shawn, that's legacy you know what I mean? Because my dad grew up with his dad not saying, "I love you and I'm proud of you," not calling him a champion and guess what, I broke that off, dude. So guess what, just with me, not even thinking about trying to break that off, but I was just trying to make my son feel loved, supported, seen and heard.

What's going to make him feel loved, supported, seen and heard, hearing from his dad, "I love you, son, I'm so proud of you, you are a champion." Boom, in that moment generational curse is broken. Because I had the intention, and I just followed that, I just wanted to feel loved, supported, seen and heard. So if you're listening to this and you're like, "Oh well how do I do that?"

Just think about what would it take for them to feel loved, supported seen and heard and I don't want you to think that it means going out and doing things, men. Sometimes making somebody feel loved, supported, seen and heard is just sitting back making really, really engaged eye contact with somebody and just letting them know you're connected to them and what they're saying and letting them go. That makes people feel loved, supported, seen and heard and it costs 0 energy.

Shawn Stevenson: Man, I love this so much, it's such a simple principle, you know. But I want to dissect these pieces a little bit. Because I would imagine that your strategy, because that's the thing that we talked about prior to doing this, that you're really excited about is putting together strategy and structure to really be able to enjoy your life, which just sounds like everybody should be doing it, but a lot of times we're just going through the motions. I would imagine that you realize that showing and demonstrating love for different people requires different things.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah, love languages, dude.

Shawn Stevenson: Since we were just talking about your son and his birthday experience so this is one of the things that can be utilized to demonstrate love, is experiences, right. So let's talk a little bit about that, like what do you do for your kids? Is there a principle or intentionality about exposure, is it the words that you say, what do you do differently for your kids that you might not do for other people?

Steve Weatherford: In order for their mom and I had to know exactly what they need, it takes that intentional meeting, which you know, I call it intentional dating, that 6 hours, and I didn't even tie a bow on that. So by the time we end up doing all that different meeting business stuff and family stuff, we take the last 2 hours to drink tequila, laugh and have fun.

But what it does when we have our meeting that way and I'll make sure I answer your question, but what it does when we have our meeting that way is it allows us to connect on all of the things that if we don't connect on them, even for just a minute if we don't connect on them, that's what ends up creating the overwhelm in life.

Like when you wake up and you're like, you feel like you're behind, you wake up, you grab your phone and it's just straight reactive mode. When you don't connect on the different things even though it doesn't take a ton of time, be disciplined, be strategic, but then once you get that strategy be fricken' disciplined to it and if it doesn't work the first week, give the process time, it's like they're not magic things .

And so my wife and I over the last 7 months had to figure out, and we're still going to change it, it will change every month probably, but we changed the way that we did that meeting. At first, we did our marriage stuff first and it was not the way to go.

Because it almost kind of felt like putting it first was we would just jump down each other's throat and it ended up feeling like, "You did this and you did that; you said this," and so we ended up like moving that to like the third hour of the day and we wanted to connect, we found it best to connect on our kids, because when we connect to our kids it's like we're both so passionate about that and it's all love, there are no egos in that and there's no, "You said, she said," it's just all about the kids and then we move on to the next thing.

And by the time we move on to the marriage, we're loving on each other so much about the kids and coming together so much for teamwork for the kids, that by the time we get to marriage we're already in kind of like that "we over me" mindset.

Shawn Stevenson: I love it, I love it. And so just kind of pivoting back with the question—

Steve Weatherford: Yeah, come back with the question. Keep me on the rails, coach.

Shawn Stevenson: How do you extend and demonstrate love for your son, for example? Experiences, exposure, what are you doing for the kids?

Steve Weatherford: In that meeting, we're able to figure out what each kid needs. So strategically, from a strategy standpoint, I have 5 kids and one of my visions for the man and the dad I wanted to be, in January of this year it was like I wanted by the time I got to the end of this year, I wanted to have created enough freedom in my schedule because of different alignments that I'm making taking weight off my shoulder for me to be able to design the life that I want.

Meaning I want to date my daughter, I have 4 of them, I want to date my daughter every Friday so if I have 4 of them, I have 4 Fridays in a month, so it took a while and it took strategy progressively, time and time and time because it started out, I could only give one with the schedule I had. I could only give one daughter a day per month, so it took me 4 months to date all my daughters.

Now I can do it in a month, and the way I was able to do that wasn't by like painfully ripping off the bandage and just doing it and letting my businesses suffer the way that I was kind of describing to you, you know, who I want to speak to, the people that feel like they keep pinballing around to get excellence in their life instead of just having strategy and being able to intentionally move throughout their day. And quit hustling, quit grinding and just be intentional, be an intentional executer.

But in order for you to do that, you have to see the ultimate vision of what you want your life to be. And this is not yo-yo talk, this is a vision board and you look at that vision board at the end of 12 months and say, "Okay, Shawn, this is where I want to go, what is it going to take for me to get there? I want to be able to do this with my daughters, I want to be able to supply these trips for my kids, I want to be able to take 2 weeks completely off in December.

Oh yeah, by the way this 7 figure company I want this to be an 8 figure company in Jesus's name. And you know what, I haven't launched this company but I've got a vision for it and I'm going to make that 7 figures as well because I'm going to lead my team I'm not going to manage my team in 2020. I'm going to lead my team from the front and that's what's going to happen because I have strategy."

And so at the beginning of 2019, it wasn't really about businesses, it was about making alignments in my businesses and not a metric attached to my business. So making those alignments earlier on in the year has allowed me to get to the place to date all 4 of my daughters in one month, in addition to dude, I've created a lifestyle Shawn, where I have 3 7-figure companies, not saying that to brag, this is what God's doing in my life, and I homeschool my son from 6 am to 11 am every single weekday, and I don't miss a basketball game on the weekends.

So you want to talk about getting the most out of what you have? And I'm not saying, I'm not here to brag about it, I'm here to breathe life into entrepreneurs that only have one company right now and they want to make it 7 figures but they feel like they're overwhelmed and they don't have enough time in the day.

It's about strategy, it's not about doing more, you're not a better businessman or a better leader if you do more. Give strategy and give vision to your life so the people that are around you aren't following orders, they're pushing you towards the vision that you enrolled them into. Does that make sense?

Shawn Stevenson: Absolutely.

Steve Weatherford: I think about Brave Heart. He is standing in front of his troops, Shawn, he doesn't say to them, "Hey, I'm going to need you to swing," that acts like this, "I'm going to need you to hold this shield and protect that guy and hit," like, "Hey, you with the pitchfork, I want you to stab like this." No, he stood in the front and he told these guys what they're fighting for and it's bigger than you, it's bigger than me, it's bigger than our legacies.

This is for God and for country, and guess what— those guys fight like savages. So my point to it is like as leaders of a family or leaders of a business, it's not about telling them what to do, it's about enrolling them into the vision and empowering them to know what to do. And that's what I've done in my family. And so collectively, dude, my family functions at a very high level which allows me to be able to go out and build and go out and speak from stage.

If my wife wants to go with me on a 4-day trip because we have strategy and infrastructure, I'll plan that a month in advance and it won't be a strain, it won't be painful. There will be a discomfort because I planned it so it's not about God doesn't want people to live in pain, he doesn't want entrepreneurs to live in pain, he wants all of us to live in discomfort because we are all incomplete without him.

But for me, dude, it's strategy in placing God in the middle of my family and it's just been supernatural what has happened since then. It all came down to strategy and having a vision and then reverse engineering how to get there.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, you know what's crazy, it's when I last saw you, we bumped into each other at Bedro's place. And you were a different person, where you're in a different phase.

Steve Weatherford: I can't wait until you meet me next year.

Shawn Stevenson: I love that, man. And from that person to today I see that there's been a big change and I think that it's simply these ingredients. And you're sharing something that is so valuable and vital, if people just think about this differently, execute and try and fill these 4 buckets, right. And so with that said, I want to see how you fit into this.

Because there are a lot of outgoes that I'm hearing, and so I want to talk about what's getting done as far as self-care and self-attention for Steve Weatherford. And we're going to do that right after this quick break, so sit tight we'll be right back.

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Alright, we're back and we're talking with my really, really good friend, a super inspiring, powerful human being in every kind imaginable way, Mr. Steve Weatherford. And before the break, and you know what, I just want to pivot back really quickly because this is hitting me in my heart right now.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah, let's go where your heart has been.

Shawn Stevenson: Mentioning the person that you were maybe a year ago and the person that you are now. When you were articulating earlier about what happens when you are focused on building businesses and doing the things that men tend to do, and your relationship can start to get thrown in the garbage and just like it's a dumpster fire over here. Is this something that you personally experience? Because when you said it, it just really struck me.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah. I don't even know if this is going to answer your question but I believe this is where I'm supposed to go. When I look back on my life, Shawn, I look back at a lot of reverse engineering from a strategic standpoint of sports, a strategic standpoint of going pro, a strategic standpoint of being a Super Bowl champion, being on the cover of Muscle and Fitness.

Dude, I had 4 goals when I was 14 years old and I've talked about them a lot, probably talked about them the last time I was on your podcast. I want to become a dad, it was my first goal I had at 14, I wrote these things down to have the papers, crazy. I wanted to become a dad at 14 because I had a great dad like I don't want to say, my dad, my dad was freakin' amazing so I want to make sure that I say that, he just never said, "I'm proud of you," and he never championed me. So I wanted to become a dad because I wanted to right that freakin' wrong.

And I wanted to be a pro athlete and I wanted to become an Olympic champion, and I wanted to become, I want to be on the cover of Muscle and Fitness. And those 4 life goals I achieved. Well I wasn't an Olympic champion but I was a world champion so when I look back at my life and how I have reversed engineered all these things, with the exception of being a dad all of them were like sports-related, they were all physique related, they were all exterior.

And they all worked because I used strategy and kind of like the same way I'm explaining to people, here is like just being an intentional executor of a plan that you know will work and there's no shortage of people telling you like how to win. So go out find somebody you trust, let them give you a game plan and let them give you support and go on just be an intentional executer.

I did that in sports and I became a 10-year interval a veteran, Super Bowl champion, franchise punter, Super Bowl records, all this crazy stuff because I was very intentional for it. But then once I retired and, because the reason I left the NFL is I was unfulfilled, dude, you know what I mean?

I'm playing pro sports making $197,000 a game, but I had saved up enough money to have some financial security, but not like I'm not making quarterback money for that long, so I had gotten to my 10th year in the NFL and just felt— I don't want to say unchallenged because it was still super hard, but unfulfilled that I was on any type of road map to any type of fulfilling destiny.

Because every goal that I achieved as a pro athlete required more of me and actually gave me less fulfillment. So I thought like, you know, because the higher that goes up the more they require of you, the harder they are to get and the less good they make you feel. So I got a reduced return on my investment and the investment was much higher.

So I just decided to get out. And about a year and a half ago, 6 months before we met is when I decided to take this superpower of being able to identify a vision and then reverse engineer a game plan to be able to get to that, with strategy, not just planning, strategy. Because that's an important part of it because a plan would be like, "Hey, it's January and I want to date all of my daughters, so just start doing it that Friday," but it sends everything else in your life into a tailspin.

So a plan is not just good enough, there has to be a strategy behind it and then you come up with the plan. And so I just have an incredible gift to do that for myself and 2019 because of alignments has allowed me to be able to help other entrepreneurs do that. But I want to get back to 18 months ago when I went on this like, I was explaining to you, it was a vision quest, dude, like a deep, spiritual vision quest.

And what I ended up kind of coming out of the other side of it with was let me take these gifts that God gave me and let me put, like in my mind the faith that I want to have, let me put that down, okay.

The relationship with my son I want to have, let me put that down, the marriage that I want to have, let me put that down, all of the things in my life they weren't excellence, they weren't pro level. I had an amateur marriage, a year and a half like I didn't run around on my wife and I didn't like beat her, I was a good husband on paper, but I wasn't great. I wasn't what I'm capable of being, and I was convicted by that.

And so I said, "Listen, if I'm like so good at achieving all these other things with these strategic plans that I come up with and being insanely disciplined to them, why don't I just do that for my faith walk and create a training program for my prayer life? And make myself read the Bible." I do not like reading the Bible even now, I'm hoping and praying that one day like it's going to come to life the way that people say like, "Oh these words were jumping off," they don't jump out the paper for me, Shawn.

I wish they did. But I am disciplined to staying in that fire every single day for those 15 minutes, and one day I am believing that they are going to jump off that paper, I'm believing for it. But I'm going to train the same way I train deadlift when I sucked at deadlift or squat or benchpress, the same way I sucked at that but I stayed in the fire because I knew that there was something on the other side of it.

So I am believing for that, I'm believing for incredible electricity to my marriage and guess what— I have that right now, dude. I have the most ridiculous marriage I could ever dream up and there is a strategy behind it and it doesn't mean like we don't have bad days or we didn't get an argument on the way up here, but foundationally, we are together, dude.

Shawn Stevenson: And that's what I want to ask you, man. So what does she mean to you?

Steve Weatherford: Man, what does my wife mean to me? She is the wheels for the bus, man. You know what I mean? Like I feel like God placed it so heavy on my heart and he gave me a diesel engine, man, and he gave me like the heart and the vision to just load, dude, Shawn, just load people up on this bus that I'm driving right now, you know what I mean?

And without her being underneath me, scheduling the phone calls, speaking life into me, picking me up off the floor when I'm discouraged because it's lonely, dude, you know what I mean? I don't feel lonely now, but when you have such a big vision for what you feel like God places on you, dude, it can take your breath away sometimes, for real.

So my wife to me, dude, she is the wheels underneath the bus of what we're driving, you know, people say she's my rock. Dude, she's not my rock, because a rock sits still, man, she keeps me moving, you know what I mean? In the most magical way.

So to me, I need to make sure that I am strategically, strategically building time into my wife's life for herself because the wife like I know ladies listen to this right now, dude, you will be a martyr for your kids all day long. But nobody, nobody would be like, "Hey, hey Martha, Hey Susie."

My wife's name is Laura, "Hey Laura, you know what, you seem really overwhelmed and you haven't slept enough and you know what, dude, let me bless you by watching your kids tonight so you can go stay in a hotel room and get a peaceful night's sleep because I know your one-year-old gets up at 4 am every day."

Nobody does that, Shawn! So guess what— I'm going to build a strategy. Once a week, because this is a real story that happened in my life, my wife is just extreme adrenal fatigue and she just can't catch up to the point where she goes and gets her testosterone tested, it doesn't even show up. She has no testosterone detectable in her body.

So I said, "Okay, I'm not going to rely on these doctors, I'm going to rely on this," my wife needs sleep, dude, she needs sleep. So once a week, I built in a strategy that my wife would go stay in a hotel by herself and I told her I said, "I'm going to look on your phone and if you look at your phone after 9 pm we won't do this again," because I wanted her to honor the opportunity that she had, because she's extremely exhausted. And we all know how phones are.

And so I just didn't want my wife to think this is an opportunity for you to just like do whatever you want to do, let's be intentional with this time that you had, we did that for 7 weeks, and I got a new wife, you know what I mean? Because I gave her what she needed, I didn't try to solve her problems or wonder why she's so grumpy all the time, you know what I mean?

I reconnected on what she really needed— sleep. I could say things like, "Well, quit looking at your phone before you go to sleep," or, "Wear blue blockers," or, "Wear these bose sleepbuds," or, "Take CBD," you know what I mean? I didn't do that for her, I said, "Okay, you need sleep, I'm going to enrich the quality of this, I'm not going to give you supplements, I'm not going to rely on some doctor to fix my wife. I am getting involved in this. I am the CEO of this thing." I'm the leader of this and so I got in front of it and I created a strategy for her to do that and it took 7 weeks what would have taken 7 months with any of these other—

Shawn Stevenson: If.

Steve Weatherford: Right, if it ever happened. So I decided to accelerate that with strategy. 7 weeks instead of probably 7 years.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's a miracle, man.

Steve Weatherford: It really is.

Shawn Stevenson: You got to the root. And this is what so many of us don't do because we're so busy in our minds and we're not taking time to analyze and to be intentional and to strategize like you're talking about. So I just want to thank you for doing there for her, that's a miracle man, that's so powerful.

Steve Weatherford: It really is, I got a new wife.

Shawn Stevenson: I know you did, but you got to the root instead of trying to treat symptoms, get off your phone or whatever. She needed that time. You know what's so crazy, man, and we can do this no matter what level we're at, because still man, and I don't want you to speak to this yet, but I want to speak to it, people are going to hear this and they're going to think like, "Well he has money, he has the opportunity through money and assets to be able to do stuff like that."

But what I want to say for people first and foremost is, no matter where you're at in your life, no matter what level you're at, you can absolutely take time to strategize, to support your significant other. It's as simple as a decision. So this could be you know, instead of a whole night off, this could be just encouraging your partner to go and spend, go out with friends, right.

Because I know as men, like what we tend to want especially when we have time to be with our significant other, we just want their time, like we want to snuggle up and cuddle up and just be close to them, we want them around us not realizing that they need that time to be free to do other things. And there's that statement that distance makes the heart grow fonder. And so you're seeing that firsthand with specifically strategizing and opportunity.

One thing that I did recently was, and I didn't like it, man, I rather have her with me, but there was an event that was actually in San Diego and so this was the first that my wife went to an event without me, right, on her own. And it's just like, it was a little, but I didn't share this with her, but I knew that it was good, it was good for us, it was good for her. And like you said, I get a new wife. And it's just strategically every day taking the opportunity if we can in small increments or you can do larger things, like you are doing it once a week.

Steve Weatherford: I agree with you and by the way, dude, your wife is so special. I don't know why she's always been highlighted to me. Every single time I speak to you I almost, I feel like every single time I do, I mention her, man, she's like, and I spent maybe 5 minutes with her. She's a special lady.

But one thing I wrote down, I grabbed the notepad from you while you were talking was I wrote down the word "disqualified" because you were speaking about how people will maybe hear a good idea for a strategy or hear a good idea for a business opportunity, or just hear a good idea in general, or maybe see somebody that's inspiring.

And everybody does this, I do it too, and you already got ahead of it, that's why you're so good at what you do. But for everybody that's hearing me tell this story that is thinking to themselves, "Well, sure, he can do it," I want you to hear me say this— God doesn't call the qualified he qualifies the called. And what I mean when I say that is— if you truly believe in your heart that you want to get something done and you want to achieve something, it's not about doing it like me, and it's not about doing it like anybody else, because their vision is not your vision, their strategy is not your strategy.

If you continually poke holes in the reasons why you can't, you'd be really, really busy. All you need to do is find one reason why you should, not even why you can, but one reason why you should quit disqualifying yourself because you'll end up living a life and become an expert of the reasons why you can't do something or become someone because you're stuck disqualifying yourself.

And it's like we all do it, so like you want to come up with the strategy for the people that are disqualifying themselves, I don't want to come up with a strategy for the people that are disqualifying themselves, I want to encourage you and empower you to be resourceful.

You don't need resources, if you're resourceful. So I want to challenge you if have you really have a dream or a vision is spend your time being resourceful, not poking holes in the plan why you can't or you shouldn't, find one reason why you should.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, yeah, I love it, man. So you, let's talk about you. So that was obviously a huge chunk of your time and your intention because it was feeding so many other things, so many of your goals and your dreams and your mission was taking care of this incredible body of yours, right.

And now, obviously, you've made a shift in your approach and your intention and your structure, you're investing so much into your family, which again, this feeds you on a whole different level, that makes all that other stuff I would believe easier, the self-care. So let's talk about that. How are you approaching that piece? How are you approaching the self-care for you? I know that you did some stem cells stuff recently? Let's talk about that hyperbaric chamber, how you taking care of Steve today?

Steve Weatherford: So 2018 was my vision quest to get like you said earlier, like, "Oh you seem to be like aware of yourself." I spent a year practicing it and like asking people the hard questions, having conversations with my dad about like getting to know myself better by asking my dad questions about myself that I didn't want to hear the answer, but I needed to.

So 2018 was about that. 2019 was foundational, meaning alignments, I needed to get my businesses, I needed to get the right people in my businesses, right? Because I believe 2019 has been, my word has been alignment and I believe 2020 is assignment. And it's not until I believe I created those alignments where I'm actually freeing myself with strategy, freeing myself up to use more of the gifts and the annoying things and the things that God wants me to do.

In 2020 I would never be able to do those and also be the dad and the husband that I want to be. So I'm actually, 2019 has actually been preparing me, it has been all about preparation, laying the foundation, getting the relationship with my son healthy, getting the relationship my daughters healthy, getting the relationship with my wife healthy, getting our marriage healthy, getting a routine and a strategy for us to continually come together.

Because when 2020 blows up the way that I believe it will, I don't want my success to be the reason my marriage goes back to what it was. So I have to have a strategy and a foundation in place and I have to protect Tuesdays.

And like you said earlier, like yeah, and sometimes you know like if we have time— and I get it, I try to do that if I have time, but also Tuesdays is not an if, that is mandatory, like that is like church in my family, it's not more important but I protect it like church. You know like when we grew up and I don't know your exact way you grew up, but it was like we go to church on Sundays, that's not really negotiable unless you're vomiting, we go to church.

So I make that same commitment to this intentional date night that I have with my wife. And so for people listening to this, it doesn't need to be 6 hours, it can start with 20 minutes, do it once a day, but do it, not like if you have time— do it.

That's when strategy really, that's when rubber meets the road, when you're disciplined with it, and I believe that's what has really supernaturally accelerated my gift of strategy and vision, not just for myself but for other business owners as well and entrepreneurs that I work with, is not just that strategy, but I'm really good at executing it.

And that's what makes me super special, is like, "Cool, you have the strategy, you have the vision, but I'm just going to execute it better than everybody else." So give me the same strategy as Shawn, I bet you I'm going to execute it better. That's what I'm telling myself, and I might not, but guess what, if I believe that's my goal it's not about you anymore, it's about getting the most out of what I had in front of me, because my strategy is going to be different than yours. You're not trying to go where I am trying to go.

Shawn Stevenson: And so how are you getting the most out of you right now?

Steve Weatherford: Now you bring me back to it. Okay, every single morning I wake up and I think I go through my morning routine maybe. Gut health is my thing but my morning routine, man, only in my morning, you know about this, is I am with my son from 6 until 11 am. The first thing we do every single morning is we wake up and we get in my infrared sun, I have sunlight and infrared sauna.

I get in that bad boy for about 30 minutes, we have a father-son devotional that we do together, we pray together and that's kind of like setting the intention for the day, just getting it right. And that's part of the training program is like regardless if we want to do it or not, like we're doing it, so it's kind of like exercise to us, we're exercising that faith muscle and obviously the health benefits of the sunlight sauna.

And then from there we eat breakfast. We usually eat that at the house, I'm kind of skipping over probiotics and all the other stuff we can get into if you want. Then from there, we go train together and I allow him to be involved in the content creation of what his training is.

So he gets to be involved in that and so he's kind of part of the artists of what's putting the training together, so it never gets stale and it's always things he likes. And then from there we go home and then at that point, we typically have like one hour of some type of man enhancement.

Last week we went and opened up a checking account, because he's got dyslexia and he's got ADD and so part of me homeschooling him, I don't do any of the homework stuff, like any of the school curriculum. Man academy to me is about empowering him with the structure and the tools that he needs for kind of like we're talking about earlier, the experiences that he needs for growth.

So numbers overwhelm him, he's got ADD and dyslexia, everything's fricking backward, it makes sense right, so let's go open you up a checking account because he's got about $700 right now and he wants to be an entrepreneur. So that's something we're doing for him to just get practice.

Shawn Stevenson: Dude, I hope he doesn't buy me shoes because I was joking with him and your wife about when they go shopping, I was like, "Hey I wear a size 11," you know what I'm saying, like, "If you guys see anything," he literally said it twice, he was like, "11, got it." I hope, I didn't know he had paper, I didn't know he had money.

Steve Weatherford: If you think for one second that that curious little kid doesn't have the intention to find those shoes, I want you to know right now he's trying to find those shoes. I am so proud of him. But my point is, every single week we will come up with the Man Academy challenge of the week. He's really scared of open water, really scared of sharks, I made a bad mistake let him see Jaws when he was like 6, thinking it would be cool and scary.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, welcome to my life, sounds very familiar.

Steve Weatherford: Bad idea. Okay, well, there is a solution for that. One of the Man Academy challenges was, I got a see-through kayak and we went to La Jolla and they have a little cave that has a bunch of sharks in it. And so our challenge that week was for him to face his fears and literally sit in them. So we paddled out into this and we just sat in there and we just talked, calmly.

And I allowed him not to experience his fear but to sit in it. You know what that's like when these things are like, because other people are like throwing stuff for the sharks to come up and bite and they are coming out of the water bro, and we're sitting right here, he is literally sitting in his greatest fear.

But as fathers, that's our challenge, man. It's not to be able to figure out a way to let our little boys or our little girls live life around their fears. I believe it is our responsibility to let them encounter and sit in their fear in a safe ecosystem, meaning I'm not going to go swimming with sharks with my son, and I'm not going to make him a great barrier reef and jump in there with some great rights.

These sharks were probably 18 inches long maybe 2 feet if they bit you they wouldn't even get meat, just skin. So I think I want to challenge dads out there and moms out there to do the same thing, men, like quit cuddling your kids because they're going to grow up needing that. So it's not about like throwing them out there like the Spartans and like, "Hey if they come back they're strong enough if they die then you know it's the natural evolution."

It's not like that, like give them a safe place to be a leader, give them a safe place to write their own programs for training, that's what my son does in the morning, I empower him to do that it's not just about keeping it exciting for him. I don't know, I may unlock a gift for him that he ends up writing all these incredible programs like his dad did and making you know millions of dollars, making something super complex and overwhelm like getting bigger arms and making it super simplified and digital in your phone.

Maybe I started that gift for him, I don't know, but the experience is to your point that's what Man Academy is about. And Friday night date nights, we don't go to dinner and a movie, you don't talk at dinner and a movie. How do you nurture a relationship in a setting like that? No, dude, we go out and we do life together with my daughters, we do what they want to do, the experiences that they want to have it's all about them.

And it's not about buying them things, it's about life experiences, but in order for me to get that every single Friday with my daughters and get that from 6 am to 11 am, 5 hours, 5 times a week, 25 hours I get to be with my son. Do you think I could do that just by like hope and wishing and wanting it really bad and praying to Jesus to give it to me? No, dude, no.

God gave me the skills a long time ago when the final word was spoken over me, he gave me the skills to be able to create that life. He gave me the skills to create it. So I'm challenging everybody that is listening to this right now, like what Gifts do you have that you think are just like cool things that you can do?

Because those things that people tease you about are the things that are going to unlock your greatness because that is what I spoke to you at the beginning of this podcast, and that is your uniqueness. That's what makes, that's your divine fingerprint, man, that's what makes you different out of 7 billion people on this planet, is the weird things about you.

Like the fact that I have extreme ADHD and sometimes I forget about what I'm saying, it's not because I'm talking off the cuff and I don't know where I'm going, it's because I don't know if you noticed, dude, I just close my eyes and I try to turn my brain off and just let my heart talk. That's my way of letting God be heard.

And sometimes I forget where I'm going because I'm not using my brain, so if you are watching a video in here, I am spitting all over the place. If you're not watching the video, I'm closing my eyes because I just want you guys to hear what God wants you to hear.

And the strategy for me is he keeps coming up for us man, and I feel like to reverse engineer the life that you want to have, man, you've got to be able to see it and then be able to have a strategy, to make that pursuit uncomfortable but not painful. Does that make sense?

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve Weatherford: Life is about being uncomfortable and outside of your comfort zone but it's not about pain. it's not about grinding, it's not about hustling, it's about being strategic and then just being super intentional with that execution.

Shawn Stevenson: We've covered a lot of ground today, man, a lot of ground. And only you can travel this much ground this quickly, man. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Steve Weatherford: I talked a lot.

Shawn Stevenson: Before I let you go I want to ask you what do you, we kind of dove into this— listen, listen this is important because I'm so proud of you and happy for you that a big part of this is your family.

That's the thing that I admire about you most it's so inspiring because we rarely see this and the way that you show it and demonstrated for all of us is really something special. And so when are you, you're you still a swoldier, man, like when are you hitting the gym and working out?

Steve Weatherford: Strategy.

Shawn Stevenson: When is this happening, man?

Steve Weatherford: That's the part of Man Academy, that's what I do with my son. Here's the deal, like fitness is such a huge part of me, I receive all those kind of things by the way, I don't want to skip over that because I have a bad habit of not receiving compliments, because there was a long period of time that I didn't feel that way about myself, so even when fans, if you want to call them that, playing football, "We love you," I didn't receive that because I didn't feel that way about myself.

So I receive that, but yeah, it's all strategy, so I built in the most important things for me like, yes, I built Man Academy to evolve my son into the man that I feel like he will become. But that's also my routine so it's like I don't want people to think like, "Oh, he's so noble," dude, that's my routine, so I'm essentially, I pulled my son out of traditional schooling because I didn't feel like they were going to be able to serve my son better than I could serve my son.

We have a tutor that comes in from 11 until 2 every day, that gives some traditional schooling and teaches them about geography, and I am not going to discount it, that's stuff is important. But you're looking at a guy right now that has a high school degree, I am so incomplete. However, I am winning, dude, you know what I mean?

And I'm not boasting that I'm winning, dude, like by God's grace I'm winning, but I'm winning, you know what I mean? It's not about education. So for people that want to start that business or personal training or being an entrepreneur and you continually disqualify yourself because you don't have that degree, you don't have that certification, you don't have the connections, you don't have the social media, you don't have the capital— stop.

Because that game ends right now, the game ends right now, man. This decade is almost over, like what's the next decade going to look like for you? Because you, like the same way when we were kids, if you go from 5th grade to 6th grade you're like the new kid and you know in your mind like, "Hey man, I get to create a whole new identity. I get to be whoever I want if I move to a new city or I go into a new school".

Treat 2020 like that but start doing it now but have a vision for 2020 and that superhero of yourself that you have in your mind, not a vision of somebody else, that superhero version you have of yourself in your mind, start practicing it right now and it might feel funky and it might feel phony, but keep practicing being your superhero.

By the time you get to 2020 your failing forward, you take 67 days to make or break a habit. Why are you going to start to January 1st with everybody else? Get started now, fail forward now so by the time you get into 2020, 2 weeks into it, dude, all of a sudden it goes from ritual routine to rhythm, and you're not trying to be something anymore, you are that.

Shawn Stevenson: Yes, Steve, my man, thank you so much.

Steve Weatherford: Love you man, sorry we have to pause.

Shawn Stevenson: No, listen. This is been so fulfilling for me, just sitting here and hearing your story, hearing your progress, hearing your intention and seeing the results in your family, man, like I really hope that this got people thinking differently about what's possible. And man—

Steve Weatherford: It did, we're not going to think or hope or wish or want this change the way that people think. It did. Thank you for having me, man, seriously thank you for trusting me that whatever hair-brained idea that I had or that you thought or I said God had for us, man, just thank you, man, for real. I meant everything I said to you at the beginning of this podcast, man.

And like, dude, when I close my eyes and I think about if somebody says your name I just picture a peaceful warrior. Because you carry such a peace with you everywhere you go, when you're on a podcast, man, you have like this bedroom voice and I don't want to make this funny, but when I listen to your podcast, because I do, it's so peaceful.

But you're about that business, too and so you carry such a powerful mantle everywhere you go because you're peacefully doing so much. And it's something that I admire you for because from the surface level, I seem different than you because I'm pretty spastic, but we're both about that business and I just admire you with the grace with which you handle relationships and podcasts and adversity. I just admire you so much, man, I love you, thank you for trusting me.

Shawn Stevenson: My man, thank you so much for hanging out with me today, I appreciate it, bro. Can you let everybody know where they can connect with you online? And also about your podcast.

Steve Weatherford: Yeah I really I know this podcast went really long and I know we weren't like super at least audibly super intentional with where we were going with this thing, but I just appreciate everybody sticking with it. I hope it served everyone.

If you want to touch base with me, honestly, I would love to know from my own mind to be able to speak on it more in the future, what about this show really stuck out to people and you can catch me, just send me a DM on Instagram, I manage all of those and that's where I connect with people, that's where I get feedback on like what I speak on people want to know more of.

So I just appreciate you guys and I appreciate the space Brian, Conner, Eric thank you, men, I appreciate you guys serving us today, it was a lot of fun and hopefully, that served everybody and I'll see you guys over on Instagram, SnapChat.

Shawn Stevenson: Podcast!

Steve Weatherford: Oh yeah, and my podcast. I talk about kind of similar stuff so any of the feedback I get from you guys and what you love to hear, I am going to be talking about on mine.

Shawn Stevenson: What's the name of the podcast?

Steve Weatherford: Steve Weatherford Show. Love you guys.

Shawn Stevenson: Peace! Awesome, everybody thank you so much for tuning into the show today, I hope you got a lot of value out of this. And listen I'm pumped right now, I'm pumped to go and implement. And these, the recipe that he delivered and I took a bunch of notes myself here. Number 1 love. Number 2 supported. Number 3 seen, Number 4 heard.

These 4 ingredients, investing these 4 ingredients into our loved ones, into our partners, into the folks at work, like you mentioned a great example of you wanting to raise at your job, make your boss feel loved, supported, seen and heard. And guess what you win, every time you do those things, every time you implement and cook up those 4 ingredients, you win.

It might take some time and strategy and structure and intention upfront, but you're going to win. And Steve so eloquently said today, he's winning. And I think that these 4 ingredients are absolutely life-changing and any of us can use them. So I am just so grateful to have him on today and I'm grateful for you tuning in.

Tag us on Instagram, let us know what you thought about the episode, share with your friends and family so they can get a dose of inspiration and strategy as well. We've got some powerhouse stuff coming your way, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day I'll talk with you soon.

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