Follow Your Path

Episode #703

Have you ever found yourself trapped in someone else’s blueprint, trying to conform to a path that doesn’t quite resonate with your essence?

Do you wonder why your efforts sometimes fall short despite following popular advice?

In this captivating installment of The Powerful Man Show, a riveting exploration into the significance of staying true to your individual journey unfolds. Tim unveils his personal health odyssey, delving into his persistent struggles with weight loss and his ultimate realization that a customized approach is key.

In this episode, you will learn the transformative power of authentic alignment: Understand how following your unique path can lead to profound personal growth and success.

Tune in to this enthralling episode that kindles inspiration for decisive action, urging you to sculpt a life in harmony with your distinct path.

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TRANSCRIPTION

Tim Matthews  00:22

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Powerful Man Show!

I am your host, Tim Matthews, and unfortunately, my co-host, Mr. Dougie Fresh; he is not with me today. He is on his way home. In fact, he’s actually recovering on the east coast. He’s made his way from the west coast to the east coast. He’s now there with his wonderful wife, their two kids and her family while he takes some well-deserved R&R after his road trip seeing the men across the US.

So you have got me today, and if you didn’t listen to the episode before this, I would strongly invite you and encourage you to do so because this one kind of builds on that one in some respects. So recently, I had some health tests done back in October. Now, for me, I’ve been working out for a long time. I used to be a personal trainer. I have been into health and fitness, my God, all my life. I mean, say all my life in one shape or form, all my life because I played sport for a long time. But I got into the gym when I was about 15, and honestly, I got into the gym so young because I got picked on really for being skinny.

And I promised myself as soon as I was old enough to be able to work out, I was going to do, and I wasn’t going to let anybody ever be able to call me that again. Wasn’t the best place to get into it. And it drove most of my habits in the gym for a very long time, unbeknownst to me.

But anyway, recently, over the past few years, I’ve been struggling to lose body fat. I mean, I’ll lose a little bit and then I maintain it, then I’ll lose it, but I never really lose anything significant. And I’ve been curious as to why, because I’ve been working out well. I’ve been in a calorie deficit a lot of the time, and it led me to getting some blood panels done last October. Now, I’ve been wanting to get some done for probably about the same time as I’ve been struggling to lose body fat. However, whatever reason, I didn’t pull the trigger until last October. So there is a lesson in itself for you guys listening that are on the fence about this.

Now, what came back from those blood panels was very interesting. So I had high levels of inflammation in my body. Now, the practitioner thought it might have been down to gluten. My testosterone was also low as well, which is kind of not surprising given the high levels of inflammation. So the first course of action was for me to cut out gluten and reduce alcohol. So that’s what I did and I got retested. In fact, I also followed a protocol for four months as well.

Now this protocol was to help get rid of parasites if there were any parasites in my blood that were contributing to the inflammation, and also to address some of the toxicity that may have been present. Now, I got retested in April, so I was following the protocol from about November time until about March time. Got retested in April. I had reduced gluten by about 90%. I’d reduced alcohol quite a lot.

And good news was when I got retested that inflammation, my testosterone had gone up, inflammation had gone down slightly, but my cholesterol had also gone up. Now obviously I get it, there’s different types of cholesterol, there’s eleven different markers for cholesterol as well. So I ended up doing a cardiometabolic profile.

So just take a deeper look, essentially. Now that didn’t come back with very promising results. I had a lot of high risk factors. High risk factors for plaques, for the bad type of cholesterol, for oxidized cholesterol. All of this was completely over my head.

Long story short is that it was pretty damning reading and it was right before I went to the CPM retreat and the barn raising a few months ago that I got the results and talk about a wakeup call. I was like, holy shit, if I continue on this path the next ten years. And it was surprising as well because I work out. I don’t eat a bad diet, relatively healthy, I’m not super strict by any means, but equally, I’m not loose. I don’t eat fast food, I don’t really sugary snacks a great deal, I don’t drink fizzy drinks. But yeah, I have some alcohol, yeah, I have a cigar here and there. Yes, I have some carbs.

But like I said, I also do me a few times a week. I lift weights a few times a week we go hiking. So yeah, I’m active as well. Anyway, the point of this isn’t a health episode at all. Since those results, I have been prescribed a particular diet.

Now, I won’t dive into what the diet is because I don’t want to start being here hoarding that this diet is a wonder diet and everybody should be on this diet because I definitely don’t believe that it’s not the right diet for certain people. It’s a diet and lifestyle approach. But the point of this is, since following this diet, I have lost in a short space of time, I’ve lost about eight pounds of body fat, and I’m starting to feel much better, as well as taking some other intervention or following some other interventions to continue to alleviate the inflammation.

Now, I resisted this approach for a very long time, and the reason why I resisted this approach for a very long time was because everybody told me that, oh, well, you just need to restrict your calories, right? I got so much different advice from friends, from my trainer, from other people who were very well super smart in the health and fitness space.

And what a lot of them said was, it’s as simple as a calorie deficit. Just be in a calorie deficit and you’ll lose weight. Yeah, maybe. But equally, at the same time, if you have high levels of inflammation in your body that you don’t know about and your hormones are out of sync, it’s going to be much, much harder for you to lose weight. It just is.

And because I resisted it, I then essentially saw slow progress for quite some time, for a few years. And as soon as I became aware of what was going on for me and followed a plan that was specific to my needs and where I was at, I started to see much faster progress. And he got me thinking, where in your life do you get to follow your path?

One of the mistakes that the men often make in the movement is when they become aware of some of the ways in which they get to lead their wife and lead their relationship. Maybe it’s through having more polarity, right? Maybe it might be through being decisive, whatever it may be. Sometimes men can take this to the extreme and think they have to become someone that they aren’t, become a leader that they read about in books or they see on the movies or have levels of charisma that are unrealistic and unnatural to them.

And that just pushes their wife further away because it comes across as being inauthentic and disingenuous. However, the men that succeed are able to become aware of some of these principles and consider times in their life when they followed their own path, where they did their own thing, and at times when they naturally had some of these tendencies.

So for me, for example, the way that I handle shit tests most naturally is through playfulness. I’d say 80% of the time I’m playful with them, right? I make fun of Amelia; we have a laugh, right? And 20% of the time, I may just need to be firm and direct, whereas for some people, it could be the opposite.

However, if you try an approach that doesn’t suit you and your natural personality and your tendency, it’s going to come across as awkward. It’s not going to feel right to your wife or your pan. And typically, women feel what you say more than hear what you say, right? So where in your life do you get to follow your path? Maybe it’s in your health.

Maybe you get to go and get some tests done to understand what your body is, where you currently are, what your various levels, be it hormones or triglycerides or whatever’s going on for you. What are your current levels and what do you need to do that’s specific to where you are and where you want to go. Right? Turns out I think I’m having a genetic test done right now. I have familial, hyper-cholesterol, something like that. Basically, high cholesterol runs in the family. Simple as that.

So I’m being tested for that. If that is true, then my body doesn’t work as well with a diet that has higher levels of carbs and also higher levels of fat. So before, for example, without boring you with too much of the detail, I was doing 30% protein, now 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs. That was what my trainer told me to do. Looked good, fit into macros, fit into calories. The type of carbs were good carbs, wild rice, things like that.

However, since I’ve been dropping my carbs to about 30 grams a day and I’ve changed that split to being 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs, I feel much better. My energy is higher and I’m losing fat. I mean, the same amount of calories and my inflammation is coming down.

So that’s because I was able to understand where I was, how my body works, and come up with a plan for me. So again, I’m going to go back to the question where in your life do you get to follow your path? Maybe it’s in your relationship, maybe you’re trying. Maybe you’re learning from all these different places, cramming loads of different information into your head, and it’s taking you further and further away from you and your truth and how you best perform.

Maybe it’s in your leadership at work. Maybe you’re digesting a ton of books on leadership styles. As a result, you’re operating from your head within when you’re leading your people and you’re not actually able to just do the basics, the things you know that you do very well naturally the reason why people are following you in the first place because instead you are just layering yourself with methodologies that don’t work for you and your personality.

Now, yeah, I get it. I’m not saying we don’t grow. Of course we want to grow. The thing is, you’ve got to grow in a way that’s relevant and authentic to you. Maybe it’s even in your health. Like I said. So short episode, I just wanted to share the insight with you. And at the same time, it’s something that served me very well in my life throughout the years, especially the one thing actually that I also do alongside this that I think is key.

And the men in the movement swear by this as well. It’s making sure you review your week, the interview week. So we give the men in the movement a tool called the Businessman’s Guide to the Chart of Intentional Living; the COIL.

Now at the end of every week, they get a score, wins, lessons, improvements and a few other things. Now, if you don’t have that, then just make sure you sit down at the end of your week and look over your journaling for the week. And if you’re not journaling, then I strongly encourage you to do so.

Look back over your journaling for the week, then write down what are the wins for the week. Very important that you stack your wins, obviously, what are your lessons, and this is where you can make those micro adjustments. Let’s say you’re learning about leadership.

I’ll just keep using that example. You’re learning about leadership from somebody, some kind of resource, and you’ve applied it, but it didn’t quite feel right for you there’s. A little bit abrasive or something, ain’t quite land. This is a great opportunity for you to then be able to reflect upon that and write the lesson and make micro adjustments because the third piece of this is what your improvements going into the next week.

And that way you can still continue to learn, but at the same time you can stay true to your path, to yourself, and that’s where you are going to get the most amount of ease with your journey. So anyway, hope you find this useful. Like I said, staying true to my path always has led to really great RESULTS. At the same time, veering off my path and trying to be like everybody else or other people has always led to frustrations and difficulties and always been shrouded in doubt.

So again, thank you for joining me for another episode of The Powerful Man Show. I love that you’re here. I love that you’re listening. If this resonates, by all means you can go over to thepowerfulman.com and if you want to book a call with an advisor, you can go ahead and do that. If not, no worries. But whatever you’re doing, like Dougie Fresh always says, the moment of insight, take massive action.

We’ll see you next time on The Powerful Man Show!

Doug Holt  14:53

All right, guys, that’s a wrap for this episode. But as I always say in the moment of insight, take massive action. You see, there are two types of men that listen to a podcast like this, those that go on from one podcast or show to another just hoping things are going to change and realizing that they’re going to be in the same place month after month, year after year.       

You see, I was this guy so I completely get it. You may just not be ready. But there’s also a second man, a second man that listens to a show just like this. And this is a guy who takes massive action so they can shorten the learning curve, compress time, and get RESULTS to be the WOLF. See, WOLF is an acronym for Wise, Open, Loving, and Fierce.

Now ask yourself, which one am I? And just be honest with yourself there. And there’s no judgment on my end. But if you’re ready to move from deactivated DEER mode, which is Defend, Excuse, Explain, and React to activated WOLF, Wise, Open, Loving and Fierce, then go over to thepowerfulman.com/grow. And go there now. In fact, I’ll make it super easy for you. I will even put the link right in the description here so you can just click it and go over there now to learn more. Guys, in the moment of insight, take massive action. Go from deactivated to activated, because like I said, life is too short for average and I’ll see you on the next episode!