I love the idea of writing a letter to my younger self. It has helped me be empathic, understand the stage of life I was in and appreciate how much I have grown as a man.
Here is my letter. I would love to hear from you.
Mentioned On Today's Show: 🤝 My framework to live a better life 🤝 3 lessons I have learnt over the last few years 🤝 My thoughts as a young man
Learn How To Discover Who You Really Are, What You Want From Life & Where Your Fit In.
I love the idea of writing a letter to my younger self. It has helped me be empathic, understand the stage of life I was in and appreciate how much I have grown as a man.
Here is my letter. I would love to hear from you.
Mentioned On Today's Show: 🤝 My framework to live a better life 🤝 3 lessons I have learnt over the last few years 🤝 My thoughts as a young man
Learn How To Discover Who You Really Are, What You Want From Life & Where Your Fit In.
Ah, oh, tomorrow's you is today's journey this week in the podcast and the newsletter. This is a letter to my younger self. I was out walking last week and often when I go walking I think about things, I take notes and I try to understand how I think, how I or why I act the way that I do, and piece together problems that I've had in my life so that I can create a better outcome, moving forward. And as I was walking, I was thinking about this idea of building a great life and where I'm at in my life right now. I once wanted to be, and I know that there would be advice that I wish I had. Now that my future self will be able to tell me. And when you think about life in that way, you really start to be empathetic to where you're at, to show compassion and to also get excited by what you can really create. And that's what really triggered this email. So I'm going to read this one, a newsletter to my younger self, and for those of you who have subscribed to the newsletter, I appreciate that You'll get to see all the images and everything that goes with this week's one. And if you haven't subscribed, head over to themanthatcanprojectcom and it'll pop up straight away. It'll say join the weekly newsletter.
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But here it is. Life isn't going to plan. You have a burning desire to make your life mean something. You feel lost. You don't feel respected and you don't know what to do. You're overwhelmed by the pressures of life and the fear of failure, rejection and making a wrong decision. You have not hit your mark as an athlete. You keep stuffing up your relationships and you don't know whether you're going to make something of yourself. You've adopted this belief that you need to have it all figured out at such a young age. You fear taking risks, you don't back yourself and you're waiting for someone to save you.
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What if you aren't good enough? What if you won't be a professional athlete? What if you won't earn a ton of money? What if you don't find a good career? The truth is you may not be good enough, and I want to emphasize that you may not be good enough. And I want to emphasize that you may not be good enough. You may not become a professional athlete, you may not earn tons of money and you may not find a good career, but that does not mean that you are not enough.
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Your results don't determine you. They don't define you. Use them as a guide. There will be things that you suck at, things that you don't need to improve on, and there will be things that you suck at that you decide you need to improve on. Things that I come to mind for myself now is finances, is communication, is honesty. They're all things that I did suck at and I recognized pretty quickly if I wanted to live a good life, I needed to really learn to be vulnerable and accept those and build on them.
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When you figure out your life's vision, you'll figure out the difference between what you need to improve on and what you don't. Your character defines you, so who will you choose to be? Will you control your life or allow someone else to control yours? Choosing to control your life may seem scary. You may not feel like you're qualified to do so. You're responsible for all of the successes. I mean, yeah, how good is that? But you also must accept responsibility for the failures. You may feel you need guidance. You may feel like you can't achieve it at all. Those thoughts are all normal. You're not alone with that.
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It's also scary to think about someone controlling your life. Do they have your best interests at heart. Do they know what your best interests are? Do they care if you don't get to see your children grow up? Do they care if you end up overweight and highly stressed? Life is going to be full of decisions, lots of little ones and plenty of tough ones. How will you know which ones are best? You must think about what you want from.
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So the method that I use here is the zoom out and the zoom in. So zoom out, think about this Do you want full control over your life, getting to build towards that life that you desire, someone to control your life, having to react to what they build for you? So when you zoom out, that's the big picture thinking and depending on whether you want one or two, then determines what we do when we zoom in. Zooming in what are the specifics that you want to experience? Choose your income, the holidays, own your time, or do we zoom in with having someone else control it? So what are the experience that they want you to experience? Dedicated income or dictated income, specific time off for holidays, specific work hours? So you can see when we start zooming in and start zooming out and that'll be a completely different newsletter that we can talk about, but if you start doing this, you will be able to start planning your life.
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You either choose to be in control or you choose to be out of control, and a lot of people go with the latter because it's easier. We don't have to make decisions, we don't have to accept responsibility, and that may be easier in the short term, but it's not easier in the long term. And that may be easier in the short term, but it's not easier in the long term. So zooming in and out helps with clarity and it helps with perspective. So don't fall in the trap of just going with the flow, because if you go with the flow, you may flow in a direction that you don't like.
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It's hard and it's time consuming to think about what you really want. What do you want to experience? Where do you want to travel? Where do you want to travel? How do you want to be remembered? Who do you want to be become? Who do you want to be become? Who do you want to become? They're big questions, but the only way to build a great life is to sit with those questions until you create answers.
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Don't put your head in the sand. Don't hope that you magically find an answer. Hope is an absolutely terrible strategy. You may not believe you're capable of building a great life yet, but I can promise you, if you create some direction, if you create some clarity, you will be able to see much brighter. You will be so much closer well sorry, you will move so much closer than if you don't do that. Be patient, you have time. You aren't the man that you need to be yet, and that's okay. Tomorrow's you is today's journey. Today's journey should lead you to tomorrow's you when you have a vision, when you have goals and when you have clarity.
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Three key understandings that I've learned over the years that I feel may help you. One you don't wake up with a great life. It must be built. Two building a great life is deeply personal and subjective in pursuit a subjective pursuit. Three happiness comes from within and it cannot be found by making the world conform to your desires. These three understandings are why you know in your stomach that you must create a vision for your life, or at least the next 10 years. The younger you are, the harder it is to project further into the future. So maybe five years or 10 years is a great place to start, but as we get older we continue to refine and we can project further into the future with a greater understanding of who we are, what we want and how we operate.
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If you create the vision plan with purpose and take action every day, you will become the man that you need to be to build a great life. So here's a framework in order to do that, and this is my let's call it Lockie's long-term thinking framework for this one, and you can find it on the newsletter for those who want to write it down. But number one is reflect on key life experiences. Now, it's super important to reflect on key life experiences, both the positive and the negative, because every experience provides lessons, and lessons provide redirections, you know, gaining clarity around what we want more of and what we don't. Number two is establish what you value. We all value different things, and that is completely okay. A fulfilling life, a meaningful life, a purposeful life, comes from living by your values, making sure that your values are met. Three is envision your dream life.
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Take time to think about how you want your life to go, as I mentioned some of those questions before. But what does that really look like? Get yourself excited. Think about why you're delaying the gratification, why you're putting in the hard yards today. What is that going to give you? Number four is what impact do you want to have? Do you want to have immediate impact on direct family and friends, or do you want to have a global impact or a community impact? What legacies do you want to leave behind? It's important to think about that, because when you think about those things, you can then start thinking okay, how big does my influence need to be? How can I create that influence? What skills do I need to have to make sure that I can develop influence? And this once again ties into long-term thinking, goal setting, skill development, personal standards all the stuff that I run through in the self-discovery program.
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Number five is we want to create a vision statement. So when you think about your life and the multiple areas that you want to grow in, we can bring that down into a clear and concise vision statement, something that you can read over regularly. That reminds you of the big picture that you're working towards and finally break your vision down into goals. One of the most powerful things we do within our Strongman of Value Academy is we work in 12-week blocks. We have our 12-week game plan. Strongman of Value Academy is we work in 12-week blocks. We have our 12-week game plan and within that game plan, we focus on a specific goal that we know is going to move us closer to living our ideal life. And obviously it's easier to know what those goals should be when you have a life's vision, when you have something that you're building towards. So by doing that, we provide you with the structure, we provide you with the accountability and tips on how to be more productive. The more productive you can be, the more or greater results you can get in a shorter amount of time.
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So back to the newsletter. That was a little segue there. That's why the podcasts add a bit more value than the newsletter. So it will feel weird going against the grain. If you do what everyone else does, you can expect to get the same results as everyone else, and all we need to do is have a look around, have a look around at the people. Are they happy? Are they healthy? Are they wealthy? Are they living a great life? Do they have great relationships? Are they wealthy? Are they living a great life? Do they have great relationships? And some of you will be able to answer yes to those and others won't, and the idea is to surround yourself and build a life that you can say yes to the things that are important to you. So I'm not going to sit here and say you must do this and you must value that. That is completely unique to you and it's why the frameworks that I use are so beneficial to people. Because it's why the frameworks that I use are so beneficial to people, because it is designed around you.
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Show up for yourself when others don't Return to your vision. When you lose sight, your vision is achieved, one goal at a time. You got this. Everything you need is within you. Draw upon the outside world to help connect the dots. A big life awaits you. Draw upon the outside world to help connect the dots. A big life awaits. Cheers Lockie. So I hope you got value from this newsletter and in this episode.
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I feel I love the podcast because I'm able to, I guess, elaborate on things, and I didn't really have an idea of how I was going to talk about this one today, whether I was going to read it out and elaborate on points and whether that would mix the messaging. But I feel it is important from time to time to write, whether it's your future self, a letter or your past self a letter, because that allows you to really think about and, I guess, lessons that you wish you had. Provide perspective on your own life, and the more we reflect, the more emotional intelligence we develop, the more self-awareness we develop, the better man you will become and the better quality of life you will be able to live. So if this resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you guys On YouTube. You can leave a note in the comments On Spotify. There's actually a link if you click on the episode to text, which would be cool to hear from you guys as well. Or you can just reach out to me on Instagram at Lachlan Stewart. But this is just a reminder that there is four days, 19 hours and 36 minutes at the moment of recording this, until the Strong Men of Value Academy applications open.
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Now, for those who are wondering what that looks like, I've been building this program for years, really trying to work out what the main value is, how I can help men's lives the best, and we've really dialed it in. And what it looks like is obviously, first and foremost, you want to have a life's vision, and if you don't have the vision, you can either work one-on-one with me, but I would probably recommend just doing our self-discovery program. It's $27 and you can get on top of all that. What you will then walk away with from that program is a vision and is a list of goals, most importantly those goals we then plug into the Strongman of Value Academy. So, as I said, we will help you become more productive to achieve that goal by helping you get clear, concise. You will be held accountable by other men who are successful in their own right in different walks of life, through our weekly calls, our monthly planning and our quarterly recaps and future focusing for the next goal.
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So if you would like to apply, you can head over to the man that Can project now see the Strongman of Value Academy. The waitlist is open so you can join there. You will get an email, but if you listen to this and the waitlist is down and the applications are open, they're only open for 10 days. So get in early and join us on the next 12-week block within the Strongman of Value Academy. My name is Lachlan Stewart. As always, do something today to be better for tomorrow.
