It's nine o'clock at night and it's just easier to sit on the couch. Should

you be doing something or should you be giving yourself time to relax?

Guys are very known for not actually going and

seeking medical help. We need to change that. You wouldn't service your car

once your engine blows up because it's fucking pointless. So why would you

Telling people you're going to do something. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to buy

a new car. You get an endorphin hit from the thing without

doing the thing. People do get into a trap where they say

they're going to do stuff. And don't actually do it. And don't actually do it.

Because you're just doing it for the good feel that you get. If you're on a plane with

your kids and things turn to shit. The oxygen

masks drop down. Who do you get told to fit that mask to first?

Men think that there's nobility in self-sacrifice. That's

bullshit. The mindless suffering without improvement is

self-sabotage, not self-improvement. Welcome to

And we're just a pair of average blokes on a mission to try and be

We're going to speak about all things highs and lows of what it feels like to be a bloke,

plus speak to some legends along the way about what it takes to be a better bloke. Let's

On this episode, we're gonna be talking about prioritizing yourself in

2025 and not so much always in the self-love way, but in

Becoming better blokes. Yeah. So I want to kick it off with

a little bit of a quote saying, I don't know if it's a real quote or if someone

Yeah. And it comes back to self-development and

making yourself the best bloke you can possibly be for yourself, everyone

around you. And that's really what we want to, I guess, get stuck into.

My view on this is I'm happy to be a bit of

a beacon for telling blokes they need to work harder and do better, be

better, not the detriment of

their mental health, because obviously I'm for that, but

I believe that pushing yourself hard to be the best you possibly

can be is good for your mental health, even

You're very much like the Australian Hormozy, but you don't have millions

That's about all I got on him, but he does have about a

hundred million bucks. So lacking on that front, but

I do agree with a lot of, I guess his relentless pursuit

And I think everyone can benefit from it

to a degree. They got to work out what's right for them. You have to work

out what you're gonna sacrifice. But I think what we're gonna get stuck into

on this is that, being better and putting

time into yourself doesn't necessarily mean you're

sacrificing a lot of other things. So when we talk

to guys and we're talking about things that can make them better, something

I hear all the time is, I just don't have time. I

don't have time. I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to eat good. I

don't have time to educate myself and do better and be better. And

I say, bullshit, you do, you're

They're excuses. That's all it is. So if something's like so

hard that it's going to make you uncomfortable, like you've just said, a lot

of the time guys will look for an out and go, Oh, I can't do this because I

can't do this because of this. I can't do this because of this. Well,

then you don't want it, but you can't sit there and complain about

it. If you're not willing to put in the effort to

And I'm not standing on a pedestal saying I do everything I know

That's true, that's true. But there's definitely things I

know I should do that I'm not doing. But

my excuse is not that I don't have time. It's that, you

know, you have to be happy with the amount that

you are doing. And I can recognize what I'm doing is

enough by my own standards. You have to set that for yourself. And

But you're very much, you still celebrate, and we've spoken about this

many times, you still celebrate your little wins of when you do do something that's

Yeah, I've come to the stage in my life where I recognize that I

do work hard and I do sacrifice a lot. And I'm happy

to make those sacrifices for what it allows me to do. Like

my pursuit of time and freedom, autonomy, all

those things. And the trade-off has

been worth it for me. Guys have to get to a stage

where I guess they can understand the full picture of things to

be able to see that. Because in the moment where it's

nine o'clock at night and it's just easier to sit on the couch, should

you be doing something or should you be giving yourself time to

relax? If you're giving yourself time to relax and

then complaining about, I don't have time, Maybe

I know, and that's why I said I'm happy to be the beacon of

I'm happy with guys sitting down, but like you said, if they're

the ones that are complaining that I don't have time, it's like, well... Yeah,

Yeah, like, okay, let's look at it in the sense of

exercise, right? I think we can all agree 20 minutes

Literally getting some sort of sweat on, even

if you were doing nothing, doing 20 pushups three

You don't even need to do 20 push-up, go for a five minute walk. Anything.

And there's not a person listening to this or a person out

there that doesn't have time to do that. I don't

care what you're doing. You're picking the kids up. You're waiting at school. 20 pushups

might take you, what, two minutes? Like if you're doing them in

Two minutes, right. You have two minutes. Like, okay, you

might look like a fuckwit. I don't care, right?

You're at home. I don't know, the kids have gone to bed.

Yes. You can. Not if you're home by yourself and

leaving the kids at home. I don't suggest doing that. Yeah, I'm not good

No, no shit. But you can do something. You could go and

I don't care. Even in that regard, so something you can do if like

there's any dads out there or mums listening as well or

couples because they're into like a lot of couples listen to this. Use

that time of going out and exercising yourself to do

it as a family. Like go for a walk around the block with

your family. Go do that. It's time together,

Exercise is just a simple, easy one to talk about. But if we

look at all the other things that I don't have time for, what

else could that be? That could be eating healthy. You

do if you put in a little bit of time to do a bit of meal prep. I suck at

that though, but I understand that I do suck at that and

Eating healthy isn't hard. I think the issue

that I find with eating healthy is the pricing. It's

not cheap to get good meat, good fresh veggies, because they

don't last as long and all that sort of thing. But if you're prepared

to do it and put in the effort, you're going to feel so much better

for it. You just need to actually do

And what is the sacrifice you're making? Maybe it is an extra $50 a

Yeah, it's gonna go somewhere. You're better off putting it into good fresh

It's like all the health things we talk about. Like, okay, there's probably 20 things

you can do better. Don't try and do all of them all at once. It's too

much. But if you're sitting there saying, I don't have time for

self-improvement, you're absolutely kidding yourself. I don't believe

it. I don't buy it. You can do something to make yourself

Yeah, no. And I can sit here in front of a camera

and I can look straight down the barrel of the camera and I can

say, I once ate shit, still

like don't eat perfect all the time but I'm eating a lot better now, wasn't

really training that much for a little while, I'm now balls deep in

training, balls deep in eating good and I've never felt

And this was spurred on because you have the podcast Royale coming up.

So you've set yourself a goal, right? You have something

you're working towards and it's giving you purpose, which we talk about heaps.

And that's kind of spurred on the momentum and the discipline and the motivation

to kickstart this little journey to self-improve you in that area.

13 kilos, you're looking good. Go back to episode six. He didn't look great.

But no, huge improvement in a short amount of time. And

Yeah, but the eating thing I think has been a massive thing for

It's a huge thing. Well, like it all kickstarted off with, He

had good mate, I think he was on, I can't remember what episode he was, but jumped back through

Geordie, the fight dietician. So he reached out to us and he was like, hey, I've got

this program on a right for blokes. It's, what

was it, eight week, eight week program. And sent it

out, it had recipes in that. I was very particular with that. And

I cherry picked the recipes I wanted, but it created healthy eating habits. And

like, it wasn't stupidly expensive to get

that fresh food. It wasn't super time

consuming It took ages to cook those feeds up. It

was just a matter of trying to create the good habits to actually do it. Once

you do that, everything else starts falling in place. Like

I'm feeling good in the head. I'm feeling good in the body. Like everything

works. Once you start just moving your body, eating better, you start

taking pride in yourself. Like, you know, like you said, jump

back to episode six. And it didn't shave my head. My beard was long.

No, no, small changes over the course of not that long can

make big effects. I love all these little learnings we've made.

My favorite piece of advice from the flat dietician was, oh,

you don't like veggies? I'm sure you don't like work. Do

it anyway. Eat the salad, get it in you. And

I've reflected on that heaps over the course of the last couple of months. Just

Just do it. It's good for you. You need to do

The reason we're talking about this prioritizing yourself is

because we believe being a better guy allows you

to be better for yourself, your own happiness, your own mental and

physical wellbeing, but also for the people around you that you love and you

care about. Your wife, your kids, your parents, everyone

around you is gonna benefit if you're in a better place.

Now you have an analogy that you really like for this one,

share this with the world. Is this my car analogy? I

Oh, the oxygen mask rule. You love it. I do enjoy the oxygen mask

rule. So that rule is, I think it's

used by a lot of people, but I always refer back to it. And that is if you're on

a plane with your kids and things turn to

shit, the oxygen masks drop down. Who

Me. Because without helping myself first,

I can't help others. So if you take that analogy out

into the real world, into every aspect, it's

That leads on to something a lot of

people, especially men, think that there's nobility in

I know, but it's like this thing like, oh, if I'm doing it so tough and

I'm sacrificing so much for myself, I'm putting myself through

shit and hard times and I feel terrible, it's noble

It sort of contradicts you with your whole like Homozy theory that, you know,

A little bit, but it depends where the pain and suffering comes from, right?

If you take time away from your

loved ones or whatever, the sacrifice to make yourself better, you're

still suffering in a way that maybe you don't get to do the

relaxing and the fun times and stuff. But if you're building

yourself up, That's not self-sabotage, right?

That's investing in yourself. If you're just suffering through

shit, in a way that's self-sabotage because you're

still suffering, you're not getting any better, and you're not being any

better for the people around you because you're a mess. So

the mindless suffering without improvement is

self-sabotage, not self-improvement. And I

don't, I don't stand for that. So I think if you

are suffering and you think you're doing it for your family, take a hard

look at what's causing the suffering and is it really beneficial for

your family for you to be like that? I've

Yeah, I think every man has probably done that. Thinking

that they're doing what's best for their family when in fact they're probably jeopardising

Yeah, and I'm all for that. Go through hard things, suffer and

fail and grow, but just understand what's going

on. Are you doing it with this end goal in

mind? Do you have the

location that is destination of where you're trying to get to or are

you just in a rut? Like so many guys are just sitting in that rut

and they're suffering and it's not really helpful for themselves

Also, we've sort of touched on it a few times, but just say someone

gets in a rut and they get themselves out, how then moving

forward once they're outside of that rut, do you say that they should prioritize themselves

I think it comes back to building some

momentum in a positive direction. And

we speak on goal setting. So you need to be like,

OK, in the future, this is kind of what I want. that

doesn't have to be crystal clear. If it's

just to be better and happier, that's kind of enough to start, because we're

looking for momentum to get the ball rolling, right? And

if you can say, to get a bit of momentum

to be happier, what do I need? I'm fat and

I think being thinner will give me more energy, it'll

reduce these feelings of depression that I'm having, because that's science, we

know that happens. maybe I need to do those five-minute walks,

right? Do the five-minute walks, you might start getting momentum, and

that's gonna then transfer into doing more. And then

you start to build discipline. It's not gonna be easy, like,

you don't have to love doing it, you just have to do it, and

the purpose behind having a goal is gonna get you there. That would be my starting

point. It's a very good starting point. I messaged one of the boys this

morning. I spoke to him before Christmas and he

struggled a lot, like with a bunch of mental

health issues and things like that. And I actually told him the push-up thing.

I told him to do one push-up every day. And then once

you're on the ground and you've done one, well, you may as

Might as well, yeah. You're already there. You're already on the ground. That's

Yeah, once you're on the ground, do 5. After you can do 5 easy, maybe

you can do 10. If that's going to turn into 20, then you

You don't know me, son. You don't know me, son. Carry the fucking boats. Yeah,

Goggins. Put on some Goggins and then you'll end up going for a run. You 100% will.

That's what it'll grow to because all it is is building the momentum to get

you started. And then before you know it, maybe you're actually enjoying exercise.

But all you actually have to do is get on your hands and knees. And what do

you need for that? A floor and

30 seconds free and not a single person in the country doesn't

have those things I messaged him this morning and said, how are them push-ups

going? He didn't reply yet No, not yet I think

he hasn't done it and you better believe I'm gonna be on his case That's good

Part of prioritizing oneself is holding yourself accountable, which

That's half the thing with, so with me sort of going on this journey

that I've been on, I've picked up a lot of the

boys along the way and being like, I'm doing this, you're doing it with me. because

one, it helps myself stay accountable, but

I quit the vapes a couple of weeks ago. Oh, did you? I did. And

well, you know this because what I was going to say is I made a point

at the start of telling everyone that I was quitting the vapes. I'm

not a big fan of telling everyone what you're doing, but for this in

particular I told a bunch of people, all my close friends, I'm

off the vapes, I'm off the vapes because I needed to

Yeah, you didn't do what you said you were gonna do. So I needed other

people to be in on this whole thing so I could keep myself accountable through

We see this all the time in BA with boys that go on this

journey of self-improvement, self-development, and I've had

a lot of conversations with guys that are in the

self-development space since we've been doing this. They've reached out

to us and they've actually hit me up and been like, hey, have

you noticed that guys aren't as receptive to

self-development. And I've gone, no, that's bullshit. I've never

seen a stronger time for men that want to get around each other and

try and improve themselves than now. And

all guys do all the time in BAs, post up, I want to do this,

I want to do this, I want to do this. As soon as you're telling 300,000 people, that

you're going to do something, you've got a lot of guys that are going to push you

in the right direction and keep you motivated to actually stick to that goal.

Yeah, you tend to do it. There is a little thing I'd

like to talk about off the back of that is telling

people you're going to do something, whether it's an opportunity coming up, You

know, I've done it before. Like maybe I've applied for a job and I wanna get it. I'm

really excited. I tell everyone about it or I'm gonna buy

a new car or I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna lose weight or whatever

it is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. You get an endorphin hit

from the thing without doing the thing. So

people do get into a trap where they say they're gonna do

stuff. And don't actually do it. And don't actually do it. And then

that's a little bit of a trap because Not

that you're being a piece of shit, but

Because you're just doing it for the good feel that you get instead of actually going

through with it. Which funnily enough, when you go through with it, you

get a bigger endorphin hit at the end of it once you achieve that goal.

But doing it is hard. Saying you're going to do it, very

simple. So look at yourself. Have you

said you're going to do a lot of things you haven't done? not

a good move, actually do the thing, otherwise no one's going

Yeah, kind of, except he wasn't doing the thing, he was getting eaten by a wolf.

No, but he was saying that the wolf was coming lots of times, and

Was it? I don't know. I don't think that's how it works. Another

way of prioritizing yourself this year is something that we touched on.

I think it was the first episode of this year, actually, was regular health

checks. Now, we've had an influx of boys in

the group posting up medical issues that they've found, and

they want to get the advice from a bunch

of boys online before they actually go and seek medical advice.

I don't condone that. Don't do that.

Don't do that. Go to the doctor. So

guys are very, very known for

not actually going and seeking medical help. We need

to change that. You wouldn't service your car once

your engine blows up. This is fucking pointless. So

why would you go and get yourself sorted once

Take this as your reminder to go get that health checkup. I actually have

a note in my phone, I think for a couple of days time to make my

So, you know, we're sitting here saying you should do this, should do this. We're

I need to go get my bloods done. I need to go get like, yeah, just

That's a good note. If you're listening to this now, hold down Siri and

say, Hey Siri, make a reminder for Friday

If we do that over the speakers though, will it happen? So

if someone's listening to this in their car at the moment, Hey Siri, will

Let us know if it did. Yeah. I want to hear if that works. We

might've just found a loophole there. Hey Siri, rate

A lot of the drawbacks from prioritizing yourself,

not the drawbacks, the reason people don't is because they're prioritizing other

people, which is a good thing because it's good to like help

other people and whatnot. But prioritizing other people is

a roundabout way of suppressing your own needs as a person. And

as much as guys like to be macho, we all have needs, right?

Whether it's the need to feel appreciated and

valued, the need to be heard, the need for this

and that. If you don't recognize that you

have needs as a person, it's gonna

lead you down a bad pathway. And by never prioritizing yourself

and those needs, maybe that's a

Do you reckon that that's because guys don't want to put themselves out there with

their own needs, that they do focus on

others because they're worried that, you know, oh, I'm going to disappoint someone or

It's probably kind of case by case, but speaking from like

my own relationship, past relationships, I

think it's difficulty in communication. I think so much

of it comes down to communication, especially within the confines

of a proper relationship. And I just... didn't

have the words to make the space to be able to talk

about some of my needs. I figured internally, I

can sort my own needs out. Don't worry about me. I got it. And

it wasn't until sort of that it all passed that reflecting on

it, I'm like, maybe my needs weren't being met,

but also I didn't voice that. I didn't

It's a very woman thing to do. Just making the assumption that

I know, but I did that. I think a lot of men do that though.

Yeah, that's probably a very bad stereotype, assuming that it's

a woman thing to do because guys do it just as much.

Yeah. How many guys do we hear speak about their relationship? And it's

like, you know, the woman is this finished work of art and

they seem to be the project. There's always something wrong with what they're doing. And

it's probably because the woman is more adept

at communicating all of her needs and how they're not

meeting them. Whereas men, yeah, you're not meeting

my needs or I'll fucking deal with it. But it's

not even a weak vulnerable thing to say like, you

know, it would be important for me that you kind

of listen about these things I'm trying to do with work and understand

all this hard work I'm putting in and why I'm doing it. Maybe for

a guy that's important because it's going to lead to validation

and feeling appreciated. And even saying

that, like some guys don't want to admit that they need those things, but

Every guy needs that thing. So, I've made a point this year of like

telling mates that I'm proud of them or if someone that I

just speak to online does something incredible, I will say, I'm proud

of you. It goes a long way like that little expression of

just saying, I'm proud of you, validates a guy

It's a trigger word like guys don't get told that.

Like no guy will often hear, I'm

proud of you. So, if you're going out telling a guy, that you're proud of

them for something they've done that will hit them so hard that

They grind in silence and they achieve

without anyone applauding. So we can have each other's

backs a little bit on that one. An important part of prioritizing yourself

is being able to say yes and no to

Yes. Important thing to say is no. So we've

spoken about this cause I have a hard job letting people

And I also have a hard job of when people come to me and say, Hey,

can you do this thing? Can you help me with this? Yes, yes, yes.

End up in a situation where I'm doing something for someone else

and all my stuff is going to shit because I've over committed myself.

And you haven't prioritised yourself. I haven't prioritised myself at all. And

back to my mate Hormozy has an excellent way of looking at this.

You don't want to say no in a fuck off

kind of way. You want to say no with a bit of reasoning why.

Look, I'd love to, but I actually just got back from a

trip. All my shoes are really dirty. I barely have time to do my own.

I'll do mine and then, I'm sorry, I can't do

That's a stupid example, but say it was some work or something like

that, whatever. What you've done is you've said no. You've

kind of justified why in a way that is putting

value on yourself. My time's pretty important and you've added

value to not only your no, but when you

Yeah, so that way then when you do, when and if

you do say yes, they're gonna be more appreciative of the time that you're

100%, so you haven't shut them down so hard, they're never gonna ask for anything ever

again. But when they do come to you for something and you

say yes, it's gonna mean an awful lot if you're the yes man

and just says yes, yes, yes. Matty will always do it, Matty will do it, Matt.

Sorry, Matt, I can't do it this time around, maybe come back in a couple months, I'll

see if I got time. you say yes and that person's going

to place a lot more value on your yes than

Yeah, I respect that. It's a very

hard thing to do as a bloke though. Because then at the same time, you're

almost seen as they're like, oh, maybe he's not capable

of doing so. Where every guy wants to feel capable, that brings us back to

that whole like, you know, trying to make people proud of you or validated. Guys

Yeah, and that's why I said yes all the time. Oh, I can do this.

I can take it on. But it was just helping other people,

which I like to do. But it did get to the stage where I overburdened

myself. And then, A, I wasn't doing

what I said I would do for them in the best capacity I possibly

could. My own work was taking a hit. And I

just felt bad overall because I didn't really do what I

said I was going to do for them, so I wasn't that helpful. And I struggled myself,

so what was the point? Saying no is not that hard if

you just say it. And it gets easier the more you do it. And

No, I think that's a good thing to sort of round off on and flow

So bloke of the week, actually, funnily enough, it's probably very good timing

that it is about prioritizing yourself because this bloke of the week prioritized

himself in Bloke's Advice last month. His

name is Simon and he reached out, he was having a hard time,

he reached out needing an electric scooter, like a mobility scooter.

and the boys will rally behind him and it became a

big marketplace hunt and there was

literally thousands of people just scouring marketplace looking for free electric

scooters and obviously the fact that Simon

needs an electric scooter he's not in the position to

go and pick it up so one of the boys that was local to him went and picked it up and

then they found out that it needed batteries probably

the reason it was free but then all the boys got around it and got it all sorted that

way too so because he prioritized himself this

So shout out Simon, like it's not necessarily always asking

for a handout, especially if you're in a situation where maybe

you can ask for help, which sounds like he definitely was

and probably should have done that. The boys got around him, they recognized it.

And Simon, bloke of the week, we've got a blokes advice merch pack

coming your way. So check your inbox. We need your address and all that stuff.

And we'll get you some fresh shirts and maybe a sticker for the mobility scooter

Real good. On that note, guys, thanks for

tuning in to another episode. You can jump onto the website, betterblokeproject.org, where

you can find all information on upcoming events or

the list of old podcasts where we have some real interesting

conversations on all matter of things Better Bloke related. You

can also donate to us there and help us with our mission of