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Happy Sunday 👋🏾,

Second week of September and it has been mad.

Deadlines, proposals going out, and our first Nigerian cohort starting their Level 1 bootcamp webinars this week. (Hopefully I'll meet some of them in person when I'm out there next month. I still haven't found a venue for the train-the-trainer, but that's a problem for another day.)

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I've been going hard in the gym.

I've got a gym crew, three of us. We meet at 4:20am, and we've been doing it for the last five years.

All dads in our 40s, trying to be the best versions of ourselves.

One of the boys didn't turn up one day. He had his reasons.

I've been on one this week, telling people I don't want to hear excuses for not being at the gym.

Then one of them turned round and said, "You're turning into David Goggins."

If you don't know him, Goggins is a former Navy SEAL who built a name on pushing himself past his limits. Pretty hardcore.

We laughed. And look, I'm not on the David Goggins vibe.

I just don't want to make excuses any more.

Let me explain.

When I'm not where I want to be, the first place I look now is inwards. I've been asking myself the same question lately.

Am I actually doing what I want to do?

Are my actions actually matching where I want to go?

Quite often, the answer is no.

I can't say I want to lose weight when I'm eating like a thief.

I can't say I want to scale the business when I'm not reaching out to people.

Do you see the pattern here? It's the small steps. But it's much easier to blame the week.

And a few weeks back, I caught myself moaning. Nothing big. Just the background noise of it. Tired, busy, too much on.

Then I looked at what I was actually moaning about.

The deadlines are there because people want to work with us. The proposals are there because the business is growing.

And I was moaning from a comfortable position.

My parents weren't born in this country. Neither were Sheriden's. They came here with nothing.

I remember both my parents working two jobs and still finding a way to be there for us as best they could.

I never once heard them complain in front of us being tired.

They built. They bought their homes. Their children went to university.

I'm going into my tenth year out of the classroom. When I left teaching, I had no plan at all, and I would have taken this week in a heartbeat.

Go back a bit further and it gets even clearer.

I remember when I couldn't walk.

Lying there, all I wanted was to get up and walk to the other side of the room.

Now I get to go to the gym at 4:20. I get to go to work. I get to be busy.

Same week either way. The difference is where I'm looking at it from.

Here's something most of you won't know.

Every time I go for a checkup, I get the same message. As I get older, my mobility is going to decrease, and my movement is already less than the average person's. The knees, and the pain I live with.

And I saw my neurologist about a month ago because of some severe headaches I've been getting.

He reminded me I have arachnoid cysts on my brain. They were picked up on a scan years ago, and I had forgotten they were even there.

If they have grown, that could be what's behind the headaches. I've got an MRI in the next month to find out.

That's the thing. I forget how much my body is actually carrying.

No excuses doesn't mean ignoring my body. I learnt that one the hard way, and some weeks my body still makes the call for me.

It means I don't waste the weeks when it lets me. I lock in.

I turned 40 this year. By 55 I want to be able to slow down and do life on my terms, rather than being forced into things.

And I'm not going to get there by talking myself out of things now.

I have far more options than my parents ever had, and every one of them sits on what they gave up.

I'll still have weeks when I moan. I know that.

I just want to catch it quicker, and remember whose shoulders I'm standing on.

And if I forget, the boys will remind me. Probably at 4:20 in the morning.

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Have a great week!

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