This is a subject that I’m going to come to again and again because it’s THAT important. Partly as a reminder to myself, but the best way to deter your kids from ruining their lives is to be a model of what they should be. Like I’ve said before, our kids see everything. One part of this that I’ve never mentioned though, is that you don’t need to be perfect. If anything, you shouldn’t be. One of the most important things our kids can see us do is fall, so they can watch us get back up on our own two feet. Our kids undoubtedly will face setbacks in life. It’s inevitable and they’ll come in all shapes and sizes. If we want kids who can handle that, then we need to model how to overcome failure and adversity. We need to let them see us struggle, and overcome it so they can see that struggle as being normal, and then have the blueprint for overcoming it. It’s hard because we want to be these paragons of virtue for our kids, but showing them that it’s okay to take one on the chin and get knocked down, because then you get to get back up, is one of the most important lessons we can teach them. Now in order to do this, we have to actually put ourselves out there and give ourselves the opportunity to fail. That means whatever goal, dream, or bucket list thing you’ve always wanted to do but always talked yourself out of it? Do it. Swing away, and if it’s hard? Good. If you fail? Also good. There’s so many lessons to be learned from the journey.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from dads, especially ones with really young ones at home is “I don’t have time.” I don’t have time to train, I don’t have time to eat better, I don’t have time to learn something new so I can make more money, I just don’t have time.” I’m here to tell you: that’s crap. Now you might be thinking: “but Ryan I have to work, I have to be on dad duty, I have a million things and blah blah blah.” And I’m sure you do. But the thing is, as a parent your health and wealth need to be top priorities because that’s going to be how you protect and provide for your family. It’s mandatory. For fitness—if you’re on a time crunch, you can hit easy and brief HIIT workouts. Even if you don’t have any equipment, just grab your phone, pull out the stop watch and do a simple circuit like: jump squats, pushups, sit-ups, plank shoulder taps, and mountain climbers. Do each for :30 seconds, take :60 seconds off between completed circuit rounds, and do it 5 times. The entire workout, with the breaks factored in is under 20 minutes, clocking in at 16 minutes and 30 seconds. Do that daily and you’ll be well on your way. Hit 10,000 steps per day and that’s even better. For nutrition if you don’t have time to cook and you just end up eating crap on the road, use a meal prep service. I use Nutre, I’ve actually become an affiliate of them—they’re awesome and I’m saving money each week because I used to just eat on the road. https://www.gonutre.com/?_ef_transaction_id=&oid=1&affid=1257 Use code RWFitness for 40% off your first order To make more money you have several paths: learn a new skill to make yourself more valuable in the marketplace that to either get a raise from your current job or start a side hustle. You can easily start side hustles even without necessarily having to learn a new skill. For example, I would flip comic books since I’ve been a lifelong collector whenever things get really tight. But you can also, though this does take time, go on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace and pick up anything people are giving away for free, and then sell them. It’s not always easy but it is simple and these are things you can scale for time.

I want you to take a look back into your childhood memories—what was your first motivation to workout? I actually have 2. The first, like I suspect will be true of many in this group, was I saw my dad lift regularly as a kid. Being strong was the norm in my house growing up. This is important. My second was actually a tv show, an anime specifically: Dragonball Z. I’ve always had a real nerdy bend to me, and grew up loving American comic books and superheroes. DBZ introduced me to a new type of storytelling however. In a Superman or Thor comic, they always tend to have just the amount of strength they need to stop the bad guy and save the day. Sure, they may need to tough out some adversity and dig deep, but they always had what they needed within themselves. Characters like Spider-Man or Batman maybe at least had to outsmart them, but they always had what they needed within themselves. In DBZ though, the heroes would often get their asses kicked, train really hard to get stronger, and then overcome the villain, often after an emotional breakthrough that leads to a transformation. It still gets me fired up to train, and as a kid that was tenfold. There are two important lessons here: you modeling healthy behavior for your kids is critical. It shouldn’t be weird or special that someone in your family works out—it shouldn’t be the expectation. The second is the media that we consume is critical as well and I think about this a lot as my daughter is getting older. My wife and I are only going to watch shows with her where the characters demonstrate traits we want her to have. It’s still modeling, just in a different form. But I am genuinely curious—what first got you into working out?

Last night, I was at a baseball game and outside of the stadium, during the pre-game festivities, there was a father struggling to get his daughter up on his shoulders- it wasn’t because she was wilding out or having trouble balancing, but because the father was having trouble getting the weight up. Eventually, he did it but it was a struggle and he needed help from his wife. That is fine and somewhat normal but, for me personally, being able to execute complex movements like this is a point of pride. I preach often about why staying in shape is important for our families’ wellbeing and for our own longevity but this hit me different. Just food for thought.

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” —Epictetus One of the earliest things I discovered about fatherhood was how transformative it can be if you let it. I still remember when my wife told me she was pregnant: it was Wednesday and I had just left the comic book store (for you non-nerds, Wednesday is when the new ones drop and there was a particular one I was really excited about that had come out so I was riding high lol), and then I get a call from my then-fiancé, Melissa, telling me through tears of joy that I’m going to be a father. At that point I had a bit of an internal clash. On the one hand, I was so excited, though a little floored, at the idea of being a dad, but on the other hand, it wasn’t lost on me that I was just moments ago engaging in something really juvenile. This all lead to the question of: “Am I ready to be a dad?” I’m pretty sure we all thought that at some point but I’ve also reached the point where I feel like it’s kind of a bullshit question. Most people, if they’re being honest with themselves, know that you’re probably never REALLY ready to become a parent. It’s a position you rise to. It’s also a stupid question because it doesn’t matter what the answer is: the baby is coming whether you’re ready or not. The real question that I should’ve asked, and that I still ask is: “Who do I want to be as a dad?” I think a lot of people live really unintentionally. They become a product of their circumstances and sort of react to the world around them, but that’s a rough way to live. I’ve always believed that a man needs to set the intention of who he wants to be, and then deal with the circumstances around him in a way that serves that intention. If you want to be a dad who is fit, present, and able to one day be at your child’s wedding—then you have to have the vision of what that looks like, and then make the choices that align with that vision. That means if you’re like me and you find yourself having put on weight and being away from home because I’m working as much as I can to pay the bills, then I have some work to do and changes to make—which I’m now doing via a recommitment to training and even going through the 75 Hard program for the first time in years, and making a real push to primarily coach people online so I can be home more. I have the vision in my head of the man and the father I want to be, and now it’s just about making the daily choices to make it happen.