Episode 33
The Unshakable Man Blueprint: How to have better health, relationships, and mindset
Have you ever felt like you know what you should be doing but find that you still aren't getting the results that you want? If so, this is a can't miss episode.
I'm often asked what I would do differently if I had to lose 80lbs all over again.
The truth is that I wouldn't change much because it worked for me. However, I've improved the process after more than a decade of experience working with other men and tens of thousands of dollars spent on education.
The result is the Unshakable Man Blueprint and in this episode I break down its four pillars of Connected Health, Vision, Discipline, and Mastery.
Transcript
Hey guys, welcome to the Unshakable Habits podcast.
Speaker:I am your host, national Board certified Health Coach, Stephen Box.
Speaker:And today, guys, we're gonna be talking about a subject that I
Speaker:get asked about a lot, which is, how do I actually get in shape?
Speaker:And here's the rub to that question.
Speaker:I know that you already know how to get into shape.
Speaker:You know that you need to consume fewer calories than you burn.
Speaker:You know that protein is important.
Speaker:You know you need to eat vegetables.
Speaker:You know that you should limit sweets and highly processed foods.
Speaker:You know that adding muscle increases your metabolism.
Speaker:You probably even are aware of the fact that sleep and stress
Speaker:management are important factors
Speaker:in improving your body composition.
Speaker:So the other thing that you know is that this is not a knowledge
Speaker:problem, it's an action problem.
Speaker:Now, a lot of people, what they're gonna do is at this point, they're
Speaker:gonna tell you it's mindset, and I'm gonna disagree with them.
Speaker:Now, please understand mindset is super important.
Speaker:I talk a lot about mindset in my coaching programs, it is a super important thing
Speaker:to have, but mindset by itself is not necessarily gonna solve all your problems
Speaker:because the reality is a lot of what we deem as excuses are actually realistic
Speaker:reasons for why we don't take action.
Speaker:So let me give you some examples.
Speaker:Number one, it's hard to find the motivation to work out before or after
Speaker:a busy day, especially when other people are always counting on you.
Speaker:It's also a challenge to find the energy or the motivation to come home
Speaker:and fix a healthy meal for yourself.
Speaker:When it's so much more convenient to just grab something on the way home or to grab
Speaker:something that's quick and easy out of the refrigerator or the cabinet, and just
Speaker:crash down the couch because sometimes that is the only time that you might
Speaker:have to have a moment or two to yourself.
Speaker:And then finally, it can be hard to put your health first.
Speaker:When it feels like so many other areas in your life aren't where they
Speaker:need to be, and those areas feel more pressing to you in the moment.
Speaker:So I get it guys.
Speaker:It can be hard to make these changes.
Speaker:It can be hard to stick with it even when we technically know what to do.
Speaker:And that is why I created the Unshakable Man Blueprint.
Speaker:And I'm gonna go over that with you in today's episode.
Speaker:So I'll see you guys back right after this intro.
Speaker:Are you ready to break free from your old habits and create a better life
Speaker:for yourself and those around you?
Speaker:If so, welcome to Unshakable Habits, the podcast dedicated to helping
Speaker:men be better husbands, fathers, and leaders by prioritizing their
Speaker:physical and mental wellbeing.
Speaker:Each week we'll look at health from a 360 degree perspective with
Speaker:inspiring stories and practical strategies for building Unshakable
Speaker:habits that'll transform your life.
Speaker:Join Stephen Box, a board certified health and wellness coach, and
Speaker:let's change the world together.
Speaker:One habit at a time.
Speaker:All right, so if you are joining me on just the audio version of the
Speaker:podcast today, I'm going to talk you through what's on my screen right now.
Speaker:If you're joining me on YouTube, then you're able to see the graphic.
Speaker:I'll also include this on the website show note page as well,
Speaker:just so you can reference it.
Speaker:But I'll do my best to explain it.
Speaker:For those of you who are just listening to the audio only.
Speaker:So what we have here is what I call the Unshakable Man Blueprint, and
Speaker:this is really what came outta my own personal weight loss journey.
Speaker:So for those of you maybe aren't familiar with my journey, about 12, 13 years
Speaker:ago now, I actually lost 80 pounds and I've kept it all of that entire time.
Speaker:Honestly, at the time that I did it, it probably took me a little longer than
Speaker:it should have took me about 10 months.
Speaker:But the reason I say it probably took me longer than it should have
Speaker:was I was just guessing, right?
Speaker:There was a lot of things that I just did, but I got lucky
Speaker:and figuring some stuff out.
Speaker:And what I've done over the years is I've gone back and
Speaker:I've looked at what did I do?
Speaker:What did I have going on?
Speaker:Where were my sticking points?
Speaker:What were the troubles that I had?
Speaker:I've taken that along with information that I've gained through all of my
Speaker:certifications and all my studies, and I've put together the blueprint of
Speaker:exactly what I would do today if I had to go through my journey all over again.
Speaker:So this is basically what worked for me, plus what I've learned
Speaker:that would make it even better.
Speaker:So you guys are gonna get to basically experience the shortcut of that.
Speaker:And so this blueprint.
Speaker:It's made up of four different parts.
Speaker:So the first thing is we have at the center of the diagram
Speaker:this idea of connected health.
Speaker:Now, if you've never heard me talk about connected health before, this
Speaker:is also known as in deep health.
Speaker:And what it does is it acknowledges the fact that our health goes beyond just diet
Speaker:and exercise and the number on the scale.
Speaker:So the first part is physical health, but physical health is a
Speaker:very small piece of the puzzle here.
Speaker:But when we think about physical health, what we're talking about is nutrition,
Speaker:your exercise, the way you move, we're talking about your blood work, right?
Speaker:So we're talking about all those things that are physical, but we're
Speaker:also talking about things like sleep.
Speaker:So those are all part of physical health.
Speaker:Then we go to mental health.
Speaker:Now when I say mental health, what I'm referring to in this specific instance
Speaker:is your thoughts, your beliefs, right?
Speaker:So this is where the mindset stuff that I mentioned earlier, this is where it
Speaker:comes in, but as you can see, it's really just kind of in this little section here.
Speaker:So we are.
Speaker:Still only talking about a small piece of the puzzle.
Speaker:That's why when I say people talk about mindset, like it's
Speaker:the solution to everything.
Speaker:It's not part of the solution for sure, but it's not the whole solution.
Speaker:Then we have emotional health now.
Speaker:Emotions are really action blueprints.
Speaker:They tell us what to do and usually those actions are gonna be based
Speaker:off of our thoughts and our beliefs.
Speaker:This is why it's so important that we're careful about our thoughts and about
Speaker:the words that come out of our mouth.
Speaker:And this is why you hear so many people talking about mindset.
Speaker:Because if we have the wrong stuff coming out, if we have negativity coming
Speaker:out of our brains emotionally, we will react to that negativity and we will
Speaker:also take things that are around us, whether they're positive or negative.
Speaker:And we will transpose our thoughts and our beliefs to that, and we will take
Speaker:things that aren't even negative and we will make them negative and vice versa.
Speaker:If we have a positive mindset, then we can have our emotions react in a positive way.
Speaker:So those two are very tightly interconnected, but they
Speaker:are two separate pieces.
Speaker:Next up, we have relational health, right?
Speaker:So this is the way you interact with the people around you.
Speaker:Then there's environmental health, which is the way you interact with
Speaker:the places and things around you.
Speaker:And when you put those two together, that's called your support system.
Speaker:And your support system is gonna be a super important part of this.
Speaker:And then finally, we have existential health, or some people call this like
Speaker:your purpose or spiritual health even.
Speaker:And the idea here is this is about connecting to something bigger than you.
Speaker:It's giving you a sense of purpose.
Speaker:For what you wanna do.
Speaker:So if you've ever kind of had that feeling of, I know I'm meant for
Speaker:something more, but maybe you're not sure what it is, that's existential health.
Speaker:It's getting clear on what that bigger purpose is for you.
Speaker:What is that thing that you're really chasing after?
Speaker:And so we have to look at all these areas.
Speaker:Cause the thing is they have an impact on one another, right?
Speaker:Your mindset, your emotional health that's going to impact your physical health.
Speaker:But it's also going to impact your relationships, right?
Speaker:It might, you know, be influenced by your environment.
Speaker:It might even influence your environment.
Speaker:Sometimes when you start making positive change, it influences
Speaker:other people to change.
Speaker:If you guys remember my episode with Sean Robinson, we talked about that, where
Speaker:some of the changes he was making, how that had an impact on his environment.
Speaker:So when we start looking at all these things, we can start to
Speaker:understand how they're interconnected, how they affect one another.
Speaker:So super important to start there because a lot of times what I see
Speaker:guys trying to do is, okay, I'm gonna focus just on my fitness.
Speaker:I'm gonna ignore everything else, right?
Speaker:I'm gonna focus on my, my diet.
Speaker:I, I'm gonna ignore everything else.
Speaker:I, I need to focus on work, ignore everything else, or I need to focus on
Speaker:my marriage, ignore everything else.
Speaker:I need to focus on my kids, ignore everything else, right?
Speaker:And the thing is, guys, when we do that, we're going to hurt those other areas.
Speaker:So that's why I wanted to be really clear it.
Speaker:Spend a few minutes talking about this idea of connected health and help you to
Speaker:understand that you can't just neglect other areas because if you do, you're
Speaker:going to hurt those areas because even though you're improving one area, it's
Speaker:going to have impact on those other areas and it's gonna have a positive impact.
Speaker:But if you're completely neglecting them, The negativity's gonna outweigh
Speaker:the positivity, if that makes sense.
Speaker:So yes, there is a cumulative effect throughout when you focus on one area, but
Speaker:we can't just completely lock in on it.
Speaker:All right, so hopefully that's, that's clear for you guys.
Speaker:So let's jump into the other three circles here.
Speaker:So first off, we have.
Speaker:Vision to me, this is, this is where it starts because when we have a clear
Speaker:vision, right, a clear, strong vision of what we want our lives to look
Speaker:like, and I'm not just talking about some five year plan, some 10 year
Speaker:plan on talking about how much money you want to make or, you know, having
Speaker:six pack abs or anything like that.
Speaker:I'm talking about the person you wanna become.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So when you look out six months from now, a year from now, five years
Speaker:from now, whatever, what kind of things do you want to do physically
Speaker:that you can't do right now?
Speaker:What kind of father do you wanna be?
Speaker:What kind of husband do you want to be?
Speaker:What kind of man do you want to be?
Speaker:What kinda leader do you want to be at work, at home, in the community, right?
Speaker:What actions does that future you take?
Speaker:Because we can actually start taking some of those actions
Speaker:and we can implement them now.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So a lot of times what happens is we start thinking about who do we want to become?
Speaker:And we've made this determination of, oh, I need to lose 40 pounds
Speaker:before I can become that person.
Speaker:No, you don't.
Speaker:You can start becoming that person now without ever losing 40 pounds.
Speaker:Now you might feel more confident when you lose 40 pounds.
Speaker:You might feel better in your body.
Speaker:You might be able to move better.
Speaker:There might be something, you can't really do that well until
Speaker:you lose those 40 pounds, but you can start to become that person.
Speaker:So when we have a strong, clear vision for our lives and we can start taking
Speaker:some of those behaviors in those actions and start implementing them, now we can
Speaker:start seeing immediate improvements in our life and that that's awesome, right?
Speaker:But if all we ever did was have a vision.
Speaker:You might see some change, but you're not gonna see a lot because the next
Speaker:thing you have to have is discipline.
Speaker:Now, I find a lot of guys, when they talk about discipline,
Speaker:they think willpower, right?
Speaker:They think white knuckling it.
Speaker:It's pushing through.
Speaker:It's doing things that you don't really want to do because you need to do them.
Speaker:And you can certainly define discipline that way.
Speaker:I like to think of discipline as habits.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:And habits are all about consistency.
Speaker:So when we talk about discipline, we aren't actually talking about
Speaker:making things harder on ourselves.
Speaker:We're actually talking about how do we make things easier?
Speaker:How do we take things that otherwise might be hard, right?
Speaker:Like those things I mentioned earlier about, you know, getting food on the way
Speaker:home or plopping down on the couch, or not feeling like doing your workouts or.
Speaker:You know, putting your health first.
Speaker:We started looking at all those things, and what we find is that if
Speaker:we just try to do them without any kind of plan, we're going to struggle.
Speaker:It's gonna be difficult, right?
Speaker:But it's not impossible.
Speaker:But when we come up with a plan, when we create habits and we make
Speaker:things consistent, and we do that by making them easier, we actually
Speaker:make ourselves more disciplined.
Speaker:And then when we're more disciplined or more consistent, more
Speaker:consistent means better results.
Speaker:But here's the thing.
Speaker:If you just try to be disciplined on its own without any kind of vision,
Speaker:you're not gonna get very far because you don't have a roadmap, right?
Speaker:It's like trying to go on a trip and not knowing where you're going.
Speaker:It's not gonna work.
Speaker:So you need the vision.
Speaker:You need discipline.
Speaker:When you put those two together, you're gonna get amazing results.
Speaker:But, Those results can only go so far because the reality is you only have
Speaker:a certain amount of knowledge and a certain amount of skills right now.
Speaker:And simply getting consistent with those things isn't gonna
Speaker:make your skill level go up.
Speaker:It's not gonna necessarily increase your knowledge, but if we add the
Speaker:third circle mastery to the equation, This is where the sky's the limit.
Speaker:This is where we can actually start to reach our full potential as men, because
Speaker:mastery is all about skill building.
Speaker:It's no longer about a result, right?
Speaker:A lot of people, when they start with me, it's very outcome, goal oriented.
Speaker:I wanna lose 40 pounds.
Speaker:I wanna sleep better.
Speaker:You know, I actually want to be able to get in bed and go to
Speaker:sleep within five minutes instead of sitting up half a night.
Speaker:I want to get off my medications.
Speaker:I want to get back into my favorite pair of jeans, or I want to be able to wear my
Speaker:shirt without my love handle sticking out.
Speaker:I want to be more attractive to my spouse.
Speaker:I wanna improve my my love life, right?
Speaker:So all these little things are about outcomes and I think
Speaker:that's where a lot of guys start.
Speaker:And it's understandable where that's where we start because
Speaker:those are pain points for us.
Speaker:But at some point, those pain points started to go away and then it's,
Speaker:okay, now what do I connect to?
Speaker:And that's where, going back to that idea of existential health really comes
Speaker:into play because once you start getting through some of those more superficial
Speaker:ideas of, you know, oh, you know, I just wanna be more attractive to my
Speaker:spouse, or I wanna be a good role model for my kids, awesome things, right?
Speaker:I mean, nothing wrong with those at all.
Speaker:But once you kind of started getting down deeper than that, and you really
Speaker:started to understand what's important to you, what you value, You start
Speaker:to see there's possibilities for just outside of these things, right?
Speaker:It's really about the internal motivation, not the external motivations.
Speaker:It's about the internal motivation, and that's where mastery comes in, because now
Speaker:we can take everything to the next level.
Speaker:We can start to figure out exactly what it is we want.
Speaker:We're not doing it for other people anymore.
Speaker:We're doing it for ourselves.
Speaker:We're doing it because it feels right.
Speaker:It's in alignment with the person that we want to be.
Speaker:That vision that we have for our life, not other people's visions for us,
Speaker:but our own vision for our life, guys, that's really what this is about, right?
Speaker:I think so many of us guys, we are going to work and we're living
Speaker:out the vision of our boss, right?
Speaker:Or if we are the boss, then we are living out the vision of what society tells
Speaker:us we're supposed to be as an employer.
Speaker:In our marriages, a lot of times we are living the vision of our wives, or we're
Speaker:living out the vision of what society has told us we are supposed to be as husbands.
Speaker:And the same thing goes for being a father, right?
Speaker:So when we start looking at a lot of what we do, It's being
Speaker:dictated to us by other people.
Speaker:We may not even realize it because some of this stuff has
Speaker:been subconsciously taught to us.
Speaker:So we don't even think about it and we wonder why we're
Speaker:struggling with all of this stuff.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And the reason is it's not in alignment with who we want to be.
Speaker:And that's why I created this, this blueprint, cuz I every, again,
Speaker:everything starts with that vision.
Speaker:Who do you want to become?
Speaker:Not who do you think you should be, but who do you actually want to be?
Speaker:Who is that person, right?
Speaker:And then once we know who that person is, what steps do we need to start
Speaker:taking to build the habits and the discipline to become that person?
Speaker:And then once we are at the point where we've become that
Speaker:person, what's next for us?
Speaker:What's that mastery level?
Speaker:What skills do we need to continue to develop?
Speaker:What new knowledge do we need to obtain in order to continue to grow?
Speaker:And continue to become the person that we want to be.
Speaker:And of course, all this ties back into that idea of connected health
Speaker:because when we are starting to look at these things, we can look
Speaker:at each one individually, right?
Speaker:I can have a vision, discipline, and mastery for my physical health, for
Speaker:my mental health, for my emotional health, for my relationships.
Speaker:I can really get that sense of purpose of who I want to be tied
Speaker:into each one of those things.
Speaker:So guys, that is the Unshakable Man Blueprint, and this is
Speaker:what I help people with.
Speaker:So guys, if you found this helpful today, if you would do me.
Speaker:Small favor, head over to our YouTube channel and comment on this video
Speaker:and just let us know in the comments what are some of your big takeaways.
Speaker:because what that does is that tells YouTube that this is content that
Speaker:you want to see and that other people should probably get access to as well.
Speaker:And it helps to get the word out and get more exposure for the podcast.
Speaker:and guys, if you'd like some help implementing this blueprint.
Speaker:I've helped many men incorporate this through my coaching programs,
Speaker:and I'd be happy to see if you're someone I can also help.
Speaker:The simplest way to do that is go to unshakablehabits.com and either
Speaker:send me a message through the contact form or go ahead and schedule a
Speaker:no-cost Roadmap Clarity call, and we'll see what we can do for you.
Speaker:So as always guys, this is Stephen Box reminding you that while
Speaker:none of us are born Unshakable, We can all become Unshakable.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to the Unshakable Habits podcast with Coach Stephen Box.
Speaker:Be sure to hit the subscribe button and help us spread the word by
Speaker:sharing the podcast with other men.
Speaker:If you are ready to create Unshakable habits, you can learn more and connect
