Curt Storring 0:00

Welcome to the Dad.Work podcast. My name is Curt Storring. I am your host and the founder of Dad.Work. Today's guest is Clint Murphy, we go deep talking about how to set and crush goals as a busy father, the mindset that is necessary to turn failure into success, growth versus fixed mindset, focusing on the process rather than results, Shadow aspects of our personalities that become motivating forces in our accomplishments, inner child work, how to do all of these things with your family involved, and the importance of sharing your beliefs, successes and frameworks with your children. Clint is a good friend of mine. He's a husband and a father to two young boys now 10 and 13 years old. By day, he's a chief financial officer. And in the evenings, he reads invests his writing a fantasy novel series and hosts the pursuit of learning podcasts, Clint also supports other men on their journeys by facilitating a men's group in his community. I was so excited to talk to Clint, because we sat in circle together for over a year. And he's just one of the guys who, like myself knows how to get things done. And it was, it was rare for me to find someone who was so tuned into goal setting and achievement, especially as a father. And so I really felt Clint was a kindred spirit in many ways. And I'm excited that he was able to share such a detailed framework of how to set goals, how to achieve the things you set goals for, and how to do that all as a father. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Clint Murphy. Here we go.

Clint Murphy, thank you for joining me. I'm super excited to have you my friend.

Clint Murphy 1:36

It's great to be here. I am excited to be on the other side of the microphone.

Curt Storring 1:41

Yeah, you have a podcast? How is that going?

Clint Murphy 1:44

It's going well. And we're going to talk a lot about the art of getting it going today and how to achieve certain things curtain. Like most things, I have a five year vision for where I want it to go. Year One is pretty humble in the planning. And we're right on track. And so the question is, can I scale it near to to the level I want to scale it to? That will be the question. We're about four months in and very happy with where we're at slightly out of schedule.

Curt Storring 2:16

And what's the name of the podcast? Again,

Clint Murphy 2:18

the pursuit of learning podcast,

the pursuit of learning podcast,

Curt Storring 2:22

okay, yeah, I'm glad that we started with that action, because it is a precursor to everything else we're going to talk about today, which is like you are just the most, like five year plan oriented, crushing things when you plan them, planning them correctly, and then like achieving those goals. And so we're gonna get into that today. But before we do that, I'd love to know, just like on a relatable note, for everyone listening, you have two kids. And I want to know, like, what your biggest strength, and what your biggest struggle right now as a father is

Clint Murphy 2:53

my biggest strength has always been the ability to remember where I was at stages of my life. So what was my dating relationship? Like in grade five? What was it like in grade eight, when did I start doing certain things that boys start doing at certain ages, and not having preconceived notions that, oh, my kids won't do that, or they won't do this. Because if anything, they're going to do everything we did earlier than us cared. And I'm very accepting of the choices that they make in what they want to do. So if they want to be a basketball player, or a football player, or a hockey player, an artist, a dancer, it's whatever they want to do. That said, whatever choice they make, I like to work with them, to ensure that they're achieving the most they possibly can. Whether that's a strength, or whether that's a detriment, as a father, one might say that I push them pretty hard, and that later in life, they'll have a little bit of a father wounding from that, I would not doubt that. The other area that I get myself into trouble with and I think it's part of what drives me in life is my patients levels. I am not the most patient person, especially with family, I tend to, for some reason, have much higher expectation of the people in my family than I do everyone else. And so I'm much less patient with them when I don't think they're achieving at the levels they're capable of. And so a lot of the work I'm doing that, you know, whether it's men's work, whether it's meditation work and diving deeper into that a lot of it's learning to be patient, learning to slow myself down, learning to recognize the challenges that they're facing for us We're having our youngest son right now go through the diagnose yes process. And it looks like he'll come out of that with ADHD, and possibly oppositional defiance. There's, there's some things there. So we'll be working with psychologists and trying to figure all that out as the father who's not the most patient. Part of that is because I also suffer from the same ADHD. So I've effectively given it to my son. And trying to learn how to be patient with what he's living through, I'm spending a lot of my time trying to understand what the types of neuro divergence he has, what they mean, what they represent, and how to work with them. So over the next year or two, we'll probably be spending a lot of our time working with him to put processes systems in place to support him in achieving what he wants to achieve. His capability is through the roof. But his focus and his drive in, and even his recognition that he has capabilities is super low, Kurt. You know, he'll often say he's stupid, he'll often say, Dad, I'm down, I can't do it. And his ability to do it is so much higher than he realizes. It's just that teaching them how and so I think that'll be a lot of my next two years is working with him on how to move forward in life. And he's, he's 10 years old.

Curt Storring 6:51

That's definitely a big struggle. And I think there's a lot that you can do with those systems and structures in place. And even just like putting yourself in that empathetic position, which you mentioned, it's like, how, how is he going through this? What is he thinking? And then where can you along the way sort of breathe into that with whatever support he needs. That's good awareness of the situation. And I just want to say that, like I fully See you when it comes to having higher expectations for the people closest to us. Because I'm the same way I will be kind and caring, and compassionate to people who are outside the family. But as soon as you get into it, I hold people to the high standard that I expected myself, which is completely unreasonable, even for me, and I think I'm a pretty high achiever. And so when other people who don't have that and don't care, which they shouldn't, because they're living their own lives, if they don't do that, then like I'm much more prone to impatience and anger much like you. So I just want to validate and affirm and see you on that because I share that 100% I think that's one of the first things that we connected on in the early days of men's group.

Clint Murphy 7:56

Absolutely, you you are one of the few people I've seen who has as high expectations of himself. Is is I do have myself and and I absolutely aligned with you that it's not at all realistic to expect the same from our family. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for sharing that.

Curt Storring 8:17

So I want to give a quick overview of what I'd like to get into today. And we're just going to take whatever course it happens to take. But for those listening, Clint is an expert at getting shit done if I just have to put it bluntly. So we're going to go through how to achieve anything in life, how to get shit done, basically, we're going to go over the power of compounding hopefully, which to me is getting shit done smart and efficiently. And also the thinking that goes into what it's like to get things done. And for me, this is getting the right shit done without sabotaging yourself. So if we if we go with all that I want to start at the highest level as someone who gets shit done, and we're going to have to dive deep here, but I think there's maybe a story or whatever you could tell to maybe give people on your on your page. How do you someone who has achieved so much how do you do it? Let's just start there.

Clint Murphy 9:08

Yeah, and And what we'll do is we'll we'll start back in time, I'll share a little bit of a story about when I wasn't doing it, and what I learned and how that's changed my life to allow me to effectively now do very hard things relatively simply. And so if we rewind about 12 years ago, Kurt, were at a birthday party. And I'd been achieving a fair amount in life financially and with work and I'd moved ahead in my career I'd done well there. But I was pretty out of shape. And I'd always been athletic and you know, you tend to forget that you're not what you were. And so one of my friends, she was talking about a run she'd done. And she'd done very well. And another friend, when I was congratulating her said, Oh, you can't do that anymore. And as a competitive individual, I said, Sure, I can like, also thinking like, why would you take this time to say that when we're celebrating her win, like it felt petty. And he made a bet with me. And I, obviously, as a competitive person accepted it. And when it was getting close to the day of the bat, and it was a run around a track, it was snowing, and he messaged me and said, you know, hey, we can call off the bat, besides just seeing your face when you took the bat was enough for me. And I think a few things happened on that one, one, I started to realize, hey, maybe not the best of friends who says that to their friend, right? I took pleasure in the look of pain on your face. And to was, fuck, I wouldn't have done it. I would not have achieved this. And so the light bulb went off. And I was laying in bed, and I was still getting triathlete magazine. Even though it had been, you know, five years since I'd done like an Olympic distance or sprint distance triathlon, that was the longest I'd ever done. And there was an advertisement for Ironman 70.3, which is a half Iron Man in Calgary. And I signed up, I looked at my wife, and I said, I'm going to do this, she just said, Sure, because I tried so many things and not achieve them. And the difference this time was, I took an approach straight out of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I started with the end in mind, and then said, Okay, I actually want to do an Iron Man in two years. So this 70.3 is going to get me there in a year, I have one year to train, I'm 200 pounds, I need to lose 30 pounds, I need to swim. Three times as far as I've ever swam, I need to ride a bike longer than ever rode. And I need to run a half marathon. And I haven't done that. And so I basically said, if that's the goal, then, by this date, I need to be able to do an Olympic or two by this date, I need to be doing sprints. Let's work it right back to what do I need to do today. And that is always the key. I boil it down to three things, know what you want. We can call that your vision, understand what it takes your plan, do the work day in, day out the work. And the simpler the first steps can be, the better.

And so for that Iron Man training, the first steps weren't going for a 5k run. It was I signed up for a swimming course for people that were afraid of the water. I was afraid of open water and had that fear since I was a baby never went away, still partially there. So I took an open water, get over your fear course. I bought a pair of running shoes, I brought my bike in to get tuned up, started walking around the block, took that to a jog, slowly learned how to do the run clinic, run 10 minutes, walk a minute run 10 minutes, walk a minute, everything was incremental, and everything built on each other. So it was all based on habits that could be done on a daily basis. That could then be stacked on top of each other. And slowly as you saw the success, you're able to say, Oh, look, I just lost 10 pounds, or I just ran a 10k this is working in so then it was okay well, well, I'm not as useless as I thought I was. Why don't I join a lunchtime run club? I was at Metro towers in Burnaby and I started running with the TransLink, TransLink colleagues at lunch hour. Why don't I do this? Why don't I do that? Why don't I join the Running Room and join they're running clinics at night. And all of a sudden you're going from being a slow, methodical just doing it to Hey, I'm actually reasonably good at running. And I'm very good on the bike. So I'm joining a bike cycling team. I'm riding with them for four or five hours on Saturdays. Now that took six plus months before I was doing that, but you're slowly incrementally stacking the habits proving success. And then growing from that success, once I was able to do the 70.3, and then signed up for the iron a year later and just did the same process, I have to effectively double the distance. Right? And so it was okay. Not only do I want to do the distance, I want to do it quickly, I want to break 12 hours, how am I going to do that, and figuring out what it would take and then doing the work. That's always the key is you can't skip any of the steps. The first step, I think it's very important, not only to know what you want, but why you want it. Right. So you do in men circle a fair amount of Shadow Work, because a lot of what people think they want, is driven by something subconsciously. And if you really dove right into it, it's not necessarily what you want. So figuring out truly what your goal is, and what your desires are. The second one is you have to be very methodical on what it takes to achieve. And so what you do there is you look at people who have achieved what you want, you can copy their past, it'd be great if you can talk to them. If you can't talk to them, read everything you've that's been published on them, watch videos on them, listen to podcasts on them, read books about the topic that you want to achieve, right. So I had a number of books on run training, swim training, Ironman training, triathlon training, because you want to be good at something, you have to understand what it takes to be good at. And part of that is identifying the obstacles. I can't swim, big obstacle. Very big obstacle, right? And people think I joke when I say that, but when I did the Ironman in penticton, probably 2800 starters, I think I was 2600 out of the water. I mean, when you're running for your bike, and the parking lots empty, because everyone else is already on the course, you know, you're not a strong swimmer, the only people that didn't get out of the water ahead of you are the ones that didn't get it didn't get into the water, they they d n cubed, right? So they got disqualified. So effectively, really understand what the obstacles are, and then beat them, right, figure out a path around them, threw them over them under them, whatever it is, figure out the path. And if you get there, if you really know what you want, and you have the plan, all it comes down to is doing the work. Right in the work. You talk about the power of compounding, all of this is about compounding, smart choices, plus consistency, plus time, exponential results.

You just have to do the work, even if it's small to start, and you have to build on it. And you have to do it consistently. Over time. It's amazing the results you see. So running almost daily, biking, three or four days a week swimming, ideally, three or four days a week, admittedly, maybe one or two at most for me. But you're building on that and that over time just expands in your ability increases. Everyone thinks about compounding when they think about their money. Compounding works on every single aspect of your life. What you and I talked about earlier, the more we can practice being empathetic to our children. Eventually, it's a very easy practice because you're doing it every day. When you're copying someone, you copy them until you actually embody what you wanted. from them, the habit, the behaviors until it's yours. And then you choose a different attribute and you copy that. So that's I mean, that's my recipe for getting things done. It's pretty simple. It's not easy. I like I heard Matt Frazier say that once and it's stuck with me forever. It's simple. It isn't easy, but it's very, very simple.

Curt Storring 19:26

Yeah, thank you for that. That was such a good like point by point scaffolding upon which someone could build their own vision plan and then how they're going to do the work. And I mean, there's like probably six things I wrote down while you were talking there. But the thing that I think is most important to flesh this out is how do you go about doing each step? And we don't need to go into like, you know, here's my spreadsheet of 100 steps I go through but like, how do you find out what it is that you want? I know you mentioned Shadow Work, but like how do you find out what your vision is? And then how do you plan? And then how do you actually do the work when it's so easy just not to? So why don't we start with the first one? Like, how do you know what you want?

Clint Murphy 20:09

Yeah, so that's where you always have to start. And so step one is really getting to know yourself, as well and as deeply as you can. And I think the way for me that you do that one, self awareness, right, so if you read books on self awareness, you dive into that. And doing every personality test you conceivably can write to understand whether it's Myers Myers Briggs, whether it's the one Jordan Peterson has enneagram. The was formerly Clifton strength finder, I think it's now Gallup strengthsfinder, absolute winner, have an understanding of who you are, because it highlights what are your greatest strengths. And once you know, your greatest strengths, you somewhat all, you somewhat also realize that they tend to be what you value. And so for me, my three greatest are learning, competition, and ideation. So I like coming up with big ideas. I like to compete as I've gotten older, it's mostly with myself. And I love to learn above all else, thus the pursuit of learning podcasts and reading books, and always seeking to learn every single day. And so once I realized Those were my greatest strengths. And they were also what I valued. I said, How can I build my life in a way where it ties to these values? What goals and objectives should I pursue that are in alignment with this? Another way to look at it is if those values drove, what's my purpose, and then everything I choose is now aligned with that purpose with those values. And that's what drives my whether it's a five year or 10 year plan, I say, Okay, here's where I'm going to be in eight years. That's, that's the what I want. And for me, there's six to eight categories of what I want in the next eight years. So I have that to your point, I have that on a on a tracking spreadsheet and a life map. not too dissimilar to what you've seen in the past and what we were using. Formerly, when we were in men's work together occurred, I still use that similar tool that gives me the know what you want. That's my tool. for other people. I ask them certain questions that I've learned over time. Right? So talk to your parents. Say, Hey, Mom, Dad, when I was a kid, what do you think I'd end up doing? When did you see me at my happiest? When were my eyes? alight? Right? I love Marie Kondo. So I always say what did you see spark joy in me? Right? Ask your friends the same question. Another one that is, is a favorite of mine now is what's your tennis ball. And what I mean by that is like a dog, you throw the tennis ball that goes and gets it brings it back. What is that thing that like you put down and you always come back to. I always come back to running. I can put it down for six years. And then I'll do a run streak where I run every single day for one and a half years. Put it down for a year and a half run every day for six months. I love running listening to a podcast while I'm doing it. Once my dog we have a puppy Kurt once she's a year old. I'll start running with her every single morning right now I'm walking, but it'll become a run with her every morning of our life together. And that will bring me immense joy. And then the other type of question that similar is what's that? What are those things you do that you lose track of time that you don't eat food? Right? I'm having a conversation with you. We'll probably have it for a set amount of time.

I could likely just sit and talk with you about these topics for the next eight hours and take the occasional break to go to the washroom and grab some water. I love talking with humans about personal professional and financial growth. I know at some point That needs to be what I do with my life. When I'm when I'm when I pivot my career and I'm no longer a CFO, and I have a timeline that I intend to do that by. And so I've used those questions to drive. What's my Why? What am I here for? And what do I know, makes me super happy and sparks joy in me every minute that I do that. And those are the things that I'll pursue in the next stage of my life.

Curt Storring 25:35

Amazing. Yeah, those are some great questions. And I think so much of this just comes down to self inventory. And by asking yourself questions like that, that's such a good way, even if you're doing it alone. And obviously, I think I've mentioned on every single podcast I've recorded now how important it is to do the work with men. But these questions are some of the ones where you can just get started. And so I think that's a great I love the tennis ball example, by the way, wrote that one down, I'm going to use that, personally. And so now we've got this vision, we've asked ourselves, where do we keep coming back to? Where are we the happiest? What do I want my life to look like in whatever the goal length is yours? Now it's time to plan like, what does this take, and you've touched on that a little bit in looking at what other people who have succeeded in this area have done. And I find at least that there's a bit of a gap in planning with people under estimating what they can do in a year, for example, and overestimating what they can do in a day. And so planning just kind of becomes this almost masturbatory thing that they do, which is like kind of fun, but it's never actually going to be followed, because the planning wasn't very good. So are there any tips, tools, tactics that you use that help you plan in a way that's achievable?

Clint Murphy 26:55

Yeah, and you nailed it with a couple things that you said right there one at one of the problems that we have, and it may even be worth visiting. Second thing that was life changing for me that allowed me to start doing all of these things better, is the way our brains work. I think a lot of people, Kurt, they live in their head. And so when they know what they want, they live that dream in their head. And so they picture it. And they picture the success, what you were referring to is that effectively mental masturbation, and they get the dopamine hit from the mental when. And they never take a step in the pursuit of that dream. Do you know how many times I thought about finishing Ironman? is incredible. I'd finished probably 10,000 Ironman races before doing the actual Ironman, right? And I always, you know, I never looked down and said, Well, wait a second, you're fat and out of shape. Clint like you can't do it. Man, I just thought, of course I can in my head. And so one of the things you have to do is you have to learn to get out of your head. And I think, you know, when we were in, circle together, and then in the group that I've been in, the number one book I recommend, for the rest of my life is feeling good, the new mood therapy by Dr. Burns. And one of the key things it does is it drives a fair amount of cognitive behavioral therapy, which ultimately got me into stoicism. And part of that is thought auditing. So whenever you have a thought, question it determine if it's real, only assent to those thoughts that are real. So only if you if it's a logical real thought do you let it permeate into your brain. And so the more you're able to do that, the less you live in your head, right? You use your mind for what you want. And so instead of just living in dreamland, you say, Okay, I want to achieve that, I'm going to use my mind to figure out how to do it. So that's, that's the first step is you have to get out of your head, you have to get whether it's on the on the computer or on paper, you have to get onto the paper, right? And so, I have a guest to I'm going to be interviewing on a book called ultra learning and I read that about three years ago, and it was phenomenal. And I'd always been a quick learner. It's always been my as I mentioned earlier, in the Gallup strength finder, it was my number one strength. And what I learned from his book was a lot of the things that I was doing intuitively were what he studied in his research on learning. And some of the key things we talked about, find people who have done it, understand how they did it, research their methods, read up on it. You know, almost anything I want to do, I immediately go to Google, get as much free information as I can, then I go to paid information, or reach out to people who've achieved what I want, I'll have conversations with them. So everything early on, is informational. Get as much information as you can I do this for for video games, Kurt, like, you know, my brother, just very good at games, and he'll play them, I go and read every single thing I can about the game to be a top player, right? So he just tries to instinctively do it. I study everything I do before I do it. And so once you know what you want, and you're creating that plan, you have to have a realistic timeline, right, a lot of what you're reading will tell you what realistic timelines are. Now you can be a little bit different than others. And you can know, hey, I tend to achieve things quicker, I tend to achieve things slower. But once you have the timeline, in your right, people dramatically, or they overestimate what they can do in the short term, but they dramatically underestimate what they can do in the long term. And then you run into two problems. One, they don't start, and we'll talk about that when we get to the work or two, they start, they have a miss hit, they stop.

So once you have the plan, the plan has to have built into it some redundancies, like you're gonna miss, you're gonna miss a workout, you're gonna miss this, you're gonna fall down, you have to, as part of, I refer to it as getting hard shit done muscle, you have to recognize that failure is feedback. And you can use the feedback to succeed. So your plan has to understand that there will be hits, there will be falls, there will be losses, you have to keep going. And then what you want to do with the plan, you want to have the plan going out to the date that you want to achieve the goal by right should be a SMART goal. So it should be timed out. And then what you want to do is you want to chunk that. So if you just start with that end in mind, most people will never start because the end is generally very daunting. So you almost you might even have that end goal on a separate page. Because then what you want to do is you want to say okay, well, if it's gonna take me two years to get there, what do I need to do in the next year? Right? You really want to focus not much further out than that. Once you know what you want to do in that year, and you can have it by, you know, four or five bullet points that you need to do to achieve it. You then say, Okay, well, if I'm going to do that in a year, what do I need to do by quarter? I'm going to break that down into four quarters. Once you know the quarters, you can say, Okay, well, let's plan out the next three months. To break it down further. Your goal is you want to break it all the way down to what do I need to focus on on the daily? What do what do my habits need to be? And once you get to habits, it's easy, because those are things you can do every single day. Right? People think reading 52 books a year is daunting. Like, there's no way I can do that. To read 30 pages a day. Right? Read 20 pages a day. Let's see what happens. All right, if the average book is 200 pages, your if you're doing 30 pages every six days, you're reading a book, you're reading, you're reading 52 books in a year, right? They miss for three weeks, and they say oh, well, I'm so far behind. I can't catch up. Well, what about what about when you have three weeks of vacation, you can read a book a day, right? So don't focus so much. On a few things, don't focus on the end, break it down all the way into habits. Break the goal down into years, years into quarters, quarters into months, months into weeks, weeks, in two days, days into habits. That's That's the key. And then if you miss understand you can still make it up. understand if you miss one day get back on on day two. I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said if you miss one day, it's fine. If you miss the second day it's over. Right? So so he lives by? I'm okay with missing occasionally. But I won't miss two days in a row. Because once I miss two days in a row, I'm done. The habits gone. Right? Yeah. So that's that's the plan. The plan has to go all the way from the forest right down into the individual tree level, and then get right into the roots of the daily habits.

Curt Storring 34:54

Yeah, brilliant breakdown. I'm glad that you touched on failure because that was one of the things I was going to bring up. So many people make plans and are thrown off course by them. And if you just go into it, assuming that it's hard, that you are not perfect, and that you'll fuck up, then you can build those, those contingencies in. And that's what I talk about a lot with like fatherhood as a whole, to be honest, is that we don't, we don't give ourselves enough credit with how difficult this is, and how we've never done this before. And so if you're planning something, and I think Well, I'd like to bring this around eventually to some fatherhood projects that we both undergone using frameworks like this to sort of tie it back together. But if you don't start with the understanding that this is hard, and that you are literally impossible, it's literally impossible for you to be perfect, then, you know, you don't end up quitting the first time something goes wrong, because your expectations are not perfection there. Let's move forward. And it's okay, if I screw up here. And that takes habits, like you say, that helped to build in that self love and that self compassion. And I guess that the habits are how you do the work. But I guess just to close this loop, when it comes to doing the work, are there any final things that people should know? So that plan gets completed?

Clint Murphy 36:24

Yes, you you have to have a mindset. That's a growth mindset, right? So you have to know that you can be better than you are today. You can move forward, you can become smarter, you can become more intelligent, you can become more physically fit. Your lot in life is not set when you graduate high school. And a lot of people seem to think that, hey, I graduated, I'm done. I never have to read another book in my life. I never have to, you know, do any more p class, just going to go to work and drink beer, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, reset on Sunday, and rinse and repeat week in week out until I die. And that's a mindset that won't allow you to do the work, because you don't have faith that it will achieve anything. Number. The second part is you have to the same way. That same muscle to get shit done muscle. Like it just has to become habit. You You don't focus on what you think. You don't focus on what you say. You focus on the results. Always. Right. Did I do the work? The process is what matters. Finishing the Iron Man. Great. running an ultra marathon great. But the ultra marathon wasn't what mattered. It was that ran seven kilometers a day. Every day for one and a half years. That was an average I didn't you know, some days higher, some days lower. But that was more important than the actual ultramarathon, right, the ultra marathon will stick a medal on the wall that the fact that you ran every single day for one and a half years. That what it does, Kurt, when you can do a couple of these, it teaches you that you have the ability and are willing to do the work. Right? The more you can teach yourself that you have the ability to do the work, which is why I love men starting with the smallest goal possible. And just building it. Start with something simple. I think in our in our circle, they call it the discipline exercise. 30 days in a row, do the exact same thing at the exact same time and have it be as simple as staring@a.on the wall at 7pm for 30 seconds. Because all you're doing is you're teaching yourself that you can do the work. Some people don't have faith that they can do it. Right that they can work out that they can run that they can draw. You can do almost anything. If you do the research. You have the plan and you show up every single day. There is almost nothing that you cannot do. If you've if you follow that path in your life, lose weight, gain muscle, read books, become more financially wealthy, become financially independent. There's steps that are actually much simpler than people realize for every single one of these categories. You want to be in better shape. Eat less next To size more, it's it's not rocket science, you do that every day for six months, you will be in better shape. I'm out of shape right now. Because I needed more and I'm exercising less. I mean, it's not rocket science.

Curt Storring 40:13

Yeah, and I love what you said about the small goals. I've talked to people who have difficulty with goals, because they seem so daunting. And a quote that I've heard is aim small, Miss small. And to me that like turns me right off, because I'm just like a big crush it. But for the people who have problems with something like this, it can be helpful to be like, well, I don't have to fail so big and then hate myself for it. Because there's a lot of this inner self talk is very critical. But if you are a person like that, just adopt the aim small Miss small mentality, which is like, yes, you may fail, and that could be hard for you. And if you're in a place where that's hard for you, that's okay. I hope that you can learn how not to make that so hard for you. But it's a lot easier to have a few small misses while you just practice. It's almost like training wheels. Yeah. So I'm glad that you I'm glad that you brought that up.

Clint Murphy 41:05

Yeah, start with the training wheels. Go slow. Miss small, get back up. Get back on the bike. Go again. Again, again, until you do it. Yeah. And that's just building. Like you said, Yeah, and then just take the wheels off. slightly bigger goal, slightly bigger goal. Kurt, you you you might not like it because you've been hitting, you've been hitting big goals, your whole life, you've been pushing yourself. There's something inside of you that says, you know, maybe I need more, I'm not good enough unless I do this. And so you're percent, you're perpetually trying to, like, prove that you're good enough by doing the next big thing. And we can get into the downsides of that later. If you.

Curt Storring 41:55

Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And I love that you mentioned that because both are so relatable, right? It's like you don't want to mess up. So you go small, and you don't want to fail. So you go huge, improved, everybody that looks at somebody pay attention to me, please, somebody helped me. And like these, actually, you know what that makes me think I'm going to go on like a little bit of a side tangent here. It makes me think that so much of this work, actually is about like, your self development as a human being, like, we can talk about being a better dad, we can talk about planning, we can talk about financial freedom, but it all and I mean, all and I want to make this very clear for people like it all comes back to your own wounding your own traumas, or perceived traumas. And then what you do about those, and like, I'm just so grateful that you brought that up, actually, as I'm thinking about it, because yeah, I go, Yeah, well, I like big goals. And other people might have small goals. But the reason I have these goals can I can crush them is because there's this pain inside. That comes from childhood abandonment, not feeling good enough. And so I don't want to necessarily get off on a huge tangent, because people this is very actionable stuff. But I love to just make the point, that there's deeper powers at work for everybody listening, and to do the work, to meditate to find a coach to join a men circle, to do any of these things to get to know this more deeper part of yourself, that will unlock like you mentioned, what it truly is that you want, you know, because it's not for me that I truly want to succeed. Like I don't truly want money because it doesn't mean anything. And in reality, what I truly want is to be accepted. Like that's my wish. And so all of these goals, all these other things that I do, because I want to be accepted, I want to be good enough. And so I just yeah, sidetrack here but I think it's super important.

Clint Murphy 43:53

Well, it's super important for a number of reasons. And you mentioned this as one of the things you wanted to cover at the start of the conversation. And you know, if you if you look at why I achieve the majority of what I achieve, and why I pushed myself the way I pushed myself in life, it's not too dissimilar to you. It's, you know, I want my I want my, my inner my inner boy, my inner child wants my dad to give me a hug and say you're good enough. Right And that's, that's it that's driving me right having a big brother who was held back and was in my greatest entire life. And who mom and dad probably spent more time with for various reasons. Regardless of what I did, there was nothing right it was you know, did your brother play ball hockey with you did your brother go for a run with you? Did your brother do this and so there was never all of that just Kurt made me think I wasn't enough. And no matter what I did, I wasn't enough. So I'll spend the rest of my life changing chasing a bunch of big, hairy, audacious goals, until they say, hey, you're enough, like, you're good. I love you. I've always loved you. You don't need to do anything else. And that's what leads to the burnout. So you said, how do you how do you do all these things? And not burnout? And often the answer is you don't? Eventually you do burnout, right? Because because nothing is enough, you're choosing bigger, and harder and crazier goals, and you're stalking them. So you're like, Hey, I'm going to be in the best shape of my life. I'm going to continue to work as a CFO, I'm going to launch a podcast, I'm going to do this, this, this and this. And at some point, your body first says, No, no, no, it's game over. And then next, your mind does, it just says, Hey, I can't keep going. And then all of a sudden, you're sitting there and you're looking at the wall and saying, What's happening? Like, I'm broken? I'm physically and mentally broken? How do I get back on track? In so learning to you said, How do you avoid that? It's really learning a few things. One, what are the patterns? Because it's not like it only happens once, in two, what you just talked about, getting in circle, getting in therapy, getting in a men's group, getting into dads group, having conversations about what's in your shadow, understanding that it's that lack of a have. And I don't want to say love, because my parents almost always listened to anything a mom, so you know, pared down, they'll probably find the episode. And I don't want to say that I've never felt loved because my mother and father told me, they love me every day in my life. But there's something with the way that attention was in its you know, mom, dad, if you're out there, I know you. Every child, regardless of what their parent does, has their own wounding. And there was something in the way those interactions happened when I was a child, that deep down, made me feel like I wasn't enough. And so I've spent the majority of my life chasing it. And once you know that, you're working with a skilled circle, a skilled therapist, they're really able to get you to recognize, well, why don't we have a conversation with that inner child right now? Right? You know, what would you tell him? And I think we'd both say you are enough. You are accepted. I love you, people love you. Your children love you. Your wife loves you, right. And once we were able to do that, you're able to let go a little bit. So it's a fine balance, because because I think we both we're not just doing it now. For that inner child, we're also doing it because we've learned how much we love achieving things. And so I think there's that fine line of recognizing, okay, I'm going to limit the amount I'm pursuing, because I am enough. And I'm still going to pursue this, this and this, because I want to, not because they have some inner beast driving me, but because it's the right thing for me to do for where I want to be in life and how I want to achieve certain outcomes.

Curt Storring 48:44

Yeah, it's a conscious decision rather than a wounded or trauma driven decision. And I just love that we gave people this whole framework on how to crush it. And then we're like, oh, by the way, if you want to crush it, why don't you do some inner child work? Because there's probably something there. So I mean, that's what this podcast is about, I guess, is going super deep and forcing dads to like, think differently. And speaking of dads, I want to kind of put this more towards, how are you doing these things in relation to your kids? And so what's going through my mind is like, how, first of all, are you balancing all of this? Because, actually, you know, what? What are some of the things that you've accomplished in the last like five years that you're proud of that other people would be like, wow, holy last five.

Clint Murphy 49:36

So the last five years, some of the big ones were, I was promoted at work to be CFO of my company, which sort of, you know, unless I were to start my own business or become the president of effectively, some shops you might be a CEO, but have effectively achieved the combination of my career path. So that was big. In the last five years, I think I did that first run streak where I ran every single day for one and a half years. And it averaged out to seven kilometers a day. And then at the end of that Kurt, I did an ultra marathon which was 50 miles or 80 kilometers. That was pretty big. Last year, I got into weightlifting in I achieved a Powerlifting Total of 1000 pounds, which was something that I always tried to do when I was like 18, or 19. I didn't, you know, I didn't in fairness, I didn't do it all on the same day. But my max lifts within a few days of each other, we're over the total. So that felt good. The, probably over the last five years read somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 bucks.

Live launched the podcast, wrote a book fantasy novel, have an outline for some nonfiction books that I'm going to write with my sister.

Those were the personal ones. And then financially, we achieved a number of a number of goals with investment properties and and some things we did there that were pretty decent bets on where I thought the market was going and why and, and we took some pretty substantial positions when it felt like what I always heard from a former owner of a company I worked at was this Elian was, you want to be buying when there's blood in the streets. And I think that lines actually hundreds of years old, but it really resonated. So in 2018 2019, when Vancouver real estate market was quite down, which is not normal for our city, we took some pretty substantial positions in some properties that turned out really well. So that's that's helping with our path to financial independence. I think those are the big ones. There's probably some others. But I one of the one of the downsides of the way we're wired is I have a high level of confidence in myself. And I know because I've done it that I can achieve almost everything, anything in life, and everything. And I don't give myself credit for anything. So when you say what's on the list, once I do it, I actually reasonably Forget it. So it's only when you ask that question that I start to say, Oh, well, what did I do? And every year there's something and I just don't, because I don't give myself credit for it, I tend to just let it go into the background. And so I don't think about it until until you introduced introduce it. I mean, there was a year of running a men's group circle. meditation teacher certification program, Silent Retreat, you know, things, things of that nature. But

yeah, it was more normal.

Curt Storring 53:09

Yeah, I asked the question mostly to like, give an idea of Okay, like this guy saying he knows all this stuff, but like, what has he actually done. And so I have seen over the last two years, at least, like all of these things happen. And within the groups we were in, everyone has just like, everyone knows, Clint is just like crushing whatever he does. And I'm very grateful that you brought up the hard times. And what it looks like to not give yourself the congratulations. And I'm the same way. It's like, Well, why don't you celebrate like, well, because now I'm here, I don't want it anymore. I want the next thing, right, it's never good enough. And that's, that's again, as part of the conscious work is getting there. And then being okay with that, and then accepting it and then moving on only if you want to. And so what I was going to say is how are you accomplishing all you accomplish in terms of balance? And how do you see yourself sharing these messages with your children?

Clint Murphy 54:05

Who, yeah, that's a hard one. The first thing is my wife is the most tremendous partner by could ever have. She's so supportive of the goals and the dreams and the ambitions. She's a little tired of how much I focus on my goals. And you know, she has said, you're a little selfish with your time. And so we're working on that. And one of the things that you know, you'll hear for the first time now, man, it was a hard decision was I ended up dropping a few weeks ago, the men's work that I was doing. So it's a pretty big time commitment. I would say it averages at least five to six hours a week. And I made the decision to drop it and she threw out you know, I told her what I was thinking And why and she said that makes sense. Just nonchalantly. And then I went to squad the next week. And I told them and when I went back the week after we were talking about it, we were trying to think of what the alternatives are the squad would be from a leadership perspective. And I flip flopped, because I love the work, right? Like I told you helping people grow personally, professionally and financially, it's what I need to do. Like it just, it just lights me up inside. So I said, I can't give this up. I said, Hey, guys, like I'm sorry. Like, you know, I know I said this last week, but like, would you have me back? And everyone said, Yeah, okay. And I messaged, the person that oversees our division. And he was like, yeah, it makes sense. It's all good. And so I went home that night, Kurt, and I told him that I said, I can't give that up. And she started bawling, and said, Well, if you can give that up, then you do realize you are giving up something. And it's us, it's me, it's your voice. And you know, I can, my son headset that I keep using this line, but like a salmon on the riverbank, I flip flopped right back the other way, there's no way you know, I can't see my wife in that position, and realize she's right, and then I'm sacrificing time with her and the boys. Even if I love what I'm doing, like, they have to be a priority. And so I reached out and I said, Hey, guys, like I should have should have made that call with my partner. And you know, sorry to do it, but I'm out. And so, you know, that's gonna free up five to six hours a week. And then everything else is a bit about prioritization. Right? So a lot of the writing I do, a lot of the research I do, I do it while I'm with the family, like, if they're watching a Netflix show, I'm reading a book while we watch it, I'm typing while we watch it, I'm almost rarely doing one thing at a time. And which becomes a problem, because then what I work on is when I am with them being super present. And so that's something I've got to get better at. And sometimes it's done by handing my phone to my wife, and saying, okay, you know, I'm not going to be doing x or doing y or catching up on this or catching up or that or trying to send them this message or write this post. Because when, as you get when you're launching a community, when you're launching a podcast, when you're trying to grow some grow something, you generally are trying to publicize it as well. And so whether it's instagram, whether it's Twitter, we all have our different path. You're trying to grow that community. And it actually people don't realize how, again, like everything, you've got a plan for how many followers you want to have any, or you know how many followers you want to get to, you have a plan for how to achieve it. Kurt, I wouldn't be surprised if people that are doing it, you're reading the guides, you're buying the courses, you're joining communities, and they take work, and then you're doing that work day in day out, because the way that you move forward on almost any social media platform is consistency. And so you're doing the work. And then your partner says, Well, why aren't you with us? Like you're always on your Instagram or you're always on your Twitter, they don't realize, well, like I'm effectively working. This is for the future of our family. Not No, I'm not doing it because I'm enjoying what I'm doing. And I'm I'm mindlessly surfing, I'm actually working on creating networks and creating relationships, and I'm growing the community. And so I've got to learn to let that go. I've got to have the off periods where I'm with them. And then what's beautiful, is you start to be able to do some of it together.

So my oldest boy is 13 is practically my size, where within half an inch I have a half of an inch of each other in height and ease. I'm probably 195 He's 170. So within the next year, he's going to be taller than I am. And he's going to, I'm hoping to go down probably 1520 pounds, he'll go up 1520 pounds. So within a year, he's going to be in grade eight, and he will be bigger than me. Right? He'll be bigger in grade eight than I was when I graduated high school. And so the things that I can do with him are phenomenal. He's a very, very good basketball player. He can be so much better. And I get to work with him on that right I get to push Should I actually get to play like, the only way I can beat him is I can be more physical than him. That's it. You know the old Bumble or like use your size to just push them all the way to the basket, and then score skills are ahead of me. So I have to outwork them, I have to be sweating harder, and that's teaching him shit. If like 43 year old dads working me, I have to work harder. If dad's being physical, I've got to be physical. And then he takes that gameplay back to the 13 year old kids he's playing with, it's a totally different game, right? And so I can teach him that. I coach my son's hockey team. And so yeah, I forgot that on the list. I actually, I absolutely loved coaching last year, sucked with COVID, because we, you know, we only got a certain number of games, but other associations weren't even outside of BC weren't even able to practice, we were still practicing. Looking forward to having some games this year. And then, you know, I'm on the ice with him. He's my son, I'm on the ice with them. That's bonding time. And so I also I'll just go play roller hockey with him. And so I try to, like, if I'm taking the dog for a walk, take them with me. Right, have conversations while we Walker, if I'm going to work out, say to my older son, hey, come for a workout. When I was running every day, I was making him run three days a week with me. Maybe four, and then the little guy who was he was nine at the time, he was doing three to five kilometer runs with us. Like, so. I'm achieving what I want. I'm involved in them. And it's doing another couple things. One, they're operating at a level that's much higher than they normally would, because there's not many 12 year olds that are bench pressing, squatting, and deadlifting in the home gym with their dad, right? So he's getting physically stronger than other kids. And it's modeling. Right? The number one thing we can do as fathers is modeled the behaviors that we want them to have. So we can, we can say all we want to them. What matters is what we show them. So if you show them that you're running, that you're lifting weights, that you're reading books, they are going to want to run lift weights, read books, if you show them that you're crushing big goals, they are going to want to crush big goals, right? So the more you can show them together, the more they're going to going to achieve. And one of the key things is everything we've talked about on this podcast I talked about with them all the time. Right, my son had to Yeah, my son had to do an interview for high school, Kurt, and you wonder how much of this stuff sticks, right? When the person was asking about goals, he was talking about what colleges, he wants to go to, what it's going to take to get into them

what he needs to do to get there, and the importance of goal setting to reach the eventual destination. Because unless you know what you want, and how to do it, you're never going to get there. And you know, I said Dad, because he did the interview in the kitchen. And so we have the Nest Cam inside that kind of films, the kids being the kids, and we're able to watch back his interview. I mean, you're almost in tears and goosebumps when you realize this stuff sticks in he knows now you know, the joys of parenting, you can have a conversation with him after basketball to say hey, like, this is what you want, right? You keep telling me you want to be good at basketball. So what's it gonna take? And he's like, Well, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. I'm like, Okay, good, you know what you have to do. And then you get how many plays fortnight for four hours, you're like, well, that your, your words didn't match what you've said. So that's something we got to talk about life because your, your words have to match your dead. So you know, it doesn't always work. It it doesn't always stick but but if you can demonstrate it, and you can teach them 80% of it hopefully will resonate and will allow them to be better in their life.

Curt Storring 1:04:37

Okay, so one of the things that I heard there was, you are spending time with your kids when you are doing things that you would otherwise be doing alone, which is I think a huge advantage is just going like hey, come with me for a walk. Because when we're busy as fathers, which most of us are, we have to find a way to squeak those things in. And so if you're going to be working out if you're reading Whatever it is that you're doing, even doing like dishes or something, get them in there and spend that time, that conscious time with them. And at the same time, let them see you. If you're not doing things specifically with them, let them see you working, let them see you setting these goals. And then when it comes up, have the conversations. So those are like three interesting things that I think you just said, is, you know, talking to them when you're doing these walks, and not just, you know, having not just missing out on this opportunity to go deep with your kids. And then yeah, just letting them see what you are doing. And I wondered it now, bringing all of this back to fatherhood, has there been a project or a decision that you've had to make as a father that you've actually had to use this planning these skills to go through, because I know you're a very intentional dude. And you've got all these skills and these structures to build and plan and do goals? And I know that you're, you are a conscious father. So whether there's a big plan that you've had to make, or whether it's simply your journey as a conscious father, could you walk us through how this applies to something like fatherhood?

Clint Murphy 1:06:16

Yeah, I think the in less about me as a father more about teaching these things to my son, and seeing them in action. And I think where the journey is going to be for me, as a father, Kurt will be over the next two years with my son who has some of the challenges that he has and working, you know, figuring out, Clint, how do you set him up for success, which was one of the reasons my wife was as upset as she was with the men's work in the decision to go back was she knows how much time This may take therapists scheduling focus routines, and so she wants me around to invest in that. So I'll spend a fair, I'll use all of these tools to say, Okay, what are the top 10 things you need to do with a child that has ADHD to make them or to not make to support them being the best version of themselves? They can be ideally without medication? Right? Get them in, get them in Brazilian jujitsu, get him in art classes, guitar lessons, singing lessons, what are those things he loves, that we can get him to do so that he can be more focused, so that he can succeed? Special tutors to do to do so he's able to realize his full potential. One of the challenges he has, he doesn't do that. Well at school, he's one of the smartest children I've ever had conversations with. So I actually have a feeling that his abilities are off the charts. But he's bored. And he's unfocused. And so he doesn't pay attention. So teaching him everything and doing all the research, getting the books, doing the research to understand how to support him in achieving his dreams, because I personally feel that ADHD can absolutely be a superpower when harnessed correctly, right? And, Kurt, one of the key things people always say is, well, how do you do the things that you do? How do you do so many of them? And how do you do them all at the same time? If I didn't, I'd be dead. And that's partially because of the ADHD. I can't sit still I always have to be doing something, I always have to be moving. And so I recognize that that in him and I can teach them how to use it. So that will be where I use this the most as a father full stop. Because other than that, it's been pretty easy till now. Right? Our oldest boy is dead simple. Right? listens. Well, very attentive, very good performer in school, like, super easy to manage. And the younger guy was so young that, you know, there wasn't much pushing that needed to be done. They didn't have letter grades yet. See, you didn't really see it all. It became much more obvious turn COVID when we were home with them, right? their school wasn't telling us he had all these issues. What they were doing was building a very amazing support network around him. He had an emotional regulation teacher. He had a Learning Assistance teacher, he had a teaching aid when he was in class. We didn't we sort of knew all of this, but not fully. It wasn't until we started saying to them, hey, here's what we're seeing. And they're like, yeah, yeah. Here's all the things that we have in place to help that here's what we recommend you do. It was beautiful. So That would be the thing. Where it's been amazing to watch happen now is the shaping of our oldest son. You know, if you go back to grade four or five, when he first started getting letter grades, he was good, right? It was decent. And teaching him what it takes to get to the next level, what does it take to go from four B's and forays to always right? And seeing that by the time he got to grade seven, getting eight out of nine courses were an A and the one that was a B, he didn't hand something in and it was like career, he didn't hand in his volunteer hours or something. So you know, otherwise, he would have had straight A's. I never did that in my life.

And sports, working with him to understand what it takes to play at a much higher level. So he's he's playing at a very reasonably high level now in basketball. And the progression that he's made from three years ago to debt to today is astronomical, even over the last year to your point earlier, what he's achieved over the last year, like pre lockdown. And people are gonna think I'm a horrible father when I say stuff like this, but I'm a realist as a father, and I think you are too Curt. Not gonna say my kids great at something when when they're absolutely dog's breakfast. Right when my son would go to the foul line, I would cringe be because he was, you know, like a 20 30% free throw shooter I would joke about I would joke with him about Shaq attack, you know, the kids they go watch youtube so he'd go realize anytime Shaq was eight feet away, people would just smack them and send them to the battle line. And he's always been a big kid. So that's what they would do. they'd send them to the foul line he'd Miss And so through lockdown, you don't get to watch your kids play. And so he's like, Hey dad, like I'm a good shooter. Now you know we in practice, they can't scrimmage so they do all these shooting drills and he'd be like, Dad, like I'm winning all the shooting drills. And I'm like, my head I'm like Sherry, who should I see you shoot before impossible come that a lockdown kids got a stroke now like he's pulling up for like mid range jumpers. Now I know in today's NBA, you're not supposed to do that. So I got to work on him three ball or go to the go to the hoop. But he's pulling up and he's he's hitting. Right. And he's, he's achieving at a level in a number of areas of his game that weren't there. Right? So I'm blown away at the progress he's made. Because he's like, I need to be a shooter. It's a weakness in my game. I know it's a weakness, I'm going to improve it in so now it's working with him to say, Okay, well, now what are your weaknesses? And we're going to address those together, because he wants to at least play college ball. Right? He'd like to get a scholarship somewhere. So okay, if you want a scholarship somewhere, what's it going to take? And one of the other cool things is he's even, I'm a bit odd in the way I approach things with the kids because that, like, I'm not a parent who says, Oh, yeah, you could do anything you want in the world? Because the truth is, it's not realistic for everybody. There are certain constraints on US based on our size, or speed or ability. Sure, maybe you can be in the NBA some maybe. But part of what he's realized is the more we talk about this stuff, the more he does his own research. And if we had to guess Kurt, he'll be six to 235 to 50, somewhere in that size range, right? He's even saying to me, like, you know, odds are, I probably be a better football player than I would a basketball player for this, this, this and this reason. So he's kind of done that research himself, too. He knows he wants to play college level athletics. He's looked at it and said, when I when I do the research on player sizes, skills, attributes, I'm probably more likely to make it as a football player than I am as a basketball player. And so I need to think about that when I go to high school and how it will play into how I approach athletics in high school. So he's, he's taking that lesson and doing the planning himself now I just have to execute with him on the training on the but part of that will just be simply by way of which high school he goes to. And it'll be a high school that focuses on those sports in addition to school, so that he'll get trading, he needs to if he does the work and he does some work at home, in the gym and in programs outside of school that he'll he'll be able to achieve at the level he wants. So helping him be the athlete he wants and helping my youngest achieve with the challenges he's facing. Those will be the big focuses for me over the next two to three years. As a father, right, I'll have my goals, and then I'll, as a father, I want to help those to achieve in those two ways.

Curt Storring 1:15:31

Right? Okay. And I guess maybe last thing that we'll touch on here, because I mean, sitting in circle with you, I've seen the growth that you've had emotionally. And I kind of want to go there with how you're balancing the sort of achievement focused, almost gogogo nature that is so natural to us with sort of showing up for them as emotional support and, and maybe things that you've done to help with patience and temper, because I know we both share issues with that at times. So on the flip side of just like showing up as the container for all of this growth, how have you, I guess, grown yourself over the last few years? What does that look like?

Clint Murphy 1:16:18

Yeah, I'd say the number one thing has been identifying, and whether we want to look at, you know, we can use the tools we talked about, Know yourself know what you want. And part of the understanding what it takes we said was recognizing the obstacles. Another word for the obstacles is what are the holes in our game, Kurt? So I think you and I are very good at identifying the holes in our game. And two of the biggest holes that we I think both shared from what we've talked about in the past. impatience and temper, which we've we've already talked about on the show. And so it's recognizing those. And so a lot of the books that I read over the last year, were on that subject, how do I or over the last two years, the reason I joined men's work was to address those holes in my game. And when you're sitting around in a circle, and you're sharing with guys, I yelled at my kid for this or this, and you have a great father, like yourself sitting beside you. And he says, Hey, you know, here's a way you could have approached that one. You know, I see you, I recognize that it's not always easy. And here's a different way you could have approached it in, then you read a book on it, and you read a book on meditation, and slowly, you take the steps to slow down to pause more to choose the emotion to choose the reaction to the emotion in so when something's boiling up inside you, we usually label it anger. And we react to the anger, like a flame thrower. On to the person who and I'm doing quotation marks is causing that anger. No one causes anything. Right? And the more work we do, the more we know this, whether it's Shadow Work, whether it's the reading. It's something inside of us. So a lot of the work that I've done has been to recognize what that is. Right? what triggers me, and why does it trigger me? My son being defiant triggers me, why does it trigger me? Because I was never allowed to be defiant with my father. Right? I was afraid of my father. He was big, he was imposing yell, he screamed, he swore at me. That put a fear into me that anytime I would want to be defiant. The reaction that I would get would scare me. And so whenever someone does that, to me, it brings up that energy and it shows up as anger. But once underneath it is shame, embarrassment, fear. Why could I behave the way you're behaving right now. Be in their shame that I wasn't able to behave like you are and you're bringing up shame and I don't want to feel it. So I'm going to rip into you. And I'm going to yell and I'm going to get angry.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to recreate the pattern that I was in, so that you think it's okay to yell. Right? And so now my little kid yells a lot. And I try to tell him not to yell. And where did Where did he learn? He learned it from me. And so I have to, I have to help him unlearn it. I have to help them learn that Love is the answer. And so often even when he's yelling at me, right, I hate you, I hate you and kicking me. Like I, you know, as a dad, at hurts, like I sometimes when I'm exhausted, I'll go in another room. And I'll just like I've had had a situation just recently, and I think it was partially the puppy, and I'm waking up three times a night to go pee with her. And then all of a sudden, he's doing one of his ones where he's just losing it on me. And he's telling me how much he hates me. And he's hitting me and I just walk, walked into my bathroom. And I think I got on the fetal position on the tile floor, and I just was crying. I just said, I'm exhausted. And he realized, like, oh, wow, like, that's the impact I just had on daddy. And he came over and started hugging me and saying, it's alright dad, like it's okay. and teaching them that it's okay to be emotional, right? I wasn't allowed to cry as a kid. I was a wimp if I cried, right. And I probably went about 30 years without crying. So my dad cried twice in his life. And teaching my kids it's okay to cry, trying to learn how to cry myself, right, as a grown man, trying to expand to allow it. And to allow it in my boys, and to teach my son meditation. So often when he's getting angry, and he's telling me he hates me. And he's hitting me. I'll just lay down on the floor beside him and say, Hey, why don't you just put your head on my chest? And let's just breathe together? Right? I'll play you a meditation. We'll see what that does. I sleep with him almost every night. Now. You know, my wife thinks it's horrible. Because he's, you know, he's learning not to sleep on his own, which she doesn't recognize is when you when you have a brain that's wired the way his was, is, it reminds me of when I was a child care. You can't stop it from thinking. And a lot of times, the thoughts get dark, right? Like that. What if a ninja comes through my window? Like who's gonna protect me? Right? What if there's someone under my bed? What if there's someone in the closet? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if he can't sleep, just has nightmares, and he just sits there and thinks for hours. And my wife's neuro typical, my oldest son is neurotypical like, they do not have these thoughts going through their head. My dad slept with me. Almost every night when I was a kid. When he stopped. I moved my bed into my brother's room, and I slept in his room. I would sleep on the floor in my sister's room. Till I was like, 16. And then I started and then my, and then it was my wife. Like, that's what she doesn't realize that she's like, oh, you're creating this pattern where he can't sleep. It's like, no, like, he just can't sleep, because he can't stop thinking. So I need to help him stop thinking. So I'll lay beside him and I'll sub the last week I've been sleeping in there. But you know, for the last year, I'll lay beside him for 30 minutes, and I'll do a meditation with them. I'll let him talk to me for five minutes or so. And then I'll say, All right, go to sleep, buddy. Dad's right here. I play a few games as Clash Royale while he's trying to fall asleep beside me. And once he's asleep, I'll get up and leave. But it's, it's teaching them how to meditate. It's just as the anger is rising, recognizing it and saying Okay, I gotta let this out. I gotta like breathing myself and just letting the emotion flow out. And periodically, periodically angers Alright, the key that one of the one of the teachers that I've loved is Robert Glover. And sorry, Robert masters, and anger versus aggression. So anger is the heat, but you're containing it within love. Right? So like, if I go to see my kid run into the street, I scream in anger, like stop as loud as I can, because I'm trying to save his life. It's coming from a place of love. aggression is the is that heat without the love, there's no Hartnett. So you're just a flame thrower turned on to them.

Not for the right reason, not from a place of love. So recognizing that if you can keep the love in periodically, you're going to raise your voice. You're going to speak sternly. You're going to Speak with fire, but you're not doing it to hurt, you're not doing it to burn, you're doing it out of a place of love and recognizing where that is and where you are in a day, like, you know, and just learning those things and teaching them to them. Right? So that eventually, they're in the right spot. So a lot of the work I've done has been on emotions. And I mean, it's literally what he's doing at school emotions, emotional regulation, meditation, slowing down, clearing up my thoughts, working out so that I'm physically more fit so that I can show up mentally and emotionally. And so I'd say, Kurt, that's been my biggest areas. Going into circles with Robert masters and learning about my childhood wounding so that I can let it go. So that I can realize, hey, you are enough. You don't need to do 30 things, maybe maybe do five, alright, maybe do two, right? So let it go of those things so that I can teach them and focus on them. And then the other thing that my boys know, and I've told them, this from the moment they were born, and I will do it every day of their life is I love you. As you are, I love you, from the moment you were born, I loved I loved you before you were born. And I will love you until the day you die. Regardless of what you do, and then I'll you know, oh, there's two things I wrapped that in Kurt, one of them is there's a Buddhist quote, I read in one of my books, you're perfect as you are, and you can be better, which I think is one of the greatest lines I've heard in my life. So I love you as you are and you can be better. And I'll help you be be that. And then number two, if you want is I tell them that if they're 30, and they're living in the basement suite, and they're in a beanbag chair, while eating Cheetos and playing video games, they failed that life, and I'll still love them, but they fail.

Curt Storring 1:27:22

And on that bombshell. Yeah, thank you for sharing all that. By the way, there's so many mirrors of our stories. And I'm just so glad that we got the dichotomy really of like, here's how I get everything done. Here's how I get shit done. And like I do a lot of it really well. And recognizing holes in your game, as you say. And using those skills and getting shit done to patch those holes, with mindfulness, with meditation, with awareness, with work in group with reading, with all these things, like I think this is so relatable. And I think there are so many like tactical things in this episode that people can do. And even if they've never like heard of things before, find out what meditation is find out who Robert masters is find out, like all of these things, you talked about inner child work, like there's so many threads from this, and I just want people to understand that like you can take one of these and run for years with it. And so this might be a good one to like bookmark and come back to. So to find the things to do, and then to figure out how the hell to do them. So where can people find you? What are you working on right now? Let's just wrap up with you know where you're at?

Clint Murphy 1:28:32

Yeah, that spot they can find me would be on my website, Clint-Robert-Murphy.com. I think there's dashes between the names on Instagram, I think it's Clint.Robert.Murphy. Those are the two best ways things that are on the go. You mentioned pursuit of learning podcast, that can be found through my website, and the fantasy novel, we're going to start seeking an agent this month, which is exciting. And then once we do that, we'll seek to go the traditional publishing route. If we can't, then I will self publish it. And then I'll be working with my sister on finishing the next books in the series. And putting out some non fiction nonfiction books. Really, it's taking everything we've talked about today. Tying that into the actual research that's gone into build it, Kurt, and expanding on it, and building the toolkit to say, hey, I want to get hard shit done. How do I do it? And so effectively, give a shit your life your way, is what I'll be working on over the next year or two. And it's teaching people everything we've talked about and more on their path to achieve everything they want in life.

Curt Storring 1:29:54

I love that. I can't wait to read it. Thanks, brother. Right. Well, thank you for coming on, Clint. Thanks for being so vulnerable and This has been awesome so check Clint out

that's it for this episode thank you so much for listening it means the world to find out more about everything that we talked about in the episode today, including show notes resources and links to subscribe leave review work with us go to dad dot work slash pod that's da d dot w o rk slash pod. type that into your browser just like a normal URL, Dad dot work slash pod. To find everything there you need to become a better man, a better partner and a better father. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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