Alright boys, this Saturday morning we’ve got my good friend Matt Vincent joining us for the call. I know a bunch of you already know him, but for anyone who doesn’t, he’s a Highland Games World Champion, author, business owner, creator of the Not Dead Yet Community, and just an all-around interesting dude who’s lived a lot of life and has a lot to say. NDY is actually how Matt and I first connected almost five years ago, so I’m pretty pumped to finally have him come hang out with us inside Anchored & Ready. This isn’t going to be some formal interview where I fire questions at him for an hour. I want it to be a conversation, so come prepared. If there’s something you want to ask Matt about training, business, getting older, reinvention, building community, life after competing, or whatever else comes up, bring it. Saturday. 7:00 AM Pacific. I think this one’s going to be a damn good call. See you boys there. :::

Welcome to Anchored & Ready. Tell us who you are, what you do, and what brought you here. Share one area of your life you want to improve or lead with more intention. Keep it real. No filters needed.

I want to talk about something that’s been eating at me for a while. Most guys never get to see what they’re actually capable of. Too many of us bail right before the thing they’re building starts to pay off. The work gets hard, or it gets complicated, or it just gets boring and slow in a way nobody warned them about, and instead of pushing through that ugly middle part, they tell themselves a story. “This isn’t really the right path.” “Maybe I need to pivot.” “This just isn’t working.” And then they’re off chasing the next shiny idea, feeling that little hit of dopamine that comes with starting something new, while the last three things they started are sitting there half finished, gathering dust. I’ve watched this happen to good men. Talented men. Men who had every reason to succeed except one: they never gave anything long enough to actually work. Twenty five years in the trades taught me that the projects everyone remembers, the ones you’re proud to put your name on, are never the easy ones. They’re the ones that almost broke you. The ones where you wanted to walk off the job at 2pm on a Tuesday because nothing was going right and you were tired down in your bones. But you didn’t walk. You stayed, and you figured it out, and six months later you’re standing in front of something real that didn’t exist before you refused to quit. That’s the part nobody tells you about discomfort. It’s not a sign you’re on the wrong path. Half the time it’s the exact opposite. It’s the tax you pay for building something that actually matters. If it doesn’t cost you anything, it probably isn’t worth much. And I think a lot of us have gotten soft to that idea because we live in a world that sells ease. Every ad, every algorithm, every “6 easy steps to X” is whispering that if it’s hard, you’re doing it wrong. That’s a lie. It’s always been hard for the men who built anything real. The difference is they didn’t let the hard part make the decision for them. So here’s what I’d ask you to sit with. Look at the last few things you walked away from. Be honest with yourself, no bullshit. Did you leave because it truly wasn’t right for you, or did you leave because it got hard and you didn’t want to feel that anymore? There’s a real difference between those two things, and most of us blur the line so we don’t have to face what quitting actually costs us.

Been sitting with something and figured I'd just say it out loud instead of keeping it in my head. Every one of us landed here looking for something. Didn't matter what it looked like on the surface, underneath it we were all just trying to figure out how to be better men. That's exactly how it's supposed to start. You show up, you take what you need, you keep coming back. Somewhere in that process, something shifts. Not all at once, more like you notice it after the fact. You're still learning, you never really stop, but you look up one day and realize you're carrying something now that somebody else in your life doesn't have yet. A guy at work who goes quiet sometimes and you've clocked it but never said anything. Your brother in law. That buddy from years back you keep meaning to check on. I'm not bringing this up to put that on anybody. I'm bringing it up because that's exactly where I found myself. I was part of another community before this one, still am actually, and at some point what I was getting from it stopped being just for me. I felt this pull toward wanting to hand it off to somebody else. That pull is honestly the whole reason Anchored and Ready exists. That's what I mean by being a lighthouse. A lighthouse doesn't chase ships down or yell at them to come closer. It just stays lit, and because it's lit, somebody out there can find their way by it. You see something, you say something. That's really the whole thing. Not a program, not a responsibility you have to carry perfectly, just being willing to say the thing when you notice it. I don't think any of us plan for this moment. I sure didn't see mine coming. But if you've been doing some of this work, there's a decent chance you're already that for somebody without even clocking it yourself. I just wanted to name it, because having it named is what did it for me. That's the whole thought. Curious if anyone else has felt that pull, or has a guy in mind they've been meaning to say something to.

I snapped at my daughter last week over nothing. She asked me something twice because I wasn't even listening the first time, too busy staring at my phone. And I got pissed at HER for it. My own kid. That's when it hit me. Not some big rock bottom, just me being a shitty version of myself over nothing. Truth is I've been off for weeks. Short with my wife. Going through the motions at work. Half checked out in here too. And I know exactly why. I stopped doing the shit I said mattered. Training, skipped. Mornings, half assed or blown off completely. The stuff I preach to you guys about being non negotiable, I quietly stopped holding myself to. One missed day turns into three, turns into "I'll get to it Monday," and pretty soon you don't even recognize yourself. That's where I've been. Grace has its place, I still believe that. Life kicks your ass sometimes and beating yourself bloody over it doesn't fix shit. But somewhere along the way "grace" quietly turned into "not holding myself to anything." You don't feel that line the day you cross it. You feel it three weeks later, snapping at your own kid over nothing. So here it is, plain. Give your balls a tug. That's not a cute line, that's exactly what I mean. Wake up. Own what you let slide. Get back to work. No five step plan, no soft landing, just go do the damn thing. You're a leader. Your kids, your crew, this community, none of them need you rested and comfortable. They need you present. That starts with the boring shit, done every day, whether you feel like it or not. I'm not writing this for sympathy. I'm writing it because saying it out loud is how I hold my own feet to the fire. Today I'm back on it. If any of this hits you too, you know what to do.