Mental Fitness Unscripted

What do I want my family to become? What do I want it to look like? How should it function? These are some questions we address today, but not in the way you might think. The truth is, tactics, tricks, and to-do's will not make your family great. We need to build ourselves into the type of person who can execute in such a way that my family responds in the positive ways we desire. This is lead...

Family is important; nearly everyone will agree with that. But what are our responsibilities in the family? And why is family sometimes so hard? In this brief episode, we begin a discussion to address these questions that sharpen our convictions about family, particularly as men, husbands, and fathers. One thing we know for certain is that doing family well requires hard work and sacrifice. And if...

"We don't make up our content as we go, we DISCOVER it as we go." - Todd Hatch Today, we discuss the idea of impostor syndrome. That's a fancy term for when we doubt our ability and often feel like a fraud and being exposed, especially when challenged to lead or do something we've never done before. But the reality isthat we are rarely "ready enough" for most anythi...

We all know procrastination is bad, hindering our growth, productivity, and mental fitness. So why do we struggle with procrastination? We know what needs to be done, but we find all the excuses to avoid and delay it. Am I right? Procrastination is stressful. While the thing we are putting off may seem stressful, it's also stressful to put it off. We end up stressing over not wanting to be str...

We live in a time of incredible prosperity, opportunity, and choices that can be overwhelming. So it's pretty easy to find ourselves chasing after the next "thing" because there are many things to pursue. If we are honest, we chase, pursue, or strive after the thing because we expect it to satisfy our deepest desires. And when it doesn't satisfy (at least for very long), we chase...

What is the most important responsibility or duty for a man? This is an important question, but one I bet many haven't thought about too much. So here we go. We're going to talk about it. One thing that trips us up from thinking beyond the surface level answers is that we tend to think of our lives as a series of goals to achieve. But perhaps there are some principles we can uncover to hel...

This episode starts with a brief discussion about how we are all in sales and marketing. Did you know Team Quadzilla has a gear shop? Join the cool kids and wear Quadzilla gear here: https://teamquadzilla.com/shop/ Today we talk about wisdom - a term we don't hear much about these days. But we all want wisdom, don't we? Todd and I talk about the value of wisdom and how to get wisdom. Becau...

Everyone experiences physical pain and emotional pain. There are healthy ways to deal with pain and not so healthy ways. Pain is often (but not always) a consequence of our behavior. We discuss this principle as it pertains to our health and the choices we make about how we take care of ourselves. While not all physical pain can be avoided, we can be proactive to give ourselves the best chance to...

How do we build resilience? We need to endure hard things. The best way to learn and grow is through challenge. This is why I appreciate F3 - a nationwide network of free, outdoor, peer lead, workouts for men that challenge our comfort zone. F3 meets in all weather, and the workout are meant to be hard in order to build up men of courage, resilience, and leadership to make a positive impact in our...

Chad shares a personal story to follow up on the last episode's subject about the Chinese farmer. I find it humorous how quickly the subjects we talk about here play out in real life. We tackle the subject of trials and temptations and the power of our choices. Our nature is to blame others or circumstances for our trials and troubles, but the truth is we always have a choice in how we respond...

I often say, "That's lame." when something unfortunate occurs. It's a lazy way to judge a circumstance as bad. But in the proverb of the Chinese farmer, we are challenged to withhold our judgement that a situation is good or bad in the moment, but rather accept it as is because we don't know the consequences in the future. It's an interesting thing to think about, so watc...

Kicking off the new year with a hard hitting lesson on forming healthy habits with some encouragement for the common mistakes we make in deciding our goals and ambitions. Drawing on principles from Covey's Seven Habits and Clear's Atomic Habits, we discuss how our habits form our identity and vice versa. Reframing our internal dialog to say, "I'm the type of person who _____." is a powerful exerci...

Why is "the most wonderful time of the year" also very stressful? The Christmas season seems to amplify everything in life - the good and the bad. We talk about Scrooge, the Grinch, and how we can thrive through the end of the year. Then, we revisit our conversation about The One Thing from last time. It's never too late to change. We have the power to make our future great by the choices we make...

Do you ever feel overwhelmed or frustrated by the difficulty of achieving your goals? Or maybe you believe you should have some goals, but you don't know what they should be? I can easily fall into that rabbit hole and get lost. I want to grow, improve, be better, etc., but it seems like a lot of work, and I'm already very busy. Ugh. In our conversation, Todd references a book by Gary Keller calle...

Healthy routines don't have to be as difficult or extreme as is commonly shared online. Chad and Todd talk about their healthy routines, but more importantly, their personal and compelling reasons for sticking to them. If anyone is going to stick to healthy routines as a lifestyle, they must find their WHY. Pay attention to the tips to make your preferred healthy routines last a lifetime. PS Pleas...

The Thanksgiving holiday is often overlooked, as many people are more interested in Black Friday shopping and fast-forwarding to Christmas. Yet we all know the value of pausing to be thankful for all our many blessings, don't we? In this episode, we dive into the mental fitness value of gratitude and thankfulness. It's a healthy habit we should practice daily, not just on Thanksgiving Day when we...

Do you ever create "what if" scenarios that get your mind spinning into fear and anxiety? I found myself doing this over a mountain bike race. None of my scary, negative scenarios happened. Instead, it was an incredible experience. Everyone wrestles with life's "what ifs," so what can we do about them to keep the fear and anxiety at bay? One solution is the pre-mortem. Thinking through the what-if...

There are chemical reactions in our brains occurring every moment we are "mindlessly" scrolling social media that absolutely affects our mood, outlook, and ultimately our behavior. Do you ever catch yourself all the way down the rabbit hole of silly cat videos when you meant to check the weather and move on? Social media is addicting, and we are more addicted to it than we think. Caution: Chad get...

Do you ever feel stuck? It's hard to reconcile the inner desire to grow and improve with the fears and anxiety about the risk of failure and rejection to do the thing we know we need to get unstuck. We easily rationalize our busyness (in what is actually meaningless distraction) as the excuse for not having the capacity to get unstuck. We are all guilty of this. Todd offers a counter-intuitive way...

In this episode, we draw upon life principles found in Covey's classic book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. We talk about the universal gap everyone has between how we know we should live and how we actually behave. We also look into some of the challenges of work, where we may have responsibility for certain outcomes but little control over the players and circumstances that affect t...

Our relationships depend on our identity - who we believe we are. In other words, the health of relationships is greatly affected by our identity. Further, our legacy and impact on the people around us requires that we know who we are. So listen in to some ideas to challenge your thinking about how you view yourself. We go deep here, like the levels of depth in the movie Inception. Let us not base...

And we're back for season 2! (audible cheering in the background) This episode is a continuation of the S1E12 episode on relationships. I don't want to spoil it, but this one is pretty convicting. Many times the problem with our relationships is our fault- ouch! Be encouraged, we'll offer some suggestions on simple things we can do to improve our relationships and change the way we think about our...

Have you ever said, "My job (or life) would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with people.?" It may be true, but also impossible. People are the best and the worst, right? And sometimes both at the same time! News Flash: Relationships are difficult. We may not know how to navigate conflicts and difficulty in relationships because we don't get training on such things apart from our own exp...

This episode starts with a little background on how Quadzilla came to life followed by an advertisement for the Quadzilla gear shop you can find on my website. Then we get into the deep end of the idea of overwhelm and how to deal with it in a healthy way. Do you ever feel like there is way too much to do between work and home that you don't even know where to start? Surely I'm not the only one! T...

Todd and Chad discuss an excellent mental health concept inspired by donuts. Sounds delicious, right? You'll have to tune in to learn about the donut syndrome - and it's not about eating more veggies. The illustration will stick with you - and hopefully help you be more aware of the choices you make every day. When we are more aware of our choices, we will more likely make better choices. And with...