Rebuilding Yourself | Being The Best Man You Can Be

0:01 Hello, and welcome to Redmond field. This is author. Coach and healer and he Grant, you want to learn more about me. Please visit the integrand.com, real men. Feel invites you to redefine what masculinity means in today's world. We remind men that they are human beings and have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men can benefit from now the way early in Spring often a time of renewal growth and ideally flourishing, I know that in my life, I've often had to renew to, to prune my life to weed out the shit in my mind often in order to reinvent myself, to be the best man that I can be. My guest today. Teddy Woolsey it took action when his life needs an overhaul and created a system that helped him.

0:45 And now he uses that in service to others, Teddy is the founder of rebuild Fitness and also works full-time as a tech sales executive, he coaches his clients how to sustainably lose fat, build muscle and find the balance between hard work and joy and there. Lives. Welcome to real men. Feel Teddy It is great to be here. Andy, thank you very much. So I love that. You focus on Joy because I think that's something that most men don't consciously, think of that. They are worthy of joy that Joy belongs and their experience has have you all known that is Joy? Something that was always a part of your life or it's a, it's a weird thing to go through and almost I was, I was brought up in a religious household where discipline learning And really just do the to the world was pressed for Good Reason by the way those are great things to do good to the world but the personal enjoyment can be suppressed at times in the messaging there and you can start adopting as a man in particular where your value. You're not really born with value. In society's eyes, you have to earn it. You have to create it and which is a false narrative. It's something that we need to overcome, but it's something that a lot of men including myself have always felt I need to create.

2:03 I have to earn. I have to build in order to be worthy of people's time and attention and respect. So while that that has brought me to develop and create and build, a lot of great things that I'm very proud of and I'm really thankful for those qualities and characteristics. It definitely has left me with feelings of anxiety and frustration, when I am not doing enough or I'm not if I feel like I'm not worthy of somebody in my in my own eyes so I made it a conscious thing too. Really Implement things that I find valuable, and enjoyable and life-giving in every day and in every week, and every relationship, but I have, and it's not there. I refined the schedule.

2:57 I refined my relationships on a regular basis to make sure that that those - sources are weeded out and I am welcoming in new sources of life-giving activities. What happened in your life to make you realize that you had to make this? Effort to change how you living. Yeah, when I was about 29 approaching 30, I was in a long-term relationship with my ex and I was, I was working full-time. I was sort of directionless in life as to what I wanted to do. I've even done a podcast once before and, you know, Sunset that and just kind of like, I want to do something fun. I want to feel more fulfilled but I wasn't, I wasn't quite in shape.

3:42 I wasn't quite so. Successful, I wasn't quite happy in my relationship. I was just there, you know, the dreaded mediocre and once I realized that I had a dependency in my relationship, for my happiness and all these other factors that weren't really going, for me, I had a crisis on my hands when that relationship started to fall apart and I basically had this moment when I looked in the mirror after a shower, Or and his kind of like one of those classic 80s movies where you look into there's like steamer on the mirror and just like you like wipe your face clean and you look at yourself and you thinking like, who are you, man?

4:24 Like this is not what you were meant to be and this is not like what you're capable of and it was a really sobering moment and I'm not going to say my life changed, right from there was a process after the fact. But I basically knew in that moment that I was not satisfied with what I want. Or what I, what I have reached in life. Because I hadn't created a system of that activity and habits that really would contribute to a different life. I mean, my life, the way it looks was a product of what I did in a daily basis. So I realized I've got to change my schedule. I have to change what I do regularly and okay well how do I do that? And what do I do? There were two main things that really helped me. One, was the miracle morning by Hal Elrod. It was a book basically where you do Seven things it's called the acronym is Savers.

5:16 You sit in silence or you meditate, you recite affirmations, you, these stands for you visualize your future, you exercise? You, you read and then you scribe or you, right? So I did that, whether it was 45 minutes or an hour and a half every morning, I did that and basically like added to my self-help bucket every single day but I chose activities during that period. Of time that I knew I needed to do the most, which was get my finances in order. Get myself in shape, really sort of get my house in order physically as well as financially spiritually, intellectually, Etc.

5:57 So that those two things really set off a completely new life and I just followed through on it into my life. Looked it, look differently, and it was basically 100K in debt out of shape. Depressed, failing, relationship to not even what I was a year and a half later. Was completely out of debt. I was earning three times. What I was learning earning before? I was in a new relationship with someone who's just wonderful and I'm now married to her and she's the love of my life. We're living in New York City and you know 28th floor overlooking Manhattan. It's just it's just a wonderful amazing life because of this new system that was implemented and I can get into more detail about what those things are and how to do that in your own life, but I just can't even express enough how important it was to take stock of where I was.

6:43 Take stock of where I wanted to go and just create a system that was made up of actionable items. Real life, things that you have to do on a regular basis to actually see change in your life. Awesome, awesome. I'm, I love hearing of turnarounds, but that drastic turn around, and, and frankly, that showed of a period of time is quite impressive. So good for you. Thanks, Mom. Prior to that experience. You mentioned adding more to yourself. Help. Bucket was there a self-help bucket before this? This. Definitely definitely. It's not I have always wanted to, I'm not curious, right? I want to get better, I want to be better but it's there's, you know, sometimes your environment doesn't posture that sometimes your circumstances sort of hold you back and you have to make adjustments to that, or sometimes you just don't want it, right?

7:32 You don't want it badly enough at that time, things are comfortable enough that you feel like hey I'd rather stay in the comfortable discomfort then, pursue something new that could possibly Create more problems for me that, I don't know and that I hadn't reached that threshold yet. And so and so life sort of forced itself upon me and that way. Did you realize that your happiness was so dependent on your girlfriend before she ended it? Absolutely. That was that was something that I'm sure a lot of men and women. For that matter can attest to when you have a dependent relationship on someone the The good days are great.

8:16 The bad days are horrible. And it's, it's such a volatile way to live regardless of whether or not you are with them. So when I realized Through a lot of introspection. Honest conversations people, I knew I couldn't trust that I had to make myself better regardless of whether I was going to stay with her or things were going to not work out. That was the first day of the rest of my life. And obviously, we didn't work out, but it was, it was a wonderful wonderful thing to feel that sense of Crisis. Even though I didn't know at the time, it was honestly like a rebirth moment.

8:59 Yeah, I find time. It's I'm again. And it may be different for men. We have to put ourselves first. We have to be selfish like I can't I can't help others until I can help myself. Like I can't I can't love someone else and lift if I don't love myself, so that's self number s. Yeah, that self-help bucket helps every aspect of being alive. I find boundaries are extremely healthy for every relationship, especially for your own relationship with yourself and I never set. Boundaries for myself, let alone for my, for the relation because I'm so dependent on. Not only her but the other aspects of my life that I couldn't really control for my joy and it just it didn't it didn't translate well into real life.

9:47 So what I mean by that is if I've struggled to express hey like I want this regardless of whether or not you do and that pert you can't expect respect Or someone to establish a boundary for you. And then when you lose respect for yourself, it's very difficult to expect them to have that for you as well. So, I was sort of expecting her to establish that for me to be my my source of challenge, my source of joy and my source of XY and z. And that just, it's not realistic in any particular, any any way at all, man. Once like you said, once I establish, like, I need to really double and triple down on my sense of personal accountability responsibility by Injuries and the fact that I have internal value not just by what I do but because I exist and if I treated myself, the way I treat her value, man, I can go so much farther in any relationship that I'm in or being by myself as well.

10:49 That's just a lot of us, a lot of us miss. Yeah, there's one person on the planet responsible for my happiness and it's me. And when I try to take that from other people, when I refuse to look at why I'm not happy, P, if I'm not willing to dive in, to my own darkness and Shadow and and all of that and expect someone else to like be. So loving of me so happy in their life that they just, they somehow just pulled me out of it. It's a, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's the death nail for that relationship, whatever leadership Maps parents siblings, absolutely him. Did you realize you were making a system in the moment or was it just that you know the the miracle morning book is really helping you and you wanted to expand on that like how did your system come into play?

11:37 Great question, really, great question. The miracle morning, sort of introduce that idea to me. I was also heavily influenced by Dave. Ramsey, are you familiar with him? Any chance I've heard of him for your listeners. Dave, Ramsey is basically a financial Guru Who's been to, he's been doing this for about going 30, 40 years or now, and then the radio, but primarily he has a system called the baby steps and it's to help people get out of debt and create wealth. Now, he's expanding into multiple different Avenues but the premise that he created was very, very simple with, also burst out of done his own desperation, but it's essentially a seven-step process that anybody can follow. And basically, all you got to do is identify where you're at on this and these steps you might be in Step 13 for whatever and continue to follow it.

12:25 And How you get Financial Health and build wealth and these sorts of things. So I thought, wow, that is a really interesting way to not only assess where you are, huge. First step in any rebuild, right determine what you need to actually build a plan to fix the problem. And then forecast where these actions are going to lead you. It's that forecasting piece that I think a lot of People forget all of the, all those pieces are really, really important but it's that forecasting and it almost like it's like, gives you hope to know that. If I do X, Y & Z for however, long I can reasonably expect these results that for me was transformative like nothing else because anybody can say listen, if you want to get in shape you got to eat healthy and you got to exercise more. Well yes of course, how long for what intensity What can I expect for what rate of change?

13:29 Can I expect when you can actually like map that out for somebody, within a reasonable amount of certainty or give them a range? Then it's like, okay, you know, like I have an informed decision, I'm making on a daily basis. I actually know that if I save x amount of dollars, I can have this much of my account by the end of the year or I can on average returns. I can, I can retire with this much. That's why it's so valuable. I have a financial advisor or whatever I, I sort of realized that, if I put together a daily system, where I contribute to my financial budget, I exercise, I eat a certain amount of food with certain macro breakdown.

14:09 And then I put in x amount of hours at my sales job. At the time, I could reasonably expect within a year. Two years, three years to get a certain salary return, my body looks Way and my finances to, to change as well. Not only that but you know, I would grow as a person and so on and so forth. That was a bit more ambiguous, but the to enter the, I have a problem with long-winded answer is here, but to answer your question about, did I start with the system or or did it sort of build up over time? It definitely started with a very simple form, which is that Sabers form that Miracle morning, but even developed into something that fit my lifestyle and And that's something that I took into the business that I now run for helping my clients get in shape and following those same three to four steps to not only get the change but see the change for a long period of time and hold that change. So tell me about this, the rebuild Fitness philosophy. Yeah, yeah.

15:14 Rebuild is the way to pronounce it, but it's kind of a double and double entendre. Is that the way to say it, but the acronym is rbl dear. It stands for reflect build, learn and do the. These are the four steps that make up the philosophy of my business. And the way I really approached anything in general, which is reflect on what it is that you truly want. Now, what you think that you want not Pie in the Sky, not rainbows and butterflies, but okay, instead of me saying, I want to look like Zac Efron. Maybe it's I'm looking to like lose 20, 30 pounds. I'd like to I'd like Like, you know, my chest, the stick out further than my stomach and, you know, I'd love to be able to get up the stairs without being winded or something like that. You know, what's the base?

16:02 The bare minimum that. Would, that threshold? I have to pass for me to be happy, really, truly reflect on that. Do not take it lightly and and then once we have that outcome that we're seeking that we can only get two but sustained will reverse engineer. That's the second part which is the build or are building up a Man, I can't tell you enough. How important this is anybody who's listening, this is the step that people skip. They might have a programs or following for two months. Three months, even six months, but very rarely do. We have a contingency plan, people lose weight, all the time. Just at the stats are staggering most people that set up to lose weight about 10% or more of the body weight, they are successful in doing so, but four out of five individuals over the course of five years will regain that weight or gain even more than what they lost.

17:00 Why is that It's not because we don't know how to lose weight. We don't know how to adjust our lifestyle. After the fact, we don't know how to sustain a lifestyle of a thinner person or someone who looks and feels and acts that way sustainably. So, we do is we try to go too fast. We prioritize speed over sustainability, and that's just really not congruent with how weight gain typically happens. For instance, is we typically gain weight, Very slowly over the course of many months and years. We're talking a caloric Surplus, I've heard a maybe 25 50 calories which is very very it's infinitesimally small but that adds up over the course of many years when our metabolism close and that sort of thing.

17:45 If we were to approach it in a reverse fashion and looked at what are the one or two things that I can Implement into my my week that is not too painful from a diet perspective from an exercise perspective and just moving the more Eating a little bit better. Then I can still be happy. I can still have cake, I can still have pizza, I can still, I can still Mount around play by PS5 behind me, and so on and so forth, but hey, it's keeping me in the physical range that I feel well. I feel healthy. I feel proud of myself. It's a lot simpler to build that plan out for years, to come, then to bank, all of your success on a Biggest Loser challenge for 90 days and have Zero plans afterwards and then by the way, you're probably inevitably inevitably going to fall back into your old habits because you have no contingency plan.

18:37 So we build out a plan for a lifetime, not. Just for that. Small period. And then, the final two pieces are very, very short learn is you ever heard the phrase? Simon Says Simon, says it's easier to learn while you're doing the activity that you're learning about, that's the premise. We just teach the fundamentals while you're while you're actually exercising. It Dieting. And in real time when you have questions or concerns will educate you in that, but we also have modules and we have articles, we have all types of knowledge sources that will help you learn the fundamentals and then you can do whatever you want with that. But you need to know at the very least what how fat loss Works muscle growth. Works basic nutrition and that will be your springboard into how far you want to go into that path.

19:23 And then, of course, the final piece is D or do that is just executing. There's a whole science behind that and how to stay the course so to speak. But that Up the are BLD or rebuild Fitness approach and yeah open answers your question. It does. I want to go to start with the start with the start and talk about reflecting a little bit more because I don't want when I'm, when I've been depressed, a long-term goal is just, you know, it's just beyond my thinking and I've got lots of men. Like, I can't. I don't, it's almost like the excuse. Oh, I can't start because I don't really know what I want yet. So, do you have any tips for Or someone to get clarity on what it is.

20:03 They actually want. Oh man. That is such a tough one, right? It's and you put it so beautifully of like, man. How do I forecast this? How do I, how do, I even know what to know or what do I think to think about for me? One of the best phrases I've ever heard is the purpose of life is to live life with purpose. Even if you don't know what it is yet, take something that is constructive and good and test that out. Something that even if you don't even love it, it's going to improve your life. So I think, honestly, personal finances, if they're out in the best shape right now, that's something that you can actually, you can just Embrace and that will not only improve your circumstances from like a well-being perspective, but it will also give you confidence that you can The main discipline you can plan ahead. You can see something through and build trust within yourself that you're going to follow it.

20:55 That's one thing in particular, physical fitness has it's not just about Aesthetics, like that's a great thing. I love, I love looking great and feeling confident, and blah, blah blah, all that kind of stuff. But there are there are tremendous mental health. Ramifications on a positive perspective that regular exercise does for us from a endorphins perspective. There's I called myokines that's in our skeletal muscle or AKA our lean muscle mass, in our bodies that when we contract and release our muscles, that my kinds go into our bloodstream up to our brain and they helped us to regulate our mood. They fight depression and research meta analysis has shown time and time. Again that people with regular exercise sometimes are they fighting depression, clinical depression and even chronic illnesses, much better than medication and or counseling nothing against medication or counseling, I think everything done in tandem.

21:48 Or as a holistic approach is even better but the fact of the matter is that should not be ignored and that's should be something every single person does in their life. And that's something you can tackle right now to build confidence, improve your life. And then, by the way, take build a foundation that now you can, you can tackle the next thing somebody called it. A keystone habit, getting in shape, is a keystone habit. That You can that's simple enough to work. You can you can set a goal like one of running marathons. You want a bench, 300 pounds or whatever it is. Maybe let's just say, 200 pounds, whatever. The cool thing about setting a simple goal that that is far enough in the future that yet.

22:34 Take some time, but short enough that you can actually achieve it. Is that your other habits like you're eating what you digest, as far as information, the influences that you allow into your life, they sort of fall in line with that Keystone habit, and you sort of are able to like almost like a snowplow kind of like push the excess out from you. You collect the good. You push out the bed. So To your question. Hi, I would I would absolutely recommend starting with one of those two things and or reading / audio books podcasts about self-help like Andy's, Etc. I can't stress to you enough. How important it is to change your schedule and change your influences immediately that will spark a revolution within yourself. Even if you don't know what the outcome of that Revolution is going to be That Teddy, you've mentioned purpose and reinvention and responsibilities. And I think what all in an effort to be to be better. So what does being a good man mean to you? Yeah, yeah there that's a There's two sides of that coin. I think men, every person has inherent value that needs to be embraced, but I, and I think that's men really struggle with that concept because of what we're taught because of how we feel naturally.

24:05 And a number of factors really. Do I think anything is one way or the other completely, we have an inherent desire to build and produce and protect and be responsible for something and that gives us tremendous Pride. So being a good man, I think is embracing those things. Full wholeheartedly Embrace whatever you're responsible for, whether it's your life, your family's life, your co-workers life, your friends, like your parents, whatever Embrace that, do the right thing. Work as hard as you can, within reason, don't kill yourself, of course, but also understand that if you fall short, if you don't, if you can't do your best every day or you can't, you can't reach an outcome that that you had in mind, by the time that you wanted, that doesn't mean that you're a bad man.

24:59 It means that you did your best and huge stoic philosopher. I'm a huge about the basic premise of of do the best you can with what you have when you have it, life really boils down to that. So I think that's what being a good person is but especially a good man in that single statement. If I could simplify it in that way, a lot of people say just do your best to be the best and they take away all the other like our best fluctuates based on the moment based on resources based on our food or in our sleep and all sorts of things. But yeah, but always strive to do your best but realize your best will have fluctuations to it. Absolutely, absolutely believe me. I'm not one of my favorite like of thought experiments is, you know, let's take me five years ago. I'm still me, I'm still Teddy, I've been tending this whole time, but in a lot of ways I was unrecognizable that version of me was unrecognizable from this version of me. I had a lot of commonalities, but I wouldn't. I thought different things.

25:59 I said, different things. I did different things and that's okay. I'm still me. I was always me and I was like, I should Always Be Loved along the way. I should always be appreciated and I should be able to be vulnerable and I'm just as worthy of good relationships and good opportunities and and and the like as I am today, even though I put together a better system, we have to understand that we we often look down on men in our society who aren't achieving, who aren't confident even or who make sometimes make bad decisions or whatever it may be. And we look at them as bad people inherently, we treat them as bad people inherently, but the fact of the matter is many of the US, if not, most of us have been some version of that person in that moment.

26:52 Sometimes worse. We need as many particular we need to stand up for each other and of course challenge one another to be our best and of course challenges one another to be honest, and open and vulnerable and of course do all of these things. Hey like let's let's hold ourselves to the highest standard but we also have to challenge others in those moments where we're not giving men a break that is that is why Many of us are so tightly wound. Why we act the way we do and Studies have shown that men and women? You know, we show aggression almost at the same rates. We just show it differently.

27:34 If men have an outlet socially, Like like many women doing their, women are really good at this compared to us my goodness, what a better world we could live in in that way. So the work that you do Andy honestly is really incredibly important particularly in the the men's mental health space and so on and so forth and how that translates to physical health as well. So you enable people like myself to sort of even get to the conversations of men who are like listen, I've been on an emotional journey to him. Of my life. I used to never even think about this kind of stuff. I just went to work and came home and paid the bills. I thought that was enough and that's what it meant to be a man, but it was it means much more to be a man and then once they are able to sort of accept that they can begin to invest in themselves financially physically and that's when they come to me.

28:28 So I really want to thank you and the front end for all the work that you do there and that's based on some in, We Begin the introduction and mentioned Joy. So I want to know today, what brings A joy. Oh gosh, what doesn't? I'm just a happy dude, man, I really love. I really love life in general. I love like a cool. I love learning A New Concept and kind of synthesizing it down into something that's like digestible, right? So Fitness is one of those things that's just one thing, but I love like Behavioral Science or like habit science. That's really cool. I even like, I love like Neil deGrasse Tyson the way he does. He like breaks down astrophysics and like the way we see the world. So like I'm very curious in that way. Like, all new information is really cool. I love true crime, documentaries, I love them so much.

29:17 They're just so fascinating to me and it's my wife and my favorite pastime. I love playing pickup game of basketball or football with my friends. I love playing Madden with my friends on PS5. I love going to the city and grabbing a drink and a piano bar out here with my wife, and taking my dog on the subway and going to Central Park. I love the feeling after a good. Workout. I love closing a deal. There's so many things that bring me joy. But I'd say like I said before it was it was because I took the time to invest in learning what the world had to offer, like listening to well-thought-out words and reading articles and books and you know listening to podcasts, that challenged, my mind that I was able to sort of take from one podcast information and tie it to another and then tighten that my network of thought is so much more sophisticated and balanced than it once was because I followed that Natural Curiosity, that we all have instead of suppressing it and now I'm able to find joy and Many other things in conversations with people of all different perspectives and knowledge, base disease, Etc, base base disease. I think it's word Etc because I followed that path. So I guess lots of things bring me joy but the reason being is because I was never afraid to follow a path of thought non-judgmentally.

30:50 And that allows me to connect with more things and people freely, without fear. I wonder if do you have a mistake that you can see is your favorite mistake because of the lesson you got from it. Oh my Definitely ties back to the last relationship. I was in. I called this the this, this concept. I had a lack of diversity of importance in my life. I was honed in on a relationship to bring me the vast majority of my enjoy. A lot of people have that relationship with food or with work, or maybe again, with their significant other or friends. A lot of people are all about being a parent and that's like majority of their Joy. that's doing that was my biggest mistake because I just Invested in myself and my other relationships and the things that brought me mental physical and Financial Health far, too, little, comparatively, everything I did was oriented towards this one thing or person.

32:11 So when that failed and I realized all right man you got to do something now because you know chance like you can't be in this situation again your standard of living can't be like this again that was my biggest failure. I would never change it because I'm it woke me up but that was the moment that or the thing that definitely changed me. Is there one thing that's top of mind that you wish more men knew? I wish more men knew that. What they thought about themselves?

32:56 Is far more important than what anyone else can give you. My dad said something very beautifully on an old podcast that I had when I asked him a very similar question and he said if I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would tell him. You have worth, you have value, you are loved and you have every reason to go out and build the best life that you possibly can compared to anybody else. There's no reason that you should hold yourself back and that was something that you struggle with for his whole life because of a lot of the circumstances, the things that has happened to him and a lot of self talk, that was Over the years, I would Echo that sentiment that my dad had, because it's about as true as anything.

33:40 Awesome hitting you are such a An explosively, joyous learning machine, and of service on its your energy is really infectious. I love it. What is the best way for people to connect with you to learn more about everything that you're up to? Yeah, thanks man. Instagrams. Probably the central Hub that I am the most active on social media, so that would be at Ted Woolsey to Edie wol sey. I'm sure you put that in the show, the show notes so you guys can look that up. But I also have a website where I write articles And that's going to be on all types of things, Fitness diet and behavioral oriented. But yeah, my Instagram can be a great Central Hub.

34:21 Where you can see more of like my thoughts on living a healthy life, physically how that translates to mental health, how that translates to a meaningful life and and so on, so on and so forth. But I just love connecting with people seeing them how they live out their lives and just kind of interacting organically with with the folks that ideally are I'm learning a little bit something for me to do the same with them. Awesome, thanks to you for being here, thanks for for taking part in your transformation and then sharing it with the world because that's what just makes it, infinitely more powerful. Hey, thank you. I appreciate all the work that you do man. And I'm already at a wedding myself to the the Facebook group, I look forward to interacting further and it's just an honor to be on the show. Beautiful, beautiful.

35:10 Great to hear it some. So again, thanks Teddy. Thanks again for listening and tuning in wherever you're discovering real men. Feel, please give us a like And subscribe and share. Visit real men, feel that organ, see the blog posts for this episode. Get all the links to all the various books and tools that were mentioned. You can always reach out to me at real men, feel at gmail.com Always glad to hear from you. And as Ted mentioned, if you're not in real men, feel private Facebook group, yet the heck you waiting for just go to real men, feel dot org slash group and that'll pop you, right over to Facebook and you can join up in the conversation. And until next time, I want to quote Teddy's, dad you have worth. You have value, and you are loved. Please know that please live. That