My Abs Made Me a Better Dad.

Read time: 5 minutes

Hey, welcome back.

Last week's newsletter was a big one. If you haven't checked it out yet. You can read that (and all past issues, here)

Today I want to talk about the best gift I've ever given to myself.

You Can't Buy This

People kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday. And the only answer I kept coming back to was something that couldn't come in a box or a booking confirmation.

I wanted to feel proud of my body and the work I'd put into my own health. That was the whole answer. And the reason it meant so much is because nobody else could hand it to me. The only way I was going to get that feeling was by earning it. Day by day. Week by week. For years.

I got it. And it is genuinely the most satisfying gift I've ever received. One I committed to and followed through on. One that only discipline and consistency could deliver. Thirst trap ahead ;)

My Fitness Journey Has Been Embarrassingly Slow

I started with Peloton. Three rides a week at my peak. It felt good. I felt like I was ticking a health box. Then I tried yoga once or twice a week. Then I mixed it up, gym twice, yoga once, Peloton once. All of this played out over about a year of experimenting, dropping things, picking them back up.

Eventually I read enough about longevity to understand that resistance training is one of the most important things you can do as you age. Especially as a man. Muscle mass, bone density, metabolism, and cognitive function. The research all points the same way. Lift heavy things, and do it regularly.

That changed my approach. I stopped treating exercise as a box to tick and started treating it as a long-term investment in how I'll feel at 50, 60, 70.

Three years ago I started going to the gym properly. Year one was once or twice a week when I could fit it in. Year two was three days. These last 365 days has been four times a week, almost every week.

Three years to build to four days. That's the real timeline. And I think that's the part that trips people up.

The Bit Everyone Skips

The first few weeks of any new habit are exciting. Everything feels fresh. You're motivated. You're telling people about it.

And the end result is exciting too. People can see it. They comment on it. You feel the difference.

The middle stretch is where everyone disappears. Months of going and seeing nothing change. Months of doing the work with zero external validation. You're just a person going to the gym twice a week and looking the same as you did before you started.

That middle stretch is where I nearly quit multiple times. If I'd been measuring progress by the mirror, I would have. The thing that kept me going was lowering the bar to the floor. I stopped trying to get results. I just tried to get there. That was the entire goal on any given day. Walk through the door. Do something. Leave.

Over enough months of that, the habit locked in without me noticing. And the results came later, almost as a side effect of having stuck around long enough.

Self-Promises Are The Ones We Break First

Most of us are pretty reliable when it comes to other people. We meet deadlines. We honour commitments. We turn up when we said we would.

The commitments we make to ourselves get treated completely differently. I'll train more. I'll eat better. I'll go to bed earlier. We make these agreements with ourselves constantly and then let ourselves off the hook because nobody's checking.

Every time you say you're going to do something and then follow through, you build a small piece of evidence about who you are. And every time you bail on yourself, you build evidence in the other direction. Over time, that adds up. You either become someone who trusts their own word or someone who doesn't.

After three years of getting to the gym, the physical changes are real. But the thing I value most is that when I tell myself I'm going to do something now, I actually believe it. I've built enough evidence to back it up.

Your Body And Your Brain Are The Same Project

I've talked about this a lot. When my brain was starving for the right nutrients during my insomnia years, everything collapsed. Sleep. Mood. Focus. My ability to function as a founder, a partner, a friend.

Fixing the nutrition side through Heights was one half. Training has been the other. Together, they've changed how I operate in every part of my life. I make better decisions. I sleep better. I handle stress differently. Those things compound on each other week after week.

If you're building something right now and your health keeps sliding down the priority list, I'd push back on that. There is no future version of you with more time. There's just today and whether you decide to do something with it.

Start With One Day

If you keep meaning to train and keep not doing it, lower the bar until you can't fail.

One day a week. That's it. Don't design a programme. Don't set a physique goal. Just go once a week for a month and get comfortable with the act of turning up.

Then add another day when it feels easy. Then another. Let it build over months. I went from Peloton in my living room to lifting four days a week over three years. If I'd aimed for four on day one I would have burned out inside a fortnight.

The slow build is the strategy. Everything else comes after you've been around long enough to let it work.

The Gift

Standing here on the other side of it, I can tell you the feeling was worth every early morning and every session I didn't feel like doing. Knowing that the way I feel is something I built. Over years. Without shortcuts. By doing what I said I would, especially on the days I didn't want to.

Nobody could have wrapped that up for me. I either did the work or I didn't. And that's exactly what makes it worth more than anything else I've ever been given.

To earning it,

Dan

P.S. Go once this week. Don't think about it. Just go. That's the whole assignment.

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A 2020 study published in Emotion found that people who learned to accept their “non-ideal emotional states”, including low motivation, low energy, and neutral days, experienced significantly higher overall well-being and lower stress.

The key insight: self-acceptance amplifies emotional resilience, while self-judgment weakens it.

📌 Quick Takeaway →

Your average days aren’t failures; they’re emotional training grounds.
When you stop punishing yourself for being human, everything in your life compounds faster.

→ Link to study

In my goal to help more entrepreneurs/people who are looking to level up their careers, I've just started taking 1-1 consulting calls (only 1 a week)

Why book a call? Some of my expertise/success:

I've built 6 startups. 3 fails, 1 win, and 2 still going.
E-Commerce: Heights - with revenue over $40M a year.
Community: Foundrs, one of the UK's top founder communities
Podcasting: Leaders Media - Bootstrapped to #1 in business and 10M downloads
Health/Mental Health: Overcame depression, insomnia, burnout and anxiety in pursuit of success
Angel Investing: I've invested in over 100 companies
Personal Brand: Over 400,000 followers across social
Hear me on Diary of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

So if you're interested in booking a session with me to talk all things business or building a personal brand, book for 30-minutes or 45-minutes. (limited spots).

Book a Call with Dan