He just needed me to carry him.

There are seasons where taking care of yourself feels optional.

You tell yourself you'll get back to it when things slow down. When work eases up. When life isn't so demanding.

…Then there are moments when that story collapses.

Someone you love needs you.

And suddenly readiness isn't an idea anymore. It's preparation.

Today in 3 minutes or less:

✔️ Just a Dad

✔️ Life Doesn’t Send Calendar Invites

✔️ Why This Changed How I Think About Training

✔️ Preparedness Over Motivation

 👨‍👦 Just a Dad

For the past few years, I've been on a health journey.

Building strength, building muscle, and honestly just getting over the voice in my head that said this isn't really for you.

For a long time, I didn't think of myself as someone who could be in great shape. I just decided to prove that wrong, one day at a time.

I didn't know why it would matter this much.

About a month ago, my son broke his arm. Bad.

I'm not talking about a hairline fracture where he's tough about it and you grab some ice. I'm talking full jello mode…

The kind of break where you look at it and your stomach drops and you stop being a business owner, a CEO, and you become just a dad.

He needed me to carry him. For about twenty minutes, through a parking lot, into the ER.

There was no time to plan. No time to stretch. No opportunity to negotiate with my energy level.

Just a kid who needed his dad to pick him up and not put him down.

And in that moment, every early morning I dragged myself to the gym, every walk I took when I didn't feel like it, every rep I didn't skip…

All of it came into focus.

Not as discipline. Not as sacrifice.

As preparation.

📅 Life Doesn’t Send Calendar Invites

The hardest part of moments like that is realizing how little control you have over timing.

We don’t get alerts for the moments that count. 

There’s no notification that says, “Hey, get ready! Someone’s about to need you.”

Emergencies don’t care about your schedule. 

They don’t wait until you’re rested. They don’t ask if you’re in the mood.

You just show up with the body you’ve built or the one you haven’t.

That walk was the clearest reminder I've ever had of why strength matters.

Because when it matters, you didn’t get to choose the timing.

💪 Why This Changed How I Think About Training

That experience clarified something for me:

Moving my body isn’t about optimization. It’s about responsibility.

We talk a lot about strength like it’s a performance metric.

• Numbers.

• PRs.

• Aesthetic goals.

None of that mattered in that parking lot.

What mattered was capacity.

The ability to respond without breaking.

The margin to handle weight without panic.

The responsibility to be capable. 

To be dependable. 

To be ready when someone I love needs support.

That’s the kind of strength most people don’t train for, because it doesn’t show up on a mirror or a spreadsheet.

⚖️ Preparedness Over Motivation

You can’t choose when life will ask more from you.

But you can choose whether you’re ready when it does.

That’s the part most people miss.
They train when it’s convenient.
They move when they’re motivated.

But the moments that matter don’t wait for motivation.

They just ask the question.

And your body answers.

You don’t need to train harder. You don’t need a perfect routine.

You just need to ask one question:

What am I doing today that my future self will thank me for?

Then do the smallest version of that thing. 

Walk. Stretch. Lift. Rest. Eat better. Sleep earlier.

Not because it looks good. Not because it earns points.

Because one day, something will ask more of you than usual.

And when it does, you won’t rise to the occasion. 

You’ll fall to the level of your preparation.

Same thing applies to your business, by the way.

The systems you build before you need them. The support you put in place before things break. The capacity you create before demand shows up.

You don’t build an onboarding sequence in the middle of a launch. Don’t hire support after you’ve already lost the client.

You prepare. Or you panic.

Choose to be ready.

To profiting more and working less. 💸 

-Matt

GOLDEN NUGGET OF THE WEEK 👑

Speaking of preparation…

In January, the Move Crew did something ridiculous. We hit 33.5 Million Steps as a community.

That's what preparation looks like at scale. 🔥 

We're doing it again for February. Maybe we’ll even hit 40 million.

If you don’t know, Move Crew is a 30-day step challenge that I started. You can join for free or pay into the prize pot. Hit 300K steps and split it with everyone who did the same.

No perfect routine required. Just movement, consistency, and a crew that shows up daily.

👉️ movecrewchallenge.com

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