The Uncommon Man Project

EP27: Run Your Life Like a CEO: Mastering Your Personal Operating System

• The Uncommon Man Project • Episode 27

Share episode

In this episode of the Uncommon Man Project Podcast, hosts Josh, Nick, and Harry dive into why high-achieving men often thrive in business yet feel stuck in their personal lives. They discuss how the very discipline and systems that drive professional success often fail to translate into health, relationships, and overall life satisfaction. Through real client stories and personal examples, they reveal the underlying beliefs—such as a lack of self-worth or fear of stagnation—that keep many men locked in a cycle of “always more” at work while neglecting themselves and those they love. By adopting the same strategies they apply to their businesses—clear objectives, defined metrics, and purposeful accountability—men can become the CEO not just of their companies, but of their lives.

3 Key Takeaways

  1. Mindset Trumps Mechanics: Even the best business strategy can’t compensate for poor self-worth or fear-based decision-making. True growth starts by addressing internal blocks, not just learning new skills.
  2. Systems and Boundaries Are Critical: Just as you’d track KPIs in business, set clear metrics for personal areas like health and relationships. Treat them with the same level of importance—and accountability.
  3. Continuous Evolution is Key: You are not the same person you were a year—or even a week—ago. Embrace personal growth and challenge yourself to do the “hard” things in life, not just the ones that come naturally.

What was your biggest takeaway?

Stay Connected with The Uncommon Man Project Podcast:

Don't miss the insights and tools that can help you transform your life. Join our community of uncommon men today and start your journey towards becoming the best father, husband, and leader you can be. Visit our website to learn more about our programs, coaching, and support. Be uncommon, live extraordinary.

Remember, you’re not alone in your journey. The Uncommon Man Project is more than a podcast; it’s a movement. It’s a place for growth, learning, and transformation. Whether you're in the midst of a challenge or on the brink of a breakthrough, our community and resources are here to support yo...

Joshua Hamilton: Welcome back,…

Joshua Hamilton: legends, to another uncommon man podcast. Really excited to have you here. We're here with Nick and Harry and myself Josh. It's been a couple of weeks of hiatus for myself and I'm really happy to be back. Today we're going to go over how your life should be run like you are a CEO of a business and why it's important and where the gap is and actually what to do about it. You don't have to be a business owner for this to apply to you.

Joshua Hamilton: In fact, you just have to be alive and wanting to advance in your career, wanting to advance in your relationship, wanting to advance in your health rather than being the common man who just continually stays stagnant in his life and wonders why s*** never changes. So, as we dive into this, I'm really excited to chat to Nick and Harry and talk about the personal experiences and the things that they've done with their clients to absolutely transform men's lives.  So Nick, I'm going to start with you, mate, because you're right there. Look, we know that guys who are at the upper level, the uncommon guys go guys, the high achievers that we talk to in our daily lives, who are our clients, who are the uncommon men who are going after what is not normal. That is not the stagnation of everyday man's life. Is not the grumpy, angry relationships. Is not the empty bank accounts. It's the guys who are at the top who are really pushing the limits.

Joshua Hamilton: They have a mountain of responsibility, They have a lot that they carry on their shoulders. They have very high standards and they demand a lot of themselves and they demand a lot of their team in business and they demand a lot of their family. how do you see the gap or what do you see as the gap between how they run their business and how they run their kind of personal life?

Harry Orr: What was it? Thank

Joshua Hamilton: And I'd also like to understand…

Joshua Hamilton: how you're helping guys kind of bridge the gap between the two as well.

Nick Vonpitt: So funny.

Nick Vonpitt: I had a conversation with a guy who would fit the bill there yesterday. He was also breathing and alive. and what is really interesting is he's struggling with this idea of accountability within his organization. He's accountable to himself. at that.  He's good at taking stock and checking in and self-reflecting, but he ends up taking accountability for his entire team in terms of micromanaging in terms of if someone isn't being efficient and effective. He steps in to fix their problem. He steps in because he's more He's more efficient and he gets so frustrated. So, he ends up taking accountability for everyone and everything. And then it results in burnout essentially.

Nick Vonpitt: And it's just that overzealous thing of b I'm lacking trust. I haven't created systems, frameworks, all the scaffolding that allows my team to, show up at their absolute best to live out their peak performance. And that's been reflective in his household as well. He doesn't trust his partner. He holds her accountable in his own interesting ways, but He's micromanaging his kids. And in turn,…

Nick Vonpitt: he's micromanaging everyone else. And guess what happens? Like you said, it's about the personal side of things. He doesn't have that. he doesn't micromanage himself. So his health doesn't take priority. Everyone else gets the focus, the attention, and the intention. And those tabs are running 24/7. So he's incredibly accountable, but he lacks the boundaries to facilitate that in a healthy way.

Joshua Hamilton: Okay, two questions for you.

Joshua Hamilton: What's his underlying belief of why he can't let these other people do this? And what's his attachment? what are those two things for him? Because we hit those over the guys listening going to be like, That sits in my life." And they'll be able to kind of bring something forward into the consciousness.

Nick Vonpitt: It's interesting. This one was selfworth. So he wants to be seen as this person that is effective and efficient and empower and…

Joshua Hamilton: I'm the most important person in the room.

Nick Vonpitt: in control and he's the lead in all these situations like everyone needs to go to him to validate him because he knows what to do next. Yes. Yes.  He needs that to feel like he is someone and something significant. And that has been his Achilles heel for the last several years. And I think now it's just become more and more apparent because his health is now taking a massive knock because he's unable to pour that into himself.


00:05:00

Nick Vonpitt: and he's seeing the seeds of doubt,…

Nick Vonpitt: take fruition in his relationship as well…

Harry Orr: Trying to be the lane this every day.

Nick Vonpitt: because you can't be doing this. You can't be

Joshua Hamilton: Okay, hands up…

Joshua Hamilton: if you guys hands up if you guys ever tried to get your worth from being the most important person in the room cuz** that's me to a tea. I've been there all day. I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. I find my worth in being the most valuable person in this room.

Joshua Hamilton: And I can be the most valuable person if none of you guys know how to do your job. because I'm not prepared to actually teach you or trust you. So therefore, everybody has to come to me because I am the most important and therefore I am worth damn that poor guy. s***. I hate the cost.

Nick Vonpitt: Yeah. …

Nick Vonpitt: That's the question. How do you fix him?

Joshua Hamilton: The effect you find…

Nick Vonpitt: So the first step was I found a rock in the middle of a lake and I said you need to swim to that rock and sit there and perch yourself on there and meditate for days on end and then you shall find yourself.

Joshua Hamilton: who you are.

Nick Vonpitt: You shall find yourself. There you are. I call it there you are method. exactly.

Joshua Hamilton: We can sell We got that mode. This is there you are method. We'll find the lakes and provide the rock. You've just got to do the finding. Yeah. Good.

Nick Vonpitt: It's an uncommon rock. there's nothing like it. no, so it's really been just this practice of peeling away the layers. and we had quite a powerful inerson session yesterday and it was just this conversation around look you've got all these different responsibilities and things but not at one point did you point back towards yourself and realize that all this life that you're living stems from you and your first set of accounts should be upon yourself.

Nick Vonpitt: You need to be focusing on what you're pouring into you so you can give the best of you to other things. Yes, we can work on the mechanic of selfworth.

Joshua Hamilton: I love that from guys…

Nick Vonpitt: But if you start to see yourself as worthy because you're prioritizing yourself, you're naturally going to begin the process of unraveling that. So just a very clear step is just before putting my business first or my team first or my KPIs first or my family first, put yourself first. That's the practice.

Joshua Hamilton: where suddenly they get slapped in the face with that's why I do that. And then they're so excited. They're "Cool." So, what do I do about it? how do we fix this? I'm like, " okay, mate. just lean back for a moment. You've just found out about this. This is pretty exciting stuff. What if you just demonstrated to yourself every single day that you were worth it? What's one thing that you could do?" It's like, I can start with a glass of water in the morning, mate, rather than a Red Bull.

Joshua Hamilton: actions speak way louder than words. Everybody wants this instant fix. It's cool. I'm like no man like actions small big whatever just actions towards saying every single action you take says s*** I love myself a little bit more. And there's frameworks and we got tools and whatnot but at the end of the day not sexy but it's simple as hell. So easy. I find it so interesting that as humans we can be so successful in one area of our lives and it doesn't leak out into other areas. how we say that saying do one thing is how you do all things. I think that's proof straight away that that's just not true. people are super successful in business. They're busy shagging three other women while their family at home suffocates and dies of from a lack of emotional support in that area cuz they think I've nailed it from a financial point of view.

Joshua Hamilton: I'm like, "Dude, what's going on here? you've got a P&L for your business. f*** are you doing in your life? What's your audit look there? Where is this heading?" I find that gap, even though you've coached hundreds of guys. I still find the human puzzle really simple yet complex yet really interesting.

Joshua Hamilton: It's fun. It is fun. Harry

Harry Orr: I think it's like I want to touch on…

Harry Orr: what you sent me earlier in that message which I think we spoke about this last year with a lot of those CEO guys or a lot of people that measure their success by the finances or by the work or the business their passion their career all that stuff is almost a mechanism of avoidance.

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah.


00:10:00

Harry Orr: When you know that the relationship at home with the kids is getting more distant as they grow up. the spark in your marriage is kind of gone. But they don't know how to handle it. So they turn to what they know which is work and then come up with those excuses of I'm busy. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. and avoid doing that because that's what they know how to do as opposed to dealing with the s*** which is actually hard, right? So for a lot of people making the money and…

Harry Orr: 

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah, mate.

Harry Orr: that kind of s*** is the hard part but they find it easy so they go to that as opposed to having the hard honest conversations which for some people is scary Just been camera guy, bro.

Joshua Hamilton: You've hit the nail on the head. And it's funny because people love to have a brush and then just go, "Okay, that works." and then I'll just paint that all in life. It's in business. It's like don't work on your weaknesses, just hire somebody into that place, which is a great thing in business, but I was like, if you suck at sex, are you going to outsource that in your relationship or is that a weakness that you prefer to work on? And you just beat the camera guy. It's awesome. My relationship ship kicks ass. Look at my VCR collection and my DVDs. it was really interesting.

Joshua Hamilton: I've traveled over to your big island recently to deliver some workshops and things and I got to go to a triathon camp and we're talking the best age group triathl holder. And we were talking about exactly what you're talking about there. They're like, you say you tell somebody you're going for 200k ride, they're like, "f*** that. These guys like that's my strength.  I'll go there any day of the week rather than having to have that hard conversation or present that thing at work or do that. I'm like, you're just using your strengths as a shield to hide behind. That is not an example of doing something hard. When something is now easy, eg you're hopping in an ice bath and now it's become easy and pleasurable. You're no longer ticking off that aspect of your brain where it's like I am doing something hard and training yourself to do something hard cuz it's no longer hard for you.

Joshua Hamilton: People forget that your strengths are not hard, they're easy. So, you're not growing.

Harry Orr: And from the outset for a lot of people as well,…

Harry Orr: that perspective is also seen as discipline, right? You're disciplined because you spend so much time on your bike doing stupid amounts of training. You're so disciplined because you do all this kind of stuff.

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah.

Harry Orr: But for people like that, it's like, dude, that doesn't take effort. that's where I'd rather be, right? Yeah.

Joshua Hamilton: I'd rather be on my bike and I can say that comfortably. I'm comfortable in my sexuality most of the time. I'd rather be in tight clothes out of my bike.

Harry Orr: It's pride enough here. you're safe here. That's all right.

Joshua Hamilton: It's safe here. This is a safe space.

Joshua Hamilton: So, yeah.

Nick Vonpitt: I'm uncomfortable with this conversation right now.

Nick Vonpitt: I'm just going to share how I feel.

Joshua Hamilton: Good. That's welcome as well.

Nick Vonpitt: I've never worn Lyra.

Joshua Hamilton: We'll fix that,…

Nick Vonpitt: I don't know what that feels like.

Joshua Hamilton: fix We'll get you some vegan cacao and some tight clothes and you'll be hanging out with me all the time.

Joshua Hamilton: I want to go back to what Nick was just chatting on before because I want to share something that recently kind of slapped me in the face pretty hard and this is this idea of everything we're creating from this place of some lack of selfworth for this guy he's micromanaging trying to make his business better so he is then feeling worthy it hit me recently Michael Cooper asked me cool when you look at these other guys that you  is successful or the shiny object. What is it that's coming to mind for you? What do you want? And I'm like, I want freedom. He's cool. So, what's the opposite of freedom for you? I'm like, and it was a weird word. Just came straight in. Stagnation. And he's cool. So, where have things been for you for the last little while? I'm*. Everything has been stagnant. He's like, yeah, cuz what consciousness, although unconscious, have you been creating from?

Joshua Hamilton: I'm like stagnation because everything outside of me is freedom. Therefore, I'm coming from a place of lack and my opposite of freedom, my lack is stagnation. So, what was I creating? Stagnation. It slapped me in the face like a thunderbolt. And I was like, "Holy s***." And it was a massive change for me. And what I realized is that for a long period of time, I've been learning a lot of things.  And I'm always learning, not necessarily growing. And I suddenly saw the difference between the two. The learning is f***, you can teach a monkey skills, right? You can teach a three-year-old how to do times Same with business, And I literally har and I spoke on this today. Business It's a mathematical formula. plus this equals this. If something doesn't work, you need to tweak something in the equation somewhere.

Joshua Hamilton: Those people who aren't in business, there's one reason mindset. But they don't have the mindset. Something is different in their head. So technically, if there's a formula for business, anybody can do it. It's literally the mindset that holds people back. Goes for every single area in life. It was just so simple and just came to me and I felt like sharing that now. So hopefully whoever's listening that was helpful, but certainly helpful for me. Yeah.


00:15:00

Harry Orr: I think that perfectly segus into adds to the topic of this of how you run your life like a business. It's systems and formulas that obviously you can use a hell of a lot of different formulas when it comes to other aspects like relationships health and things like that that suit your own uniqueness or whatever that might look like for some people.

Harry Orr: But if you can implement consistently, find that system, whether it is, outsourcing some stuff so you can just be the camera guy or you just get someone else to prep your meals or you do it yourself, right? There's systems for that

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah. in the same …

Joshua Hamilton: what we're talking about the systems and the road maps and the mind maps or whatever you want to call them that you're running in your brain in your life unconsciously to create that life that you want goes back to that thing everybody already has everything that they want they're just creating unconsciously Nick's got a bomb to drop he's about to do it Nick

Nick Vonpitt: No pressure. I actually asked this guy yesterday. I said and this has been such an interesting question because most of these guys are like, "Yes, I'm striving to build my business. I'm striving to do this. you want to scale, want to get to 30 locations, you want to franchise, whatever the case may be." 100%. Sure. So I asked him, "What is your personal number when you get to 50?" what's your number? He sat there and said, "I've never thought about that." I said, "So, you're running, you're pushing, you're burning yourself out, you're doing all of these things. You're neglecting your family, you're neglecting yourself because of What are you going towards? What is the goal?" Because there'll always be another goal after the goal.

Nick Vonpitt: that you need to at least have a clear defined goal for yourself, not just your business. Couldn't answer that question.

Joshua Hamilton: It's a good one.

Nick Vonpitt: And I think so many people it's that whole cliche of, are you running a business or are you just a busy mess at the end of the day? And most these guys just they're spinning their wheels. They're chasing their tail. And you call it accountability.  you call it, I'm sacrificing this and you'll find every masculine cliche to validate why you have to be there. And this ties, into everything that you've been saying. maybe it is your area of genius, but it's also ends up becoming a form of escapism from life because life isn't just onedimensional. It's multi-dimensional. It's multi-layered. There's complexities. There's nuances.

Nick Vonpitt: And you can be an expert in one area, but you could lack the growth, the understanding of the living part. it's easy to be a robot nowadays. Learn a skill, implement the skill, become really good at that. Rinse and repeat, get paid for said skill. But everybody's formula and blueprint is slightly different because everyone is different. And I think it's helping people uncover that. And like you said, it is the mindset that holds people back. But once they start seeing "Holy s***, I have my own unique blueprint for living life." And they learn from your blueprint because that's why they're sitting there. They're like, "Wow, I can see what you're doing. I can see how you look after yourself and you care for yourself and you're so consistent. I really struggle with those things in this area of my life.

Nick Vonpitt: I need to learn from you." Same Josh, it's like, "Wow, I wish I could wear Lyra like you. How do you pull it off all the time?" That's inspirational.

Joshua Hamilton: Let me teach you.

Joshua Hamilton: Let me teach you.

Nick Vonpitt: Let me teach you the way. Yes, it

Joshua Hamilton: I asked Harry a really important question today which is double-sided. It's a really big compliment because he often meets with me with his shirt off which is lovely and I had to ask him. I was like dude are you back on test and he's like no I'm like, f***, dude. You are looking good. Yeah, it's a rig to be admired. So, that was just a little piece that I thought was quite good for the segue there.

Nick Vonpitt: Can we use him as the thumbnail for the No,…

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. For the podcast, though. There we go.

Harry Orr: As long as you don't photoshop like her on to me,…

Harry Orr: then we can do that.

Nick Vonpitt: I promise …

Nick Vonpitt: this is a safe space for Josh.

Joshua Hamilton: I wanted to touch on two kind of teaching points there and…

Joshua Hamilton: hopefully I've lost one of them but the other one will come back through soon. The thing guys, there it is. It's like you've got to know what you are moving closer to otherwise you're just going for more and more is never enough. Never. That is one thing like guys listening, you need to know what you are moving closer to in every area of your life. what is it that you want your relationship to look What is it that you want your business to look like? What is your number? What is your fitness goals? All those things will allow you to move closer. And then It's one of the key pieces of magic. what are you moving closer to? Ignore how for now. People get overwhelmed. I got to do this Shiny over object over there. I'm like, dude, chill out.


00:20:00

Joshua Hamilton: And the other thing this is where coaching consulting is different but mentoring coaching I think are one of the most important things is that thing that stagnation versus freedom. I didn't know that about me and I consider myself a pretty aware dude. You can't see your blind spots.  Don't think you're big enough to not ask somebody else to look inside your head and go, "All right, Let me do a surgical analysis on the blueprints that you're running for life." Cuz there's places that you'll be able to find the results of your blueprints, bank accounts, relationships, fitness. if you're s*** in your relationship, you'll have a s** blueprint. If you've got zero to nothing in your bank account and negative, you've got a s*** blueprint.

Joshua Hamilton: if you're fat, overweight, like sore knees and back all the time, you've got a* blueprint. You need to find the blind spots for those. So, those are two things that I kind of want to bring up for guys listening. Those are really, really important. I guess we kind of know why it matters, but have you got anything that you really want to add to that, Nick?

Nick Vonpitt: I think at the end of the day it comes down to looking at ourselves through a different lens. and we end up building up this perception of this perceived version of self and that's how we interact with the world. And we come to a place where you're just at this default automated expression of Josh,…

Joshua Hamilton: stagnation.

Nick Vonpitt: of Harry, of Nick, and you've got your bubble of normal, your bubble of complacency, your bubble of reality, and yes, stagnation. And then you don't feel like you're alive because you're completely out of sync of this natural flow of life and self.  You are ever forever growing. And we go through different seasons. We go through different moments. We go through all these different experiences. You cannot be the same person that started off the day. When you end the day, it is impossible. There are small little things that have changed within you. And we fail to realize that.

Nick Vonpitt: So we keep on trying to squash ourselves into a round hole when the square peg and we keep on thinking we fit here but we don't. We're growing. We're changing. we are expanding. But we limit ourselves through our mindset. But You're not the same guy you were 10 years ago. You're not the same guy you were a couple of months ago. You're not the same guy you were last week. That it's impossible. But we still think  And you might have the same values but your implementation will be different. your experience will be different because you've lived. So why do we then position ourselves especially when you are in a space of authority and you are the designated leader for an organization or even just a family as a masculine. Why do we believe that that's all that we are?

Nick Vonpitt: This mantle piece that sits on the fire and that's it. We don't change. We always steadfast. We don't but that sure that's important but You do Your perspective your awareness shifts. And I think that's when you begin to challenge your mindset and you open yourself up to what is possible? if the way that I'm looking at myself or my relationship or my business or X Y and Zed were to not be true were to be limiting me? What would be possible beyond this point? What am I capable of? What have I thought that I could never do, but I'm going to look at doing that s*** now and…

Nick Vonpitt: expand into that?

Joshua Hamilton: Yes. Now you're being pulled.

Nick Vonpitt: What are the expanders that I can undertake? Like you said, what are the areas that you want to grow? Where do you want to focus?

Nick Vonpitt: How do I expand into that? What does it require of me? What is the type of person that I need to be, embody, feel, express the way I need to think? Who's that guy? What does he look like? he How does his life feel?


00:25:00

Joshua Hamilton: I like that. Now you're being pulled towards something. has you got anything to offer the boys? You have a lot to offer the boys, but on this point specifically

Harry Orr: I think the only thing that I'd add to that cuz Nick pretty actually nail that is if there's something in your life that you're saying, I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. There's a block in there because if you truly knew how to do it, you would have done it by now and would have moved on. There's a difference between knowing something theoretically and…

Harry Orr: then practically through having done the thing, right?

Joshua Hamilton: Mate, drop that again…

Joshua Hamilton: because that is such a good thing to bring the idea that somebody has a limitation to them into their consciousness.

Joshua Hamilton: Hit that again.

Harry Orr: If you are saying…

Harry Orr: if there's something in your life that you are saying I know what I need to do I just need to do it then you don't know how to do it.

Joshua Hamilton: f**** boom.

Harry Orr: There's a difference between practical and theoretical knowledge and that's the experience of doing the freaking thing.

Joshua Hamilton: Yeah, man.

Harry Orr: If you're not doing the thing, then I would argue you don't know how to do it. Which in that case, like you boys just said, find someone that can eliminate that blind spot, that belief, that blockage of whether it's skills, knowledge, discipline, accountability, whatever it is that's kind of stopping you from getting there. f*** it off. Do the thing and get the result. No.

Joshua Hamilton: Honestly, no man, I want a DIY. Yeah, good on you, bro. enjoy your life with all the other common men. Hang out with them. I ain't got It's classic. man, no time Thank you guys so much for the guys listening, really important thing. We are the 5th of March, so it'll be a couple of days until this drops. I believe there is three places left for the Bali event, 2nd of May. There is an application link down the bottom if you would like to join us.

Joshua Hamilton: We are going to show the guys how you create more, how you work less, and how you live deeper across the three main elements of your life. You will walk away from that event a completely different man from the man who walked in. I promise you, You'll freaking thank you. It is a game changer. And I just can't wait to see the guys that are coming there. It's a hell of an event, It's going to be fire. So application is in the description down below, guys.  jump in there. Otherwise, have an absolutely uncommon week. I hope you're crushing it wherever you are. Massive love from all of us here and we'll see you on the next one.