THE BASICS
Today’s guest is Neil McTeggart, who is a Professional Coach and an Amateur Dad. He’s a Personal trainer by day, dad blogger by night, Neil has been a coach for over 20 years and a dad for just a handful!
Neil aims to provide users with an insight to both the fitness lifestyle and the dad journey by combining both roles and sprinkling on a touch of humour. His long suffering wife Jen may make the odd appearance again giving an insight into her fitness lifestyle as a former gym hater and now, hot mum of two!
On the other side of the coin, Neil is a professional coach with twenty years of experience. Neil considers himself a student of all things strength and movement. Over the past two decades he has studied many aspects of fitness to provide his clients with multiple solutions to their problems. His client base is often seen as quite advanced, given their levels of strength and performance but this coach simply states that his best students are just beginners that kept showing up.
In this interview, we discuss his story, fitness, BJJ, becoming a dad, skill development, parenting insights, how he is using the COVID-19 downtime, and how to become the parent you’d want your kids to try and emulate. This one is two hours long and it honestly feels like half an hour, you just connect with Neil and become happy to listen to him, he seems instantly likable and I know you will be a big fan of his now too.
LISTEN HERE
WHAT WE COVER
In this interview, we discuss gems like:
- Who he is
- What attracted him to the fitness world
- He says he knew Jen was the one from the first date – how did he know?
- How did he feel he changed as he went from a ‘cool guy’ to becoming a dad or did he change at all?
- Why has Amateur Dad been so successful?
- How did they plan when to have children
- What was his experience with kids before he became a father
- Has he come to understand his parents and their behaviour as parents better since he became a father?
- How Neil’s amazing parents shaped the man he became and how we can inspire those we act as a father or male role model for
- Dealing with hardships in our lives
- How Neil overcame panic attacks and anxiety by using exposure training and talking to friends
- The importance of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on his life and defeating his anxiety and stress
- How he effortlessly went from panic attacks to parent!
- Tips on dealing with multiple projects and conflicting demands, especially for those with kids and a business etc – the importance of work/life balance
- Where a lot of parents are going wrong with the role they adopt with their kids
- The importance of eating right on getting into shape or just dreaming about it
- Why some people seem to excel at activities faster than others
- What was the inspiration for starting ‘Amateur Dad’?
- Tips on finding the ideal client for his coaching business
- How being a parent is not always perfect! (the quote I mentioned about 34 times, I meant to say it under your breath!)
- The importance of sharing that being a parent is hard and not always perfect and glorious
- Would he have rather had boys?
- How you should teach your kids to be open to everything and anything – whatever they want to try, let them try it within reason. Stop defining what roles and duties they should be doing – stop making things men and women’s roles and responsibilities. Let people be who they want to be – stop labelling them and watch people chase their dreams and hit their true potential.
- How you can make money by doing the things you love. Making money from the things you enjoy over playing it safe all the time.
- How does he think his daughters will react to their social media fame?
- What does he hope the evolution of the ‘Amateur Dad’ brand will be
- Tips for parents to entertain and spend time with their kids during the COVID-19 pandemic – how you can use the virus outbreak in a positive light
- Why he wants his kids to take part in BJJ
- How to overcome or deal with nerves in competing in whatever sport or situation nerves arise in
- A brilliant story about Connor McGregor!
- What has been his proudest moment as a father so far
- How did he end up on national TV using a labor machine and feeling what it’s like to give birth as a man and how it links to Fifty Shades of Grey!
- How do you define what makes a ‘good’ dad?
- Why you need to try an activity at least three times before quitting
- What habits and changes would he get those listening to undertake to improve there diet and fitness the quickest? How to go from Sea Level to Everest without failing!
- What does he want listeners to take from this interview
The hilarious Labor machine video!
SOME THINGS TO REFLECT ON
In this interview, a lot of jewels of self-improvement are discussed. Some of these and their associated thoughts include:
- Neil talks about how Jen is from a completely different background from him but he knew she was the one for him and chased his dream. So what is stopping you? It is not where you start, it is where you end up that is all that matters.
- Write your copy as you would talk to someone. Write your sales pages as if talking to a mate. Stop over complicating things and talk like a normal person talking to a friend and see your success with writing skyrocket.
- You are never ready to have kids, or whatever your goal is. You will need to learn as you go, to make mistakes and feel like you have no idea what you are doing. Expect those feelings but like everything else you have done since birth, you learn the skills and get the experience you require to be able to accomplish the goals in your life.
- No-one knows what they are doing. Suck it up buttercup, do your best and you’ll be fine.
- You never know what is going on in someone else’s lives – just because they look confident, doesn’t mean it’s real or that they are truly confident in their own skin. Everyone is fighting their own battle, try not to judge others and work on becoming the best version of yourself, better than the version of yourself in the mirror today, aim to be a better version in someone way tomorrow.
- Someone who is a master at something is just a beginner who never stopped.
- Asking for help is never a weakness, it doesn’t matter what you do or at what level, it is never a sign of weakness to ask for help with your fitness, business, health or anything else. In fact, it is a sign of strength, as it shows you realise you are struggling in an area and know you don’t have the skillset to fix it, and can delegate it to someone else with the necessary skills and experience to fix or evolve it for me.
- Your Vibe attracts your Tribe!
- Parenting is great but it also has a dark side, there are things that can go wrong, struggles and hardships. It is important that we do not hide these but share them with others and with medical professionals to get help, support and the assistance that you need at the time – there is nothing wrong with getting help! Don’t suffer in silence!
- Being bored is a lack of imagination!
- Look at negatives as a positive. I know it’s hard but it can be a taught reaction to take any negative experience and consider how you can make it a positive, what you can learn from it and so on.
- Be the type of person that you want your kids to become. Kids will emulate what you do, give them the right example for the person you want them to become.
- Don’t think about where you are now – consider where you will be in a week, six months, a year and longer by attending, performing and growing – you will be amazed at how much you can grow and learn and achieve in that time. The time will pass regardless, use it wisely and become a better person!
LINKS YOU WILL NEED TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST
You will want to follow this guest in the future. To do so, click on the links below:
- Neil’s brilliant Amateur Dad is on Facebook here
- Neil’s coaching website is available here
- Follow Neil on Instagram here
- Neil has a new YouTube channel, help him out by subscribing here
Yes, you can do both!
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