I’M 40, I run a global business, and I’m raising three young daughters. I have every excuse in the book to not be in the best shape of my life. And for years, I used them.
I’ve been building King Kong, Australia’s fastest-growing digital marketing agency, for over a decade. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that if you want to win in business, it has to be a priority. And as any good parent will tell you, family comes first.
So while physical fitness has always been on my radar, it wasn’t a priority. I trained and was in reasonable shape, but I was inconsistent. And if you’re a founder like me, you know that ‘reasonable’ is often the lie you tell yourself so you can keep avoiding the hard standard. Then, two years ago, I decided that reasonable was not good enough.
The catalyst for this change wasn’t a health scare or even my looming 40th birthday. It was my daughters. I found myself thinking about the standard I was setting. I work hard to show them what it takes to be financially and professionally successful. But when it came to physical health and fitness, I realised I was setting the bar far too low.
Kids do not do what you say; they model what you do. I want my daughters to grow up believing that excellence is normal. That discipline is normal. That looking after your body is not optional, but essential for baseline success.
If I am telling them to aim high, back themselves and push beyond comfort, I have to show them what that looks like. I realised that how I show up physically affects everything else in my life. And as a leader, father, and husband, I was not showing up as my best self.
That was the turning point. I decided I was going to get into the best shape of my life at 40. Not the best shape “for my age”. Not the best shape “for a busy guy who runs a business and has a family.” The best shape, full stop.
In business, vague goals produce vague results. Saying you want to grow means nothing without numbers attached to it. So I set a clear, measurable target for myself: I wanted to reach a single-digit body fat percentage.
I started at 16.5 per cent body fat. My goal was 9 per cent. About a year later, I hit that goal. The number matters, but what matters more is how I approached it. One of the biggest mistakes I see in both business and fitness is guesswork. In business, people say their marketing is not working, but they cannot tell you exactly which metric is underperforming or why. Fitness is no different.
What gets measured gets managed. I weigh myself daily. I track my calories and macros. I hit 180 grams of protein each day. I do a weekly skinfold test to track body fat. I pay attention to the data.
I started managing my body like I manage my high-performance company. I measured, I optimised, and I adjusted. I’ve found that when you keep repeating that process, you’ll always succeed.
I soon realised that the excuse I told myself for years – “I don’t have time to prioritise fitness” – was just that: an excuse. People assume getting into great shape means living in the gym. It does not. I lift weights three times a week. That’s it.
The real game-changer is daily movement. I make sure I get between 14,000 and 20,000 steps every single day by systemising that goal. All my meetings are walking meetings. If I’m on a call, I’m moving. By the time I get home, most of my steps are already done. And if they’re not, I often head out for another 30-minute walk once I put the girls to bed.
I also became strict in my routine. That means my workouts happen at 6am, no exceptions. I know that if I don’t train first thing, something urgent will take over. That’s the reality of running a fast-growing business, so I don’t leave it to chance. I realised that if I always waited until I ‘had time’, I would never train. So I made time.
The biggest change, though, was sleep. I used to have a fixed wake-up time but no fixed bedtime. Now I protect my 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Deep sleep is where recovery, testosterone production and muscle repair happen. If you’re training hard but not sleeping well, your body will not respond to the work you’re doing. Once I optimised my sleep, the needle started moving.
I also gamified the whole process. In business, beyond a certain point, money is just a scoreboard. The real game is improvement. I applied that same thinking to fitness.
Steps became a daily target to beat. Macros became numbers to hit. Body fat became a metric to improve. I’m constantly competing with yesterday’s version of myself, and that’s what keeps me motivated. When you treat reaching your goals like a game, discipline becomes engaging. You’re not dieting. You’re running experiments and refining the system. And the thing about the system is that it always wins.
Getting into great shape has improved every element of my life. My energy is higher. My mental clarity is sharper. I’m more patient with my kids and more present with my wife. In business meetings, I show up with more certainty and clarity. I’ve found that when you’re in good shape, you take yourself more seriously.
That’s because physical discipline bleeds into everything. If you can say no to junk food, you can say no to distractions. If you can get up at 6am to train, you can handle hard decisions and high-pressure conversations. Leadership starts with yourself. If you can’t lead yourself to success, how can you lead others?
There is no higher return investment than your health. Your fitness directly impacts your longevity, your relationships, your productivity and your leadership. How you do anything is how you do everything.
I am in the best shape of my life at 40, not because I suddenly had more time, but because I stopped the excuses and raised the standard. And if you’re anything like me, you will know that once you raise the bar, you don’t go back.
