This Week: Friendships After 40, the High-Performer Reset & Anxious Kids
Three new eps for you
Hey friends 👋
I didn’t get this sent out last week, so this one’s a little fuller than usual — three new conversations to catch you up on, plus a look at what’s been dropping on YouTube.
Real quick, though, before we jump into it, something for the many independent coaches we have in the community here: If you’ve wanted a great website without shelling out a bunch of money or spending countless hours moving pixels around, I might be able to help. Check out BackSquatWebsites.com and let me know if you have any questions.
Okay, let’s jump!
🎧 Building Real Friendships After 40 & Asking Questions That Connect
Ben’s back with a new 5x5 — five listener questions on the CONNECT factor.
This one gets into why kids become what they repeatedly experience rather than what we tell them, how to tell a values divergence from a hard season, and the truth that adult friendships are built, not found.
It closes with maybe the most useful two-minute skill in the whole show: how to ask a question so good it makes you the most interesting person in the room.
This episode’s for you if:
You’re ready to stop waiting for connection to happen the way it did in school and start building it on purpose — one small, proactive invitation at a time.
You’ve been quietly assuming your friendships, your marriage, or your relationship with your kids will hold together without much ongoing investment from you.
→ Read the full 5-3-1 Listener Guide
→ Get a question into a future episode
🎧 You Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission to Be a High Performer
I go solo to close out our recent 21-day high-performance challenge with four lessons on what actually separates high performers from everyone else — and none of them have to do with a title, a trophy, or a number on a scoreboard.
It’s about turning your shoulds into musts, getting disciplined about where your limited time and energy actually go, and realizing performance is never really about us in the first place.
This episode’s for you if:
You’re ready to stop treating your biggest goals as nice-to-haves and start treating them like musts you’ll find a way to accomplish.
You’ve been telling yourself some version of “I’m not really a high performer” — and quietly using that story as permission not to push.
→ Get the full 21-Day High Performance Challenge
🎧 Screens Are Only 1 of 5 Causes of Anxious Kids (w/ Kim John Payne)
Kim John Payne — author of Simplicity Parenting and one of the clearest voices on what he calls the undeclared war on childhood — joins me for this episode in our Raise series to ask a question that predates smartphones: why are so many kids showing the same nervous-system responses we associate with combat veterans?
Screens turn out to be the accelerant, not the root cause — and the conversation lands on a new word worth sitting with: enoughness.
This episode’s for you if:
You’re ready to get specific about what “enough” actually looks like for your family — before you add one more activity, opportunity, or thing to the calendar.
You’ve noticed the “provide” instinct quietly winning out over the “protect” instinct in your house, and you’re not totally sure when that started.
→ Read the full 5-3-1 Listener Guide
Supporting our sponsors is one of the best ways to support the show — thanks to these brands for helping us chase: Monarch · Quo · Shopify · BetterHelp · Momentous · Decagon · MUDWTR · Ultra Pouches · Function Health · Forkful
📹 Also on YouTube This Week
When You Care Less, You Perform Better— Ben breaks down the Fragmented → Focused → Flow framework and why the grip you bring to something — not the difficulty — is what determines whether you find flow.
From the full episode: 5x5 | THINK
Why You Can’t Get Away With It Anymore After 40 — Why power becomes the single most important training variable to protect after 40, and why the real threat isn’t the decline itself — it’s the drift.
From the full episode: How Do We Adjust the 5 Factors As We Age?
Your Ego Will Hate These 2 Training Rules (Which is Too Bad) — The two non-negotiable training rules — never fail a lift, and every round should look the same — and why ego fights you on both.
From the full episode: 6 Training Principles for a Yes-to-Anything Life
Do Coaches Need Coaches? (The Honest Answer) — What real mentorship requires from both sides of the relationship, and why even coaches can’t see their own blind spots alone.
From the full episode: Coaches Aren’t Essential. Here’s Why You Need One Anyway.
Thanks as always for being here. If one of these resonates with you, please consider sharing it with a friend — and if you haven’t, we’d love it if you left us a review and a rating wherever you listen.
🤙🏼 Patrick