EP 3609, They stab you and pretend they're bleeding, is a straight talk about one of the ugliest games people play: hurting you, then flipping the script so you're the villain for reacting. It shows up in relationships, families, workplaces, and teams. Someone crosses a line, you finally call it out, and suddenly they're the victim, you're "too sensitive", and everyone is asked to comfort the person who caused the damage.

In this episode I break down how this pattern works, why it hooks good people, and what to do when your empathy is being weaponised against you. If you've been stuck in the loop of explaining yourself, defending your intentions, or trying to "fix it" with someone who refuses ownership, this will feel uncomfortably familiar.

We talk about:

• the difference between a mistake and a strategy

• Why integrity feels like aggression to someone who lives on manipulation

• how guilt, obligation, and fear keep you silent

• What boundaries actually are (and what they're not)

• how to respond without getting dragged into chaos

This isn't about becoming cold. It's about becoming clear. High performance is a conscious decision, and clarity is part of it. If you want better outcomes in your life, you need better standards in your relationships. That includes who you let close, what you tolerate, and how quickly you address behaviour that poisons trust.

You'll leave with practical language you can use, a simple "do not engage" framework for circular arguments, and a reminder of a core principle of this show: stop just surviving and take responsibility for your life.

Ask yourself: what's the pattern, what's the cost, and what would change if you stopped negotiating with nonsense today alone.

If you're done bleeding quietly while someone else tells the story, press play.

EP 3608 is a blunt reminder that comparison does not motivate you, it corrodes you.

Most people do not lose their joy in one big moment. They lose it in a thousand little audits. Someone else's body. Someone else's relationship. Someone else's business. Someone else's confidence. And without realising it, you start living like your life is failing because it is not identical to someone else's highlight reel.

In this episode I unpack what comparison really is. It is a nervous system threat response dressed up as "standards." It is your brain trying to keep you safe by measuring where you sit in the tribe. The problem is, the scoreboard you are using is usually fake, incomplete, and brutal.

We talk about the two traps.

Upward comparison makes you feel behind, even when you are building something solid. It turns progress into pressure, and it trains your brain to ignore wins.

Downward comparison makes you feel superior for a moment, but it keeps you small. You do not grow when you need other people to be worse than you.

I give you a simple reset you can use today.

Step one, name the trigger. Who are you comparing yourself to, and where are you doing it.

Step two, define your lane. What are the values you are building your life on, not the outcomes you are chasing.

Step three, set your daily scoreboard. Three behaviours you can execute today that prove you are becoming the person you say you want to be.

If you are sick of feeling like you are never enough, this is your circuit breaker. Stop watching other people live. Start doing the work. Quietly. Repeatedly. On purpose.

If you want more structure, grab the free Life Basics PDF and get the weekly newsletter for practical tools and sharp reminders.

In Episode 3607 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down a line that matters: a soldier follows orders, a warrior follows their heart. This is not about disrespecting discipline or teamwork. It is about noticing when you have handed your life over to other people's expectations, conflict avoidance, and the need to be liked.

Soldiers wait for the next instruction. They outsource responsibility. They do what is required, then wonder why they feel flat, resentful, or stuck. Warriors honour their commitments, but they lead from an internal code. They do the hard thing because it is right, not because someone is watching. Under pressure, they do not rise to potential. They fall to preparation.

Shaun unpacks how this shows up: the leader who avoids tough conversations, the partner who shuts down instead of speaking truth, the man who keeps saying yes while his health and family pay the bill. If you feel trapped, it is not the job. It is the choices you keep making to stay comfortable.

He also clarifies what following your heart is not. It is not impulsive emotion or chasing the next dopamine hit. It is values in motion. It is regulating your nervous system, telling the truth, and acting with conviction even when your old patterns want you to comply.

This episode is a reset. You will be challenged to define your standards, tighten your boundaries, and stop confusing comfort with safety. Pressure does not build character. It reveals it. The question is simple: who are you when it does.

Practical tool: take 60 seconds, breathe, then answer: "What am I avoiding, and what would aligned action look like?" Write your non negotiables for health, relationships, and work, then pick one action this week that proves you mean it. No speeches. Just behaviour.

In this episode, I'm talking about the moment you realise the thing you're clinging to is the very thing keeping you stuck.

"Let go of the vine" is the image: you're swinging across a gap and you refuse to release because it feels unsafe. But the truth is brutal, you can't grab the next vine while your hands are full. Most people don't fail because they're incapable. They fail because they keep gripping an identity, a relationship pattern, a role, a grievance, or a comfort behaviour that once helped them survive, but now sabotages their life.

We unpack what clinging looks like in the real world: staying in a job that drains you because it's predictable, staying angry because it feels powerful, staying hypervigilant because the nervous system thinks you're still on the job, staying in "I'll start when…" because it protects you from judgement. If you've been carrying too much for too long, you'll recognise the cost.

I walk you through a simple framework to identify your vine: what are you tolerating, what are you defending, and what are you repeating. Then we get practical with a three-step reset you can do today: name the vine, choose the next move, and commit to one uncomfortable action that proves you're serious.

Discipline isn't punishment, it's self-respect. Letting go isn't reckless. It's deciding to stop negotiating with the part of you that wants comfort more than growth.

If you want more structure, grab the free Life Basics PDF and get the weekly newsletter for practical tools, short lessons, and the best recommendations I'm using with clients.

This isn't motivation. It's responsibility. If you want a stronger life, you don't need more insight. You need the courage to release what's familiar so you can build what's possible. Starting today. No excuses. Move.

In EP 3605 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down a simple truth most people avoid: anxiety grows when you keep feeding it. Not because you are weak, but because your brain is doing its job. It is trying to protect you. The problem is the protection strategy becomes the prison. You avoid the hard conversation, the gym, the inbox, the decision, the vulnerability, the uncomfortable truth. You feel temporary relief, and your nervous system learns, "Good, we survived." Then the fear expands its territory. Next time it takes more avoidance to feel safe.

Shaun explains how this cycle shows up in real life: overthinking, reassurance seeking, scrolling, numbing, snapping at the people you love, and living with a low grade dread that never fully leaves. He also makes it clear that insight alone does not change anything. Repetition does. What you practise becomes your baseline.

The second half flips the script. Courage is not a personality trait. It is a behaviour pattern you can train. Courage feeds itself the same way anxiety does, through small, consistent actions that prove to your brain you can handle discomfort. Shaun shares practical ways to build your courage loop: shrinking tasks to something you will actually do, making one clear decision, taking one honest action, and doing it again tomorrow. No hype. No pretending. Just personal responsibility with a plan.

If you are sick of being controlled by your own mind, this episode gives you a grounded framework to stop reinforcing fear and start reinforcing strength.

EP 3604 What is the cost of it? is a blunt audit of the price you are paying, often without noticing. Shaun O'Gorman pulls apart the hidden costs that show up in everyday decisions: the cost of staying silent to keep the peace, the cost of avoiding hard conversations, the cost of chasing performance while neglecting recovery, and the cost of tolerating standards you would never accept for someone you love.

This episode is not about money. It is about energy, identity, relationships, and self-respect. If you keep saying yes when you mean no, you will pay with resentment. If you keep numbing out with distraction, you will pay with momentum. If you keep running on stress hormones and "just pushing through," you will pay with patience, sleep, and the way you speak to the people closest to you.

Shaun challenges you to stop pretending you can have everything without trade-offs. Every goal has a cost. Every habit has a cost. Every relationship you keep, and every boundary you avoid, has a cost. The problem is not paying a price. The problem is paying the wrong price. High performance is a conscious decision, not luck, ever.

You will learn a simple decision filter you can use today:

1. What is this costing me right now?

2. What will it cost me in 6 months if nothing changes?

3. What will it cost the people around me?

4. What is the cost of changing, and is that the better deal?

If you are stuck, tired, reactive, or drifting, this is your reset. Bring brutal honesty, pick one area you have been tolerating, and commit to the next right action. Progress is expensive, but regret costs more.

Listen now and do the maths on your life before life does it for you.

Most people don't overthink everything. They overthink the worst. One comment from your partner, one email from your boss, one slow week in business, and your brain writes a disaster movie. You rehearse rejection, failure, conflict, embarrassment. Then you call it being realistic.

In EP 3603, Why can't we overthink the best?, Shaun O'Gorman flips that pattern on its head. If your mind can run 50 scenarios where it all goes wrong, it can run 50 scenarios where you handle it, adapt, and win. Same brain. Same imagination. Different direction.

This episode breaks down why your nervous system defaults to threat scanning, and how that habit sabotages confidence and performance. When you overthink the worst, you don't prepare, you panic. You avoid conversations. You play small. You start living a life built around risk management instead of purpose.

Overthinking the best is not delusion. It's rehearsal. It's training your attention to look for options and actions instead of only danger. You respect risk, but you don't worship it.

Shaun gives you a simple tool to retrain your thinking without pretending life is perfect:

You'll learn how to use optimism as a strategy, not a mood, and how to build an internal dialogue that creates calm, clarity, and decisive action under pressure. If you're tired of your mind being the loudest enemy in the room, this is your reset.

Listen now and start aiming your thinking at the life you actually want to build.

In EP 3602 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O'Gorman breaks down the concept of vagal authority and why some people can walk into pressure, conflict, or chaos and instantly change the energy in the room. This is not charisma, status, or volume. It is nervous system regulation, the capacity to stay grounded and connected while your body wants to spike into fight, flight, or shut down.

Shaun explains what the vagus nerve does in plain language and why calm is not a personality trait, it is a trained physiological skill. The vagus nerve is a major two way communication pathway between brain and body that influences heart rate, breathing, digestion, and recovery. When it is working well, it helps you downshift after stress, think clearly under load, and stay open to connection. Higher cardiac vagal activity and high frequency HRV are often linked with better self regulation and executive control. When it is not, you might look fine on the outside but live wired, reactive, impatient, numb, or exhausted.

You will learn how vagal authority shows up in leadership, parenting, relationships, and high performance. The person with the most regulated nervous system often has the most influence, because people can feel safety or threat through tone, facial expression, pace, posture, and presence long before they hear your words.

This episode also challenges the trendy, oversimplified vagus hacks floating around online. Shaun focuses on what actually builds capacity over time: consistent sleep and training, breath control, down regulation routines, emotional honesty, boundaries, and choosing behaviour over excuses.

If you have been stuck in high alert, snapping at people you love, or feeling flat and disconnected, this is your reset. Listen in, identify your patterns, and start building the kind of authority that makes people trust you without you having to demand it. At the end, Shaun gives a drill you can use in 60 seconds to rehearse regulation.