Why Australian Builders Need To Start Controlling Their Inputs

Garbage in. Garbage out.

What you watch, hear, read and repeat every single day is shaping how you think, how you act and how you run your business. And most of the time you don't even realise it's happening.

In this episode I break down why controlling your inputs is one of the fastest and most practical ways to lift your mindset, your productivity and your results without adding a single extra hour to your day.

If your default is background news, talkback radio and social media doom scrolling — this one is going to hit home.

What I cover:
👉 Why garbage in always means garbage out
👉 How background noise is shaping your mood without you realising
👉 Why your commute and solo work time are your biggest untapped learning blocks
👉 How to swap mindless consumption for inputs that actually build your skills
👉 Why the source of your information matters more than the information itself
👉 How to curate your circle, clean up your feed and choose inputs that move you forward

Transcript

Why Inputs Decide Your Output

SPEAKER_00 1:28

G'day guys, welcome back to the Level Up Podcast. Today we have another cracking solo podcast, and this one is all about controlling your inputs. Um, look, I am so overwhelmed by the amount of people that are reaching out and uh asking for me to do more solo podcasts and talk about specific topics. Uh, this one's actually come up quite a bit, and it's something that I do religiously. Is I'm a massive believer that um if you put garbage in, you're only going to get garbage out. And you would have heard me talk about this a lot before, but um I don't listen to the news, I don't listen to the radio, um, and I'm I'm pretty aware, I wouldn't say controlling, but I'm pretty aware of who I associate and who I spend my time with. I've learnt the hard way that your life will only ever be as good as the what you're putting in this thing up here. And that isn't just about what you I guess what you see and what you hear, it's about what gets repeated to us on a regular basis. And like seriously, how do you think you're going to operate if you're one of these people that listens to the radio all day, every day, whether it's in your vehicle, driving to and from work, or even on the job site, the radio repeats the same shit constantly every half hour, it's it's just ridiculous. Like you're constantly getting fed all the garbage of the world, and that's no disrespect to the news and what's happening in the world and people's lives and those types of things. I'm just very aware that I don't want to be filling my mind and my head with that type of information. At the end of the day, I can't control any of it, I can't control what's going on in other people's lives, I can't control what's going on around the world. The only thing that I can control that is in my complete control, is how I react with my own surroundings and what I believe in and how I spend my time. And I'm telling you right now, like I do not want to be wasting a minute of my time listening to garbage that I have no say or no control over. And ever since that I stopped, like Camille and I, we've made a call. Honestly, I was um over the Christmas break, um, we spent a bit of time with some relatives and things, and I actually remember sitting in a relative's house um that we haven't we don't see very regularly. Um we stayed there for a couple of nights and the news came on. And Camille and I were laughing about we're like, oh my god, like it is it has been years, like we can't even remember the last time that we literally sat down and watched the news. And like, seriously, within the before even it got to the first ad break, we're like, this is rubbish, like we we're so glad we don't watch this shit every single day. Um it's it's just not like news is all about hype and just just rubbish, like they just want to suck you in and fill you full of rubbish, and it's the same with radio. Like, don't get me wrong, like it's great listening to the radio for music, but seriously, the garbage, the ads that get repeated to us, uh the garbage that gets repeated every half hour. Um, like seriously, who wants to know every half hour what the weather's doing, and who wants to know every half hour who's been murdered and what the government's doing and how much tax we're paying and what the government's not doing? Like, it's just it's all rubbish. And the more you fill your head with rubbish, the harder it's going to be for you to improve your life and to improve your situation and ultimately to run your own race. And so, what I really recommend is you really have to control the input. Like you have to control what goes in. And if you don't control what goes in, I can tell you right now, you're going to just be stuck in these horrible cycles of getting caught up in silly stories and silly situations and shit that just doesn't make a does not make one difference to your life. It doesn't improve it, it doesn't improve your business, doesn't improve your wealth, doesn't improve your relationships. It's just all rubbish. So my advice to you is control everything that you take in. You can spend the exact same amount of time that you're spending now listening or watching, whatever it is, but just change what it is. If you're on site, I get it. Crank the tunes up, put Spotify on, listen to a playlist, listen to stuff that you're interested in, listen to music that you're interested in and change it up, listen to a different playlist every day. Take it in turns on the job site to pick the tunes. Have some variety in your life, it will make a massive difference. If you're in a scenario where you've got opportunity, you're you might be on your own, you can throw your ear pods or your or um your uh headphones on, or you might spend a lot of time in in a vehicle like I do. Use that time to build your knowledge instead of just wasting it on rubbish. Find a podcast or find audible books um that resonate with you. And look, it it could be anything, it could be people's autobiographies, it could be like I really get a lot out of listening, like I love books that tell me someone's story, like where they come from, their childhood, their schooling, um, how they got into business, all the struggles they've had, and how they've been successful. I get a lot out of listening to those books, and I get a lot out of hearing different points of view from different people that have been very successful in their lives, because then I can I can relate to some of that information, I can pick up tips and hints, I can um maybe make some adjustments to some of the things I do based on some of the situations that they've been in. And there's so much value you can get out of listening to people that are that have done things or achieved things that you want to achieve. Um, another massive one is is with audible books is um listening to business books about certain subjects or uh self-development books, mindset books. I've I've listened to so many of my could sit here all day just rattling off different ones, but there is so much like the the beauty of technology and the power that actually the good that can come from having our phone with us all the time is you have access to incredible knowledge, incredible data, incredible information. And if you control your input and what you put into your mind, then the output is going to be so much better. If you're just listening to the news and the media um constantly, all day, every day, over and over again, that is how your life is going to operate. So I I challenge you, I I challenge you to um change it up. Instead of watching the news and listening to the radio, listen to uh audible books or um or find yourself some good podcasts and listen to them because there is some incredible information out there that will help you get ahead so quickly. And the way that I really think about this now is like when we go to school, like we're taught by uh I guess teachers that want to get into teaching, but I I I'm not sure like I've actually thought about this quite a bit to be honest, but like so many teachers aren't specialists in what they're teaching, and they're not passionate about what they're teaching. Like you might get a PE teacher or um I don't know, there's all different names for it at school now. Maybe it's a um like it used to be geography when I was at school, I'm not sure what they call it now, but you're like your geography teacher. I remember when I was at school, um, like I remember having a geography teacher that was just absolutely useless, like had was trying to teach us all this stuff, but was literally just reading from books. They'd never done any travel themselves, and it was boring as batshit. I got nothing from it, there was no passion there. But I actually then we like I don't know what year what grade it was, but I ended up with a different geography teacher, and this lady was so passionate, and she had traveled the world. And I used to really enjoy going to those classes because she wasn't reading from a textbook, she wasn't just telling us the same boring shit that whoever read that textbook or wrote that textbook was trying to get out to the world. She was telling us real stories and giving us real examples from her travels around the world, which made it exciting, which made it real, which made it resonate with me. And I think about everything in our lives now, whether it's with whether it's at school or whether it's with business, or whether it's with your your finances, your wealth, all those types of things. Like for if you want to get somewhere, if you want to improve things in your life, you need to be speaking, you need to be listening to people that are good at what they do, that have experience about what they do. And um, Shay, my producer, that's sitting over in the chair over there, he took he gives a really good example about this quite often. Um, he spent a lot of time going to uni and learning all about film production and editing and um lighting and all those types of things. And he talks about um the people that were teaching had had never made a film, like they'd never produced a movie or never had something that had made its way and become a movie, and yet they were there trying to teach him what to do. Um, and he's he talks about how he learned so much more after he left uni and experienced in the real world talking to people that were passionate, talking to people who were actually doing what he wanted to do. So it's really powerful stuff. You can sit at the end of the day, you can sit in a classroom your entire life. It doesn't mean you're going to improve your life, it doesn't mean that you're going to be successful at what you're doing, because all you're doing is listening or reading something that is one person's opinion or one person's theory. Instead of talking to people that are actually out there, they're living it, they're experiencing it. And the the diff the big difference is people that are actually living their lives and are passionate and doing what they want to be doing. Alright, guys, I want to introduce you to a really exciting new product that I believe is going to play a massive role in Australia building healthier homes. As you all know, I am extremely passionate about healthy homes, and I'm doing a lot of research and putting a lot of time and effort into making sure my construction business is leading the way when it comes to building healthy homes here in Australia. We've teamed up with the guys from Highwood Timber. Highwood Timber are pioneering condensation management with their high flow ventilated LVL batten system. High flow battons give builders a stronger, straighter, and smarter way to create a ventilated cavity behind cladding and underneath roofs without compromising on structural performance. While tackling condensation to improve building health and ease of insulation, highwood battons are built to perform. When it comes to dealing with condensation and ventilation, high flow battons will help you create continuous ventilated cavities behind all your cladding and underneath your roof sheeting. They reduce condensation risk and support healthier, longer lasting buildings. Highwood timber battons are also in alignment with the proposed NCC condensation management requirements as well as passive house ventilation requirements. Being an engineered LVL product, they are stronger, straighter, and more dimensionally stable than a solid material such as pine. This helps resist warping, twisting, and shrinkage, ensuring more consistent installs less prone to splitting than solid timber. Howwood timber batons are precisely manufactured, meaning that your installation will be faster and easier than other products on the market. The part that I like the most about these batons are they are H3 treated for long-term protection against decay and turmoiles. They use a waterborne H3 treatment which reduces reactivity with membranes and adhesives when compared to LOSP. These are the exact battens that you want to be using on your homes and your builds if you are considering building healthier homes or passive homes. Check them out. Highwood Timber Products. They're learning every day. Every day is a school day, so they're constantly improving things. It's not like they write it down now and in 10 years' time they're still doing the same thing. Every day they're learning, they're improving, they're getting better and better, they're learning. And when you're taking stuff in, you're listening to whether it's an audible book, a podcast, or in person, you're listening to people that are teaching or doing things that you want to be doing, you're getting access to all that experience, all that knowledge, all the mistakes they've made. So you're gonna have all those shortcuts that you're not gonna have to waste your time or have all the heartache or lose all the money doing wrong or not doing right, or do like it's um it's incredibly powerful stuff. So, guys, please, I encourage you so much to really control your inputs because when you control your inputs, your outputs will excel faster than you'll ever imagine. So um, the last little thing I want to talk about um when it comes to controlling your inputs is the people you hang around. The people you hang around, like everyone knows this, you hear it all the time. Like you're you're the outcome of the five closest people you associate yourself with, or the five people you hang around the most. It is so true. And look, this is another reason why all the builders in my live life build business are doing well, they kick goals, they have big improvements because they're just not hanging around five, they're hanging around hundreds of like-minded builders that are all striving to achieve greatness in the building industry, they're all striving to help me create a new building industry, they're all striving to improve, um, and they're all sharing knowledge and helping each other out. When you surround yourself with the right people, the right communities, it's another reason or it's another way that you'll accelerate your growth, you'll accelerate your wealth, you'll accelerate your your business, your life, and all those types of things. So it's like I talk about all the time. Like if you want to be a if you want to be fit and healthy, like my advice is that you start, you find a trainer that looks the way you want to look. Um, you don't go and work with a trainer that's fat and overweight and can't get their ass off the chair. Like they're not going to do anything for you. So, guys, control your inputs, whether it's podcasts, whether it's um whether it's audible books, or whether it's the people that you associate with, or even more importantly, social media. Like control the input, control the shit that you watch. Don't get caught doom scrolling and just flicking through to find something that um is going to add value to you because nine times out of ten you won't find it. Um, and my other advice on that is don't try not to like and follow things that um that aren't going to add value to you. Because if you're like Instagram, you see it all the time on Instagram, you see all these chicks with tits and ass out all the time, and they got massive followings, and that's because all us blokes are Googling over it and we're hitting the the like button. If you hit those like buttons, that's that shit's just gonna get fed to you more and more and more, and you're gonna waste hours and hours and hours just looking at tits and arse. Like you um, like don't get me wrong, I love looking at that stuff as well, but that stuff doesn't like looking at that does not improve my life. In fact, it probably makes my life worse. It's gonna annoy my wife. It's not and look, let's be honest, it's not the right thing to be doing ogling over females all the time. So you want to be filling your life with good quality content, good quality information, good quality experiences, good quality knowledge from people that are doing what you want to do. Guys, control your input, your output will be far better, and you'll get the growth that you want to have in your life. So, look, guys, I'll see you on the next podcast. Um, please continue to support my podcast. I really appreciate it. Like, subscribe, tell all your friends in the construction industry about this podcast, um, and go to my website, get a hold of my merchandise. Seriously, guys, this is all going towards helping me create a new building industry, and the level up movement is growing rapidly. I want to go be out and about and see more people with the level up merchandise. Look forward to seeing you on the next podcast.