Libsyn Directory

EP 3567 Don’t ask for a lighter burden. Develop broader shoulders

Release Date: 12/20/2025

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In EP 3596 Haters are just unfulfilled, Shaun O’Gorman breaks down a blunt truth most people avoid: the loudest critics are rarely your real problem, your reaction to them is. This episode unpacks why “haters” so often show up when you start improving, building, or leading, and why their negativity usually says more about their own frustration than it does about your choices. Shaun explores the psychology behind projection, insecurity, and status threats, and how people who feel stuck will sometimes try to drag others back down to feel better about their own lack of action. You will hear...

EP 3595 Why is fear so paralysing

The Strong Life Project Podcast

Fear isn’t just an emotion. It’s a biological alarm system designed to keep you alive. In this episode, I break down why fear can feel so paralysing, even when the threat isn’t real, immediate, or rational. When your nervous system reads danger, it prioritises survival over logic. That’s why you can know what to do and still feel stuck, avoidant, reactive, or frozen. We unpack the three common fear responses most people cycle through without realising: fight, flight, and freeze. Freeze is the one that looks like procrastination, overthinking, perfectionism, scrolling, shutting down,...

EP 3594 Don’t get to the top of the ladder and realise it’s against the wrong wall

The Strong Life Project Podcast

Most people think the goal is to climb faster. Work harder. Get more done. Win more. But here’s the brutal truth: you can spend years doing everything “right” and still end up miserable if you’re climbing the wrong ladder. In this episode, I break down why high achievers often feel flat, restless, or secretly resentful even when life looks successful from the outside. It is not because you are ungrateful. It is because your direction is wrong. You have been optimising effort instead of alignment. We unpack the warning signs that you are chasing someone else’s definition of success:...

EP 3593 The parable of the Mexican fisherman

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In this episode, I unpack the parable of the Mexican fisherman and why it punches so hard if you’re ambitious, driven, and chasing the next milestone. A tourist watches a fisherman bring in a catch, then suggests “improving” his life: buy a bigger boat, hire staff, scale the operation, build a fleet, sell to a distributor, then one day cash out and retire to a quiet coastal village where he can fish a little, nap with his kids, spend time with his wife, and play guitar with friends at night. Here’s the twist: that “dream retirement” is already the fisherman’s current life. We use...

EP 3592 You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In episode 3592 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun unpacks a simple truth that most high performers forget when life gets rough: you don’t control the ocean, you control your response. The “waves” are pressure, setbacks, conflict, fatigue, uncertainty, grief, and the problems that show up at the worst time. If you keep trying to stop the waves, you waste energy fighting reality and you miss the only leverage you actually have. This episode reframes resilience as a trainable skill, not a personality trait. Shaun explains why calm isn’t the absence of chaos, it’s the ability to stay...

EP 3591 Never miss two days in a row

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In EP 3591, Never miss two days in a row, you get a simple rule that stops small slip ups turning into a full collapse. One day off happens. Life hits. Motivation dips. But the second missed day is where the identity damage starts. This episode breaks down why your brain treats two missed days as permission to quit, and how to interrupt that pattern before it becomes a new normal. You will hear the difference between a mistake and a mindset. Missing one workout is a scheduling issue. Missing two is often a story you start telling yourself about who you are and what you do. The point is not...

EP 3590 The deferred life hypothesis

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In EP 3590 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman pulls apart the deferred life hypothesis: the quiet belief that real living starts later. Later when the kids are older, when the business is stable, when you’re leaner, calmer, richer, or finally “sorted”. It sounds responsible. It is often disguised avoidance. This episode names the cost of that pattern. When you keep postponing joy, connection, health, and meaning, you don’t stay neutral. You drift. The goalposts move, the workload expands, and your nervous system learns that relief only arrives after the next milestone. For...

EP 3589 Sometimes you can just do what you can do

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In EP 3589, Sometimes you can just do what you can do, I unpack a truth most people resist until life forces it on them. There are seasons where you are not going to be at your best, and pretending otherwise just adds guilt, stress, and self sabotage. Sometimes you are carrying fatigue, grief, pressure, illness, family strain, or just the mental load of being human. In those moments, the goal is not peak performance. The goal is staying in the game. This episode is about stripping things back to what is controllable. Your next decision. Your smallest repeatable action. Your non-negotiables....

EP 3588 What question would you ask yourself one year ago?

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In this episode, I challenge you to use a simple question to create a brutal level of self honesty: if you could speak to yourself from one year ago, what would you ask them and why. This is not about regret. It is about responsibility. Because the quality of your future is directly tied to the quality of the questions you are willing to face right now. We unpack how most people drift because they avoid the hard conversations with themselves. They stay busy, distracted, and reactive. A year passes, then another, and nothing meaningful changes because nothing meaningful is confronted. This...

EP 3587 Why don’t we ask ourselves tough questions?

The Strong Life Project Podcast

In EP 3587, Shaun gets blunt about the one habit that quietly ruins progress: avoiding tough questions. Most people say they want change, but they keep asking themselves soft questions that protect comfort, protect ego, and protect the story they tell themselves about why their life is the way it is. This episode is a wake up call to stop negotiating with your potential and start interrogating your patterns. You will be challenged to look at what you are tolerating, what you are avoiding, and what you keep blaming on circumstances when it is really a standards problem. Shaun breaks down why...

More Episodes

Life does not get easier because you wish it would. In this episode of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman cuts through the modern obsession with comfort and explains why strength, not relief, is the answer. High performers do not beg for fewer challenges. They build the capacity to carry more responsibility, pressure, and adversity without breaking.

This episode is a direct challenge to anyone waiting for life to slow down, calm down, or become fair. It will not. The only sustainable solution is to grow stronger mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. When you expand your capacity, the same problems that once overwhelmed you become manageable.

Key Takeaways

Why asking for less struggle keeps you weak and dependent
How developing resilience changes your relationship with pressure
The difference between coping and true strength
Why responsibility is the pathway to confidence and self respect
How to train yourself to handle harder days without losing control

If you feel stretched, tested, or under pressure, this episode will reframe everything. Stop negotiating with life. Build yourself into someone who can handle it.

Listen now and start developing the shoulders required for the life you want to live.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

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