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Dai Manuel was today’s guest on the Dads with Daughters Podcast. We explored his journey as a father to two daughters but beyond that we talk about nutrition, health and well
Instead of collecting things and stuff, they pivoted a number of years ago to be able to have more experiences then things. This led him to quit his career, give away all of their stuff and packed up a SUV and started traveling. They first traveled around the USA, but then moved overseas to Bali, Indonesia.
Dai stated that he struggled a bit when his daughters transitioned from being a young girl to a woman and his girls pulling away and no longer wanting to sit on his lap watching a movie, but he noticed that he was feeling more uncomfortable to know what his role was during these changes.
In asking him about his fears in raising a daughter. His wife asked him whether he is the type of person that he would want to marry his daughter and it was at this point that he realized that he needed to look at his priorities. This changed everything for him to remove alcohol from his life, but also other crutches that helped him for the better. Now, his biggest fear is that he is not supporting them enough in allowing them to become the person that they are wanting to become. He now works to help them to know that they have the tools to become successful.
Dai Manuel has positioned himself as an expert in health, wellness and fitness and continues to mentor others in helping them to find health in their own lives. Dai explained that he learned through mistakes. He explained that he was morbidly obese when he was a child. He shared that he became obese through what he was eating. He watched a lot of movies and played a lot of video games and at age 14, he found that he was depressed, withdrawn and did not like what he saw in the mirror. He even was suicidal at one point to a point when he ended up breaking down and thinking about death. As Dai stated “When you are more scared about staying the same, then changing, then you know that you are ready for a change.“
At age 15 he went to the library and started learning about fitness and nutrition. He looked at mentors for advice. He had supportive parents, but it was not until he was ready to change that he started to change. It took 20 months to make these changes in his life. It was a big shift that people noticed and he started to have people asking him for advice which was not something that he had before.
Many of us have had hyper-focused on our careers, our role as dad or other things where we start living life on auto pilot but we forget to start thinking about ourselves and figuring out how we can live a full life. As Dai asks, you need to know, “What do I want?” “What do I want out of the relationships in my life” As you start to explore these things you will find that you can start to make changes in your life that are long-standing.
Dai Manuel says if you take 30 minutes a day as a start and to not be as attached to results as it takes a while to get to a new lifestyle. What you are doing to find fitness should be fun, not work. You have to trust the process and the purpose will come. Dai offers 30 minute exercises for all for free. He also has shared all of his fitness thoughts in a book called the Whole Fitness Manifesto that you can find for free on his website too.
