How to Rebuild Trust at Home in the Next 30 Days #697

I used to think providing meant working hard and earning good money. Then a mate's wife told me something that stopped me in my tracks, and made me realise I was quietly eroding the trust my own wife had in me, without even knowing it.

In this episode, I break down the three reasons your family might be losing trust in you, why money alone isn't enough anymore, and the simple 30-day process to stack proof that you're the man you say you are.

You'll learn:
- Why your family doesn't care that you're working hard — they care that you keep your word
- The 3 trust leaks draining your relationship at home right now
- Why "money isn't enough" and what your family actually needs from you
- The daily deposit system — how small, consistent actions compound into deep trust
- How to stop overpromising and start under-promising and over-delivering
- Why your family is getting your leftovers (and how to come home with something left)
- The finish line method — how setting a work end time changes everything at home

I also share the honest moment I realised I was doing this to my own wife Amy, even while thinking I was showing up for my family.

I’m taking 10 business owners through an 8-week program to build a Protected Week, so work has a finish line and home stops getting the scraps. Founding spots are open: https://wkf.ms/4foUmo1

Transcript

Why Providing Is More Than Money

Lachlan Stuart 0:00

I used to think providing meant working hard and earning a lot of money, but I'm starting to realize that there are so many more ways to provide for your family. Because when you say to your family you're going to be home at five and that turns into 6.15 to 7.30, not only do you lose the time with your family, but your word starts to lose trust. So in this video, I'm going to show you how you can stack enough proof, especially over the next 30 days, to be the man that your family knows you can be, but also just be the man that you know you can be. We want to bring back that word so that your family doesn't lose trust in you. So I'm going to have a my screen shared here. So I'm just going to make sure that I'm sharing it at the same time so that we can follow along for those of you who are visual learners. And remember, if you're wanting to learn more stuff around this, make sure you just hit the follow button.

When Being Late Breaks Trust

Lachlan Stuart 0:49

This became real for me, family losing trust in you because I was having a conversation with a mate's wife the other day, and we were chatting, and she was just saying how pissed off she's getting because her husband keeps saying, Hey, I'll be home at five, and then five turns into 5:30, which turns into six, and then he's missing dinner. And when he rolls in, she's already frustrated because she's had to put the kids down. She's had dinner on the plate, and he's just not been home. And I had to jump in, I was like, Yeah, but isn't it cool that he's working hard for the family? And she cut me off really quickly. She said, Lockie, it's not the fact that he's working late, it's the fact that he's not keeping his word. As she was saying this, I'm thinking to myself, holy shit, this is exactly me right now with my wife. I'm in a sprint season, and I think there's an important thing to talk about here, that there's a season where we sprint, you have to go all in on work, and then there are seasons where we put ourselves in a position where maybe business is going well, but we're conditioned to do the same thing. So we continue working those long hours and we haven't set up the boundaries. And that's what I really want to give you today is a tool and a process that you can take away so that there is a finish line so you stop letting your family down. But I remember when I was thinking about that more, I'm like, well, even because I'm in a sprint, I just have to communicate more effectively because I have been that dude who says to my wife, because we have a new son, I'm gonna be home at three. And then when I'm home, I'm walking through the door, I'm still checking emails, I will put Freddy on the ground and I'll quickly um jump on the computer and do a little bit. So I'm not really there. She's probably thinking to herself, I'd rather you be home. But the more important part is that I know she's probably I'm eroding away at the trust that she has in my word because I'm not doing what I said I would do. And that hit me, and that is what sent me down and made me want to make this video because I know that I'm not the first bloke and I definitely won't be the last. And if you're in a similar position and you're worried about your family losing trust in you, this is going to

The Three Trust Leaks At Home

Lachlan Stuart 2:49

be a great one. So the key outcome for you guys is I want to help you stop letting your family down and give you evidence over the next 30 days that you can keep your word. And there's three things that we want to look at here, and let me just get my highlighter open. Three three reasons why that's not happening. The first obstacle for most of us is that money isn't enough. Okay, we have to give more than money, and we need to look at what that looks like. The second part is that your words, the second challenge that's stopping your that's making your family lose trust in you is that your words mean less because you're not doing what you said you would do. And finally, the one that really kicks is your family's getting the leftovers. So I want to give you a bit of a roadmap that we can go through so that you can give more the money, you can keep your small promises, and you can come home with something left, you know, energy left to give to your family. So let's dive into this first part here.

Family Needs And Daily Deposits

Lachlan Stuart 3:41

If you look to the left here, we want to learn to give more than money. We've all grown up, I know you and I have grown up, especially as a business owner, the best way you can provide is you grow your business, you hopefully increase your profit margins, and you provide a better life for your family. I know that it's something that I pride myself on, not only the satisfaction of building something that's meaningful, but also being able to look after my family, put food on the table, take my family on trips. Like that's nice. I love the moments and the experiences that that gets to create. So I do find value in earning money, but there is also more that we can give, and we need to start thinking about what that is. So if we know that there's more money to give, more than we have more to give than money, we need to start thinking about what that is. So this brings me to the first point here, which is what are your family needs? So rather than me just telling you what you should do, I want to give you the bit of a roadmap that you can think about that's gonna help you decide what your family needs. So you might take 60 seconds now, or you might just think as you're driving, what are some of the things that your family needs? So, an example for me is yeah, they need money because I want to put a nice roof over their head. I want to be able to take them on trips and experiences. But my family also needs time. You know, my wife needs me there to know that I'm walking side by side with her through life by helping raise Freddie, by being in the around the kitchen to help either hold him or contribute when we're cooking, like to just know that she I'm dependable. There also wants to be experiences, right? The benefit of, well, not even the benefit, one of the things that we committed to when we were getting married is that we wanted to create experiences together and have moments that we could look back and go, wow, like I can't believe we really did that. And those, I guess, daily deposits, which is the second point, are the things that make us fall more in love with each other, but also help us experience life together. My family needs safety, that that comfort in safety. So we want to start thinking about what those are. And if you hang around to the end, I'm gonna give you guys a worksheet or one pager, so it's super simple. It'll take you less than three minutes that can help you identify this and and get a bit of a roadmap happening and get clear on a few things so that there's an outcome for you rather than just listening, because we need the content, which is what you're listening to now, but we also want to implement it. But if we look at the second slide that I've put up here, and I'll get Danithia who's editing my videos, she's an absolute champion. I've just put two in the in the corner there. If you can put this slide up and we'll we'll ride through it. But essentially, we want to look at two things here. The first one is circle one, it's like this is what we're doing. We're providing, and we can give them all the money, but we should also be able to provide financially. But what else can we do to provide? So for me, I've put things down here. I need to be there emotionally. I want to be able to make my wife feel secure, I want her to feel loved, I want her to feel safe, I want to provide comfort, I want to not have my family go through all the hardships that I went through. And I think the thing there as well is I still want my young son Freddie, and if we have another kid, to do hard things because there's so much value. You guys know I love doing hard things. I ran 58 marathons in 58 days for Christ's sake. But there's benefits in that, but also providing comfort so that we can develop properly. So I want you to, if you're there and you're following along, you can just grab two circles, and on one side you can say, Hey, all right, well, we're providing, providing financially. In the other box, list down the things that you want to provide as well. What else do you want to provide? Because if I'm looking at the things that providing money can help me achieve, ultimately they're going to allow me to put food on the table. All the things that I've already said, I don't need to keep going on and on and on with that. But you'll get your list here, okay? And once you have enough there, you'll realize hey, me actually being home when I said I would be home is important and it still is a way to provide. It's just a different way, right? It's something that's maybe not tracked or measured as easily as finances are, because it's easy to see on a spreadsheet. Am I making more than I'm spending? Yes, no, okay, well, that's good. But what about emotionally? What are those deposits? And that brings me back to point two, okay, which we're looking at here, which is our daily deposits. For me, the daily deposits, we get to experience compound growth. If you're throwing something in a savings compound account and it continues to do that annually or weekly or daily, the growth is going to be significant. But you don't notice in the moment while you're doing those daily deposits, it's in a year's time, 30 days' time, 10 years' time, where you get to go, wow, my family and I, we have such a great connection. We understand each other, we are open with each other about our challenges, our fears, our excitements, our stresses. And that happened because daily I put the work in, I put the daily deposits in because I knew that there was more to give than money. And so you can start looking at that. And the cool thing about the daily deposits is you're actually giving yourself an action item. Okay. It's really important to give ourselves action items, which is what I would put in this middle circle here, can be our action items. But what I want to want you to think about here just quickly is if we look at just providing money, I believe that's old school, right? Old school way of being a great bloke. I still think it's important, don't get me wrong. I think you should provide. I'm a big believer we should provide financially for our family. Then we've got the new school, which is like we want to be an emotional dad, talk about our feelings, all of that sort of stuff, right? And I think once again, also important, new school, old school, but what I think the ultimate is is being able to do both. Because I see some people who go so far to the new school that they don't contribute financially, and everyone's different. I understand every finan every family dynamic is different. So don't get me wrong, but I'm a big believer that if we want to be the best version of ourselves as a bloke and you want to see what you're truly capable of, that means you want to have purpose across multiple areas. You want to find a way to contribute to your family financially so that your wife knows that you're there to support, but also being able to be there across the park in the other areas from an emotional standpoint, from a safety standpoint. And that's where the ultimate is. And it's that that blend here in the middle. I'll go, let's get red. Red's a cool color. But that's where we want to sit in the ultimate male. So I want you to think about what has to happen for you to be there and ultimately what's your your version of that. So if you can get clear on how much money you need to financially provide, then you can look at what else do you want to provide and how else are you gonna start doing that. You'll then tick that daily deposit part and you'll understand your family needs. So easy place to start. But I can promise you that by doing that, your family's gonna be like, whoa, Loki's showing up for me and he's not letting me down because he's depositing, he knows he understands what our family needs, and it's more than just money. He understands that we want him around, he understands that we want to go have experiences, he understands that we just want to lay in bed at night and read a book together, that his presence is enough. And by doing that consistently, and let's just say, for example, over the next 30 days, you do that, you're giving yourself evidence and you're giving your family evidence that you're trustworthy, right? That you're reliable. And that is so important here when we're trying to do that over the next 30 days. So money is not enough. You have more to give than money. Figure out what that is. And if you want to find out more, you definitely should probably look at what we have in the program that's available for men. You can find more information in the link below. Anyway, let's move on to part number

Small Promises That Stack Proof

Lachlan Stuart 11:26

two. This is the fun part. So we're looking over here for those who are following along on YouTube with the diagram. But this is where we want to look at keeping small promises to yourself and keeping small promises to the family. So when you're not doing that, your family starts to believe that your words mean less, right? If you're the guy who says to your wife, I'm gonna be home at 5 p.m., 5 p.m. rolls around, you've just started one more job, you're like, Oh, it's a quick job, or it's a quick email, and then that turns into 5.13, which turns into 5.30, and then you're like, crap. And then another job or another email rolls in, which always happens to us business owners, you keep doing it, but your your words mean less. And it's not about the fact that you're working hard, it's just the fact that if you're saying one thing and doing something else, how do you expect your family to trust you? So, point number one or step number one is stop overpromising. If you are in a sprint season, which happens when you're a business owner and if you're just starting business, if and you're in the first two to three years of business, you gotta work hard. But you need to be honest about it. So you might say to your wife or whoever needs to know, I'm in a sprint season and this is gonna last for X amount of time. You can't sprint all year round, but you might say I'm gonna do a four-week or a six-week or an eight-week sprint, which means I'm gonna be working longer hours. A lot of my intentions are going to be going to work, but I still want to be there for the family and I want to be there for friends and for these special moments. But this is how my calendar is gonna look. So that way you can stop overpromising. And I can say to my wife, I'll say to Amy, hey, I'm doing a four-week sprint to fill my next program, which means I'm gonna work from probably 8 a.m. till 7 p.m. Is that okay? I want to make sure that I have my wife's support because I don't want to lose my money, uh, my wife at the expense of growing a business. Like to me, that's not worth it. For some of you, maybe it is. Um, so we want to just make sure that we have the conversations, we stop over-promising. And the best way to do that, gents, is just use a calendar and do what you said you would do. So if you're overpromising, generally you've committed to too many things. So just wind back the commitments. Don't commit to too many things. You might be uh doing multiple things a day, cut it back to one, two, or three, right? I work off three main things a day because it also helps me set a finish line for work, which is a really important thing and something that we help help our clients design in the business. Because if you understand when your finish line is, you can then start going into planning for the next day and having a shutdown process so that work's done, you're then moving towards home. So we've ticked off that, right? Stop overpromising. Now let's move to track the proof, right? So this is where we track the proof that you're doing what you said you would do. Once again, if you're saying that you're going to be home at 5 p.m., you want to be rolling in the door really at 4 55, right? You want to be early to those meetings because your family goes, What? He's reliable, he's on time. How good is that? And you track the proof. You literally, you could, if you're working for someone, you will have those hours logged. But if you're working for yourself, just create a piece of paper or you can go to the sheet that I'll give you at the end here. Let me find out. I'll call it the Family Trust League Finder. But you can just write it on the bottom of that what time you said you were going to finish for the day versus what time you actually did finish. And have you run later or have you not? Because when you work out if you're running later, we can start identifying the reasons why. Is it because you don't have a closing down process? Is it is it because you don't understand what you're sacrificing by not finishing at the time? Is it because you just keep going, one more job? Like what is it? Because when we get clear on what that is, we can get on top of making that work. So make sure you stop over promising, track the proof that you're doing what you said you would do, because those small promises, they will stack up. They will be the reason why when you're at a dinner with your family or your wife's talking to her friends and they're saying, Oh, my husband's not coming home on time, or I'm just not, you know, he's just not reliable. Your wife can turn her friends and say, Oh, Lockie's always on time. He shows up five minutes early, he does what he says he will do all the time. And it's not about committing to so many things, it's just stop overpromising, do the things that you said you would do. Now, I do have a little bit of a diagram to show you guys here, but let's just look at this. Like on the left-hand side here, if we look at trust, right, and then we've got down the bottom time. So, trust over time, here's two outcomes that we want to look for. The thing that is a really important pillar in the program with the blows that I work with, which is essentially helping them create a protected week, because we know if you protect your week, you're going to improve your marriage, you're going to get your energy back, and you're going to build a life that your business was ultimately meant to create. And that starts with setting the daily finish line versus if you don't have the finish line, we end up down here. So, what does that look like? We all start at a neutral point in a relationship, ultimately. And if you keep stacking the small promises over time, you go up, right? As that diagram shows. But what happens if you keep running 15 minutes over, 20 minutes over, an hour over, you end up down here over time. So your trust diminishes at home. You get to decide which way that is. Once again, very easy choices. You're one choice away from putting a vote in the corner that you are who you say you are, or you're once again one choice away from not being that. So that's what I want you to think about. Now, before we're getting very close to wrapping up, so thank you guys for being here with me. And if you're enjoying it, make sure you subscribe to the channel to so you keep getting more vids like

Stop Coming Home With Leftovers

Lachlan Stuart 16:51

this. Now, the final one, the biggest problem we get is your family gets the leftovers. The trust diminishes when they know that you're out there giving employees, colleagues, meetings, your workday the best of you, the energetic version of you, the optimistic version of you, the fun version of you, and you're coming home tired, you're coming home grumpy, you're work walking work through the door, you're walking your problems through the door and expecting your family to listen and to understand when they've been doing their own stuff and all they want is you to walk through the door and to be excited to be with them and to build the family unit. So we don't want our family to get the leftovers. That's the biggest obstacle we want to want to overcome. So our goal for you is to help you come home with something left, right? Come home with energy, come home excited to help out. And two very simple things here. As I said, we want to just set a finish line. The reason why we want to set that finish line is I at the moment personally starting at 8 a.m. and I'm finishing at 3 p.m. I'm starting a little bit later than I normally would because Freddy is a bit restless at night. So Amy will, you know, be up and down with him. She allows me to sleep through, and then I'm up from five till sort of eight with him, giving her an unbroken three hours. Then from eight, I'm on. And the reason why I'm finishing at three is because I want to fit in some training, but then I want to allow Amy to also train and have some time around the house. So I have a window of work. Now, the cool thing about having that finish line is it makes me very intentional and makes me prioritize what has to get done in the day. Now, if you're a business owner, you can't keep doing everything else. If you don't have the finish line, you'll keep working or you'll take work home with you. You can bet your bottom dollar that's going to ruin your home life. So by understanding that I only have X amount of hours to work, I'm like, shit, what are the most important things that I need to get done? And for me, as I said already, I choose two to three things that will, if I get those done, the work day is nailed. And so that's why we want to set that finish line rather than not having one done and sticking to it. The second thing is we want to lock in tomorrow. Right. So in order for us to be able to go home and not be thinking about work, we want to just know that the things that we need to get done tomorrow have a time in the calendar locked in because you once you put them down, you can put tools down, you can pack up, you can literally close your laptop down, and then the next day you can boot it all back up, you can look at your lock-in, your plan for tomorrow, which will actually be today on that day, and you can go, this is what I need to do, these are my top three priorities. I'm gonna set my finish line for the day and let's get to work. So the cool thing about that is essentially when you're saying you're gonna do something, what you mean to your family generally is let me do this. I care because most of us do care. And I I can almost promise if you're watching this, you're wanting to make your life better and you care. You're trying, of course, you're trying. You wouldn't be doing something without trying. Who does that? And the belief is we're doing it for our family. If you're like me, I'm doing it for my family for sure, but I'm also doing it for me because I love rolling through the door knowing that I'm able to take my family to Melbourne this weekend. I love the fact that we're going to Fiji later in the year. I love the fact that I have the flexibility to work from eight till three and spend my afternoons with Freddie and my wife. But what they're experiencing if I don't communicate effectively and if I don't go through that process is I'm coming home late, I'm coming home tired, I'm coming home distracted, or I'm still working around the house. And you can bet that they're getting pissed off that I'm not doing what I said I would do, and the trust would be eroding. So if you just focus on those three things, right? Let me get the highlighter, keep small promises, give them all the money, and come home with something left, you're gonna stop letting your family down. And if you do that day in, day out, you're gonna continue stacking proof and evidence that you are a reliable man, that you are a reliable husband, that you are a reliable family. So when you walk through the door, your wife's gonna be so stoked to see you because she's not going, oh, he's freaking late. She's like, Lockie's home. Your kids are gonna run up to you and be like, Dad, let's go play, because they know that you're on time. And more importantly, when you have energy, they can understand that you've got something to give. You get to give your family what matters most. And I can bet you that over the next two years, five years, ten years, you're gonna be in such a strong position in your marriage, your relationship with your kids, and the life that you've built because of these small changes here.

The Worksheet And One Small Repair

Lachlan Stuart 21:11

Now, if for those of you who stuck around and you want the Family Trust League Finder, it is a free downloadable PDF. Once again, you don't need to give me your email address or anything, you just click the link and save it from my Google Drive. I don't need your emails because I'm sure at one point, if you get value from this, you're gonna want to check out how I can help you further. But I just want to give you this quick win. So, to go through this worksheet quickly, you'll see here it says find the one place trust is leaking at home. This is just a great exercise for you to become more aware. So, step one, find the trust leak. Score each leak from one equals not true right now to five. This is the main issue. All you got to do literally is just highlight. So money isn't enough, you're providing financially, but your family is not getting enough time. I could say, yeah, that's probably pretty true, right? That's a four. My words lean, meaning less I'm sitting about a three, they get the leftovers, probably a three. So my main issue is that I'm not providing more in a different way. So you want to go through that there, as you can see. And then the step two is make the one small repair. So getting straight into action

Share Your Takeaway And Close

Lachlan Stuart 22:15

right away. So you can download that below in the comment section. If you've got value from it, make sure you come back next week because we've got more videos and drop in the comment what your main takeaway was. Thank you guys for being here, and we'll see you next week.