Every year, you’re going to have bad days. Some will test your body. Some will hit your family. Some will shake your faith. Others will put pressure on your finances. The goal isn’t to build a life where nothing goes wrong. It’s to build yourself into someone who can keep moving when it does.
At Teach Me About Property, that bigger picture matters.
Property and wealth are part of the conversation, but they’re not the whole conversation.
The philosophy comes back to what we call the Four Fs: Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance.
Because what good is building wealth if your health is falling apart? What good is owning five properties if you’ve lost connection with the people you built them for? And when life brings you to your knees, money alone isn’t always what gets you back up.
That’s where Massey Archibald’s 100 Bad Days Framework comes in.
TL;DR: What are the 100 Bad Days?
The idea is simple:
- Expect roughly 100 bad days in any given year.
- Around 10 of them may bring you to your knees.
- One might feel like it could almost break you.
- Don’t allow one bad day to become a bad week, month or year.
- Keep showing up across the Four Fs: Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance.
- The difficult days aren’t interruptions to your life. They’re part of it.
On a recent episode of the Teach Me About Property Podcast, Massey put it this way:
“You don’t get 365 great days where you wake up in the morning bouncing out of bed going, ‘I’m gonna smash it today.’ That ain’t how it works.”
That line is bigger than property.
It’s about life.
Why do we act surprised when life gets hard?
We know bad days are coming. Yet somehow, when they arrive, we behave as if the entire plan has failed.
Think about a normal year.
Someone in the family gets sick.
Work becomes stressful.
You stop training for a few days.
An unexpected bill lands.
A relationship gets tested.
Something you’ve been praying for doesn’t happen when you hoped it would.
The bank says no.
You lose someone.
You wake up one morning and simply don’t have much in the tank.
None of that necessarily means your life is going in the wrong direction.
It means you’re living one.
Massey’s framework is useful because it changes your expectations before the hard days arrive.
Assume 100 of them are coming.
Not 100 disasters. Just 100 days where things aren’t going your way. You’re tired. Frustrated. Hurt. Angry. Distracted. Worried.
Then assume 10 will be really hard.
And maybe one will bring you close to your limit.
Once you expect those days, you stop treating them as proof that you should quit.
One TMAP student joked that she’d already used up her bad days.
Massey’s response?
“Only got 99 left, baby.”
There’s humour in it.
But there’s also a serious lesson.
The bad day isn’t necessarily the problem. What you do because you’re having a bad day can become the problem.
What do the Four Fs have to do with resilience?
At TMAP, the Four Fs — Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance — provide a way of looking at success as a whole life rather than a bank balance.
And here’s what becomes interesting about the 100 Bad Days Framework:
A bad day rarely stays neatly inside one category.
Financial stress comes home with you.
Family pressure affects your sleep.
Poor health changes your energy.
A crisis can test what you believe.
Stress at work can follow you into the gym, then sit beside you at dinner.
Everything touches everything.
That’s why resilience can’t only be financial.
You need something stronger.
Fitness: What do you do when you don’t feel like showing up?
Fitness might be the easiest place to understand the 100 Bad Days Framework because the feedback is immediate.
Everyone can train when they feel great.
You’ve slept well. You’re motivated. The music is hitting right. You’ve got energy.
Those sessions are easy to show up for.
But then there’s Tuesday morning after a terrible night’s sleep.
You’re sore.
Work is on your mind.
You don’t feel strong.
You know before you’ve even started that you’re not breaking any personal records today.
That session matters.
During the podcast discussion, Massey made the point that what you do on the difficult day can matter more than what you do when you feel great.
Maybe you don’t lift as heavy.
Maybe you don’t run as far.
Maybe the session is ugly.
But you show up.
That builds something beyond muscle.
It teaches you:
I don’t need to feel good to keep my commitment.
And that lesson travels.
It travels into your finances.
It travels into your family.
It travels into your work.
It travels into your faith.
The goal on a bad day isn’t always to smash your PB.
Sometimes the win is simply refusing to disappear.
Why do your “PBs become warmup weights”?
Resilience works a lot like physical training.
The weight that once felt impossible eventually becomes manageable because your body has adapted to carrying it.
Massey described it on the podcast like this:
“Your PBs become warmup weights.”
Then he connected the idea directly to finances.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Think about something that terrified you five years ago.
Maybe it was your first serious job interview.
Your first mortgage application.
Your first child.
Your first major loss.
Your first difficult conversation with your partner.
Your first time walking into a gym feeling like everybody else knew what they were doing.
At the time, it felt enormous.
Now?
You’ve carried heavier things.
That’s what difficult days can do when you don’t run from them.
They give you reps.
Family: Are the people you love getting the best of you — or what’s left of you?
Family is often where a bad day becomes dangerous.
Not because your family caused it.
Because they’re usually standing closest to you when you bring it home.
You have a terrible day at work.
You walk through the front door carrying it.
Someone asks an innocent question.
You snap.
Your child wants your attention, but your head is still inside the email you received three hours ago.
Your partner tries to talk about something important and you give them half of yourself because you’re thinking about money.
That’s how one bad day spreads.
The 100 Bad Days Framework isn’t about pretending you’re happy.
Sometimes you’re not.
It’s about recognising:
This is a bad day. It doesn’t need to become everybody else’s bad day too.
There will also be times when family is the bad day.
Relationships get tested.
Children struggle.
Parents get older.
People become sick.
Marriages change.
Families lose people they love.
These aren’t problems you solve with a motivational quote.
Sometimes the only thing you can do is stay present.
And that counts.
What can one family’s story teach us about the Four Fs?
One of the most powerful examples discussed by Massey involves a TMAP mum whose life changed dramatically.
She was separated.
She had four young children.
Her financial circumstances had changed.
The family structure she knew had shifted underneath her.
It would be easy to tell that story purely through Finance:
She retained an asset. She moved back with her parents. She rented out her property. She later expanded her property position and developed a long-term plan.
But that misses half the story.
This wasn’t just a property strategy.
It was a mother trying to work out:
What does the next decade look like for my children and me?
She made decisions while dealing with the emotional reality of separation and raising four kids.
That’s Family and Finance colliding in real life.
She could have allowed the hardest period of her life to dictate every decision that followed.
Instead, the difficult moment became the point from which she started rebuilding.
Massey summed up the idea:
“Difficult moments define us. Not because of what we experience, but because of how we respond.”
That’s the 100 Bad Days Framework in one sentence.
Faith: What holds you when you can’t control the outcome?
Faith becomes particularly important when you reach the limits of what you can control.
You can train.
You can work.
You can save.
You can build a plan.
You can protect your family as best you can.
But eventually life introduces you to something you can’t spreadsheet your way out of.
A diagnosis.
A death.
A relationship ending.
A door that doesn’t open.
A situation where you’ve done everything you reasonably can and the answer is still:
Wait.
For people of faith, those moments force a different question.
Not simply:
How do I fix this?
But:
Who am I going to be while I walk through this?
Faith doesn’t mean pretending pain isn’t real.
It doesn’t mean every setback magically makes sense.
And it certainly doesn’t mean you won’t have bad days.
It gives those days somewhere to sit.
Sometimes faith looks powerful.
Other times it looks like turning up to church tired.
Praying when you don’t have the words.
Sitting quietly.
Asking for help.
Trusting when you’d rather have certainty.
That’s still showing up.
Just like the gym.
Just like your family.
Just like your finances.
Finance: Why can one emotional day cost you years?
Money is where a bad day can leave a very long shadow.
You can make a financial decision in ten minutes that takes ten years to undo.
Massey gave a simple example on the podcast.
Imagine you’ve been saving for your first home.
You’ve managed to put away $25,000.
That’s months — maybe years — of saying no to things.
Then the bank knocks back your loan application.
You’re devastated.
And the emotional response becomes:
“Oh, that’s it.”
Then, as Massey described it:
“You take the 25 Gs, bam. Gone.”
The rejection wasn’t what destroyed the plan.
The response to the rejection did.
That’s a huge distinction.
Bad financial days are inevitable.
Interest rates change.
Cars break.
Tenants leave.
Applications get rejected.
Investments don’t behave the way you expected.
Jobs change.
The danger comes when temporary frustration creates permanent decisions.
That’s why one of the best rules you can adopt is:
Don’t make a 10-year financial decision because you’re having a 10-hour emotional reaction.
How do you stop one bad day becoming a bad year?
The answer isn’t to suppress it. Massey’s approach is closer to isolating the bad day.
He described resilient people as those who:
“Isolate the bad days.”
There’s something wonderfully practical about that.
Had a shocking day?
Fine.
Go home.
Get takeaway.
Call somebody.
Have a cry.
Sit quietly.
Pray.
Go to the gym and lift badly.
Don’t answer the email tonight.
Go to bed.
Whatever your version is.
But don’t burn the whole plan down.
Contain the damage.
That’s the skill.
A bad workout doesn’t mean you stop training.
An argument doesn’t mean your family is broken.
A difficult season doesn’t mean your faith has failed.
A financial setback doesn’t mean you’ll never build wealth.
Tomorrow gets its own decision.
How can you use the 100 Bad Days Framework across the Four Fs?
The framework becomes much more useful when you decide what a “minimum viable day” looks like before you need one.
| The Four Fs | A good day might look like | On a bad day, protect this |
|---|---|---|
| Fitness | Full workout, good nutrition, high energy | Move your body. Do something rather than nothing. |
| Family | Quality time, patience, connection | Don’t make the people you love pay for a problem they didn’t create. |
| Faith | Prayer, worship, reflection, community | Stay connected, even when you don’t have answers. |
| Finance | Saving, investing, progressing the plan | Don’t make an emotional decision that damages the long-term goal. |
Notice something?
The bad-day standard isn’t perfection.
It’s continuity.
You’re protecting the habit.
Protecting the relationship.
Protecting your grounding.
Protecting the plan.
That’s enough.
Why does TMAP think in 10-year horizons?
A long-term horizon makes today’s problems smaller without pretending they aren’t real.
Massey uses a question that cuts through a lot of noise:
“What battle are you fighting today that you don’t want to be fighting in 10 years?”
Think about that through all Four Fs.
Fitness
Do you still want to be fighting the same battle with your health in 10 years?
Family
Do you want the same distance, arguments or lack of time with the people closest to you?
Faith
Do you want to spend another decade disconnected from the values and beliefs that ground you?
Finance
Do you want to be having the same arguments about money, carrying the same consumer debt or telling yourself you’ll start investing “next year”?
Ten years sounds enormous.
It isn’t.
It arrives one ordinary Tuesday at a time.
That’s why the choices you make on bad days matter so much.
Why is resilience a skill rather than a personality trait?
People sometimes look at someone who has survived a difficult period and assume they’re simply tougher.
Maybe.
More often, they’ve had reps.
They’ve been through enough difficult days to recognise one when it arrives.
Massey described the progression this way:
“When you get through enough bad days, eventually you get to the point where, well, I can get through anything.”
That doesn’t mean nothing hurts anymore.
It means you’ve developed evidence.
You’ve been exhausted before.
You’ve been broke before.
You’ve been rejected before.
You’ve had your heart broken before.
You’ve doubted yourself before.
You’ve walked into the gym when you didn’t want to.
You’ve had the difficult conversation.
You’ve prayed when you didn’t understand.
You’ve rebuilt the savings account.
You’ve started again.
And you’re still here.
That’s evidence.
The Four Fs aren’t four separate lives
This might be the most important part of the whole framework.
Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance shouldn’t be treated as four boxes competing for your attention.
They’re connected.
Getting physically stronger can change your energy and discipline.
That energy follows you home.
A strong family gives purpose to the financial plan.
Faith can provide perspective when both family and finance become difficult.
Financial stability can give a family choices — more time, less stress and the ability to help others.
Massey talks about TMAP’s next stage as a “lifestyle inducing venture.” He describes a team doing work they enjoy, being well remunerated and accomplishing “the hopes and dreams that they have for their families.”
That is a much broader definition of wealth.
Money should enable the life. It shouldn’t become the life.
What happens when one of the Four Fs is struggling?
Don’t automatically abandon the other three.
This is where people get caught.
Finance gets difficult, so they stop training.
Work gets difficult, so family gets whatever energy remains.
Family gets difficult, so they disconnect from everyone.
Health gets difficult, so the financial plan goes out the window.
One bad area begins consuming everything.
Sometimes a genuine crisis will require most of your attention. That’s life.
But where possible, keep a thread attached to the other areas.
You don’t need a perfect workout.
Walk.
You don’t need to solve the entire family issue tonight.
Have the conversation.
You don’t need to understand everything about what you’re going through.
Pray.
You don’t need to make a giant financial leap this month.
Don’t destroy the progress you’ve already made.
Keep the thread.
That’s how you find your way back.
What does success actually look like at TMAP?
Property matters to Teach Me About Property. It’s in the name.
But property is a vehicle.
Finance is a vehicle.
The bigger goal is choice.
Massey describes wanting TMAP students to reach a position where they’re accomplishing the hopes and dreams they have for their families.
That’s why the Four Fs matter.
The goal isn’t to become wealthy but physically broken.
It isn’t to become incredibly fit while your family never sees you.
It isn’t to talk about faith while ignoring the practical responsibilities sitting in front of you.
And it isn’t to create a beautiful family life while refusing to have the difficult conversations about money that could protect its future.
Fitness. Family. Faith. Finance.
Not perfectly balanced every day.
Life doesn’t work like that.
But moving together over time.
What should you do on your next bad day?
First, recognise it.
Say it:
This is one of the 100.
Then ask four questions:
- Fitness: What’s the smallest healthy thing I can still do today?
- Family: Who needs me to be present rather than perfect?
- Faith: What do I need to trust, reflect on or reconnect with instead of trying to control everything?
- Finance: Is the decision I’m about to make helping my long-term plan — or am I reacting emotionally to today?
Then do the next useful thing.
Not the next 50 things.
One.
That’s how difficult years are survived.
That’s how families rebuild.
That’s how bodies get stronger.
That’s how faith deepens.
That’s how wealth gets built.
Not through 365 perfect days.
Through enough imperfect ones where you refused to quit.
Your bad days are part of the plan
Nobody gets 365 great days.
You’ll have mornings when you’re ready to attack everything in front of you.
You’ll also have mornings when getting out of bed feels like the first victory.
Both count.
The aim isn’t to eliminate the second kind.
It’s to stop being surprised by them.
Expect 100 bad days.
Expect some to hurt.
Expect a handful to test everything you’ve been building.
Then remember:
One bad day doesn’t get to decide your health.
One bad day doesn’t get to decide your family.
One bad day doesn’t get to decide your faith.
One bad day doesn’t get to decide your financial future.
You still get to decide what happens next.
And eventually, something interesting happens.
The things that once felt unbearably heavy become weights you’ve carried before.
Your PBs become warmup weights.
That’s resilience.
And that’s what the Four Fs are really about.
Hear More Conversations About the Four Fs on the Teach Me About Property Podcast
The Teach Me About Property Podcast isn’t only a conversation about buying houses.
Because building wealth should ultimately help you build a life worth living.
Fitness. Family. Faith. Finance.
Listen to more episodes of the Teach Me About Property Podcast
Frequently Asked Questions
What are TMAP’s Four Fs?
TMAP’s Four Fs are Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance. Together, they provide a broader framework for thinking about personal success. Rather than measuring progress only through money or property, the Four Fs encourage people to consider their physical wellbeing, relationships, beliefs and financial future together.
What is the 100 Bad Days Framework?
The 100 Bad Days Framework is Massey Archibald’s way of normalising life’s difficult periods. Instead of expecting every day to be productive or positive, anticipate roughly 100 difficult days each year. The goal is not avoiding them, but learning to respond without allowing temporary setbacks to derail long-term progress.
How can I stop a bad day from becoming a bad week?
Recognise the day for what it is and avoid making major emotional decisions while you’re inside it. Reduce the intensity if necessary, but maintain some continuity across the things that matter. Rest, seek support and deal with the immediate issue without automatically abandoning your longer-term commitments.
Why are Fitness, Family, Faith and Finance connected?
Each area can influence the others. Financial stress can affect relationships and health, while poor health can influence work and family life. Strong relationships, physical wellbeing and faith can also provide perspective during financial difficulty. The Four Fs encourage a more connected definition of long-term success.
Is Teach Me About Property only about property investing?
Property and financial education remain central to TMAP, but the conversations extend into the life people are trying to create through financial progress. Massey has described TMAP’s direction in terms of enabling people to accomplish hopes and dreams for their families and creating a lifestyle around meaningful work and financial success.
Disclaimer
This article is general educational content based on themes discussed on the Teach Me About Property Podcast. It is not personal financial, investment, legal, health or religious advice. Individual circumstances vary, and financial or property decisions should be considered carefully with appropriate professional advice where required.
