Fix This or Stay Single ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per minute
187.20555
Harmful content
Misogyny
18
sentences flagged
Toxicity
30
sentences flagged
Hate speech
12
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and former lacrosse player, Ben Jardine. We talk about his lacrosse career, how he got into lacrosse, and what it's like being a father to two boys who play lacrosse.
Transcript
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In life, we don't tap. We just wait till we get strangled and then our world falls apart.
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That's what happens is like you go through a bankruptcy or you go through a divorce or you
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deal with a crippling medical condition or some crisis that could have otherwise been averted
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because you didn't just tap and learn the lesson. You just doubled down and did the same dumb things
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you've been doing before and then things fall apart. You're like, what happened? Well, you had
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a dozen times to tap and say, hey, yeah, we can fix this. I want to figure out what's going on.
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i want to get better we don't take advantage of it all right brother what's going on man
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great to be back for another ask me anything how was your weekend did you have a good weekend
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aerator yard work i don't know the use yeah yeah we had a bunch of lacrosse games over here well
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that's good yeah that's nice it's it's funny it's like games we talk about this stuff and it's like
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so boring but every guy listening is like yeah i get that i wish we had a more eventful life
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sometimes we do we've got an event coming up so that'll be kind of eventful uh that one's in april
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april 23rd through the 26th if you want to come out to st louis and have a good time learning
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from great men like duane noel and gs youngblood and frank schwartz with f3 and larry hagner with
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the dead edge you got to be at that event that's going to be amazing that's at themensforge.com
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but yeah for me this weekend a bunch of lacrosse I think my boys had five lacrosse games last week
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my two oldest check so a tournament they're getting after it yeah it was a tournament this
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weekend and they're getting after I love I love lacrosse man I've fallen in love with that sport
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it is so incredible I wish it was I wish it was more prevalent when I was younger and that I had
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the opportunity to play but I didn't so I chose baseball which is also a great sport small town
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utah do you even know about lacrosse i never knew about lacrosse no i wasn't even on my radar i was
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growing up yeah but it's funny because i see videos or i see movies now or tv shows and old
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stuff like i was watching last of the mohicans um i don't know a month or so ago and one of the
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scenes is when those guys are actually playing lacrosse with native american indians and that
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that's it is a native american indian game uh from from canada i guess and so we co-opted that
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like we do everything else and you know here we are making the best of it and turn it into
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america's sport now second sport maybe how did the boys do uh they struggled you know they
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struggled as a team individually i think they both played pretty well um but it's funny we went we've
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got some natural hot springs here in southern utah and we went last night i thought it'd be
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cool after a long tournament just to go like sit in the hot springs and their arms are just
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welted and bruised everywhere if you guys don't know lacrosse you can quite literally
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molest somebody with your stick however you want as long as they have the ball you don't hit them
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in the head i mean you can baseball bat swing you can jab them in the guts i mean you can do
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anything really so check their arm yeah oh yeah i mean that's what you're doing well we had a kid
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got he got checked on his hand he broke his hand in two spots so he's out for six weeks so yep it
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happens another kid got his got the pole uh i think it was one of i can't remember it was one
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of our players or the other guy but went to went to check and when you check you have to have your
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hands close together when you check them you can't have them spread out otherwise it's a cross check
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it's illegal and he cross checked right in his chest and it slid up to his neck and he broke the
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pole around his chest and that just snapped in half and the kid was fine but yeah wild dude wild
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crazy sport well we got one question and it's related to sports actually so that's a maybe a
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good segue from julian here he wants to know what valuable insights have you gained from
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brazilian jiu-jitsu practice that you have integrated into your daily life uh it's you
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know actually it's been a while since i've trained so i feel a little disingenuous asking this but i
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can draw on you know when i was training really really heavily and i know you'll have better
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answers for this but for me jujitsu has been phenomenal at teaching humility i would say is
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one that you don't know everything that you don't need to know everything that it's okay to ask for
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help it's okay to say you're in over your head you know when you tap you're that's basically what
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you're saying hey nope I'm in over my head you got me I'm dead to right so let's reset and it's
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also the power of having a good training partner you know and I think of a good training partner
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like somebody who's gonna push hard enough that you can compete and not feel deflated
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but also not be so weak that you're not improving and getting better because you see both you see
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guys who just go hard and they just destroy you and that's fun for the other guy but it's not fun
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for the the lower belt um or you see guys who are just like so flimsy and weak and it's like
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i can't i can't do anything with this this is not even realistic and so you see both so i think
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having a good training partner and that's in a spouse that's in friendships having we talked
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about that the training partner that you need to have in your spouse or a friendship um you know
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the other thing I was thinking about too, Kip, is that it's okay to experiment. I wish more men
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would do that in their life. We get so rigid and we get so fixed in our ways. And a lot of the
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times we're driven so much by fear that we won't experiment with new ideas, new concepts, new ways
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of looking at things, new projects, new ventures, new adventures. And I think the same is true. I
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felt this way in jujitsu. I got so good at like my, the game that I, I said, I got so good at
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jujitsu. I I'm not saying that correctly. That's not what I meant. I, I got good at doing one
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thing in jujitsu and that was hard pressure, heavy, like pressure, physicality game. And
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it really took some time to say to myself, Hey, you're good at that. Why don't you try getting
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good at something else. Because you can always fall back into that if you need to. But in a
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training environment, it's worth flowing a little bit more. It's worth attacking arms and doing
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things that I normally wouldn't do. I think the same is true of life. So those are a few lessons
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that I've extracted from it. Yeah. You know, one thing that comes to mind is grit. We talked about
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grit last week in the Iron Council. At least you brought it up on the Friday call. And
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man it's just grit and and part of that is the humility element that you're bringing up
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but it doesn't change and and that's the part that's so funny is is so many guys think it's
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like oh man like once i get my blue belt you know i don't have to grind as much i don't have to have
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grit um i'm gonna love showing up and it's gonna get easier it never gets easier it just never
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gets easier. It, it, it keeps getting difficult. Um, and, and you learn how to persevere and do it
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anyway. I can't like one thing that comes to mind is I've had teammates, some of my favorite
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training partners. I, I remember times I hated training with them. They were the guy, they were
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the guy that I'd like want to avoid. I'm like, Oh man, I don't, I don't want to roll with Dan.
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i hate rolling with dan and i would and like i would fight this internal battle and then i
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remember i think it's probably when i was a blue belt where i'd be like all right who are the people
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i don't want to train with and i would pick them first i'd be like all right and i look at dan and
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this is kind of like my mentality was like let's go you know like let's just get this over with
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right? Let's go. Now he's one of my favorite training partners, but it required me to seek
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him out, to have some grit and perseverance and just go and just keep showing up. Even though I
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didn't want to, even though it was difficult and, and it's humility is people don't understand that
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level of humility. Like you use the example of like tapping. Oh, you got me. How often do people
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tap in life. Like really tap. You don't tap to an argument with your spouse. You don't tap to a
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disagreement with a boss. You don't tap to a relationship going sideways with a friend.
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Rarely do people actually go, you know what? I'm wrong. You're right. And now I'm going to sit with
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that and figure out how to learn. Rarely do people do that in life. And in jujitsu, we do it all
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the time over and over again it's it's true and the the tapping that usually i didn't think about
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that but in life we don't tap we just wait till we get strangled and then our world falls apart
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yeah that's yeah that's what happens is like you go through a bankruptcy or you go through a
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divorce or you deal with a crippling medical condition or you deal with some some crisis
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that could have otherwise been averted because you didn't just tap and learn the lesson you just
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doubled down and did the same dumb things you've been doing before. And then things fall apart.
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You're like, what happened? Well, yeah, you had, you had a dozen times to tap and say, Hey, yeah,
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I, I'm, I can fix this. We can fix this. I, I want to figure out what's going on. I want to get
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better. And we don't take advantage of it. So that's, that's an interesting analogy.
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Well, and guess what? A lot of white belts don't tap either. That's why most people quit jujitsu
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because they they tap a couple times and they're like uh no i'm gonna avoid this situation so i
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don't have to tap i'm gonna go somewhere else where i don't have to face the music
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and you know what though because they can't deal with it well i would say conversely i agree with
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all of that but also conversely sometimes you need to know when not to tap and i found that
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to be true about jujitsu is like when I first started training somebody would get behind me
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and wrap their arm around my neck and it was like oh and you freak out and you're like and then you
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start training a little bit and he gets you in the same position you're like it's not fun it's
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not comfortable but I'm I'm okay right here you know last night when we were at these hot springs
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my second son he came up behind me and he got me in a rear naked choke and it was pretty tight and
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i put my hands in there and it was it was pretty tight and i was like i'm not gonna like it's tight
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but i'm not gonna like drown or die here and so he what how did it work i can't remember exactly
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what i did i've turned around and like flipped his hips over and like body slammed him over my
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head and he's he came up he's like what just happened and he's like how did you do that and
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i thought to myself well how did i do that oh because i didn't freak out when he had his arms
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around my neck, but had I not been in that situation ever before in my life, I would
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have freaked out. And I think this is a really important lesson in life because you're going
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to have something strangle you, right? Your wife's going to say she wants a divorce. Your
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boss is going to lay you off. You're going to get in a car accident. You're going to
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deal with a debilitating medical condition. You're going to lose a loved one. You're going
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to hurt people inadvertently maybe even on purpose i don't know but um you can't tap
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in those moments like you have to figure out like this is uncomfortable i don't like this
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and but i'm okay i'm okay and we can get through this and we can keep fighting and so i think it's
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a bit of a dichotomy of like do i exercise humility and tap right away or do i just feel
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the pressure a little bit and see how much of this I can handle and get through on my own.
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Yeah. I love this. It's confident humility, right? For the guys that have a lot of pride
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and big ego, Jiu-Jitsu can be the humbling element to help us. But for the victim,
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you have to not tap so quickly and have some confidence and deal with the struggle
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and get some perseverance and grit yeah i like it i when you said confident humility that was
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interesting i i know what you're saying and i also wonder does humility inherently require a
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level of confidence because i think that most people get humility wrong and we think it's
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self-deprecating and we beat ourselves up a lot of the times it's performative oh if i act this
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way. People will think more highly of me, but I believe that being humble actually has an element
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of confidence embedded into this that, Hey, I'm confident enough to ask for help. I'm confident
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enough that if I don't know something, I can get some help and figure it out. And I think it's
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almost not even almost, I think confidence is embedded into humility. Yeah. Or at least it
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should be. Yeah. There's an element of, of growth mindset in there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love
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we could talk all day julian good question we'll cover five more lessons of life lessons that
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correlate with jiu-jitsu next week that's right okay what else we got um you know will has a
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question around peptides i mean i think we've talked about it so much i don't know anything
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you would like to add i don't know no yeah i don't i don't really i don't know enough to
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confidently say to confidently have a good opinion on it and anything i say would be
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take with a huge grain of salt because i don't i don't know yeah i mean i don't even know
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i'm i'm trying uh bpc 157 and i'm not sure if it's working you know what i mean like i'm like
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is it a is it a dietary oh okay no no there's ones that are like that for diabetics and stuff
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where it reduces your appetite and but it doesn't there's new ones i don't know if they're like glp
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threes or whatever that reduce your appetite but don't waste away muscle development i think
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there's one i've heard called retitrutide that people use um there's ones we talked about it
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that will like tan your skin. Like there's crazy stuff there. So I don't know. Just be careful.
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Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. All right. You had some questions. Oh yeah. Do you want to come here
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too? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, let's see. Let me pull them up here. All right. So the first one, I thought
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this one, there's some really good ones in here actually. So the first one is this, this one comes
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from Kyle Donovan. Okay. Here's what he says. I don't explode, but I carry a low level anger all
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the time at work at home everywhere where does that actually come from i that is i feel this
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i actually i don't know that we've ever had this but i wouldn't say it's chronic for me but there's
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times in my life where it's just i'm angry or bothered or upset and part of it my ex and i
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used to jokingly say it was my entrepreneurial pms where i would just go through this cycle of
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just being pissed and you know what i think it is is i think it stems from the integrity gap
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and i've determined the integrity gap to be the the the gap the space between the way you ideally
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envision yourself in your life and what you're actually doing to have that life so for example
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If you see yourself as a fit, capable man, but you're binge drinking on the weekend and you're watching games for hours upon hours, sitting on the couch when you should be picking up a new hobby or taking that course or spending time with your kids, or maybe you really envision yourself as a great father, but your work doesn't allow you to be home and as present as you can.
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And when you are there, you get frustrated and you retreat and you, you know, wallow
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And to me, the larger that gap, it's oftentimes very subconscious, but the larger that gap,
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the more frustrated you're going to feel, the more anger, the more frustration, the
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more discontent, the more resent, resentment towards maybe other people who you've deemed
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not my marital status, not my hobbies and activities,
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so if you have this version of yourself as a as a good strong devoted family man
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then ask yourself what what does that guy do well he gets home on time maybe he coaches his kids
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sports he leads his family in prayer and spirituality i'm just making this could be
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different for you but this is what it is for me um he's engaged in their educational pursuits
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he fosters growth and questions and curiosity and hobbies in his children he loves his wife
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he's devoted and faithful to her he leads her well from a place of making sure she's getting
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what she needs he provides financially for his family like I could go on forever and then you
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can take let's say just the top five things and I'll whittle it down so maybe you really wanted
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to be a want to be a great father to your kids okay five things you spend time with them you
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ask them questions you coach their sports you attend their activities and you foster their
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hobbies let's say those five now just rank yourself on a scale from one i'm just making
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this up for you but on a scale from one to ten rank yourself one being the lowest ten being the
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highest and if you're scoring fives across the board ask yourself this quarter right now okay
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I'm going to pick one of those things and I'm going to move from a level five to a level seven
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in the next 90 days. And maybe that's, um, fostering their hobbies. Okay. What are their
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hobbies? Well, you better start asking them questions. You better start getting involved.
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You better start figuring out what they're into so that you can bring elements of, of what they're
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interested in, in, into your daily schedule. So that's how you start bridging the gap. I know it
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kind of seems like a detailed process. It's really not, but that's how you bridge the gap.
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And I feel like the more you do that, the less dissatisfied and less angry, the less frustrated
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you're going to be because there's a correlation between who you want to be and what you're doing
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about it. Let me see if I can relate these because I think they are related, even though
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this may not seem related. So in self-determination theory, they suggest that there are three primary
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psychological needs of every human. The first is autonomy. The second is competence or growth
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and mastery. And the third is relatedness and connection. So autonomy, mastery and growth
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and connection. Where I think these are related is when we are out of integrity, I think we're
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operating out of a space not aligned with autonomy. Because when I'm not doing what I
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should be doing, I'm making an excuse of why I'm not doing it. And I'm giving my power usually
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over to someone else, right? I'm not doing this thing. Why? Well, because Ryan or because of my
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spouse or what was me in this other area. So I'm actually giving over agency and autonomy over to
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someone else when you're out of integrity you're giving your power over to someone and so i think
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that's the correlation between the self-determination theory these unmet psychological
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needs and integrity it's in this space of autonomy but i love the other two being added to this
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it is part of human condition to grow am i getting better am i improving i always use this analogy
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ryan with like archery if you and i grabbed our bows and went out into the field and there's no
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target and we're like hey let's fleeing arrows we would shoot like two and then we'd be like
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this is stupid this is dumb we'd find something to shoot at yeah the minute you put a target up
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we could be busy for hours why is that because as humans we have this innate desire to like
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improve to get better. And if we're not doing things to improve ourselves, you're going to
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find yourself frustrated at a congruency, if you want to use that term. And then the last is
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relatedness. We need connection. It's important, right? And so what are we doing to foster
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relationships and those kinds of things? Yeah. I think they actually all tie into it. You know,
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autonomy, you already explained competency comes from working towards a goal and connection is
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involving other people in the process which i think ties perfectly into what i was sharing
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earlier i really liked your your idea of getting better at improvement i used to go up to the
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cabin quite a bit and there was this little there was this gravel driveway and it had little one
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inch to two inch gravel rock and we would sit around the campfire in the afternoon and we had
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a white five gallon bucket and we would just throw it out there like at 15 or 20 yards and we would
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just sit there and try to throw rocks in the bucket and see how many we would sit out there
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for hours and we were talking and laughing and eating and stuff but we just sit out there for
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hours trying to throw rocks into this bucket and i think it's exactly what you said you know we all
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want to target we all want something to shoot for we all want to get better we all want to win
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in some ways i think i thought that was really good yeah interesting um the next the next one
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comes from well and and i would also say to kyle like that sucks and and here here's a trip or
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here's here's the catch when you feel that way you don't want to go out and improve yourself
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that's the catch that's why it's so hard for guys to get to the point of self-mastery and growth
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because when they're feeling the consequences of not having that growth and mastering their life
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it's debilitating in a lot of ways instead of motivating and exciting so you just have to force
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yourself to do it have men in your corner who are helping you or cheering you on who are kicking you
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in the pants when you need it have systems in place have goal-oriented processes and sometimes
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it's just you got to bear down and do it and I tell that a lot to a lot of guys especially as
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they're going through divorce and dealing with hardships like no you have to force yourself to
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put yourself out there like you can't sit around just do not allow yourself to do that force
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yourself to go out so that's kind of the the double-edged sword there um the next one comes
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from i'm just going through these i'm trying to pick out the best ones i like this question we
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get asked it a lot but i do like this question paul henderson says what does being a man mean
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today without it sounding like a cliche i love when they qualify it too it's like well wait so
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you have rules on my answer okay got it but but this is fair this is fair some good guidance for
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you. Yeah. Um, no, I think without it sounding like a cliche is important because when I was
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doing this work 10, 11 years ago, there weren't as nearly as many men talking about it as there
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is today. I really believe it's, I have a couple of definitions for it. You know, protect, provide,
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preside is our motto. And I think that's what a man does, but I think even more foundational than
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that. And so it sounds cliche, but then I'll clean it up for, for Paul is that a man is
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someone who produces more than he consumes. That's, that's my most base example of what it is.
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And look, a prerequisite is that you're a biological male. So I don't, I don't have to
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get into that as much as i did three years ago but yeah you have to be a biological male and then you
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have to produce more than you consume and by the way i don't think being a man in the context of
00:24:48.700
what we're talking about is some sort of i've achieved it and i always am across every aspect
00:24:53.400
of my life every day i and kip you and other people listening to this podcast are showing up
00:25:00.040
as men in some ways and not showing up as men in other ways so if i go to work and i'm just
00:25:06.700
kicking butt and making my calls and being productive and helping people around the
00:25:12.020
organization and making money and adding value to my clients' lives, I'm being a man. I'm producing
0.84
00:25:18.000
more than I consume. But if during the same time, I'm not taking care of my family and I'm not
00:25:26.100
leading them well and I'm not pouring and investing into them, I'm not being a man in that regard.
00:25:31.440
And those two things can exist simultaneously. The adage that the way you do one thing is the
00:25:37.680
way you do everything is not always accurate. Because I know plenty of men who are kicking
00:25:42.640
butt in certain aspects of life and not doing so great in others. Why is that? And how do you
00:25:47.960
translate where you're really dominating life into the aspects of life that you're not?
00:25:52.180
But what I think a man ought to do is take raw resources and turn them into productive tools for
00:26:01.120
the betterment of himself and his people you know you think about the the wood that goes into a home
00:26:07.000
and it was a man who decided to chop that tree down and saw it into certain sizes and fabricate
00:26:13.680
and construct it in a way that made a home for the woman in his life that was a man a man did that
00:26:19.580
if you have an idea and it's just ruminating in your brain and you're just sitting on this
00:26:25.220
business idea that you wanted to do it's your job as a man to take that and turn it into something
00:26:31.000
directive and positive and productive in your life and the lives of the people you love and
00:26:34.920
care about. So this is also why I've seen 14-year-olds, males, who are acting more like
00:26:42.260
men than some 40, 45, 50-year-old males that I know because they're just producing more than
00:26:48.040
they consume. And why is it that we often talk about how men became men so much earlier 100
00:26:52.600
years ago? Because they didn't have a choice as to whether or not they produced. They had to
00:26:58.000
produce in order to stay alive. We had sons going out into the field, tilling the land and building
00:27:04.080
and selling. Young men, fathers, they're dying in war. And so they had to then become the provider
00:27:12.060
for the house. That's manly behavior. Anybody would say that. Yeah. I love it. Hey, what do
00:27:18.740
you think about going back and forth on questions? I got one for us. Okay. Yeah, sure. Good. Okay.
00:27:23.080
so Derek Mullins I've provided for my family for 15 years but my wife says she doesn't feel
00:27:30.560
close to me anymore how does a man fix emotional distance without losing who he is
00:27:36.940
well why would why would being emotionally present make you lose who you are I know
00:27:47.100
maybe he feels like he has to give yeah but like it's the assumption that he he has to
00:27:52.740
give up maybe these things that he feels is valuable right for better emotional connection
00:27:58.000
maybe yeah and and i'm delaying like that on purpose yeah what's more important that that
00:28:09.560
you cling on to whatever you're clinging on to or that you open yourself up to the possibility of
00:28:15.900
doing something new so you can maintain the relationship with your wife yeah you're gonna
00:28:20.500
to have to give some things up you're going to have to engage in different behavior you're going
00:28:23.660
to have to share some things that maybe aren't comfortable for you to share you're going to have
00:28:27.480
to have difficult conversations um i would start with asking her what that means this emotional
00:28:34.200
connection she's telling you hey i don't feel what was the word present or i don't feel close
00:28:38.540
to you what what what word did she use yeah close yeah what does that mean babe when when i when you
1.00
00:28:45.740
say close what exactly do you mean by that well I just want you here okay here doing what like is
00:28:52.660
it here and just present is it doing projects around the house is it taking you on dates is it
00:28:58.020
having deep and meaningful conversations is it talking about the future is it exploring the
00:29:02.560
concerns we have is it exploring intimacy in the bedroom like what does that what does that actually
00:29:07.560
look like and I think if you're receptive to what she tells you and here's here's a few things that
00:29:13.900
I want you to be careful of whatever she says this goes for everybody whenever you're asking
00:29:19.660
for feedback or critique don't ever ever rationalize or justify we learned this really
00:29:30.060
simple phrase when I went through basic training so I was 17 18 years old and I had done a little
00:29:35.540
bit of drilling with my national guard unit in southern Utah before I went to basic training and
00:29:39.460
some of the guys were helping me and two of my buddies from high school figure out what we needed
00:29:43.780
do to get through basic successfully and they said something that saved me many times they said hey
00:29:50.660
just get really used to the phrase no excuses drill sergeant and so there were a couple instances i
00:29:57.480
remember i was getting chewed out by a drill sergeant i don't remember what it's what it was
00:30:00.940
for and he said something like you know why the f did you do that and i just said no excuses drill
00:30:06.120
sergeant and he just stopped and his whole demeanor changed he's like all right don't do it again and
00:30:12.820
then left and went and picked on somebody else and that concept is true for you if your wife
1.00
00:30:19.540
is telling you hey you're not present and you're not we're not close anymore you've done an amazing
00:30:25.260
job providing this life for us but i don't even feel like i know you anymore then you you can't
00:30:32.640
say to her well it's because and then fill in the blank with your reason of choice she already knows
00:30:37.600
what she wants to know is are you a man who's capable of making adjustments and pivots along
00:30:44.800
the way to recapture what she signed up for and she doesn't want to hear your bullcrap about well
1.00
00:30:51.080
you know i did this and you don't appreciate is that going to open her up or close her off
00:30:55.420
it's going to close her off so don't rationalize and justify say okay yeah that makes sense i can
00:31:02.380
see that. I can understand that. I can appreciate where you're coming from. And so, you know,
00:31:08.220
here's some things I can do that I would like to do. And what would you like to see from me?
00:31:12.480
And explore it together and then just lean into it. But I don't, when you say, I don't want to
00:31:17.820
lose myself, you better, you better lose. Well, I'll say it this way. You better shed the current
00:31:24.960
version of who you are. Like the snake that sheds its skin for something new to grow.
00:31:31.200
you better do that otherwise you'll lose her and then in a year you'll come to me and you'll say
00:31:36.560
what do i do when i'm going through a divorce well you should have taken the advice that we
00:31:41.660
shared earlier which is to become a different version of yourself you know one thing that
00:31:47.940
comes to mind for eric for derek is make sure this isn't about just her request i mean i would
00:31:55.760
probably bet that if you sit down and say, Hey, is our marriage amazing right now? You'd probably
00:32:02.780
go, um, actually it's not. And she's right. We're not as close, right? Like make it yours, like
00:32:09.440
make the improvement of the marriage, the thing that you want, not the thing that she wants.
00:32:15.380
And you're appeasing her that's compliance, right? And we've talked about this before. It's like,
00:32:20.300
get committed to the idea. Do you want an amazing marriage, Derek? You do? Okay. Awesome.
00:32:28.120
Take some initiative, right? What does that look like for her? What does it look like for you?
00:32:32.380
Right. And, and step into it fully, not just be compliant and trying to appease her. Otherwise
00:32:38.120
you're just going to end up having some passive aggressive behavior with all the things that
00:32:43.320
she's asking you to do. And you're going to punish her for all the changes that you're making.
0.95
00:32:48.420
That's not going to work either. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Good point. All right. So let's go to
00:32:55.440
Garrett. This is Garrett Lowe. He says, I'm back in the dating world and it feels like a game I
00:33:03.040
don't want to play, but I also don't want to be alone. How do you stay grounded without becoming
00:33:08.300
cynical? Yeah, this is tough because I'm in the, I'm in the dating world as well. And it is a
00:33:14.060
challenge man it's like people when people are a blank slate you they can become anything they
00:33:24.080
want and so can you and it's largely shaped by our experience it's only shaped by our experiences
00:33:30.620
and then our interpretation of them so when you're young and I got married at 23 I was young
00:33:36.780
and impressionable and my ex-wife was young and impressionable and we learned together
00:33:41.760
there wasn't any we didn't know anything about life other than what we had seen with our parents
00:33:47.940
and other experiences that we had but as we went through stuff good and bad we did it together and
00:33:52.400
we became largely who we were as a result of each other and then you get into the dating world and
00:33:59.600
that's not true at all that person became who they are without you and you became who you are
00:34:06.700
without her and so now you're trying to come into this environment where you have two completely
00:34:12.180
different people who don't know each other who don't communicate the same who have never learned
00:34:17.280
from each other who have never learned about each other and you're both hard-headed and you're both
0.50
00:34:23.540
carrying around a bunch of baggage because you've been burned and hurt and you've done bad things
00:34:27.500
and you're trying to make that work like it's good good luck right and i think it requires two
00:34:35.020
really open-minded people that want to make something work and are willing to get through
00:34:42.040
hard things and that's one of the biggest problems with dating culture now especially with the rise
00:34:47.340
of dating apps and online stuff is that it's just way easier to walk away like one person messes up
00:34:54.840
does something that maybe is not really horrible but not good either and so I think it used to be
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00:35:04.520
that people were like well yeah you're an idiot and so let's work through it and now it's like oh
0.99
00:35:10.760
you're an idiot let me get back on my dating app because i'll just have a date tonight that's that's
1.00
00:35:16.480
a challenge because of how abundant it is just to find a date and find somebody to to fill fill a
1.00
00:35:22.180
need um so here's what i would say i would say and kip i i'd be curious if your response not only in
00:35:30.500
dating, but in marriage would be the same or where it might change. But here's what I would say.
00:35:35.400
Number one, know what you want. If you know what you want, then there's fewer games you need to
00:35:42.500
play because the minute that she starts deviating from what you want, not that she's malicious or
00:35:49.720
bad, but she just may not be able to give you what you want. And then you can just say, Hey,
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this is not going to work for me. And that's a really great position to be in, but you can't do
00:35:59.540
that unless you know exactly what you want. So what are you looking for in a partner? Do you
00:36:04.560
want to get married again? Do you not want to get married again? Do you guys want to have kids? Do
00:36:08.100
you not want to have kids? What's your spiritual goals, financially related? And I'm not saying
00:36:15.400
you need to do this on date one, but these are things that you need to run through in a litmus
00:36:18.920
test to figure out if this is a person that you align well with. And if not, it's like, hey,
00:36:23.040
I had a good time with you, but this is not going to work for us. Um, number two, and I haven't
00:36:29.640
always been this way and I've messed it up even today is you have to be able to communicate that
00:36:33.700
to, to, to a potential partner. And that means that there's going to be uncomfortable conversations
00:36:39.640
about whether or not you're exclusive or whether or not you're still dating, what else you might
00:36:45.140
be doing, what other conversations you're having. And I haven't always been good at that. I mess up
00:36:51.980
on that. Um, because I don't want to hurt people and for self-preservation, but it's really
00:36:57.700
important that you do that because you need to give that person to go back to what you were
00:37:03.000
saying, the autonomy that they need to make their own choices with accurate information.
00:37:09.780
And if you, if you are being somebody who you're not, even if that person falls in love with you,
00:37:18.480
it's not going to last because the minute that the gloves come off or the minute you get past
00:37:25.760
that honeymoon phase of dating the real her is going to be revealed the real you is going to
00:37:30.880
be revealed and you just wasted six months a year two years of your life because you were being fake
00:37:36.060
or she was so i think that's the biggest thing is know exactly what you want and then just be
00:37:42.700
honest with people, have those conversations. And yeah, that's what I would say.
00:37:49.480
This might go without saying, but it's advice I give my older boys. Cause I, I have some boys that
00:37:54.900
are 26, 24 and 22, right? So they're all in the middle of this. And the recommendation I give them
00:38:04.800
too, is don't, don't operate from any place other than accepting the person for exactly who they are
00:38:12.220
right now. Yeah. And it's weird how we don't do that. We, we, we kind of like see the great in
00:38:19.080
them. And then we like, I don't know, romanticize, like how they're going to evolve into this better
00:38:27.340
person than they are today. You know, it's like, dude, do not do that. Right. Like she's crazy.
00:38:33.200
She's whatever. Okay. Are you okay with it? Assuming that it's not going to get any easier
0.96
00:38:48.520
because a lot of girls may be choosing to date you
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00:38:52.240
with this expectation that you're gonna level up
00:39:02.320
when someone's affection and emotional state towards you
00:39:06.680
is dependent on you being different than who you are right now.
00:39:11.240
And I'm not saying we shouldn't always be evolving and changing.
00:39:19.660
Again, when you're young and you're dating your first girlfriend
00:39:30.360
She's going to change, for better or worse, and so are you.
00:39:36.680
bro you're not changing you are not changing and neither is she so deal with it or or don't
00:39:46.020
and make those choices all right i got one here um this one comes from
00:39:51.000
cole ramsey he says how do you lead your wife when she's stronger than you in certain areas
00:39:57.500
i actually i like this question too um and she and she probably will be because all human beings
00:40:03.980
have strengths and weaknesses. I think the premise of the question, just asking, is good because you
00:40:10.600
recognize and acknowledge that she is better at some things than you are. And that's great. You
00:40:15.200
probably married a wonderful woman. If she wasn't better at you in some areas, why would you be in
1.00
00:40:20.600
a relationship with her? I mean, isn't that the point? If you strip everything else away of a
00:40:25.520
relationship, she's going to make me better. She's going to make my life better in some way. And in
0.81
00:40:30.300
exchange, I'm going to make her life better in some way. If that wasn't the case, don't be in
00:40:35.440
a relationship together. So I think you can lead by acknowledging where she's strong and asking her
00:40:41.420
to manage that side of the relationship. So for example, if she's just better with money than you
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00:40:46.940
are, then she's the financial advisor of the house. That's okay. And so you talk to her, hey, babe,
00:40:52.620
you know what? We've struggled with money. We have money arguments and you know, I'm a spender and
00:40:57.760
you're way more disciplined than I am and you track it and I'm not really attentive to details
00:41:02.180
and I think it makes sense for you to be the financial advisor of the house and you're going
00:41:06.700
to be doing the budgeting and the tracking and the this and the that and how do you feel about that
00:41:10.060
and then I'll I'll work with you and I'll make sure I operate in the constraints and the confines of
00:41:16.660
what we've agreed and how is that and she'd be like yeah cool that sounds good that's leading
00:41:20.900
you just led the conversation you put somebody in the place that they're suited to be that makes
00:41:29.220
the situation better that is the core of leadership i think it's as simple as that figure out what
00:41:35.620
she's good at get her buy into it plug her into the places where she's good and follow her lead
1.00
00:41:41.040
in that regard and i think she'll also acknowledge that in you too ryan where do we balance because
00:41:48.480
this is, this is a great question because it, it comes up a lot in the IC over the years around
00:41:54.000
the term preside. And sometimes there's a pendulum that swings here and guys will say,
00:42:02.060
um, you know, the wife's going to run point on kids education and then guys wash their hands of
1.00
00:42:10.480
it. And it's like out of sight, out of mind, I'm no longer involved. Right. And then they're not
00:42:20.380
leading really. Right. They've, they've just, they've not even delegated. They've straight up
00:42:25.360
just ignored that part of, of the house. And so how do we address that? Or let's talk through
00:42:31.680
that a little bit. So this is a good example because I actually did what you were saying
00:42:36.880
when I was married so we decided that we were gonna have the kids be homeschooled and because
00:42:43.080
I was working she was gonna be responsible for education and she did all the research she got
0.99
00:42:48.860
all the documentation she bought all the books and the courses and she went to the homeschooling
00:42:52.820
conferences and did all the things and I did none of it and my justification and rationalization was
00:42:59.500
like well no that's her responsibility I'm working so I don't need to be involved in that and I wish
00:43:03.760
I would have done it differently I could have been in a decision making process when it came
00:43:08.380
to what curriculum we were using I could have went to the homeschooling conference with her
00:43:12.540
and then she asked me one time she said hey will you just take over on Wednesday and do the science
00:43:19.080
portion of the curriculum I'm like yeah well I'll do that and I didn't do it and then a couple weeks
00:43:26.060
later she's like hey like really it would be it would be helpful for me if you did that I'm like
00:43:29.460
yeah I'll do it and then I didn't do it and I did that for probably a year or two and then
00:43:38.080
we were in the process of going through our divorce and that was one of the things that
00:43:44.260
I remembered I'm like oh yeah she wanted me to do that and I started doing it a little too little
00:43:49.280
too late but I started doing it every Wednesday or Tuesday whatever day it was and I would put
00:43:55.460
together the curriculum and I'd create experiments and I loved it, man. Like I had so much fun doing
00:44:01.240
that with the kids and we built racetracks and we did science experiments and mixed chemicals
00:44:07.760
together and built volcanoes. Like it was awesome. And I just thought to myself, you know, I wish I
00:44:13.520
would have just taken that on a little bit more, not only because it would have been good for the
00:44:17.020
relationship, but because it was good for me and the kids to do that together. And so there are
00:44:22.480
ways for you to still be involved in whatever process that is without having to take point on
00:44:27.920
it again if it's the finances you can still have a money meeting with your wife every week and say
00:44:32.980
hey babe how are we doing on uh income how are we doing on debt how are we doing on spending what
00:44:38.340
expenses oh the kids have braces coming up cool what are we going to do there how are we going
00:44:42.480
to fund it how can i help how can i support what do you need from me you can still do those things
00:44:54.860
Because I think that's, I mean, we all run that risk, right?
00:45:11.060
well, and there's a little bit in this question of like,
00:45:14.260
well, how do I lead my wife when she's better?
1.00
00:45:18.500
great leadership is empowering others to lead right and you presiding and supporting them in
00:45:25.000
it right that's great leadership right so great leaders don't do everything they make sure
00:45:31.120
everything gets done yeah everything has to be handled but a great leader doesn't do it all
00:45:37.860
yeah totally all right i got a question for us uh for you cole barrett so my teenage son won't
00:45:45.740
talk to me. I try, but he shuts down every conversation. How do I stay in his life without
00:45:51.460
pushing him further away? Um, man, this is, this is a tough one. Cause I've, I deal with this and
00:46:00.480
I have dealt with it where there's that friction and that gap. And all I can say is that you have
00:46:05.920
to do what you can do and let the chips fall where they may that, that son or daughter, did he say
00:46:10.900
son. Son. And it might just be a season, right? It could be, you know, I don't, I don't know what
00:46:16.580
he's going through. I don't know what he's dealing with. I don't, a teenage son, if he's 13, maybe
00:46:21.080
he's hitting puberty and that's getting weird. Maybe he's 17 and he's just like ready to be out
00:46:24.860
of the house. I don't know what the issue is. So consider that like what season in life is he at
00:46:30.540
right now? And then try to find ways to relate in, in his way. Cause what I've noticed is a lot of
00:46:36.380
fathers they do want to relate with their kids but they won't make the effort to relate in the
00:46:41.180
way their kid relates and so they'll say hey you want to come play football with me and your son
00:46:45.020
doesn't like football that's not gonna work but if he's sitting there in the um on the couch and
00:46:54.260
he's playing a video game just say hey bud can i come play with you and he might be like what like
00:47:02.740
that's weird. I'm like, yeah, can I just like, show me what you're doing? What, like I'll play
00:47:07.300
and play Madden with him or Fortnite. I don't know what games there are, but like, go, go play
00:47:13.380
whatever you're going to play and just do that. I would say this too. I fell into this trap and my
00:47:19.020
son, my oldest son called me out on it one time. He's like, dad, anytime you want to have a serious
00:47:25.040
conversation with me, you trap me before you do it. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like,
00:47:31.340
well like if we're in the car together you want to start having a serious conversation and i'm
00:47:36.600
just stuck there like i can't get away from it and i was like oh do i do that and i started to
00:47:42.700
analyze like oh yeah i definitely do that yeah and and so that's one thing you have to be careful
00:47:48.380
of and also i would say not every conversation needs to be intense and serious in fact where
00:47:53.840
you're at right now probably shouldn't be intense and or serious that's why i suggest just go sit
0.94
00:47:59.820
down and play video games with him and talk crap to each other while you're doing it. I think you're
0.84
00:48:04.580
going to get much further that way than trying to have deep and meaningful conversations about what
00:48:11.560
he's going to do after high school. And when you say my son won't talk to me, I don't know to what
00:48:17.220
degree you're saying. Are you saying he won't even acknowledge you? Or are you saying that he won't
00:48:21.540
talk to you the way you want to have conversations, but it's not really about you. It's about him
00:48:28.000
because i'd be willing to bet unless he doesn't live there with you that he will talk with you
00:48:32.960
it's just what is it that you're talking about and be be keen to that be aware of that
00:48:39.120
totally yeah i was thinking i had this thought last week that trust and influence requires
00:48:46.340
proximity yeah and sometimes we're not creating enough of it right to be able to have influence
00:48:55.580
So this reminds me of, um, our son, Kiave, it was really great.
00:49:00.220
Um, not at the time it was a really, it's a great story now, but it's rough to, to think
00:49:04.720
back about this, but we were having a really hard time with him.
00:49:09.480
And he actually, we shipped him off to Anasazi.
0.81
00:49:15.860
You know what I'm talking about, but it's three months in the wilderness, legit wilderness.
00:49:21.700
Like he had a bed roll and his food was like mentos, flour, a little bit of tang and some rice, all uncooked.
00:49:32.680
And to cook his food, he had to learn how to make a fire with a hand drill before he could eat his food.
00:49:43.420
And more or less, they hiked on a trail every single day for three months straight.
00:49:52.880
And it was so great, Ryan, because we drive him down to Arizona.
00:49:58.460
We, all these moms are just losing it, right?
1.00
00:50:00.860
They say goodbye to all these kids, the kids leave and they pull his parents into the room
00:50:05.220
and they say, now you guys all thought that you dropped your kids off because they're
00:50:14.180
And we just moved your kids away from you so you could fix you.
1.00
00:50:17.760
and it was awesome and the experience was amazing and this is the synopsis number one we saw him as
00:50:25.460
a problem and when your mindset around someone is a problem it shows up in your behavior right
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00:50:32.520
so your wayward son is a moron and you think he's an issue and he makes you look bad and he's
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00:50:39.880
disrespecting it's about you and it's about you everything that you do whether it's playing catch
1.00
00:51:09.640
Why all strictly to understand not to be understood, right?
00:51:15.160
you're just learning about him. And after all that, you might be in a position of influence
00:51:21.980
to correct and coach, but it requires capital, right? That we have to have with our kids. And
00:51:29.140
often when we have a difficult relationship with the teenager, we think that we need to correct
00:51:35.980
them first, that they need to change their behavior. They need to do these things and
00:51:40.280
then we'll have a stronger relationship with them. It doesn't work that way because that will do the
00:51:47.140
complete opposite. It will push them away because all they feel is that you don't see them. You
00:51:52.220
don't love them. You don't appreciate them. You're just trying to change them. And so any attempt on
00:51:58.740
your part will be met with resistance. It's well said, man. I had this experience over the weekend
00:52:08.200
with my sons, my oldest son in particular. And he asked, I put together a lot of like the merch,
00:52:14.780
the swag and the uniforms and the marketing, the marketing director, Ryan Mitchell, the marketing
00:52:20.940
director. You know, what's crazy. I said that I said, chief marketing officer on a post.
00:52:26.240
I said, I'm the, I take my job as chief marketing officer for my son's high school lacrosse team
00:52:31.660
very seriously. And then the next paragraph was like, except for, they don't call me their chief
00:52:36.060
marketing officer i don't get paid and they usually just say hey you will you order this
00:52:40.680
so i made this post and some guy read the first line he's like this is ridiculous he's like people
00:52:48.360
are calling themselves chief marketing officers of their high school team and you're trying to
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lead your kid but you're taking i'm like bro you sound like an idiot read the second paragraph
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00:52:57.480
he sounds so dumb right now and he never responded back but anyways i went over to their locker room
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the coach asked me to come to their locker room and I love coaching young men I think it's such
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an important part and I do that because I had really good coaches when I was a young man that
00:53:14.100
helped transition and transform my life and so I was bringing their stickers because I their decals
00:53:19.960
for their helmets because I thought this would be a cool design and we put some custom decals
00:53:23.380
together and the coach asked me to come over and talk with them and say a few words and I kind of
00:53:29.320
got after them the the goalie i got after because he started to blame his team he's like these guys
00:53:35.240
i'm like whoa whoa whoa stop these guys it's you you're the one missing you're the one making bad
00:53:42.600
clears like what does that have to do with your team and everybody's kind of like like sheepish
00:53:49.120
like watching and then he's gonna call me out next yeah and so later after the game they actually
00:53:55.980
played a really really good game and my son my oldest son he's like dad you know something
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i'm like what he's like you're a real jerk
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and and he said but you know what else i appreciate it because our team needed that from you
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and i think that wouldn't have happened two or three years ago he would have just said you're
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a jerk and period yeah and i wouldn't have got the second half of that equation because he wouldn't
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have seen it that way. I think the way that he sees it now after two to three years of really
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hard work on building relationship with him is that he sees that, yeah, I can be intense and I
00:54:35.140
can be in your face and I can be assertive and maybe sometimes go over the line and get a little
00:54:40.540
too aggressive that way. But he knows I love him and I care about him and I'm doing it from a place
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of wanting the boys to do well. And he only knows that because I've spent three years, well, his
00:54:51.820
whole life but the last three years in particular really pouring into him really learning about him
00:54:57.680
really asking him questions really trying to figure out who he is as a human being
00:55:02.320
and um it's come a long way and so that's why our sons can acknowledge that maybe we're imperfect
00:55:08.720
and still i appreciate what you're trying to do now granted he's he's very mature for his age
00:55:14.820
but and that might be part of it but um it was just kind of an interesting experience and that
00:55:19.880
goes back to the trust and credibility if i didn't have that with him he wouldn't have been happy with
00:55:24.840
the way i showed up for the team he would have been upset he would have been bothered so yeah
00:55:28.900
anyways um i got another did you have something to say on that kid nope nope okay i got another
00:55:34.260
question here this one comes from ryan caldwell very similar um i thought that's why this one
00:55:39.140
would be good he says i catch myself being more patient with strangers than my own kids
00:55:44.100
and then he said how do i fix that without feeling like i'm being a fraud so i think he's got a
00:55:49.420
little bit of imposter syndrome going on here, but I would say there's a really simple three-part
00:55:54.340
formula that you can use. So it's very simple. Number one, communicate with people how you're
00:56:01.100
going to change. So if you're going to change, you have to tell them you're going to change
00:56:06.240
because if you don't tell them, they'll be confused. They might be bothered. They might
00:56:13.060
disengage because they don't know what you don't know what's going on. Yeah. What in the world is
00:56:16.960
happening. So you, so you always tell people who are impacted by your changes, how you're going to
00:56:21.200
be changing. Okay. Then you actually change. You do the work and you show up and you'd be better
00:56:30.180
than you were yesterday. And then you review with them and you get their feedback. And then you keep
00:56:38.580
working on it in a cycle. That's it. Tell them, do it, get feedback. Tell them, do it, get feedback.
00:56:44.280
tell them do it get feedback so in this case and I'll tell you why I think you're doing that
00:56:48.360
um because I do it too I think all of us do it but in this case I would go to my kids and I would
00:56:54.860
say to my kids hey guys you know what I'm realizing something um I've been doing a lot of reflection
00:56:59.640
and I'm not real patient with you guys and it I know it's hurting you I know you think like you're
00:57:06.480
you're not important or that strangers are more important than you they're not but I could see
00:57:10.180
why you would feel that way. And I just want to let you know that when I get frustrated with you
00:57:14.080
guys, um, or I get upset that you're not doing what you need to be doing, I'm going to be less
00:57:19.980
harsh. I'm going to be less reactive. I'm not going to raise my voice with you guys. And I'm
00:57:27.680
going to really just work on being more kind and patient with you. And it would mean a lot to me
00:57:40.660
So if you see me doing things that feel good to you,
00:57:52.360
and I'll respond positively and encouraging to that.
00:58:05.820
and after 30 days or 60 days or 90 days you're like hey you know you remember when i and you
00:58:12.160
don't have to wait by the way to have this conversation if there's a conversation in the
00:58:15.280
moment maybe it's a situation you normally would have got heated with them on you could once the
00:58:21.500
once the situation calms down maybe the next day you might say hey bud you know yesterday i was
00:58:27.140
getting frustrated uh with some behavior and i know you were frustrated too how did i handle that
00:58:32.660
for you relative to the old way i would have done it i think that's a great question to ask
00:58:38.360
and they're gonna say yeah you know that i could see you're bothered and you're getting mad but
00:58:42.940
you actually like didn't yell and you didn't get frustrated you just corrected and then everything
00:58:47.840
was fine ideally that's what you'd want right and so that's it that's the three-part formula
00:58:53.720
but i i think there's some reasons why i did want to share this there's probably some reasons why
00:58:57.980
this is happening and i can think of two but there's probably probably more number one is
00:59:02.180
you're more patient with strangers because you really care about your reputation and how you're
00:59:06.100
perceived so there's definitely some ego there you don't care so much maybe about the way your
00:59:11.380
kids perceive you because they don't really have a choice and it is what it is they're not going
00:59:15.340
anywhere right there's also there's also the you know the power of proximity but in reverse where
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it's like they you see everything about the way that they show up and all the little jerk behaviors
00:59:28.640
and all the little nuances that piss you off you don't really see that in strangers because not
00:59:34.940
only are you on your best behavior strangers are on their best behavior too so let's acknowledge
00:59:39.880
the fact that strangers are easy to be patient with because they're trying to be helpful for
00:59:45.340
the most part because that's how strangers typically act and then the third and i actually
00:59:51.040
think this is a redeeming quality so just make sure you're funneling it correctly is you just
00:59:55.160
care about your kids and you expect the best of them you expect them to do the right things you
01:00:00.500
expect them to show up well you expect them to obey you expect them to all the things that you
01:00:05.440
ought to expect of them you're just probably responding in a way that's harmful not helpful
01:00:11.980
but you're at the core of it at least in that aspect is actually a good thing just make sure
01:00:19.260
your actions are in alignment with your desire. Yeah. Yeah. I love that last statement. I think
01:00:25.820
I would probably suggest that most of the time when our actions are not in alignment with what's
01:00:33.760
best for our kids is because we're focused on a tactical win and not a long-term strategy of
01:00:40.640
what's best for your kid. So if, if I'm upset at my kids, it's because the room's not being clean,
01:00:48.040
but what's my goal? Am I what the gatekeep, the director of clean rooms or am I a father raising
01:00:57.300
kids? Oh God, I'm her father raising kids. Oh, got it. So my priority is what? How do I raise
01:01:03.720
a child to learn? Not necessarily get a room clean. Okay. I've lost perspective of what I
01:01:10.100
should be focused on. So don't lose perspective of being a father in the sake of these tactical
01:01:16.800
wins and these nuances, a clean house or then, you know, whatever it is, most of the time it's,
01:01:24.320
it's, it's not the strategic thing we're upset about. It's because we're, we're focused on the
01:01:29.080
wrong thing. Um, and then the other thing for me just as a, I don't know why I feel like bringing
01:01:34.520
this up. I always lose my patience when I'm multitasking. Always. Yeah. It's always when
01:01:41.980
I'm trying to do more things than I should. And, and I'm not being present with my children and
01:01:50.040
I'm trying, I'm trying to check the box of being present with them while I do something else.
01:01:55.540
So for me personally, I just have to stop doing the other thing and go, you know what? Screw it.
01:02:01.460
Whatever the thing is that I'm stressed out about that needs to get done. I'll worry about it later.
01:02:06.100
and I'm going to wear the hat of dad a hundred percent. And usually it goes a hundred percent
01:02:11.080
better whenever I do that. Yeah. Or, I mean, even if you need a minute, then just tell your kids,
01:02:16.680
Hey, I need a minute. Like, yeah. And I've done that where maybe I need to make a call or an
01:02:21.560
email or a text or something. And my youngest is like, Hey dad, will you sit down with me?
01:02:27.180
I want to sit down with him. Of course I want to do that. And so I'm like, yeah, bud,
01:02:31.680
give me five minutes it's you know 10 30 right now give me until 10 45 and at 10 45 i'll come
01:02:38.940
sit down with you and then you actually have to sit down with them at 10 45 so finish your stuff
01:02:44.380
up and then go sit down with them and then connect the dots it's like see bud now we can be fully
01:02:49.280
present i just had to do that real quick here i am 10 minutes later what do you want to do
01:02:53.220
connect the dots for them yeah all right i got one more it worked well yeah say it again i was
01:02:58.820
going to say they work well in that situation i do that with the six-year-old playing catch in
01:03:03.580
the backyard all the time and i and i just super clear concise bud we got 15 minutes to play catch
01:03:10.200
and after 15 i go to go to back to work good yep and if i communicate that up front when we're done
01:03:16.520
playing catch he's not upset right it's when i don't communicate it and i'm like oh i've got
01:03:20.540
back to work oh no and i'm like that's bad communication on my part more than him being
01:03:26.040
upset. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I got one more. Do you mind if I share this one?
01:03:31.500
Sure. Okay. Um, this is from Jordan Hayes. He says, I'm working, I'm paying bills,
01:03:37.980
I'm staying out of trouble, but I don't feel like I'm building anything meaningful in my life.
01:03:44.360
How do you know what direction to go when nothing is really pulling on you?
01:03:48.780
and i the reason i i liked this question is i was watching my neighbor over the past week and a half
01:03:56.860
to two weeks he's building a new shop next door and he's had this lot for a long time and he had
01:04:05.140
to pull a fence out of there he does a lot of his own work so he pulled a fence out and then he dug
01:04:10.820
a big hole and then he backfilled it with the right kind of dirt and compound i don't know the
01:04:15.620
process i'm not a i'm not a builder but he he did all of this work and so here we are two weeks
01:04:20.740
later it looks the same as it did two weeks earlier it looks the exact same unless anybody
01:04:29.460
had seen him doing that over the past two weeks they drive by and say oh there's the empty lot
01:04:33.480
again and it looks the exact same but it's not it's not the exact same and eventually he's going
01:04:40.360
to start pouring footings and he's going to pour the foundation and it's going to be boring. And
01:04:45.860
they're going to have to wait for the concrete to dry. And they're going to have to put rebar down
01:04:49.300
and like do all the things that are not so glamorous. And it really isn't until they get
01:04:53.240
a month, two months, three months into the project where the frame starts to get erected and the
01:05:00.080
electricals going in and the siding is going on where you actually begin to see like, oh,
01:05:05.440
this is exciting. And I bring that up because when you're young or maybe even not so young
01:05:11.200
and you're making all of the right moves, it doesn't feel like the needle is moving. And so
01:05:16.880
there's nothing tangible to grasp onto. But what you're doing is if you're working, paying bills,
01:05:22.980
staying out of trouble, instead of looking at it as you not doing anything, I would start looking
01:05:27.200
at it as you building the foundation for a successful life. Because you're right. You may
01:05:32.540
not have anything right now that pulls on you and sometimes that's just life but if you have to have
01:05:37.980
something exciting to pull on you for you to do good work then there's going to be aspects of your
01:05:44.040
life that you're not going to be real thrilled about because sometimes that's just what it means
01:05:49.240
to be a man is to do good work regardless of what's happening around you but here's what i'll
01:05:54.600
tell you if you don't do the things that you're talking about working paying bills staying out of
01:05:59.940
trouble. If and when, I will say when, when the opportunities arise and you start to feel excited
01:06:05.660
about things, you won't be able to take advantage of it because you'll be in debt or you won't have
01:06:12.820
a good job or you will be in trouble because you weren't focused on building a proper foundation.
01:06:17.480
And so you ask yourself, why does everybody else get lucky all the time? They're not lucky.
01:06:22.020
They're just prepared. They're just prepared for whatever life presents to them and life will.
01:06:29.540
god will god will give you opportunities and you have to ask yourself am i going to be ready for
01:06:36.120
that opportunity now think about this with a guy who's asking about dating earlier it's like you
01:06:40.980
know you you may not find the right woman today or in a year or five i don't know how long it's
01:06:45.900
going to take you to find that person that you really want to spend the rest of your life with
01:06:49.280
but i can tell you with 100 certainty that if you don't use this time to improve it's going to delay
01:06:55.100
the process. Because you might have a beautiful, incredible, lovely woman come into your life that
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01:07:02.120
you aren't prepared for. And then you're going to lose her because you weren't doing the work
01:07:08.080
required to attract that type of woman or to keep her. So the foundational work, guys, is just as
01:07:15.500
maybe even more so important than the result, what eventually comes. That's sexy. That's fun.
01:07:22.780
but it's got to be the foundation first. I love it. The book gap and gain kind of just comes to
01:07:31.960
mind, you know, it's like, you know, celebrate the gain and that's the foundational element.
01:07:38.340
So that way you don't lose sight of, of what you're doing. Yep. All right, brother, let's wrap
01:07:45.480
it up today. I got some more questions, but we'll save those for next week. I think you had some
01:07:48.620
questions too. And so we'll, uh, we'll get to those next week. Yeah, sounds good. I mean,
01:07:52.720
I think the call to action is the men's forge, um, April 23rd to the 26th, um, sign up at the
01:08:00.400
men's forge.com. And then as always connect with Mr. Mickler on the social X Instagram at Ryan
01:08:07.020
Mickler. Um, and then just connect with us on other platforms, whether it's the Facebook group
01:08:11.900
or, or YouTube. Perfect guys. I appreciate the questions today and, uh, we'll be back for our
01:08:18.380
friday field notes in a couple of days until then go out there take action and become a man you
01:08:22.400
thank you for listening to the order of man podcast you're ready to take charge of your
01:08:27.800
life and be more of the man you were meant to be we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com