ITT 010： Training the Mind ｜ Joshua Laycock
Episode Stats
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Summary
Joshua Laycock is a father, husband, and entrepreneur. He is also a writer, speaker, and motivational speaker. In this episode, he shares his story of how he became a better man and how he found his purpose in life.
Transcript
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Gentlemen, welcome to In the Trenches, an Order of Man podcast dedicated to interviewing
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ordinary, everyday men like you and me who are currently in the battle of becoming better
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You'll hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from guys who are striving to become stronger
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husbands, fathers, business owners, and community leaders.
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It's our mission to deliver the stories that will inspire you to become the man you are
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Your host for this podcast is a man who is not only in the trenches, but has drastically
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changed his life for the better over the past two years.
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Oh, you know, I'm just hanging out, enjoying this beautiful weather, finally.
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Yeah, I'm just north of Toronto, and we had a winter that did not want to give up.
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So we thought we were good, then we had a massive ice storm, and then we went to, like, full-blown
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I can't even imagine living somewhere where it's not at least 70 degrees by January.
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Maybe that's us, but I had a chance to get the lawnmower out and everything today, so
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Tell us a little bit about where you started whenever you woke up and started on this journey.
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You know, it's funny, actually, that you talked about it as waking up, because I literally
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describe this journey that I'm on as an awakening.
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And that's the term I use for a lot of people, actually.
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So I'm super stoked that you referred to it that way.
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I even had a chance to talk about it down at the Nashville meetup.
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So for me, I guess kind of looking back on it, I didn't realize, but I was just drifting
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Like I, outwardly, I was a really successful guy, right?
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Living on the west coast of Canada at the time, and arguably one of the most beautiful
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And it manifested itself at a job that I had taken.
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I couldn't stop it from spinning, you know, playing all these different scenarios.
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And I remember coming home one night, just terrified that everything was going to fall
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And I think I literally sat down on my computer and Googled like,
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And I got a bunch of resources on mindset and mindfulness and just went deep down the
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And that was the awakening that I had never considered my mind to be something that you
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The, it was a Mark Devine book that I ended up diving into and just adoring.
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And it was Mark Devine, I think was on one of Ryan's podcasts.
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And that was, that was it for me that I was hooked.
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Like I'm not going to try to be dramatic to suggest that it saved my life, but I'm pretty
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sure it saved me from a life of mundane mediocrity.
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And, uh, yeah, I, I, I'm just very blessed for it.
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So you say that you were, you were miserable in the job that you had and that you kept replaying
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So what do you think was the reason that you were, you were replaying those scenarios?
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Well, the specific role was interesting because I had been asked to, to join a company and
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So that brought me in to do one thing and was expected to do another.
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Um, you know, I think it was just one of those things where I was trying to be professional
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in, in, in my job and, uh, was having a hard time being honest with people and candid with
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And quite frankly, I was just dealing with a lot of anger and rage, which has no place
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Um, so of course it was, I'm going to be civil.
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I'm going to be, uh, kind to the people around me, but I was just bottling it up.
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Um, and it's funny looking back, I, I was pushing my career really hard.
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Um, I mean, I still am, but at the time I was being a different person at work.
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And, uh, when she started dating me, people would say like, why are you dating him?
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He's kind of an ass and she would joke and say, I really wish that you got to know who
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Um, because that's the reality was I was a totally different person at work and it's
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Uh, I didn't realize it at the time, but I was, I was, I was a complete, you know, just,
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And then I could let my guard down when I was at home around the people that I cared about
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And that's just, you know, that's not a way to live.
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Um, so I was constantly stressing and pushing my mind in different spaces, in different
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ways, never, never allowing it to be who it wanted to be.
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So what I'm getting is that, that not being who you want to be is, is such a physical,
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emotional, psychological drain that it's just not worth it.
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But I think the really dangerous part of it is that, you know, until you pay attention
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to that reality, I don't think that a lot of people realize that that's what's going
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Like, you know, pre, pre-awakening, I'm doing air quotes for the people, um, at home, like
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pre-awakening, I didn't realize that that was a thing.
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I just sort of, I think I just accepted that this was how life was, that it was going to
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It was going to be, you know, there were moments of really amazing things like seeing my son
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born and meeting my wife and all those things are just incredible, but it was, the highs
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Um, and until I realized that there was something else that could be accomplished, that there
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Um, I was just kind of, I think, numb to it or was accepting that this was the reality
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Now, I know you and I talked a little bit offline and you, you still deal with those
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I mean, I think with all the work that I've done over the past two and a half, three years,
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I think, I mean, certainly the highs are just as high.
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Thankfully, the low, the lows aren't as low, but yeah.
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Uh, I think in a lot of, I think a lot of people still struggle with that, right?
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Where you can have, you can have an off day and unless you deal with it really effectively,
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really quickly, it can turn into something pretty bad and, you know, fight, flight, or
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And, um, I always thought that I was the fight kind of person.
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And while in certain scenarios I am, I also learned that I'm a bit of a flight kind of
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Um, you know, something bad happens and you're like, ah, never doing that again.
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Or, um, you have an off day or, or you, you have a failure and you're like, well, not meant
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And then you kind of have to catch yourself, but it's that awareness and the training that
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Um, I might sometimes get a couple steps going in the other direction before I realize it,
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but at least now I'm, I've equipped myself with the tools necessary to catch myself.
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Because I mean, you're actually one of the first people that I reached out to, to get
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And so why, why, what made you change your mind after you said yes the first time?
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Um, I don't even remember the specifics to be completely honest with you.
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Um, I don't, I don't remember what exactly was happening.
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Um, could have been something physical, could have been something, uh, work related, could
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have been mental, could have been a couple of nights of no sleep with a young family and
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kids who aren't yet sleeping through the night.
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I just remember though, thinking to myself, like, I guess it's worth taking a step back.
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One of the things that I, I hold to myself is that I now see how much absolute potential
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that I have by being able to be aware of what one can accomplish when you put your mind
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The downside of knowing that potential then is that it really opens the gates for a lot
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of people to then be really critical of the things that they're now aware of.
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I mean, when, when you start to be hyper aware of who you are as an individual, um, you're
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going to, you're going to start looking at the things that are not as positive.
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You're going to look at the things that obviously that you are blind spots to you or that were
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Um, and then I think also, which was even more rattling for me was there were things in
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my life that I thought I had my act together on, um, or with, and, and I didn't as much as
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So it was probably just a situation where to be honest, I was kind of feeling either
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sorry for myself or I was feeling down on something where I just thought I'm not reaching
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the potential that I feel that I should be for myself.
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And maybe one part of it was who am I to talk to these people out there about where they
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need to go if you're not, if you're not there yet.
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Um, or maybe it was even some weird way of depriving myself of something that I wanted
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to do because that's just the way that I deal with being down.
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Um, and it was an amazing pep talk by my wife and, uh, just sort of zeroing in on what's
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important, remembering that this really is a journey as cliche as it is.
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Um, and then I reached out and thankfully you were pretty cool with me having a mulligan
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Cause I really do think that your story is something that needs to be told and you really
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do do a lot of great work and I, you know, having these guys here, cause I mean, this
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is in the trenches, you know, this is a Ryan's Tuesday show where he's interviewing guys that
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have it figured out, you know, this, these are the guys that are in there getting it done
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and you, you do the work to actually get it done.
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So whenever you came away from that hurdle, what are, what are some of the other big ones
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Well, you know, I think, I think there's this concept of we are good enough.
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Um, I really think the biggest hurdle is, is when we become aware of who we are on another
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level, um, it is a very scary thing and you're then faced with a very real consequence of what
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are you going to do with that knowledge, right?
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You can choose to dwell on it and, and allow it to destroy you further, or you can use
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And it's interesting because I, you know, one of the things that I struggle with is now
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knowing what can be done and how, if you train your mind properly, how much like potentially
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you can unlock that so many people don't even realize are there.
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I sort of said to myself, like, I don't know that I could not help other people realize
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that level of awareness, that awakening to help them propel.
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Cause I see so many people that are just drifting through life and are miserable.
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And then I, of course, it's like I said, you know, you kind of struggle with, well, who
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am I to actually talk to these people about this?
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So I think it's really, it's thrown my world upside down, but I wouldn't trade it at all.
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Um, so I think the other hurdle is just, it's tossed a level of uncertainty in my life, which
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like I said, I'll take the uncertainty, but that potential upside any day of the week over
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just drifting, um, and going through life with your eyes closed.
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One of the guys on my battle team made a post in order of man the other day talking about
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how he was a victim of the iron council, because now he can never go back to being what he
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Well, I've, I've talked about that and I, and I wrote a short piece on the order of man
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Cause everyone was sort of asking what's it, what's the iron council.
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And I was like, no, no, that's not how it's happening.
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But I, I, um, I wrote a piece on there and that's, it's, it's really what it is.
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It's not something that you can play around with.
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You know, we're all here either in the order of men or the iron council are listening to
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And there are things that I think are important, but low hanging fruit, like things like you're
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Spend less, earn more, um, oversimplifications to complicated problems, but the problems are
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there and they're obvious and they're important to me.
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The real growth is when you dig into the nuance, dig into those things that, you know, where
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you challenge, especially the things that you think you have your act together.
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It is, I thought of everything that I had going on, at least I've got a rock solid marriage
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and you know, I, I do don't get me wrong that it's not like we had any marital issues or
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anything like this, but I realized that I was totally taking it for granted, right?
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When you've got that person with you in our trench and our family, and there's so many
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other things that you're dealing with in life, it's easy to take the stuff that isn't sucking
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Because all of a sudden you just start kind of inching and inching and inching.
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And if you don't stop that, if you don't actively engage, um, all of a sudden you're going to
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And I think that's how a lot of really amazing relationships end, not by some catastrophic
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And I realized that I was neglecting that part of my life.
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Um, and thankfully again, I'm, I'm aware of it before it became an issue, but man, that
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So you really have to dig into not only the stuff that you think, or that you quote unquote,
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no, you're not very good at, um, or where you struggle, but you better really dive into
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the things that you think you have dialed in because chances are good.
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At the very least there's opportunities to improve.
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You know, we, we don't just discuss, Hey, how to become a millionaire.
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Let's focus on your finances or, you know, there, there's four for a reason and they're
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And as you're digging into the rest of this shit, you cannot, cannot let go of the things
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I mean, I see this all the time when we do our battle plans, right?
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Where we, we ask the guys in our battle team to, to put together tactics for all four quadrants
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and we'll have guys say, I'm not doing anything on, let's say relationships to keep the trend
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Cause I've got that solid and I'm going to, I really need to work on my fitness or I really
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And we come back all the time and say, then you had better put something in there for
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You know, even if you're not propelling it to the next level, because I get it.
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You have to, at the very least do deliberate maintenance on everything or else it will slip.
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If you, if you continuously focus on the things that suck and ignore the things that are good,
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And I think, I know for me, consistency is something that I enjoy or, or seek.
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It's not fun having the high highs and the low lows.
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So what would you say is your biggest takeaway since you've been, since you, since you woke
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I think, I know it's the power of the mind, the power of what you can accomplish or how
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Is this awakening, this seeing something for the first time it's, it's real and it can
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Um, the biggest takeaway then is to arm yourself with the sort of mindfulness tools to protect
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yourself against going into that spiral where you just start to dwell on all the things that
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Um, and I, I've developed, well, I haven't developed, I've, I've used tactics that I've
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And I've now been coaching guys on how to, how to accomplish those things in their lives.
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Um, that's the biggest takeaway is how much control, like, look in life, there are very
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Most things are going to happen to us and we choose how we're going to respond, but that
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space between your ears, you have total control over that.
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Um, and if you train it properly, the stuff that you're able to accomplish is remarkable.
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Um, so that's my biggest takeaway is just something that I neglected.
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And it, I mean, you can think yourself into getting sick.
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You can think yourself, I think you'd be getting better.
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I'm not talking about, you know, severe things, but look, you know, you've got anxiety and your
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That's going to manifest itself in your stomach.
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Um, I have a really bad back and the discs go out every now and then.
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And when my mind shuts down the discs and the pain get worse.
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And when I got through it and I started to talk myself through it and use the tools and
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tactics that I've trained for myself, I can really minimize the impact that that, that
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Um, I, so I can't understate the biggest impact or the biggest takeaways is the power of the
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And I'm, I'm really excited about knowing this and learning more and more and more about
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So that, that's a pretty good leeway into my next thing, man.
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You know, all my guys get to challenge the listeners for, to, to do something for one
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So if you, you get the chance to challenge the order of man listeners for one week, what
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So give me a minute and I'll set the stage really quickly.
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I think we're all on a journey and we know that, and there's a lot of time and energy
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And I'm a huge advocate and I do a lot of coaching on developing that bulletproof vision.
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I think we don't do enough to define really where we are today, right?
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You need a starting point in an ending point to be able to have a journey, be able to navigate
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So my challenge would be make sure that you have the vision and make sure that you really
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You know, that's a code of conduct or however you want to do that.
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But I want, I would challenge everyone to do a really deep dive on who they are today.
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Get under the hood and really examine, take all of those things that you want to be and
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And that's not going out and looking to find things that you suck at.
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That's not looking for an opportunity to be hard on yourself.
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But I would say, identify two or three small things, nuanced things that you can work on
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and then come up with a plan on how you're going to tackle those things.
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It's a bit esoteric maybe, but I think it's critical.
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And one of those things at the very least has to be a deep dive on something that you think
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you have dialed in and where is the opportunity to make it better?
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Your challenge this week from Mr. Joshua Laycock.
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Let's see that in the Order of Man Facebook group with the hashtag in the trenches.
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I want to kind of dig into that with you a little bit deeper, just you and I.
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Then I can answer that challenge myself, you know, because leaders go first, right?
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I got one last question for you and I did not prepare you for this.
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You know, I really like my good friend Pierre, depending on when this thing gets aired, a few
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weeks ago it came out and he said there isn't one single definition and I would agree.
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I think there's three elements to being a solid man and I think, you know, I'm rehashing something
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that we've already talked about, but I think one, you really have to know yourself.
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A man really knows his self, knows his skills, knows his strengths, knows his weaknesses.
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And then he does everything in his power to close that gap and to keep it closed and to
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be constantly re-evaluating all of those things.
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So for me, a man is a hyper-aware man who knows who he is, knows who he wants to be,
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and then does everything in his power to execute and close that gap.
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I appreciate you rethinking it and tell your wife, I said, thank you for pep talking you
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If you've been inspired by this conversation, we encourage you to learn more about the steps,
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tools, strategy, and resources these men are using inside of our exclusive brotherhood,
00:22:30.820
The Iron Council is a band of brothers dedicated to leveling up their lives and committed to
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You can learn more at orderofman.com slash inthetrenches.
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Until next week, take action and become the man you are meant to be.