OoM 042： How to be Confident, Cool, and Collected with David De Las Morenas
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Summary
In this episode of The Order of Man Podcast, host Ryan Michler is joined by author David De las Moranis to discuss how to be a cool, calm, and collected man. In this episode, you'll learn how to build your confidence, reduce stress and anxiety in your life, and become the man you've always wanted to be.
Transcript
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When men let me know what they're struggling with most in life right now, the number one
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answer I receive comes down to being more confident. How do I build more confidence in
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myself? How can I be more confident in my life? How can I build more confidence with women?
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How can I be more confident in my career? My guest today, David DeLas-Marenas with How to Be
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shares with us how to build your confidence, how to reduce stress and anxiety in your life,
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and how you can be the cool, calm, and collected man you've always wanted to be.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly
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chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You
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are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This
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is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said
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and done, you can call yourself a man. Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am
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Ryan Michler, the host and founder of Order of Man. I hope that you guys had a great New
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Year's. You're probably back on the screen of things now, as I am, and I'm sure, I'm
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sure that you've got some New Year's resolutions, and I'm glad that you're tuning in to the Order
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of Man podcast because my goal is to help you achieve all of those resolutions, from health
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and wealth to fitness and leadership, you name it. Whatever your goal is for 2016, we
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have got you covered this year. Now, before we get into this week's episode, know that
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you can find all the links, the resources, the best quotes, all that you need at orderofman.com
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slash 042. And again, if you want to explore further into the conversation that we're having
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today, you'll need to head to facebook.com slash groups slash order of man to connect
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with over 1500 men. We are having some incredible conversations about what it means to be a man,
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including how to be more confident in your life, which is what we will be talking about
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in the podcast today. Also want to mention the iron council. I talked about this a bit
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last week, but we will be kicking things off again this week. And specifically, we're going
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to be addressing goals for the month of January. We're going to be talking about New Year's
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resolutions and creating a roadmap for what you want 2016 to look like. And most importantly,
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how you're actually going to make those things work in your life. No man is an island. And
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that's why surrounding yourself with other men who want to achieve big and amazing results
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in their lives is an absolute must. We'll be meeting virtually every single week to talk
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about getting better results in your relationships and leadership, business, career, health, wealth,
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and every other area of your life that is important to you. You'll have accountability
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partners, access to resources, access to the men's book club we're putting together and
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so much more. So if you're interested, head to order of man.com slash iron council, do it
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quick because we're getting started with a conversation about goal setting and creating that roadmap
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this week. And the last thing guys, before we get into the meat of the podcast, our giveaway
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with my friends over at Seneca Creek, congrats to the winner of the County knife by the James
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brand. Now this week we'll be giving away a dot kit for all of your traveling needs. And
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you can enter the giveaway by heading to order of man.com slash Seneca Creek giveaway to Seneca
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Creek giveaway to. So make sure you head over there to get registered for the giveaway. Now
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with all that said, let me get into our show today. My guest today is David de las
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Moranis. He is the creator of how to beast and an Amazon number one, bestselling author.
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David is known for his writing on building muscle and building confidence. He works also as a
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personal trainer on the side, and he's passionate about seeking growth in his own life and helping
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other guys like yourself, like me, like you take their self-esteem and their lives to the next level
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between his highly ranked podcast, beastly gentlemen, his book writing and his personal
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training business. He has also managed to write another book, which he talks with us about today
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titled calm, cool, and collected. David, thanks for joining us. Glad you're here, man.
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Yeah. Thanks for having me, Ryan. I'm excited to, to be on the show.
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Yeah. So I've been following your work for some time and I was digging around on your website. And
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one of the first thing that comes up on your website is it says that you can choose one of
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two options. You can choose get jacked or get confident. So I really want to know why you narrowed
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it down to those two things when it comes to what it is that you and I cover in our podcast and
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our blogs and the things that we're doing. Right. Obviously when you get into like the,
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the male self-improvement, self-development space, um, before, before you were even trying
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to share out information, right? There's like endless topics. And for me, exactly. You've
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kind of, obviously when you start something, you want to pick a niche. And for me, my, you
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know, my background really is in lifting weights and building muscle just because the first thing
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that I got into in terms of improving myself as a man, I suppose, was trying to, to put on
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weight, to put on muscle. It was back towards the end of my college days. And it definitely
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came from self-esteem issues because I was super skinny. And, you know, when you're sort
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of at a low point, you look for, I guess, more superficial things to, to fix yourself.
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And the first thing I got into was definitely lifting weights with the, the intention of putting
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on weight, putting on mass, just, you know, developing a more dominant presence as a man. And while
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obviously my, I guess my motivations were a little bit, not weak, but something, something
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along those lines, it definitely taught me a lot of, a lot of important things like discipline
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and just putting in work and setting my, my sights to the longterm, not expecting instant
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results. And it definitely transferred a lot of, a lot of, you know, positive things to,
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to my character and my mindset as well that I was able to later apply to, to different areas
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of my life. So when I first started how to be, believe it or not, it was actually all building
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muscle. And because, and because the self-esteem, I guess, was something that I had struggled
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with the whole time. And I sort of started really honing in on, you know, why, why I
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didn't feel enough as a man, why I didn't feel enough as a person. And I started to focus
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a lot of my personal development, not what I was writing on at the time, on building self-esteem
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and building confidence. And so I guess those are really just the two biggest like pain points
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for myself. And it's why I want to, I guess, share my experience and things that have worked
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Yeah. And I know a lot of other guys are struggling with that. So I guess my question, and maybe you
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already answered this, but did that help as you started to build muscle and get in shape
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and put on mass, did that help with your self-esteem or did you have to develop from there? Tell me a
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Yeah, good question. I think, you know, it had a positive effect and a negative effect.
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It definitely had a positive effect because I started to see real results. It was something
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I was passionate about, sort of became like my mission in life. So it definitely motivated
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me on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. And obviously there's, you know, there's a lot of
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positive benefits in terms of confidence that come with that, as well as when you see results
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in the mirror. You know, we tend to be very, I guess, egotistic's not the right word, but
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we tend to be very image-based. So I definitely developed confidence from that. It wasn't the
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most deeply rooted confidence. And I say that it also had a negative side effect because of
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that, because I think I started to really place my self-worth on, you know, how much I weighed,
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what my body fat percentage was, how much I could bench press, squat, and deadlift. And
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I sort of started to place, you know, all the validation I got in life on those things
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as opposed to so many of the other things that are important in life. So at first, it
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definitely was positive. But then in the long term, as I sort of tied my self-worth to that
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instead of anything else, I think that it also had sort of an undermining effect on my confidence.
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confidence. So is that where you developed and you kind of evolved more into building
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confidence through more of maybe just interpersonal type skills that you'd have, I guess you'd
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say? Right. Yeah. Obviously, there's a lot of, I guess, a lot of different things to go
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into confidence. And it, you know, even to this day, I think it's important to always just
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tell people, you know, self-esteem is still something that I think with everyone, I think
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it's important. It's empowering to realize that no one ever is sort of just completely set in
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like in their self-esteem. Yeah, you're always going to face some issue or something's going
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to happen that might bring up some like past trauma in your life that's going to get you
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to sort of question things maybe ultimately for the good. But in the short term, it's
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always easy to to sort of not sort of lose that self-esteem, lose that confidence. But
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it definitely, yeah, it definitely led me to other areas, I guess, that that made me start
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to change my focus to be more internal rather than external and focus on, you know, what motivated
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me to do things and, you know, how I relate to other people and other things and more
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healthy ways. Yeah, I know your journey and mine is probably similar. I, you know, two
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years ago, I weighed 234 pounds. That was the highest I ever got on the scale. And I'm 5'10
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and I wasn't huge. So it wasn't muscle. It was just fat. Right. And I just went on this
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journey over the last two years of, hey, I got to get in shape. I've got to be healthier
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and I've got to be there for my kids and my family, my wife. And so I started working
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out and that's really where my self-confidence journey started as well, similar to what you're
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talking about here. If somebody's listening to this and they're saying, yeah, I've got
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self-esteem issues, I've got confidence issues and it's something I know I need to work on.
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Would you suggest they start there or where would be a different place to start if there
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is one? Well, OK, I guess I'll have two answers for that. First of all, I'd say yes. I think
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that, you know, fitness and health is probably the best place you can start regardless of if
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it is going to, you know, maybe it's going to be unavoidable that you're going to maybe
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get some negative side effects with, you know, body image issues. But I think in terms of getting
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in better shape, if you break it down to lifting weights, eating better, sleeping better, it's
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going to have, you know, vast positive benefits to your life from just how you feel on a day
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to day basis to how you feel about yourself to how healthy and your body's actually functioning
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on like a molecular level. So I think 100%, that's probably the best place for guys to
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get started. I guess my second answer to that question would be there's a, if you have, if
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you're having self-esteem issues, it's probably more deeply rooted than just your, your fitness
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level, right? Like that's, it's probably, that's probably a manifestation of, of your lack
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of self-esteem. But I think generally it's, it's deeper than that. And, and sort of identifying
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your personal values is something that, that I come back to a lot in terms of that being
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sort of the root of your confidence, you know, sort of being self-aware about the things that
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you value, being okay, owning the things that you value and, you know, not feeling guilty
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or shameful that maybe other people around you don't value the same things and sort of owning
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those values. So I think that, you know, really taking the time to think about what made it
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motivates you and what you value and then to make sure that you can structure your life
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in a way that you live up to them is a very effective way of doing that. And I do have
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a technique that, that I used, that I've begun to use recently with myself and, you know, shared
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it with my, some of my clients, some of my friends that's worked really well if, if you
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Yeah, I do. Because I, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. And if any of the
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guys listening right now have listened to, I think we're, you know, 35 or so episodes
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into this, they know that finding your values and identifying what's important
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to you is, is one of the most important and critical steps you can take as, as you're
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developing into the man you want to become. But the next question is, okay, so how do
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we do that? Right? Because everybody says it, but now what? So yeah, I want to explore
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into that process that you take. So yeah, walk us through that.
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Okay. Yeah, for sure. And I think what you're saying is true. It's like, it's one of those
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things you hear probably on podcasts like yours and mine and other things that whoever's
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listening to these types of things and even who's listening now, probably a lot of the
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other types of media you digest, whether it's blog articles or YouTube videos, you
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Yeah. And you almost roll your eyes when you hear it like, oh, really? I have to hear
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this again. But so I want some real practical advice on how we can actually implement it
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Sure. So I'll give you like a step-by-step technique that you can use in probably like
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30 minutes. It definitely takes, you know, finding some alone time for yourself where you're
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not distracted. You don't have anyone who's trying to talk to you and you can sort of sit
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in silence to do this and really focus on this just for 30 minutes. But it can be, I think,
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really eye-opening and make you a lot more self-aware. And basically, the process starts,
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I guess, by at first sort of brainstorming a list of, I don't want to give an exact number
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because I hate when people give like, you have to brainstorm 25 of values or something.
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But say, you know, a lot more values than less. So I'd say maybe somewhere from like 10 to
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30 values. Again, I don't want to put a specific number on it. But things that you think you value,
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you know, things that you think that if you picture your ideal self, like values that you
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picture your ideal self having or looking at other men that you respect and writing down
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values that they have. And if you're struggling to think of any values at all, I don't know if
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you're familiar with Steve Pavlina. He's like an old school self-improvement guy. He has a list of
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like 300 values or something. And if you just scroll through that, it's pretty easy to see which of
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those sort of catch your eye, which of those you think you value. And then once you have this list
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of, you know, 10, 20, 30 values that you think you value, the next idea is to sort of go through
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them one by one and take the time to really consider whether or not you actually value that
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or if that's just something that maybe you want to value or that you think you should value.
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And I think this is where it gets tricky. And there's two main ways you can do this.
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The first way is a way that Sean Russell, who runs a podcast called Menprovement,
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he shared this with me and I tried it and it works well for myself. But when I tried with one of my
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friends, it didn't work as well for him. So I guess it's something to try. But if you're not very
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good at staying focused and mindful and meditating, it might be kind of hard. But what he shared with
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me was to close your eyes and picture yourself living up to this value, whether it's something in
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the past, a time that you lived up to this value in the past. So say for example, if one of my,
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one of the things that I, I value would was being courageous. I think that's going to be a common
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one for guys to think of, close your eyes and think of a time in the past where you really lived up to
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the value of being courageous. Maybe it was, you know, standing up to someone like your boss or
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someone like that. Maybe it was, you know, asking a girl out that you were scared of talking to.
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Maybe it was, you know, practicing a martial art and stepping in the ring and fighting someone.
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There's endless examples of courage, obviously. And there's sort of this really focus in on the
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emotional response that your body has when you close your eyes and you're, you're imagining
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yourself in that situation. And the idea is basically to do this for all the values that
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you brainstormed and then to pick, you know, again, not to give a specific number, but the five or so
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and maybe three to six values that produce the strongest emotional response. And I can tell you
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when I did this, that emotional response sort of was like closing my eyes, meditating on it. And I
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sort of feel like a euphoria, like I, like I was proud of myself, you know, maybe my skin was
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tingling, like it was like an emotional high. I actually felt a difference. And for me, there
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was three or four that were like very clear in my face, like, oh wow, that, that really makes me
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feel something. And then after that, there weren't so many others. So those are the values that I sort
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of chose for myself. But I think for someone who maybe does this activity and they're like, ah,
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this, I don't know, this is like, this isn't doing much for me. I'd, then I'd say to think
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about like on a day-to-day basis, your, your daily motivations and why you like to do the
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things you like to do. Like maybe you're someone who is really afraid of standing up to people or
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talking to girls or doing something courageous. And that really bothers you. Then I think you
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could clearly see to encourage use curves as an example, again, that probably being courageous
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is something that motivates you, even if you're not living up to it yet, if that makes any sense.
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When you have, when you identify these values, I mean, I think it's easy for anybody to probably
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do that exercise in the morning or take an hour or whatever it may be. And then they wash their
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hands and they think, okay, I'm set. I've got that down. How do you revisit those, those things?
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How do you keep those active in your life? So you're living the life that you want to live?
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Sure. I think that's, I mean, the most important part of it of all, right?
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So I think just by doing that alone, it will make you more self-aware. You might realize,
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I definitely realized that there were some things that I thought I really valued, like maybe
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trying to think what's, I did this a few, a few weeks ago, maybe being like decisive or something
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like that, that I thought, oh, that's super important to me. When I, when I tried to think
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of it and think about times when I was really decisive, maybe the result was, was a good,
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there was a good result in my life at the time, but it wasn't really, that wasn't really like
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on a deep level, my underlying value. So I think on, for one point, once you do this,
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it is good to be self-aware about these things. But as you said, like, how do you make sure that
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you're actually living up to them? And I think you just want to look at your life and see how
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you can make these things habits, whether it's daily habits or weekly habits. So from, for example,
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my, my values that I came up with, my top three were growth, courage, and mindfulness. Those were
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like by far the three that when I did that activity, I had the strongest response to.
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And so, so if I'm like looking at, once you have those, you want to look at them one by one and say,
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how can I sort of program these into my life? Or how can I make, make sure that I'm living
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up to these on a daily or weekly basis. And if you look at courage or something like that,
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if I was looking at my life, I'd say, well, well, I do practice martial arts and I do spar
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martial arts. Every time before I spar, I am afraid and I do feel courageous as I do it.
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So that is, you know, on one way, that's me living up to that value on, you know, a couple
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nights a week, I'm doing something that, that allows me to live up to that value. For growth,
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here we go. Fitness is a great example for that, right? Whether, whether it's muscle growth or
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whether it's losing weight and becoming more healthy, where you can measure this growth,
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if you really value growth and seeing yourself shed five pounds in a month or, you know, increase
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your binge press, your squat over the course of a couple of months, that's going to fulfill that
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need for growth. And every time you're in the gym, you're pushing to grow a little bit, get a little
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stronger. That's going to fulfill that need. And then for something like mindfulness, well, I mean,
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the obvious thing would be like a daily meditation to make sure that you're actually doing that,
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which I realized I really do value being mindful, but I really hadn't been meditating maybe except for
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once every week or so. So when I did this, I realized how important it was for me to sort of,
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you know, tune back into that particular habit to make sure that I'd live up to that value.
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So basically, you're saying once you've got your values down, your top three or four values down
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that really resonate with you specifically, then start creating some action steps and things that
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you can do on a daily basis to practice those values and those virtues?
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Exactly. And I think that's at first, you know, obviously, if you maybe you're forcing these
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things at first. But I think that that's the best possible outcome at first of doing this activity,
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you know, making sure that you've yeah, the exact exactly as you said it, how you have some habits
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that are allowing you to practice these values on a daily basis. So I want to talk about we're coming
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up on year end. And obviously, as we get to year end, and we get into the new year, a lot of guys will
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have New Year's resolutions, I want to, you know, be more confident, I want to make more money,
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I want to lose weight, I want to get in better shape. And we all know that very few a sliver of
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a percentage actually make those things stick. So I'd like to know when you create your values in
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your actions, what's separating the guys who are successful over long periods of time and making
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lifelong changes, and those that just fizzle out after the first month or even week?
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Right, I think that a lot of people who do New Year's resolutions or who, you know, are pressured
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into setting goals, whether it's at their office, or their friend, or they just listen to a podcast
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like this, and they go, I need to do this, because like they said so, I think if it's just, you're
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kind of just doing it because that it's not really going to have a lasting effect on you. So I think
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that that's why with this activity doing that, that visualization, I think doing that visualization
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alone and seeing to seeing how it makes you feel is going to increase your, I guess, your probability
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of sticking to these things in the long term, I guess that, you know, I've never thought about
00:19:38.960
that in exact, in exact regards to this particular activity. So off the top of my head, I'd say,
00:19:44.320
you know, the best thing to do, that's a really good question, because obviously, it's more
00:19:48.060
important that you stick with this over the course of, of months and years rather than today and
00:19:53.060
tomorrow would be to, you know, really to hone in on just three of them and pick three daily habits
00:19:59.920
that you can do. And then I'd revisit this activity and do these visualizations, maybe once
00:20:04.480
a week, just to remind yourself of why you're doing them and really understanding your motivation
00:20:10.360
Yeah, it's a good idea. I, the problem, I think, is that it becomes unsexy, right? Like it's really
00:20:15.040
sexy to lose weight when you shed that first 15 pounds. And then you realize, oh, man, I've got to
00:20:20.120
go into the gym every day, five days a week for an hour. And I'm seeing just barely, barely any
00:20:26.740
change after that first, you know, that first big push. And so I think guys, myself included,
00:20:32.540
lose momentum because we're not seeing the results of that immediately like we were before we first
00:20:37.340
Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like it does become unsexy. And like with anything,
00:20:40.680
there's going to be those diminishing marginal returns. Same thing if guys trying to build muscle,
00:20:45.200
you know, at first you sort of get those like, quote unquote, noob gains that come really quick.
00:20:49.180
And then after three or four months, you're not really seeing, it's the same as with weight loss,
00:20:54.340
Exactly. And so a technique that a guy named Sam Thomas Davies, who was also on my podcast,
00:21:00.600
recently shared with me, and he sort of specializes in habit building, is to always
00:21:04.400
take the smallest step necessary to build a habit. So with going to the gym, he said,
00:21:10.920
just make sure that, you know, in the morning when you go to work, just put your gym bag in the car.
00:21:15.540
Usually that step is enough to get you to stop at the gym on the way home. Or I guess we're saying
00:21:21.560
meditation, I'd say just as soon as you wake up, the first thing you do in the day,
00:21:25.820
just close your eyes and decide to be mindful for three or four breaths. Because usually after
00:21:29.640
you've committed to those first three or four breaths, and you're sitting there laying there,
00:21:33.220
focusing on your breath and meditating, generally, you're not gonna, you're gonna be the path of
00:21:37.860
least resistance is going to be continued to, you know, for those five minutes that you want to.
00:21:41.560
So I think about for each habit that you've, you've thought of, think of the smallest possible
00:21:46.000
action that you can take, you know, just barely moving your finger to get yourself started and
00:21:50.760
just commit to just doing that every day. Don't even commit to the full five minutes of meditation
00:21:54.240
or, or going to the gym up front. Just commit to putting your gym clothes in the car or laying
00:21:58.780
down and focusing on three or four breaths. Yeah, I love that you talk about action. I know when I
00:22:03.140
started to lose weight, I, I, forever I've had this vision of like, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds,
00:22:08.180
I'm gonna lose 30 pounds or 40 pounds. And I had these big goals. And they never worked until I
00:22:13.360
changed my goal setting from that big goal to what are the actions I can complete on a daily basis.
00:22:18.280
So for me, it was going to the gym five days a week. And when I actually did that, I went to the
00:22:22.260
gym five days a week, things I can control the way it just came right off. It was, it was no big
00:22:26.500
deal because I was doing those actions. Yeah, it's, it's about, yeah, I think that's a really good
00:22:30.120
point. Like it's about setting goals that you have control over. Yeah. You can't, if you set the goal,
00:22:34.920
I'm going to lose 20 pounds over the next two months. I guess you do
00:22:37.980
indirectly have control over it. You don't, you can't control down to the pound and the time frame
00:22:43.100
without really obsessing and making it probably a negative thing. You're not gonna be able to
00:22:47.920
control that. So I think what you're saying is great. Like I'm gonna, I'm going to go to the gym
00:22:51.480
five times a day, or I'm going to meditate for, you know, five minutes in the morning,
00:22:55.260
make it something that you can completely control rather than something that, you know,
00:22:59.300
you might fail to do, even though your, your efforts there, and then you're just going to lose
00:23:03.280
motivation after that. So I think a lot of guys know probably what we're talking about. I think
00:23:08.660
there's not a whole lot of new information. It's just taking information than actually implementing.
00:23:13.020
So in your experience with some of your clients, why is it that men aren't taking time to do this,
00:23:20.060
like to self-reflect, to look at what they want, to go through their values, to meditate? Is there
00:23:23.880
some reoccurring reasons why we're not doing these things? So I think with, with anything, right,
00:23:29.360
with, with fitness or any goal, like the number one objection, and this is a lot for my time as a
00:23:34.060
trainer, the number one objection is always, I don't have the time, right? So I think that you
00:23:40.120
really need to, it's tough because until someone wants to do something, they're usually not going
00:23:44.800
to do something. Yeah, they're not motivated. Right. So I think it's, it's tough to, to generate
00:23:50.540
that in an, in an authentic manner, to be honest, until someone's prepared to change and until they want
00:23:56.860
it, it's going to be tough for them to actually change. So I guess rather than forcing yourself
00:24:02.240
into doing something you're not completely sold on, it's probably better to, to take the time to
00:24:08.520
consider your motivations for doing it. And I hate to give vague advice like that, but I think it's
00:24:12.280
really, it's really hard when you're working with a client, you know, one-on-one, you can really
00:24:16.840
ask them if they say, okay, I want to lose 20 pounds. You can really take the time and say, okay,
00:24:21.820
so why do you want to lose those 20 pounds? And they'll say, oh, well, because, you know,
00:24:25.980
I want to look better. And you're like, all right, well, like, what does that mean to you?
00:24:28.780
Like, why do you want to look better? And you can sort of keep drilling down until they get to the
00:24:32.080
point where it's, it's this, you know, maybe it's a lady who wants to lose 20 pounds because she wants
00:24:36.280
to be pregnant and be a healthy mother. And now when she thinks about losing 20 pounds, she's thinking
00:24:40.400
about playing with her son rather than just like this number, I want to lose 20 pounds, which doesn't
00:24:45.220
really mean anything. So I think sort of taking the time to question why, why you want to, to achieve
00:24:51.080
some outcome and just repeatedly thinking why, what's my motivation? What's my motivation?
00:24:55.040
Until you get to something that's, you know, either really painful or really empowering in
00:24:59.720
your life, like to find out what, what does it really mean to you?
00:25:02.580
Yeah, it's funny. I've got a, just a small example of that. I mean, I'll give you an idea
00:25:07.200
here. I listened to a ton of podcasts. Sometimes I get so consumed and so overwhelmed with information
00:25:12.540
that I'm not necessarily interested in. And so what I started doing instead of that is I
00:25:16.400
started focusing on just the information that I was interested at that moment, because when I
00:25:22.440
focus on other information or somebody tells me, or you give me a recommendation to listen to a
00:25:27.060
podcast, my mind gets consumed with all this information, these ideas and these strategies
00:25:31.260
that really, I may not even be interested in at the point and it becomes cluttered.
00:25:37.620
I was just going to say, I think the point is, is that don't focus on something somebody else is
00:25:44.240
trying you or convincing you to do. Focus on what it is for you at that moment. I think you'll
00:25:49.760
have a lot more success. I think that's a really, I think that's really powerful information. Yeah.
00:25:54.120
You just have to realize because you like listening to a certain guy's podcast and maybe whether it's
00:25:59.180
mine or yours or one of the other mini podcasts out there, YouTube channels or whatever, just
00:26:03.840
because right now they're trying to do something specific in their life, whether it's, you know,
00:26:10.080
in my life right now, maybe, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to pack on, on weight onto my
00:26:14.320
deadlift or I'm trying to, to, to put on muscle just, just because I'm doing that or, you know,
00:26:18.720
I'm working, working up to like an amateur and white tie fight just because I'm doing these
00:26:22.160
things doesn't mean that you should be. And I guess it comes back to owning your values and just
00:26:26.360
sort of picking a small amount of things to focus on actually improving in your life that means
00:26:31.820
something to you rather than like adopting someone else's goals. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to
00:26:37.020
jump back to something you said earlier. You're talking a lot about meditation and this is something
00:26:40.780
that frankly, I have never done before. And I imagine it would be very difficult for me to sit still
00:26:46.020
for any length of time. Tell me a little bit about how you got introduced into meditation,
00:26:50.500
maybe even some of your meditation practices so that if guys are interested in that, they can
00:26:53.860
start implementing some of those things in their lives. Right. I think that meditation is usually
00:26:57.880
sold to guys or to people in general in a very poor way because people who are already sold on
00:27:05.600
meditation, they sort of just do it because they already have that, I guess, that intrinsic motivation
00:27:10.400
to do it. But I feel like it's not really presented normally in like a very sexy way since we were
00:27:15.700
talking about sexy earlier. It's sort of seen as just, you know, I'm going to sit around and do
00:27:21.460
nothing and try and think about nothing. And then that's going to make me like a more spiritual person
00:27:25.600
or something, which doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean anything, right? Right, right. It's hard to
00:27:29.900
understand why that would actually be useful for you. Right. And for me, the benefits of meditation
00:27:35.480
are that, and I don't want to, I'm going to say that it makes you more mindful throughout the rest of
00:27:40.300
the day. And I'm not just going to say that because again, being mindful for the rest of the day
00:27:43.520
doesn't mean anything to most guys. But, you know, when you're doing some activity and you're
00:27:50.740
really involved in it and you're sort of in that state of flow where, you know, your mind's turned
00:27:54.920
off and, you know, maybe you're writing an essay or maybe you're working on, you know, if you're a
00:28:01.040
programmer, you're writing code, if you're an artist, you're working on a painting or if you're just
00:28:05.080
someone who likes to play video games, you're like working to beat the next level of your video game.
00:28:08.720
And you're sort of getting that, like, that, you know, you're in the zone or you're an athlete,
00:28:12.740
you know, you're playing soccer or basketball, you're kind of in the zone. You kind of know what
00:28:15.780
it feels like when your mind shuts off and you're sort of just, you're just going, you're just doing
00:28:19.900
what you want to do and it feels really good and really empowering. And basically for me, when I
00:28:25.100
meditate every day, it sort of like programs my mind to sort of allow myself just to get lost in the
00:28:30.920
activities that I'm doing rather than my default mode, I'd say, or most guys default mode, which is
00:28:37.200
your mind's drifting somewhere else. Maybe you're on a date with a girl, but all you're thinking
00:28:41.800
about is, you know, going home and working on your project or you're at home working on your project
00:28:45.460
and all you're thinking about is the date you're going to go on later that night. And when you do
00:28:50.300
this, you basically sort of just drown yourself in anxiety and it just kind of takes away from your
00:28:54.560
quality of life, but not in like a very obvious way because your mind's just always going at 100
00:28:58.960
miles an hour. So by meditating, I think it really just allows you to be more present of a person who
00:29:05.500
just enjoys life more. And yeah, my, my default mode is, I was just gonna say my default mode is
00:29:11.080
frantic. Just like you said, it's like, go, go, go. I've got a list a mile long of everything I
00:29:14.940
need to get done. And so I can see why having a time to sit back and reflect would be powerful for
00:29:19.440
sure. Right. Yeah, no. And that's still my default mode. I'd be lying if I said I'm some like yogi or
00:29:23.800
some weird, I don't know, quasi meditation or something. Right, right. I still definitely get
00:29:29.580
anxious. I'm anxious all the time. I know I have a lot of stress and I just tend to,
00:29:33.840
to have my mind racing, which is why I really focus on, on meditating. So to get back to,
00:29:39.580
I guess, to your original question, like how, what's an actionable way with, for guys to start
00:29:43.220
meditating and actually stick to it. So I'd say there's two ways. The way that I was introduced
00:29:48.320
to it was through my brother who was, again, he was sold on it, but he wasn't really selling it to
00:29:53.840
me in a very, very sexy way. But one day he was over my place and we had just like worked out or
00:30:00.380
something and we were waiting to go out. We were just like hanging at my place. And he was like,
00:30:04.020
all right, if I put on this guided meditation, are you down just to lay down or sit down for,
00:30:09.120
you know, for 10 minutes and listen to it and give it a shot? And I wasn't really doing anything. So
00:30:13.460
I said, sure, whatever. And there was this, this 10 minute guided meditation on YouTube that I can
00:30:17.660
send you if you want to put it in the show notes because I still recommend it to people.
00:30:22.040
Um, and it's, it was basically just, you know, someone talking you through some soothing music,
00:30:27.720
but for whatever reason, when I had the guided meditation, it was, it was someone else, you
00:30:33.500
know, doing it for me. I didn't really have to do anything. I could just sit down, hit play and do
00:30:36.940
that. So that's one recommendation. My other recommendation is for guys just, you know, at
00:30:43.200
any point during the day when, when you're feeling extra stressed or extra anxious, whether,
00:30:48.460
you know, you just don't feel like you have any more mental power to, to focus on what you're
00:30:51.560
doing, or you have some relationship issues that's just eating away at you, or, you know,
00:30:55.920
you just got cut off in traffic and you just feel yourself about to lose it. Just to sort of focus
00:31:00.620
on breathing deep breaths into your belly and sort of relaxing your shoulders and opening up your
00:31:04.720
chest. And just by doing that, and you're not even closing your eyes or anything, but just focus on
00:31:09.260
breathing into your belly and sort of relaxing your shoulders, opening up your chest. Generally by
00:31:13.360
doing that and just controlling like the physical symptoms of stress, generally that sort of
00:31:18.140
short circuits the whole process and will ease your mind. And that's sort of a, I guess like a
00:31:22.120
practice in mindfulness that's not pure meditation. It doesn't require you to, to go to a quiet place
00:31:27.300
and cross your legs or do something weird like that. Yeah, I had, I don't know if you're familiar
00:31:31.760
with, but I had retired Navy SEAL commander Mark Devine on my show and he teaches a concept called box
00:31:37.400
breathing, which is very similar to what you're talking about. He talks about breathing in for four
00:31:41.840
seconds, holding for four seconds, exhaling for four seconds, and then holding there for four
00:31:47.020
seconds and then repeating, repeating that process. And I've tried that just, just breathing, just
00:31:51.320
having deep breaths like that. And it's been really, really powerful when I get frustrated or
00:31:56.240
anxious or excited or whatever it may be. It's been powerful for me. Yeah. I think that's a really
00:32:00.000
good technique. Yeah. I think just by, yeah, by bringing your minds, your breath, and I'm going to
00:32:03.320
go back and listen to that episode now for sure. But I think, yeah, just by bringing your mind back to
00:32:07.180
your breath, it sort of takes your focus away from all the bad stuff you're thinking about.
00:32:11.700
Yeah. And I think as guys, you know, we hear things like meditation or yoga or things like that. And we think,
00:32:16.440
oh, that's not masculine. That's not tough. But, you know, guys like yourself are doing it.
00:32:20.400
Retired Navy SEAL commanders are doing it. So I think there's obviously something that we need
00:32:23.840
to look into and see how powerful this can actually be. Yeah, definitely. I would, I'd agree with you
00:32:28.820
a hundred percent. Just give it, give it a little bit of a try when you, when you feel really stressed
00:32:33.440
and, you know, I can only speak for myself, but it's definitely made a huge difference in my life.
00:32:38.400
So let's change directions a little bit because we talked about briefly through email, you and I,
00:32:43.700
about your book, Calm, Cool and Collected. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to write that
00:32:47.860
and then the premise behind the book. Sure. So I decided to write that because,
00:32:52.540
and I've self-posted a handful of other books beforehand, but up until recently, sort of
00:32:57.220
everything that I've digested in this, in this male self-improvement realm and everything that I've
00:33:02.960
put out and shared with other people has sort of been about that, like that go-getter mentality,
00:33:08.580
like dominate the world, like bend it to your will, set goals, take action, you know, make sure
00:33:12.820
you're being decisive, being, you know, super aggressive and pursuing the things you want,
00:33:16.740
which don't get me wrong. Like alpha male type stuff, right? Yeah, exactly. Like alpha male type
00:33:20.260
stuff, which don't get me wrong. If you want to create change in your life, you need to be proactive
00:33:23.200
about it. And I still completely, I still try and live up to that ideal and I still, I still preach
00:33:28.700
that because I think most people in life, maybe not people who are listening to these podcasts,
00:33:32.740
but they're probably a little more motivated, but most people in life still sort of are just too relaxed
00:33:37.160
and too just pleasure seeking and not, not really worried about seeing changes in their lives.
00:33:41.800
But for myself and for so many of the guys that I've talked with and worked with and,
00:33:46.440
and, you know, and followed, I know that it's kind of, it can be very unhealthy when you're in that,
00:33:52.160
that super, I guess, like you said, alpha male mindset where a lot of the times you start sort
00:33:56.360
of holding your, your self-esteem, your self-worth, or just your, your happiness hostage until,
00:34:01.500
until you achieve a goal, right? Whether you're like a guy who wants to, to get bigger in the gym
00:34:06.460
or lose weight in the gym, or you want to get better with women, or you want to start a business.
00:34:09.840
A lot of times you get so focused on achieving goals and taking your business to the next level
00:34:14.860
or taking your success in a specific area to the next level that you just get really hard on
00:34:20.080
yourself and you don't allow yourself to relax. And you sort of just eat away at your self-esteem,
00:34:25.220
even though you're trying to improve. So for me, writing this book was, because I know I already
00:34:30.400
have, you know, a sizable audience that listens to me about the other stuff. And I, I realized that
00:34:35.180
this is probably actually the most important message that, that I could just start to,
00:34:39.660
to broadcast right now, because since I've been able to take a step back in my life and sort of
00:34:44.660
focus more on this mindfulness stuff and, and not putting so much pressure on myself and not,
00:34:50.840
you know, demanding so much of myself, still setting goals, but at the same time being mindful that,
00:34:56.920
you know, I'm never going to be happy if, if I'm always telling myself that, you know,
00:35:00.280
I just have to keep pushing through until I get this done. Because then as soon as I,
00:35:03.120
I get, you know, create this podcast or I publish this book or I, or I go on a date with this girl
00:35:08.020
that as soon as that happens, it's, it's just how we are. We're programmed just to look forward
00:35:11.420
to the next thing. You wouldn't want, you know, a bigger house, a nicer car or whatever. So this
00:35:17.420
book was really about taking a step back from that and practical techniques you can use to sort of
00:35:22.160
stay calm, cool, collected and happy, I'd say. And always, and always the way I phrase in the book is
00:35:28.580
to always accept reality and always just really be, you know, present about what your current reality
00:35:35.080
is because, and not to turn on too much longer about this, but to, in my mind, unhappiness or
00:35:41.980
stress or anxiety always comes as a result of when you're sort of fighting against your current
00:35:45.900
reality. You know, maybe your, your girlfriend says, or maybe say your girlfriend dumped you
00:35:51.340
and you're just pissed because she dumped you. You're really sad. Those feelings are definitely
00:35:55.520
unavoidable, but you have to sort of accept your new reality. Or if you keep fighting it and saying,
00:36:00.660
I wish I was still in that relationship. I wish I hadn't done that. I wish he hadn't done this.
00:36:04.640
If you're just fighting that current reality and you're not coming to terms with your new reality,
00:36:08.380
you're, you're never going to be happy. You're never going to be able to, to calm back down.
00:36:11.900
You know, you need to always be able to sort of accept your ever changing reality.
00:36:16.060
Yeah. We talk a lot about being fulfilled, right? And I, and I know people who are fulfilled and
00:36:21.800
their level of wealth is way less than those who have extreme levels of wealth, but aren't fulfilled
00:36:27.160
in their lives. And so is there one or two action steps or just a quick idea maybe that you can share
00:36:33.080
with us from the book about how to create ease and calmness in your life? Right. So the, the,
00:36:39.540
one of the main action steps I advocate in the book is what we talked about of the, I calling,
00:36:44.660
I call it refusing to close. So the way I look at it, we have two basic emotional states,
00:36:51.240
open or closed. And when we're open, you know, we're happy, we feel good. We, we feel happy. We're,
00:36:57.640
we're open to talking with other people, joking with other people, you know, bringing value to
00:37:02.320
other people and just, just good feelings. And then the other mindset, we're closed. And that's
00:37:07.080
when we're sort of anxious, we're mad, we're sad, we're angry at ourselves or at the world,
00:37:11.400
and we're stressed out. And I think it's, it's maybe oversimplifying it to a degree,
00:37:16.520
but more or less, we're, we're either open or we're closed. And basically the way I phrase in
00:37:21.920
the book is that whenever you feel yourself starting to close, whether again, whether it's
00:37:26.640
getting in a car accident, like a Fenderman, they're not a serious accident, or, or getting
00:37:31.680
in an argument with, with your girlfriend or your boss or something like that. Generally,
00:37:35.760
there's always a sort of this, this point where you can either just close off and go in this downward
00:37:42.680
spiral, where you start overthinking everything, you start trying to think your way out of your,
00:37:47.320
your negative state, you start acting out at other people and are taking your anger out at other
00:37:51.720
people, you know, generally being passive aggressive, or you can sort of accept that
00:37:56.420
you're at this, you can accept reality that you're at this junction in your life, and you can choose to
00:38:01.320
stay open instead. You're not, it's not instantly going to solve everything. But if you stay open,
00:38:07.180
you're basically not going to, to allow some inconvenient thing that happened to you just to ruin
00:38:12.620
the rest of your day, just because something inconvenient happened to you. And the way I
00:38:16.600
advocate doing that is when you notice your mind starting to race about, you know, all the bad
00:38:21.580
things that just happened, or what you're going to do next, or trying to solve a problem, and you
00:38:25.600
notice, you know, your chest starting to tighten a little bit, basically to do exactly what I said
00:38:30.160
earlier, to do like the box breathing that that guy, that, that the Navy SEAL that you said advocated,
00:38:35.380
which, you know, basically taking deep breaths, focusing on your breaths, and focusing on allowing your
00:38:40.260
chest to stay open, and your shoulders to stay relaxed, and just focusing solely on that. And
00:38:45.180
even, you know, the voice in your head, and the bad thoughts are definitely, they're not just going
00:38:48.480
to stop, because you do that. Like, that'd be amazing if they did, but that's, that's not how
00:38:51.860
you work. Yeah. But if you, if you keep sort of focusing on that stuff, and just sort of let,
00:38:56.180
accept that the voice in your head is going to be going off, and, and trying to get you worked up,
00:39:00.800
but just sort of watching it, and just watching your breath, generally, that's enough to stay open.
00:39:05.900
And, and maybe you don't feel like that, you know, that you're on top of the world, but at least you
00:39:09.900
avoid getting in this down, depressed mood. David, this has been such a powerful conversation. I
00:39:14.740
know we're going to talk, we're, obviously, we talked a lot about meditation, and calmness,
00:39:17.940
and confidence. And so, I think this will help a lot of guys. I've got a couple more questions for
00:39:21.120
you as we wind things down. The first question is, what do you think it means to be a man?
00:39:27.000
Right. So, I know that's a question you ask all your guests, and it's a great question.
00:39:31.100
So, it's, I think there's a lot of different answers to it, but I'm going to stick with,
00:39:36.680
with the theme that I went with today, because I think that, for me, especially as of late,
00:39:41.080
this is what it means. And I think it means owning your values without any guilt or any shame. So,
00:39:46.900
knowing what you value, and then living up to those values, and not allowing other people's values to,
00:39:52.620
to override your own. So, as you said, that might mean listening to a podcast, and seeing a guy who's
00:39:58.060
really passionate about lifting weights, but recognizing that, well, while being healthy is
00:40:03.200
important, but that lifting weights in your life, and making that your passion, isn't going to
00:40:06.840
fulfill you. You know, you, you prefer maybe to go out and dance, rather than lifting weights,
00:40:11.180
and just owning that up, and owning up to that, and just taking the time to, to figure out your
00:40:15.700
values, and then sort of shamelessly living up to them. I'd say with the caveat of, of not at the
00:40:20.300
expense of other people, but really just being completely comfortable with your values,
00:40:24.680
values, and taking the time to live up to them. David, how do we connect with you? If you want
00:40:28.280
to know about your book, Calm, Cool, and Collected, or How to Beast, Beastly Gentlemen, which is your
00:40:32.380
podcast, how do we reach out and connect with you? So, if you go to www.howtobeast.com, everything's
00:40:38.940
linked through there. My social media accounts, there's a contact form to email me, there's a link
00:40:43.680
to my books, there's a link to the podcast. It's easy, once you go to howtobeast.com, just to find
00:40:49.120
everything through there. Cool. Hey, I appreciate you taking your time and sharing some of your
00:40:52.760
insights. We'll be looking forward to connecting more. Thanks for being on the show today.
00:40:55.660
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to getting you on my podcast soon.
00:40:59.520
There you have it, guys. Mr. David DeLas-Marenas talking about confidence, calmness,
00:41:03.100
setting goals, and building habits. I hope that this show is as helpful for you as it is for me,
00:41:08.460
especially as a lot of you are working on those New Year's resolutions. Now, speaking of that,
00:41:12.780
again, we have opened up the Iron Council. This is a mastermind where we are going to delve further
00:41:17.020
into eight key skill sets every single man needs to master. If you're serious
00:41:22.300
about hitting your goals in 2016, whatever those goals are, I cannot think of a better
00:41:26.500
resource to help you do that. If you're interested, head to orderofman.com slash
00:41:29.620
ironcouncil. You'll learn a little bit more about what it's all about there,
00:41:33.680
and you'll also be able to sign up. Remember our Dopp Kit giveaway from our friends over
00:41:37.640
at Seneca Creek. Head to orderofman.com slash Seneca Creek giveaway too. This will be a weekly
00:41:43.840
giveaway, so make sure you stay tuned for that. Guys, I look forward to talking with you next week,
00:41:49.180
but until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the
00:41:54.320
Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant
00:41:59.340
to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.