Rise of the "Peter Pans," Overcoming Insurmountable Challenges, and How to Comfort Others Correctly ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 6 minutes
Words per minute
192.05441
Harmful content
Misogyny
12
sentences flagged
Hate speech
4
sentences flagged
Summary
On this episode of the podcast, we have our first guest on the show, John Wojtowicz. John is a man of action, a hunter, a father, a husband, a brother, a friend, and a husband. He has been in the hunting industry for a long time and is a great friend of mine. We talk about some of the things we have in common, some of our favorite hunting trips, his birthday, and much more.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. John, what's up, brother? Great to see you.
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Good morning. Good to see you. Do you listen to the podcast when it's Kip or just when it's
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yourself? Of course, only myself. Why would I listen to that? I just didn't know. I just
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didn't know how much we needed to say sorry for picking on you, whether you listen to it
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or not. I don't know. No, I listen to the podcast regardless. It's on my normal playlist. I hear
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it. I'd like it. I'd laugh. Good. Good. Well, it's great to see you, man. You've been a friend
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for a long time. Obviously, you're a hunter and we are hunting buddies. You've got some origin gear,
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it looks like, on. What's that behind you over your left shoulder? That doesn't look like origin,
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though. Or your right shoulder. Oh, no. Yeah, that's sick.
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Oh, yeah. What are we going to do with you? We got to get you converted fully.
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That's what I had. I do. I bought everything they had at origin.
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Oh, did you really? Nice. I bought the entire kit, like every single thing.
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Nice. You got any good hunts planned this year?
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Yeah, man. I love them. Planned elk. That's just my bow hunting elk in Southern Utah. So,
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Yeah. Actually, if we'll see scheduling-wise, I don't know what's going to be going on with
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Legacy around that time or what you're going to be doing, but maybe we can make it work to get you
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out there this time. Is it September? Is that when it is?
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Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Let's talk about it. I've got some other hunts planned in Minnesota, Hawaii.
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We just got back from Texas. We're actually going to Africa this year,
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me and my two oldest boys. So, we've got a lot of cool stuff planned.
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Yeah. We're flying into Johannesburg and then I think it's an hour flight from there or something.
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I don't exactly know where it's at. I'm not very good with the logistical side of things. So,
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usually other people deal with that and they say, be here at this time and I just show up.
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That's awesome. We just went hunting. My sons and I, we were out in California at a ranch out there,
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Central Cal. And we were doing night vision hunting for pigs because they changed the law
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That's awesome. Well, cool, man. Should we get into some questions today?
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Yeah. It's funny. I, I see adults make a bigger celebration out of their birthdays than they need
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to. And it's hilarious to me. I never, do you get in? I've never got into that. I'm like,
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yeah, it's my birthday. And people say, well, what do you, what'd you do? I'm like,
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same thing I did yesterday. Got up, went and worked out, did some work, coached my son's baseball
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teams, you know, tried to do some good. That's about it.
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Yeah. I'm there with you. Last birthday I really celebrated was probably my 21st.
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Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I was celebrating my 21st birthday before I was 21. So 21 wasn't
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really that big a deal for me. Oh, you can finally drink. I'm like, bro, I've been drinking
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for 10 years. Maybe not that long, but all right, man, let's get into some questions today.
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All right. Let's start with, uh, this is coming from the IC and it's Craig Webb says,
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I've been listening to some of the older podcasts and listen to the rise of the Peter pans from June
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of 2018. Fantastic episode. Five years later, it's even worse now. In my view, I think it may take a
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cataclysmic event or collapse to correct this trend on a large scale. What are your thoughts on that?
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And what would you add if anything to your thoughts from 2018?
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Yeah. I don't remember what I said in 2018, but I can tell you as far as the Peter pans, it's I've
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called it the Peter pan syndrome. It's, it's boys who don't want to grow up. They're lost, right?
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They're the lost boys. They're lost. They're confused. They're misguided. They're misdirected.
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And because of that, they don't have any real responsibility. They don't want to step into work.
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Uh, you look at recruiting numbers in the military is dwindling. Uh, they're not only are they too
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dumb, but they're too fat to be able to join the military. It's ridiculous. People aren't getting
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married. Uh, they're not having kids that are, they're rejecting. And look, I don't entirely blame
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these, these young men, but they're entirely rejecting any sense of personal responsibility
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and growth as a man. And unfortunately what happens in those situations where there's a vacuum
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of, of real capable, strong, dedicated, responsible, committed men is those people who want to control
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and amass power over people, step into that void. And it becomes easier and easier to trample on the
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rights of, of citizens. So I think, I think he's right. I think there is going to be some sort of
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cataclysmic event, uh, whether we start to see more bickering and fighting and it gets worse and worse
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in civil war. I mean, we've, we've seen this indictment of Trump, uh, over the past several
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days. Now, I think, I think as of the release of this podcast, if I understand correctly, he was
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going to turn himself in on a Tuesday. So yesterday as of the release of this podcast, I'm, I'm curious
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and also, you know, a little apprehensive about where, where that goes, because that's clearly
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politically motivated. And does that draw more of a political divide than is already there? And, and,
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and will it get violent and get worse and worse? And I think the answer is yes, it will. The hard
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thing is, is there's no magic pill. There's no one that we can wave over this and we can say, look,
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we've solved it. Everybody's happy now. And we have men who are being men and we have men who are
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getting married and having children and teaching their kids and raising them in righteousness.
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I wish we could say that that would happen, but it just doesn't. So what do we do about it?
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I think this movement is a big part of what we should do about it. We should be vocal. We should
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stand up for the things we believe in and stand out or up against the things that are detrimental to
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our wellbeing. And we should embrace masculinity and we should coach our boys, literally,
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baseball and football teams. And we should be part of PTA. And we should be part of school boards.
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And we should be into elected positions of authority within our communities. And we should
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create men's groups in our church and civic organizations. It's all the things that we've
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been talking about for years. But if you're sitting on the sideline thinking that somebody else is going
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to do it, or hopefully it gets better, or hopefully it doesn't get worse, man, we're in for a real
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wake-up call. So what I would suggest is everybody listening to this podcast,
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call up one guy today, a friend, an acquaintance, a coworker, a brother, your father, one man today
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and say, Hey, let's get together this weekend. Let's get together. Let's talk about how each of
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us are doing. Maybe we can go to jujitsu or we can go this weekend. I mean, some of my buddies are
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going to shoot the bows. We're going to get the bows out and get the cobwebs off the bows for the
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hunts coming up. And we're going to talk about some issues as we do. It's not surface level stuff.
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It's real meaningful things. And we're holding each other accountable. And we've had a fitness
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contest and which I tied for first, which is kind of lame. I think, I think there should be a winner,
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but it is what it is. I think I should have won, but that's a whole other conversation.
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But yeah, look, you might hear this and think, Oh, Ryan's just droning on and on and on. No,
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I gave you like seven things that you should do. And if a thousand guys listening to this podcast did
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that and a thousand is not very many relative to how many people listen to this podcast,
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we would completely change in a very short order. Our community, if a hundred thousand did it,
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if a million men who listened to the podcast did it, imagine what that would look like.
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A million men getting together this weekend to band together, to ask how each other are doing,
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to push each other, to motivate, to hold each other accountable. This is what it's going to take.
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But unfortunately we have a bunch of Peter Pans because we've allowed it to happen. Us men who
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are strong and capable have allowed it to happen and allowed other people to dictate the tone of
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the conversation and masculinity in general. As you say that, I just think, you know,
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is that just because of Peter Pan syndrome or is that just what's happening? The narrative out there,
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the things you mentioned and the trickle down effect of it affecting the military marriages,
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kids, all of those things. Is that just Peter Pan syndrome? I think there's a bunch of other factors
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in that. So I don't know if you can just attribute it to that. I mean, you look at the narrative in
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general on the attack on the nuclear family, it's all of those things are happening. The confusion
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that's happening, that the gender confusion, that, you know, that the things that are being taught in
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our schools around masculinity and what that means. And I think everything you said is absolutely
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correct as far as how we help it. We need more examples of what real masculinity is and how that
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shows up in our communities and in our neighborhoods and how that feels. And I think that the more
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exposure that boys have to how it feels to be around real men is the difference maker, but they're so
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confused. Like they don't know how they feel if they're just learning from what's in mainstream media
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and what's being taught in their schools and what's being taught in, you know, unfortunately some of the
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environments that they're in. And so the more we can be in those environments as good examples,
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I think that's going to have the lasting effect, but I wouldn't attribute everything we're talking
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about to just Peter Pan syndrome. I mean, how do you feel about that? I think there's a bunch of
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things hammering that narrative and that effect in those things and how they're playing out.
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Yeah, I think you're right. I think Peter Pan syndrome is more of a symptom of the issues,
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is a symptom of confused, lost, and misguided souls. And so the inevitable result is lost,
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confused, and misguided young men. So it isn't that they just miraculously just kind of came into
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this confusion. It's because that lie and those narratives have been peddled for so long that this
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is the inevitable result. And I think a lot of it is by design, cosmic design, certainly it's
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spiritual warfare. And also that spiritual warfare manifests itself in political and cultural warfare,
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which we clearly see is happening right now. So yeah, I think you're right. Look, regarding the
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how you feel, when you said that, I was like, oh, how you feel, you know, we get so wrapped up in
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feelings. And at first I was a little taken back by that, but I think what you're saying is
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absolutely correct. It's what is the experience of young men being around other men? And I can give
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you a real tangible example of that. So my oldest son, you know, his name is Brecken and he just
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turned 15 over the weekend. And we went to USA powerlifting. He qualified for national powerlifting
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in South Carolina and Myrtle beach. So we just got back. I was remembering as he was lifting and he did
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very well. Um, PRS on everything. I was reminded of two and a half years earlier when he came to both
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me and his mother and said, Hey, uh, I'm, I'm not happy with how I feel or how I look. He was a little
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dough boy. He's a little chubby roly poly, you know? And I think the current narrative would say,
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just be happy. It's okay. You know, just try to feel good in your own skin, like, and, and try to
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reaffirm his unhappiness. Instead, we took, I think a better approach and said, okay, fair. You're not
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healthy. You're, you're not feeling good. You don't, you don't, you're not confident. So what do we do
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about it? And we help navigate and guide him not by how he felt or didn't want to feel, but using the
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feelings that he had and the experiences that he was living to be able to push him towards a more
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desirable and favorable outcome. And if you look at the young man now, of course, I'm a bit biased,
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but I think objectively you can look at him and say, well, he's obviously more fit. He's certainly
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more confident. And that what was required is a parent steering him in the right direction, not
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reaffirming his mediocrity. And the last thing we would want to do if he came to us as,
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as he was overweight is to say, oh, it's okay. No, it's not okay. Or, or if a boy or a girl comes
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to a parent and says, Hey, I don't feel like a girl. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't feel like
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a boy. Well, you don't know what that feels like. Cause you're a child and you're, you've got all of
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these hormones that are being introduced to your body right now. And it's messing with not only your
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physical body, but your mentality and your emotions. And so of course you don't feel right.
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I didn't, I didn't feel right when I was going through puberty. I, I didn't have anybody telling
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me, well, maybe I'm a girl, you know, and I think about young women, they're, they're more
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susceptible to this than, than boys, especially because the social media and, and, and the trying
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to keep up with their friends type contagion, but we can't confuse them. They're already confused
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by design. And what our kids need is a parent or in the absence of a parent, unfortunately,
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a good moral, righteous, capable adult saying, Hey, it's, I know you're confused. This is a
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confusing time. Let me walk you through it. I'm not going to reaffirm your confusion or even worse,
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exacerbate your confusion by telling you something you're not. So we really have to stand up,
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especially against this transgender thing. This is a big, big deal and it's only going to get worse.
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And all these guys are like, Oh, well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm busy and I got my head down and all
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the real men are at work. Well, you better pull your head out of your butt because if you don't
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get in the game, the cultural battle, we're all going to get railroaded and it's not going to be
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pretty. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, I, I, um, as you said that I had two thoughts. One was
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in powerlifting, let's say, right. That environment. And if we're talking about how it
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feels, I think the narrative in those environments is that it's all these like gnarly, huge veins
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popping out of their necks, you know, slap each other on the butt, like, like go, go, go man,
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destroy. Right. And that's the, it is some of that from the outside. And it is some of that,
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but they, but they, that's all that you see. If the, if you let the narrative play out where
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inside of it, as you meet those guys, when they're competing, yes, that's maybe how they
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are. Maybe when they're even when they're practicing and when they're training, but outside
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of that, that doesn't define who they are. And I think that's, you know, important. I thought
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of Brandon Lilly, as you said that, you know, and like, here's a guy who held records in powerlifting
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and one of the prominent names in that sport. And he's one of the like kindest, gentlest guys.
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When you meet him, you know, he was our, when we were on our hunt, he was our, he was like our,
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our camp chef, right. You know, he just loves cooking and, and sage, right. Kind of the camp
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chef and camp sage. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's just one of those things that from a quote unquote
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powerlifter, I don't know if you'd necessarily would expect that if you followed the narrative
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of what that world, you know, quote unquote is or should be. And so that's what I'm talking about
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by feeling it, being in those environments and getting that exposure so that you, you know,
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the truth, you know, what's really happening. Right. And, and then what we could do the most is
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what you said. I, ironically, right before we sat down, I have right behind my, me here,
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it's a picture of a bunch of my kids and stuff. And then underneath the quote that says the most
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important work you'll ever do is within the walls of your home. And that's exactly what you're saying.
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You know, that above everything has to come from us. So.
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And your community. I mean, I would, I would also turn it outwards and I would say that's important
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because the people around you, they're around you. I want them to be elevated as well. I want my
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neighbors to be awesome. I want their, their young men to be good, good boys. And by good
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boys, I don't mean good boys that color within the lines and do what they're told. I mean,
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I mean, being good at being men, Jack Donovan makes that distinction, being good at being men
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versus being good men. There's a distinction. That's what I want out of them. And you know what?
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The other thing we have to consider is they made that neighbor, although I know their family,
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they have a great family, but I'm just using this as an example. There might be a neighbor that you
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have that you might be the only male role model in their life. You might be it. Dad might be out of
00:17:33.460
the picture for, for whatever reason. You know, they don't have any other presence or grandpas or
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uncles around and you might be it. And I actually think about this when I've occasionally we get
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questions from a soon to be a father-in-laws and they've got their daughter and their son soon to
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be son in law, I should say is, you know, maybe a little punk and obviously they think less favorably
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of them. I think by design, of course we do. And they try to maybe sabotage the relationship or how
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can I talk my daughter out of this? And you know, there's certainly a line, which you may need to do
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that, but also that kid's going to be your son. So, and he's going to be taking care of your daughter.
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So you can gripe and bitch and moan about it or you can father him.
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That's what I needed when I was a young man and I got married. My father-in-law, man, he was great.
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Um, you know, always didn't, didn't always see eye to eye, but he's somebody I really admire. I
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really respect. I really look up to him. And he took me under his, his, his arm, his shoulder,
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like, like a son. And that was the most meaningful thing I think he could have done not only for me,
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but also for his daughter. Yeah. All right, man. Question one took 20 minutes on that. What's next?
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Man. I'm dealing, this was from Karan Gil. I'm dealing with a situation where mentors telling
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me to be resourceful and take a massive, but very important risk. I value their mentorship more than
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anything in the world. And every other time they've told me to do something in the past,
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I've done it almost every single time. This time around, I just can't bring myself to do all it
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takes to get it done due to the perceived scale of the risk. Although it'll hurt me to not take the
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coaching. And I know that my reason not to perform is ultimately an excuse, no matter how good of an
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excuse it is, it just won't work in my mind to follow through with the coaching this time around.
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How do you reconcile with the fact that you're going to go against mentorship just this once,
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knowing you're choosing to not follow in the footsteps of success in favor of playing it safe
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this time? And how do you follow through and perform in situations that seem impossible when you
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don't know how to move forward and there's a deadline or when the potential way forward seems
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overwhelmingly risky? Okay. That's a lot to unpack in there.
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And I'll break that second part down next. But as far as mentorship, you're a grown man.
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You aren't obligated to take everything that a mentor or anybody tells you and apply it. Now,
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should you? If you want the desired result? Yes. But you have to live with,
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you have to live with the choices that you're making. And if the risk is unacceptable to you,
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make that choice and stand by it. And you know what? Explain that to your mentor.
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Sean, if you're my mentor, I would say, Hey, you gave me this recommendation. You suggested I do this.
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And I decided I'm not going to do that because X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to waffle around it. I'm not
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going to dance around it. I'm just going to come out flat out and tell my mentor that I am not doing
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that. Not, I can't, not I'm scared, not I'm this, not I'm that. Like be a man and make a decision.
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And if your decision is to do it, it's okay to say, Hey, Sean, you know what? You're telling me
00:21:05.140
to do this thing. I got to tell you, I'm really scared because of X, Y, and Z. That's okay to say,
00:21:10.120
but if you're going to say, no, let your no be no and let your yes be yes. And so if you're going to
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say no, then you go to your mentor and you say, Hey, Sean, I appreciate what you shared with me.
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I'm not going to do that because of these reasons, but I appreciate the suggestion.
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I still want to work together and I'm open to other suggestions, but that one is off the table
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for me. That's that to me is how you address that. I'm not going to, I'm not look, I'm not here to
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convince you that you should do it. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not here to tell you,
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you should take the risk. I don't know what the risk is. I can't convince you to do one thing or the
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other. All I'm going to say to you is make your decision and stand by your decision and then make
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sure you communicate it like a mature, assertive man would do. What would you add to that? And then
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we'll get to the second part of that question. Well, I'd say everything you just said, I've done
00:22:02.240
exactly that with one of my mentors before. And I, I told him I'm not going to do that. And here's why.
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And what, what it was ultimately for me was that the risk was going to be a detriment to my family
00:22:16.760
dynamic at that time. And so I needed to focus more time. I don't, I didn't have the mental and
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physical capacity to be able to juggle both, if that makes sense. And so I took priorities in hand
00:22:30.220
and told him, and guess what he said? I totally understand. And as a matter of fact, I respect you
00:22:35.320
for that. And in this time in your life, I didn't understand that other dynamic was going on and I'm
00:22:41.180
glad you told me. And so it was great. It didn't mess up the relationship or anything else. Um, but I
00:22:48.660
will also add that if this is your mentor that you respect and you're, you truly believe about him,
00:22:55.180
what you said, also don't expect that he's going to work with you as closely, um, as you want.
00:23:04.300
Um, at least not right now at this moment in your business and in your life or whatever it is that
00:23:11.560
he's mentoring you on, um, because you're not taking his advice, you know, and I will say that
00:23:17.500
about mentorship. There's, you don't get a ton of chances, um, to not do what they say. And I know
00:23:24.400
for me, when people come to me, if they ask me what to do and you tell them and they still choose
00:23:28.240
not to do it, I'm out. Like why I have all these other people that will listen and I'm going to focus
00:23:35.180
my time and attention on them more than you. And again, the circumstance may be valid or whatever
00:23:40.320
else. And, and I'll say that for my mentor, he, he was focused on other people and I didn't expect
00:23:45.320
for him to be focused on me. But I'll tell you what, when I went back to him several years later,
00:23:50.080
now we're engaged and we're doing things and, and, and I'm re-engaged and now he's back helping me
00:23:56.240
again. But there was a time where he wasn't. And so don't expect him to be fully engaged in
00:24:04.160
your pursuit. Um, if you're not going to take that advice. So, you know, there's, there's that risk
00:24:12.660
too. So weigh the risks. And as we're saying, you know, I, I will add that in deeper, like looking
00:24:21.120
at this, someone in the IC Allen actually answered him back. And then he, and then he went deeper and
00:24:26.680
said that the ultimate risk that he's taking, if he, if he takes that back step, meaning if he fails
00:24:33.240
by the thing that he's scared to do, it may take him a year to overcome. And my thought was like
00:24:41.540
a year, really like a year's not that big of a deal. Your risk to maybe achieve some monumental
00:24:48.440
things in your business to me, doesn't sound like a major risk. No, if that makes sense. So it sounds
00:24:53.980
like a larger risk to not take his advice, especially if he's been through those waters before. Um, and
00:25:01.980
again, weigh the risk of what means more to you. I think what's important to realize is that all of
00:25:08.900
our decisions have a cost associated with them. And we usually think about negative decisions,
00:25:14.800
having a cost. It's naturally what we go to. If I do this thing, here's the risk of it. And it'll
00:25:20.080
have a negative cost, but also positive decisions have a cost. You could absolutely, in this case,
00:25:26.040
let's say you decide not to take your mentor's advice. You could absolutely be doing the right
00:25:31.540
thing. And there's still a cost to it, which means, and you alluded to one of them, you might lose
00:25:36.460
your mentor is that is not doing it and, and choosing your family. Like you talked about in your
00:25:42.680
example, is that worth, worth the cost? I don't think we weigh the cost enough of our decisions. We
00:25:48.660
weigh the cost of bad decisions or what if, what if it goes wrong? But look, if we just realize, Hey,
00:25:53.520
I'm going to make this decision. And I realized there's a cost associated with it. Then you get to own
00:25:58.460
it and you get to live with it. This is why like the fear of missing out thing doesn't resonate with me
00:26:03.140
very much because when somebody invites me to do something, I'll either say yes, because I want to
00:26:08.500
do the thing, or maybe I'll say no, because I'm choosing something else. And I realized I'm going
00:26:12.540
to miss out on friendship building. I'm going to miss out on networking. Um, I'm going to miss out on
00:26:17.520
just having a good time. And I'm willing to pay that price because the decision I made over here was
00:26:22.900
the right one for me in the moment. And if you just own it, it's not that big a deal. Um, there's
00:26:28.480
another consideration here. And, and, and you said, you talked about excuses. Like I realized
00:26:34.920
this might just be an excuse, although it's a good one. I actually think there's a distinction
00:26:38.660
between excuses and reasons and excuses are like putting a period on the end of a sentence. Once
00:26:45.600
you put that period on the end of a sentence, the sentence is done. It's over. There's nothing else to
00:26:51.820
it. And so if you said to yourself, I'm just throwing out a random excuse, I'm not good enough to do
00:26:57.000
this period. Then that's an excuse. Now what's interesting is that reasons are more like commas
00:27:04.100
in a sentence. So we could take the same verbiage. I'm not good enough. If you say, I'm not good
00:27:10.320
enough, period. That's an excuse. If you say, I'm not good enough. So I need to learn X, Y, and Z.
00:27:18.380
Then it's no longer an excuse. It's a viable reason why you might be fearful, why you might be scared,
00:27:24.400
why you might not want to pursue it, but it's a comma. And there's more to the story that you
00:27:30.380
haven't written yet. But I could say that with podcasting. When I started, I don't know how to
00:27:34.800
podcast period. Okay. That's a dumb excuse. I don't know how to podcast. Get real and jump on YouTube
00:27:42.700
and take five minutes and learn how to do this thing. Instead, I don't know how to podcast.
00:27:46.800
So I'm going to figure it out. And I jumped on YouTube and I looked at Pat Flynn's got a great
00:27:53.560
resource on podcasting. And I went through that tutorial and did it word by word, line by line.
00:27:59.380
It was a reason that I was hesitant, but ultimately not an excuse to keep me from doing it.
00:28:05.920
I like that a lot. And it's the only other thing I could think of in that is that
00:28:11.300
for you to succeed in anything, you have to know you deserve it. And the only way you know you
00:28:17.180
deserve it is by the risks you take and the sacrifices you make, you know, Napoleon Hill
00:28:22.720
and think and grow rich. Everybody focuses on how he talks about how you need to know exactly what you
00:28:27.300
want and when you want to buy and have the date and it be exact in what you want. But the next thing
00:28:34.620
he says, most people overlooked, he says, you also have to be an exact in what you're willing to
00:28:38.620
sacrifice to gain those things. And, and too many people overlook the sacrifice part in meaning that
00:28:45.740
none of those things happen without the sacrifice and without the risk, because you're never going
00:28:49.900
to feel like you truly deserve it. So I, so I do take, I agree with that, but I do take a little
00:28:54.820
bit of issue with, I deserve thing. And the reason I do is because I, well, I don't feel like I deserve
00:29:01.980
anything. And, and I feel like if I begun to believe that I deserved things that might stunt
00:29:09.220
my growth. So, well, I, I agree with that because I don't feel if, especially the higher performer you
00:29:15.220
are, you never feel like you totally deserve it. Cause you always feel like you're a work in progress.
00:29:19.120
I think when I say deserve, what I, what I mean by deserve is that you are, you're confident in
00:29:30.340
why you have what you have. You're, you can, you can feel good about it. Yeah. Because you've put in
00:29:38.000
the work you've put in the sacrifice. You've, you've done everything it took. So no one could ever take
00:29:42.960
that from you. You're never in a position where, yeah, maybe you don't deserve it because you know,
00:29:47.760
you can be better, but there's a difference between knowing that everything you have is
00:29:53.660
because of the work and the sacrifice and the toil that you put in to get there.
00:29:59.300
Yeah. You know, one thing I've thought about is our worth as just human beings. And I believe
00:30:06.540
divine creatures, we, there's so much worth in us and it's usually left as untapped potential.
00:30:14.140
And what I would say to a guy who's struggling maybe to take risks or struggling to try something
00:30:18.700
or struggling just to go to the gym or struggling with whatever is you're worth that investment.
00:30:25.960
You're worth that effort. Now, look, I'm not here to tell you, you deserve what you want. You don't
00:30:31.920
wanting something has nothing to do with whether or not you'll achieve it has something to do,
00:30:37.680
but it's very minimal, but you're worth trying. You're worth the effort it would take
00:30:44.220
to put you in a different position. You're worth that. And if you believed in that inherent worth
00:30:51.700
that you have, I think more of us would not slump into depression when things go wrong,
00:30:56.080
but we would rise up to challenges that we face and face them head on and figure out how in the world
00:31:00.500
to do them. That actually leads into this guy's second question, which was about
00:31:04.060
this insurmountable task. And I don't want to beat a dead horse here. So maybe we'll just hit it
00:31:08.340
quickly and then we'll move on to the next question just to change it up a little bit. But
00:31:12.040
look, you're worth whatever that objective is. Your inherent built-in worth is worth pursuing that.
00:31:21.240
Don't allow it to be so overwhelming that you don't do it because then you're undermining your worth.
00:31:27.180
Take it and break it down. That's what you have to do. Okay. You just have to break it down.
00:31:33.300
There's big things going on in my life right now that I think a lot of people would crumble at.
00:31:38.760
I'm not going to crumble. Look, there's times where I'm overwhelmed. I'm not going to crumble
00:31:43.600
because of my worth. I don't have the luxury of crumbling. And so I can take these big, daunting,
00:31:53.660
challenging trials and obstacles and say, okay, what's next? What do I need to do today?
00:32:00.060
Okay. Do that. Not even today, maybe. What do I need to do this hour? Well, my alarm just went off.
00:32:06.780
Really don't want to go to the gym, but that needs to be done because I'm worth going to the gym.
00:32:12.340
And so I go to the gym, you know, and it's like, you just build upon those things. So take whatever
00:32:16.660
that seemingly insurmountable task is, break it down into small manageable steps and just look at that
00:32:22.220
thing in front of you. You don't need to have the roadmap. You just need to know the next step
00:32:25.880
and the next step and the next step and the next step, but only once you complete the previous
00:32:29.940
step. Yeah. I like it. All right. Next question. It says, simple Ryan, how are you in here? Oh,
00:32:38.000
how are you in the here and now? How are you coping with the recent personal events you shared with the
00:32:43.460
IC? What methods are you using and implementing on a daily basis to keep on the steady path of personal
00:32:49.500
strength and growth? Yeah. I mean, as far as, you know, I I've been pretty open about the alcoholism,
00:32:55.060
you know, and so, so sober for eight months now, I think it's just under eight months. So that's,
00:33:02.480
that's been going well. You know, how do I, what, what tasks or what, what systems am I using? I think
00:33:08.240
you said for something along those lines. What methods are you using and implementing on a daily basis?
00:33:14.660
It's the battle plan that that's it. I mean, that's my answer. You know, it's interesting when
00:33:19.660
things don't go well in my life, it's because I don't do my battle plan. It's like I deviate. I
00:33:24.960
start to think that maybe I have it figured out or, uh, you know, that I don't, I don't need to do that
00:33:29.820
or, or it isn't that important. And then that stacks on top of another day, another day, another day,
00:33:36.600
another day. And then before I know it, I look back and I've deviated so far off course that it's
00:33:40.840
almost unrecognizable. And I actually became unrecognizable. I look back now and I'm like,
00:33:45.580
man, I'll listen to podcasts and, and, and just replay conversations that I've had with people in
00:33:51.440
my life. Man, that was a real piece of work to put it mildly. But why did I get that way? Because
00:33:57.180
I deviated from my plan for too long. It happens, you know, we miss a workout or we wake up late or
00:34:04.360
we eat more than we want, or we have an argument with our spouse or, um, you know, the project doesn't
00:34:08.840
go well, or we lose our cool with our kids. Like it happens, but the key is to get back on some sort
00:34:14.100
of path as quickly as we possibly can and not let the problem compound. And that's what I was letting
00:34:18.780
have have happened. So what methods am I using? It's the battle plan. For those of you who don't
00:34:24.140
know what the battle plan is, uh, you can, I think if you go to order of man.com slash TWBP as in 12 week
00:34:34.280
battle plan. So TWBP, you can watch quick video on it. Uh, but it's identified, it's, it's creating
00:34:40.760
a vision for yourself, identifying objectives in four key areas of your life, and then breaking it
00:34:45.640
down into daily tactics that you can do every single day to accomplish your objective. So for
00:34:50.940
quarter two, um, mine personally, just so you guys know, and this will answer his question is my
00:34:58.980
calibration, uh, objective is to develop greater emotional maturity. Now, typically that's not a
00:35:04.900
good enough objective because it's not measurable, but in this case it is measurable because I've
00:35:09.320
created a series of questions and, uh, analysis that will actually track my emotional maturity.
00:35:18.960
Uh, and so one way that I'm doing that developing greater emotional maturity, two ways, actually
00:35:23.820
specifically one is journaling every single day about how I feel, what I'm experiencing, what I'm going
00:35:28.860
through. And then number two is reading the Bible because obviously, you know, having a greater,
00:35:35.300
being greater in touch with your spirituality and where you come from and your worth, like we were
00:35:38.640
talking about earlier, helps with being centered. Um, my connection, uh, um, objective is again,
00:35:46.040
this is relationship with other people. It's to coach successfully. My two oldest, excuse me,
00:35:51.280
not my tools, my two youngest boys, baseball teams. So we, we practice or we do something every day,
00:35:57.100
whether it's playing catch or having practice, we've got a game tonight. Condition is to complete a,
00:36:02.420
uh, Ragnar relay race and a, uh, Spartan race. I don't like running at all. So those are good for
00:36:10.640
me. And, um, the contribution, which is becoming a man of value. I'm actually going to keep that one
00:36:17.540
personal for myself right now, but, but those, that gives you an idea of what I'm doing on a daily
00:36:25.040
basis and what my battle plan looks like. So that that's the system I use. And if I stay on track
00:36:29.340
and I do it every day, it's, it's money, it's golden. It just works. Yeah, I agree. Mine's
00:36:34.920
right here. Actually. It's funny. I printed my copy to bring to the barn and then taping it. I'm
00:36:40.000
taping it right here so that when I sit here and do my work, it's, I'm looking at it every day. And,
00:36:44.860
um, and like you said there, I went, um, a couple of quarters ago without that and started to drift a
00:36:52.500
little, you know, not majorly cause it was just a quarter, but still you drift if it's not in front
00:36:56.800
of you. So I, I totally agree. Um, you also, when you were looking for the resource, there's also the
00:37:03.960
battle battle planner app, you know, that as you said that there's the app as well. So you can get
00:37:09.420
that on, uh, the app store, uh, and get the, the battle planner app for yourself as well. Um, yeah.
00:37:17.360
So it's, uh, I will, one thing that you said, I'm not going to add to what you said,
00:37:21.760
but I will point something out because every time someone talks about how they feel,
00:37:26.700
like you always have a comment about it. You had it in this podcast, right? And like,
00:37:31.620
Oh, I don't know if you necessarily like feeling is as important, but in your battle plan
00:37:35.280
to create emotional maturity, it's funny that you have that, that you're going to journal how you
00:37:41.900
feel. Right. So it's something that, right. I mean, that, that's saying a lot that you just,
00:37:47.040
that stood out to me. And the reason that I need to do that is because,
00:37:51.360
so people who are trying to think of the, the, the word people who suppress their emotions
00:37:58.560
are the most emotional people out there. Like, think about that guys, the, the guy,
00:38:04.680
and we're talking to men, the men who suppress their emotions are some of the most emotionally
00:38:10.700
responsive people out there. Isn't that weird? And instead, I know, look, I'm not telling you that
00:38:17.240
you need to run around babbling like an idiot all day long. Cause you want to express how you feel
00:38:21.880
like we have shit to do. You don't have time for that. But if you're sad, you better sit with that
00:38:28.340
for a minute, because if you don't, it's going to manifest itself at a very inappropriate time.
00:38:34.560
I guarantee it's going to be inappropriate when it comes out or you're angry about something.
00:38:39.740
And you're like, Oh, let's just get over it. You are more emotionally charged than the guy who's
00:38:45.960
like, no, I'm, I'm angry because of, and then this list, the scenario. And I don't want to be that guy.
00:38:52.160
I was that guy. You know, the slightest little thing would trip me up and would, would set me
00:38:56.500
off and trigger me and lose my cool or lose my patience or I'd turn to alcohol. I don't want to
00:39:01.440
be that guy. I want to know what I'm feeling. I'm sad today. Why am I sad? Because of this.
00:39:05.880
Okay. Well, sit with it for a while. How can you not be sad? Maybe do these things instead,
00:39:11.560
or I'm angry or, and just the fact of journaling, just the fact of having an outlet is amazing
00:39:18.200
because I can get it. And that's how I process, but get it out of my brain onto paper. So it's not
00:39:23.600
just bouncing around like an, like an echo chamber all day. But yeah, I think the reason I say I,
00:39:30.440
I, about feelings is I see too many people putting too much weight into their feelings. And that's
00:39:35.740
what I mean. It's like letting it dictate every tone of their conversation or every decision that
00:39:41.020
they're going to make. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm actually going to get more in touch
00:39:46.940
with my feelings rather than push them down. Isn't that weird? It's such a weird thing.
00:39:52.300
It's a weird thing. And they're, when you talk about sadness and anger, they're so close on the
00:39:56.760
spectrum of feelings as well as a lot of times we're mad, but we think we're sad or vice versa.
00:40:05.400
We're sad and we think we're angry. And so we're, we're reacting to those emotions inappropriately
00:40:13.220
because we're not differentiating between the two and, and letting it out appropriately.
00:40:18.840
Or just examining it. You know, why am I mad? I'm mad because my, a client of mine said this thing.
00:40:25.680
Okay. Why does that make you mad? Like that question alone has saved me so much headache.
00:40:33.000
Why, why does that make you mad? Oh, my son said this thing to me today. Why does that make you mad?
00:40:37.440
And then the usually is like, well, it shouldn't really make me mad, but why does it, you know,
00:40:41.900
and you try to, you get to the root of it and explore it. You're like, oh, it's not about my
00:40:45.120
son at all. It's about my own insecurities. You know, he said something, I took it out of context.
00:40:51.380
I took it the wrong way. I felt offended or I felt slighted. Now I'm angry. And it's like,
00:40:55.340
oh, maybe he actually didn't mean any of that at all. Maybe he was having a bad day and said it and
00:41:00.560
it wasn't intended or directed at you. It rarely is. People aren't out to get us. And you just
00:41:06.420
created a whole story around it that doesn't exist. Yeah. Well, and that's what I'm talking
00:41:11.780
about too. Sometimes you might sit down and say, well, why am I mad about that? And the more you
00:41:16.180
think about it, maybe you realize I'm actually not mad. I'm sad about that. Like that made me sad,
00:41:21.780
not mad. You know, and there's sometimes we just don't want to accept that, especially as men,
00:41:26.200
cause we're not supposed to be sad. Right. We're not supposed to want to cry. We're not supposed
00:41:31.120
to feel that emotion sometimes. Um, or we tell ourselves that, and it's sometimes you just need
00:41:37.480
to reflect and realize that's what it is and be okay with it. Look, I talk with more men than probably
00:41:42.880
most guys do just because of the nature of my work. And I can tell you most men are pretty sad.
00:41:48.460
Yeah. I agree. Like they're dealing with some shit, you know, they're dealing with financial
00:41:53.980
hardship. They're dealing with health problems or dealing with marital breakdowns or dealing with
00:41:59.600
issues with their kids. Like most men are pretty hurt. And because we don't have a healthy way to
00:42:06.920
process the feelings, we just suppress it and we walk around and we put our smile on and, you know,
00:42:13.660
we, we do what we're quote unquote supposed to do and pretty tore up and broken inside. It's rough.
00:42:19.260
Yeah. It's weird too with men because we're perfectly fine with being mad, but we're not
00:42:24.860
okay at all with being sad. Yeah. Good point. Really good point. Yeah. I don't want to be either.
00:42:30.800
So therefore I need to get stuck with it and figure it out. I like it. Awesome. Next question is Ryan
00:42:36.380
Umagat. And he says, Ryan and Sean, thank you for all you do. We in IC appreciate your insights and
00:42:42.680
feedback. Please continue to share as you do with the AMAs and FFNs. My question is this. How do you
00:42:48.660
draw the line between comforting a loved one after a loss or setback and rewarding less than ideal
00:42:54.400
results? For example, my girlfriend recently took an exam for promotion at work. Unfortunately,
00:42:59.780
she did not pass. My initial gut instinct is to comfort and console her, but I also understand that
00:43:05.720
allowing her to feel the pain and sting of failure is important in driving her to success in her next
00:43:10.740
attempt. How do you discern when and how much to allow someone to experience pain and negative
00:43:16.680
consequences without allowing anger and resentment to build up while also not becoming too much of a
00:43:21.880
crutch for someone to lean on in their personal progression? It's a good question.
00:43:26.580
It is a good question. I I'm, I'm hung up on this concept of comforting and I've thought a lot
00:43:34.580
about it lately. I don't think telling people they're okay and patting them on the head and
00:43:40.320
coddling them is comforting. That's not comforting. Yeah. Because whatever your girlfriend is dealing
1.00
00:43:45.660
with, right? It's his girlfriend, right? Yes. Whatever she's dealing with, with her exam,
00:43:50.680
like you saying, Hey, you're good, hon. You're, you're, you're smart. You're, you can do this.
00:43:55.420
That's not comforting because in her head, she's probably thinking I suck. I'm not smart. I can't do this.
00:44:02.060
I'm not good enough. And then you say, Oh no, you are good enough. And now she is contentious
00:44:07.800
with you because now you have a disagreement. She may not vocalize it. You know, it may not turn
00:44:13.700
into an argument, but there's a disagreement there. You think she's good enough. Here's another thing
0.79
00:44:19.140
that could happen when you try to comfort her that way. You could actually, she couldn't, I don't know
00:44:23.960
if she will, but she could actually interpret that as you invalidating her feelings. Because if she,
00:44:29.940
if she feels like she's not good enough and not smart enough and not intelligent enough,
00:44:34.400
and you say, no, hon, you're good. You're invalidating what she's feeling.
00:44:39.420
And that just creates contention. So I think we, as men, and I say this out of personal experience,
00:44:45.660
need to stop with the fixing, need to stop with the comforting and consoling.
00:44:51.320
And I think we just need to be present for our people. So in this, in this case, Hey, hon,
00:44:58.180
man, you took that exam and said you didn't do so well on it. How do you feel? Oh, I just feel
00:45:03.680
horrible. Like I didn't study enough. And I just, I thought I was going to do well. And I didn't
00:45:08.920
really like, did you feel like you just got stressed out in the moment? Like you knew the material,
00:45:13.600
but you got stressed out in the moment and the test got your anxiety going and got the better of you.
00:45:18.060
Like, what do you think? Yeah. I felt really prepared, but yeah, I was nervous when I got in
00:45:24.180
there and I was sweating and I saw a couple of questions right off the bat. I didn't know.
00:45:28.360
Oh man. Yeah. I've, I definitely know how that feels. I can understand how you feel that way.
00:45:33.240
Like, what do you think you're going to do? Well, I'm going to take it again. Oh, that's good. Like
00:45:37.980
when, when's your next opportunity on two weeks? Awesome. Like, how are you, how are you going to
00:45:43.120
manage that your anxiety next time you go in? Like, what are you going to do about that? Well,
00:45:47.340
I think if I, you know, X, Y, and Z, like, you see what I'm saying? Like you're validating
00:45:51.640
everything that she's feeling. You're, you're talking to her. You're validating. You're asking
00:45:56.240
her questions. You're showing that you care. You're showing that you believe in her because
00:45:59.980
you're letting her answer and her own questions and come up with her own solutions. And that's
00:46:05.520
actually pretty comforting. And I think a woman's going to walk away from that or a man, if that's
0.87
00:46:10.320
your friend or whatever, like, I think a person's going to walk away with that elevated by that
00:46:14.300
experience. Like they're not going to walk away being like, Oh, I feel worse. They're
00:46:20.100
going to walk away being like, Oh, you know what? Rye is really there for me. He really
00:46:24.280
cares about me. That's nice. That's awesome. And that was comforting, but I didn't do it
00:46:29.440
by saying, yeah, you're a good girl. You're okay. You can do it. It was not pandering to
00:46:34.020
her. It was treating her like an adult and letting her come up with her own solutions. And I think
00:46:39.820
I was going to say women like that. I think everybody likes that. Yeah. I wish I would. I
0.99
00:46:43.700
wish I, I wish I would have learned that earlier and done more of that in all of my relationships,
00:46:48.000
but you know, 42 times around the, around the sun, hopefully maybe I'm learning a few things here
00:46:54.600
and there. Well, and there's a difference too, between, you know, maybe you didn't pass a test
00:47:00.620
or something like that and wanting to completely quit something. Right. And so there's, you know,
00:47:06.760
sometimes you need that accountability. You talked about it earlier, just talking about
00:47:10.920
the, the guys that you're doing the physical challenges with, right. And those things and
00:47:16.140
having that accountability or getting out the bow or whatever. And sometimes you need people in
00:47:21.800
your corner to just tell you to like, get your head out of your ass, you know, for lack of a better.
0.60
00:47:27.020
And, and by the way, that sometimes is easier for men to do with their, with their guy friends or
00:47:32.220
their support, you know, with other men than it is with their partner, you know, their, their spouse
00:47:38.640
or their girlfriend or, or whatever it is. But sometimes that's necessary too. And, but it's
00:47:44.560
less often, you know, and so I think it's, it's important to, to be able to differentiate between
00:47:50.120
the two as well. You know, I've seen it play out both ways. You know, and what you're talking about
00:47:56.620
is the best, most of the time. And I think it needs to be extreme for us to be like, Hey, look,
00:48:02.020
you know, you're get your head out of your butt. Everything you're saying is, you know, not true.
00:48:08.380
And, uh, and you just need to put in the work or whatever. Right. But those are more rare instances.
00:48:15.460
So, and I think there's a ratio probably, you know, I don't know what it is. It's different.
00:48:21.540
I'm sure for every situation, but if you come at it always like that, that's a problem. You know,
00:48:27.280
if you sprinkle those in with these other types of conversations, then it's, it actually holds more
00:48:32.960
weight. It's like swearing. If you swear every word, it becomes watered down and muted. If you
00:48:39.260
very rarely swear, and then you hear somebody doesn't swear, say something like, Oh, this guy's
00:48:43.860
fired. Like what's going on? I'm going to pay attention. You know? So guys forget to ask,
00:48:49.040
guys forget to ask questions, right? Because we want to fix everything. And so our gut reaction is
00:48:54.760
to tell them what to do next or to tell them it's okay. It's like one or the other. And I think what
00:48:58.720
you said is perfect because it's a blend of both. Um, but it's getting to the root and helping them
00:49:03.840
come up with it on their own, which is solving the problem actually. So you want, we want to solve
00:49:09.200
the problem. We're just doing it the wrong way. We, I like telling you, I do this. We want to solve
00:49:14.920
people's problems. That's what I want. I've just been doing it the wrong way. So I can still get
00:49:20.400
to the same result, which is solve the problem, but let them come up with the solutions. It's way
00:49:26.280
more effective. All right. What's next? That was good. Maybe one or two more, Sean. Yeah. Dustin
00:49:31.300
Stokes have advice direction for guys looking for intentional help that would fall under the umbrella
00:49:37.500
of therapy or counseling or life coach. For instance, I'm recently divorced, have an amazing
00:49:43.380
battle team and feel pretty good in most areas doing well in my quadrants. But after the end of
00:49:48.260
a 14 year marriage, I'm sure there are areas that need unpacking, evaluating, and sorting through.
00:49:54.020
Not sure what I need, not sure that I need traditional therapy, but not sure where to start.
00:49:59.540
I feel something more along the lines of a counselor or type of life coach might be better.
00:50:03.540
My goal would be to spend this time identifying areas, traits, beliefs, habits that may be there
00:50:09.680
that I'm unaware of, but would serve me better for the future, whether there's a new relationship or
00:50:15.000
not. Um, you could apply this idea to any scenario in life, not just relationships. What are your
00:50:20.900
thoughts? It sounds like you want therapy. Yeah. I mean, to identify traits, characteristics,
00:50:28.380
beliefs, patterns, whatever the words you use that you don't know are there. That's what a
00:50:32.940
therapist would do. They're going to ask you a good therapist is going to ask you questions.
00:50:36.960
They're going to uncover your beliefs. They're going to look into your narratives and scripts
00:50:40.380
that you've been operating your life by. Most of them are subconscious and, uh, they're going to
00:50:45.380
help you get to the root of it. So what, what's the aversion of therapy? I, I don't, I don't think
00:50:51.380
there should be one. And I don't, I don't go, I was going for a while. I I've got a lot of value
00:50:56.120
from it. Um, and, and at times I still will. In fact, you know, one of the things I've been
00:51:00.100
doing is there's, there's a handful of people that in my life that I really think highly of
00:51:05.520
in different aspects of life. And I always wanted to impress them because I held, I held them in high
00:51:12.240
regard. And so I wanted to have things figured out and I wanted to like be valuable to them. And
00:51:19.100
like, that's what I wanted. And I think that's pretty natural. And I've, I, I made the decision.
00:51:25.060
In fact, I had a conversation on Sunday with somebody I really admire and respect. And I
00:51:31.400
actually just said, Hey, I got to talk with you about some problems I'm dealing with. In fact,
00:51:35.280
I need your advice. And I would have never done that a year ago because that wouldn't have impressed
00:51:40.240
this person. In my mind, it would have made me look less than in their eyes. And we had a great
00:51:47.400
conversation on Sunday and I think our relationship is better. Actually, I think there's a new level of
00:51:54.340
respect that wasn't, that didn't exist before. And maybe what you need therapy is certainly an
00:52:01.760
avenue and we can look at that, but maybe also what you need is to open your mouth and talk to
00:52:05.920
people about your problems. You know, find somebody who's good at what you want to be good at and
00:52:11.240
stop. We'll call it peacocking. Like stop that. Just tell that person that you got to have some,
00:52:18.240
some discretion here on who you tell. I'm not saying just go share everything with everybody,
00:52:23.020
but maybe you can isolate something you want to share with a specific person.
00:52:29.840
And that might get you on the path to figuring some of this stuff out because they might have
00:52:34.580
some really good advice for you. And odds are they either went through the same thing you're going
00:52:39.900
through now, or they know of somebody they're going to have some, if you think highly of them,
00:52:43.700
they're going to have some advice for you. I'm reminded, I heard a story, Benjamin Franklin,
00:52:48.480
when there was people that, that didn't, that didn't like him or he didn't like,
00:52:53.940
he would make it a point to go borrow a book from them. Yeah. I've heard this. Yeah. He would go borrow
00:53:02.320
a book from somebody he didn't like or have a good relationship with, and then he would read it and
00:53:06.280
then he would return it and he would, you know, thank them for letting him borrow the book. And,
00:53:11.120
and he found that the relationships improved. And anytime you can allow somebody to be helpful,
00:53:19.020
the relationship is going to improve. If you allow them to be a value, if you allow them to be of
00:53:24.880
service, this is why when people say, Hey, can I do anything for you? I give them something to do.
00:53:30.300
Like very, very, I don't like to say, Hey, when somebody says, Hey, can I do anything for you? I don't
00:53:35.360
like to say, Oh no, I'm good. Because who am I to deny the opportunity for that person to serve?
00:53:41.120
Hmm. I, I think that person wants to serve. I think maybe me having this need in my life
00:53:47.760
is what allows them to add value in a meaningful and significant way. And their life is fulfilled
00:53:52.760
because of it. And so is mine too, because I get the help I need. So let's open up a little bit more.
00:53:58.700
So I would try that. And then regarding the therapy there's a great resource called betterhelp.com
00:54:04.860
and it's, it's online therapy and they can match you with specific people in your area or,
00:54:10.440
you know, a man versus a woman or a person who's trained in substance abuse versus family
00:54:16.820
relationship issues. So that might be a really good resource you can check out too. It's fairly
00:54:21.920
inexpensive. And, you know, you could try it and see how it feels and that might be a good avenue for
00:54:27.740
you. That's awesome. I like it. The only thing I would add is just a thought on when you said
00:54:32.580
reaching out and how they feel. I've, I find myself more in the mentoring end than any other thing.
00:54:37.760
And this is just in friends in general, when I see them saying things I know they're uncomfortable
00:54:43.020
with or, or reaching out for things that are maybe they're seemingly their faults or, or
00:54:50.460
things they're uncomfortable with about themselves that they don't typically want to share or wouldn't
00:54:58.340
normally come out and share it. When they do, I make it a point to let them know
00:55:02.880
that I'm proud of them, which is weird for me. I don't like telling someone I'm proud of them
00:55:07.280
necessarily, but I think it's important, especially for men that when they are insecure in something and
00:55:13.660
you know that they're coming out and talking about it, that you let them know exactly what you said,
00:55:19.140
that there's actually extra, an extra level of respect there that you see in them. I think it's
00:55:26.500
important for men to know that and to feel that when they're going through that and they're reaching
00:55:30.700
out, because like you said, not enough guys reach out. And I think the more support they can get
00:55:35.080
in taking those actions is necessary from a leadership standpoint. And even just from a friend
00:55:41.360
standpoint for, you know, somebody that cares in their life, I think it's important that we do those
00:55:46.560
things and let the men in our lives know when we see them doing it.
00:55:50.840
Yeah. You know, I think about why we have such a hard time. And I think a lot of it is culturally,
00:55:56.340
you know, men are warriors and we're the battlers and all this kind of stuff. And I think about,
00:55:59.680
you know, there's specific people. One movie that comes to mind, and I know it's mostly fictional
00:56:07.400
based on a real character, but mostly fictional is Braveheart. And you think about William Wallace,
00:56:13.080
you know, he's this sage warrior. And we all think that he's got everything figured out and he's always
00:56:20.500
the one to come up with the plans and, you know, he doesn't have any issues and the issues that he does
00:56:25.940
have. He's able to harness those issues and do something that's, you know, meaningful and
00:56:30.440
significant. But also he had a very, and I know this is just a movie, right? But what we overlook
00:56:36.520
is that he had a very close circle of men around him that loved him, that would die for him.
00:56:45.160
What does that take? Does that take superficial conversations about the weather and sports?
00:56:51.620
Or does that take bonded in a common struggle? Does that take failure and loss? You know,
00:56:59.000
you see what William Wallace lost, you know, his family, his wife. And then you see what the other
00:57:05.180
guys lost, fathers, brothers, friends. Don't you think they were bonded over that? Not how great they
00:57:12.620
were, but the pain and suffering and losses they had in their lives. That's what they were bonded around.
00:57:18.680
And we overlook that. We think that, oh, we just got to be the warrior. You should be a warrior.
00:57:23.960
Absolutely. You should. You should be completely capable of doing whatever needs to be done
00:57:28.140
to secure your own safety, your loved ones and the people around you. You should absolutely be able
00:57:32.380
to do that. And I think being bonded with other men will help you be more proficient in those things.
00:57:41.000
I like it. So bottom line, get the help. Whether it's called therapy or whatever it's called,
00:57:46.740
doesn't matter as much as just having the conversations. All right.
00:57:52.620
All right. Last one. This is from Facebook. Cordell Neely. What's the appropriate way to
00:57:58.860
handle ultimatums in relationships? I recently broke up with my girlfriend because she gave me a
0.98
00:58:03.740
second ultimatum in our short relationship. I believe if I had continued down this road,
00:58:08.220
it would have led to resentment and a potential marriage with the Rocky Foundation.
0.95
00:58:13.000
What's the best way to handle that? Sounds like you handled it correctly.
00:58:16.860
What's the appropriate way to handle ultimatums?
00:58:19.800
I mean, if she gives you an ultimatum, well, here's what I would say. If you don't appreciate
00:58:24.220
the ultimatum, that's the first thing you say, hey, hon, I love you. But the way, what you're doing
00:58:30.740
right now, like all or nothing or this or that, like I'm not going to do that. So I'm happy to discuss
00:58:36.060
what you're upset about. I'm happy to discuss what you want, which is probably, I'm assuming it's
00:58:40.000
marriage. I'm happy to talk about that. But if you're going to come in here and strong arm me,
00:58:47.940
I'm not interested in that. So you want to rethink that or is that what you're going to stand by?
00:58:54.780
Because if it is, then I'm choosing option A and I'm out. But if you want to actually discuss this
00:59:02.880
and have a real conversation about marriage or when you'd like to get married or how you'd like
00:59:08.740
to do this, I love you. I'd love to have that discussion, but we're going to do it maturely.
00:59:13.380
We're not going to do ultimatums. That's immaturity. Like saying, hey, you will marry me.
00:59:18.400
I assume it's marriage, but hey, you're going to do this by this date or I'm out.
00:59:24.080
That's a sign of immaturity. And I think it's your job as a man to elevate the conversation in
00:59:29.120
that one. That's what I would say. It sounds like you made a good decision because you don't want to
00:59:34.040
be married. It doesn't sound like. So the worst thing you could do is say, okay, yeah, I'll marry
00:59:40.380
you. That's the worst thing you could do, but I would talk about it. Yeah. And I don't know
00:59:45.740
what the ultimatum was. I thought of the, for me, when I met my wife and found her and figured out
00:59:52.140
she was the one part of my thought process of who I, you got to know who you want to be with.
00:59:58.920
You also need to know who you don't want to be with. And so I had a hard line for a few things
01:00:04.860
that if, you know, if it, if a woman I was dating ever said these things, you know, it's me or your
01:00:12.340
business, it's me or this or me, or, you know, there were certain choices that if they, I knew
01:00:18.100
going into a relationship that that was a, that was a deal breaker for me. And if, if, you know,
01:00:24.460
knowing what those were going to be ahead of time it was easy to spot those things early on
01:00:30.960
as I was dating and I was talking to people and just in, in how they showed up in our regular
01:00:37.220
conversations that if I saw it leading, even in that direction, I was out, you know, I, I agree
01:00:44.480
with you. I think the fact that he's out is good. Um, it's why you don't stick yourself in that bad
01:00:49.880
situation, but I think it's also important to know what they are. And then I also think it's
01:00:54.040
different. There is a difference. He's talking about early term relationships and that's when it's
01:00:59.720
most important. Um, but I think, you know, as you're married, you could be in a marriage for
01:01:04.760
10 years, 15 years, you know, or whatever. And then ultimatums may arise. I don't think those are
01:01:10.840
necessarily deal breakers anymore. If that makes sense. I think that that needs to be further
01:01:15.160
conversation, like you said, and it needs to be mature. And it, you know, you have to, you have to,
01:01:22.900
um, not accept it, but you have to, um, be willing to dive deeper into it.
01:01:32.440
Cause you've already made the, you can't just leave it at this or that. You can't just leave
01:01:37.100
it at one or the other. It has to be a, uh, a conversation that you take seriously. So I think
01:01:44.320
there's two different circumstances. Yeah. I think what a lot of guys will do is, is especially
01:01:49.960
in that early dating is a woman will say something or do something that's a red flag. And then because
0.99
01:01:57.920
they love her, they'll either overlook it or hope that at some future date, she'll change.
01:02:04.280
And she probably won't. Well, she's giving you the ultimatum because she's trying to change you.
0.98
01:02:09.800
And so if you're trying to, if that means you're both waiting for each other to change and that's
01:02:14.220
a bad start. Well, there's another thing here too. Again, I'm assuming it's marriage, but if I'm wrong,
01:02:19.180
I mean, tell me, but, but if she's like, Hey, we need to be, you need to ask me to marry you or I'm
01:02:23.280
out. That's actually a fairy quest on her part. You have to think about that too. Like what she
01:02:29.240
wants is important and you may not be able to give it to her. Like if she wants to get married
0.99
01:02:34.860
and you can't give her that, like she's important too. And so maybe the relationship is not only not
01:02:41.260
good for you, maybe it's not good for her. Maybe she needs to be released so she can go find somebody
1.00
01:02:45.900
who can marry her on her timetable or, or give her what she needs. I mean, that sucks because that
01:02:52.220
means like that you take that personal, right? Even though, you know, you couldn't give what she
01:02:57.420
needed. It's still a rejection and it hurts, you know, but it's, it's just operating in reality.
01:03:04.960
And too many of us don't, we put the rose colored glasses on and, and we, you know, try to, we
01:03:10.460
overlook situations and we bury certain things and we don't discuss this. We don't do that.
01:03:15.600
And because it's hard to deal in reality sometimes, but it's way better than dealing in delusion and
01:03:24.320
it only leads to a path of despair and depression. Yeah. I like that. I like that. You said that I'm
01:03:30.000
glad that you said that because my automatic from the hip thing was man, ultimatum suck. Like you
01:03:34.940
should have ditched her, but I think you're right. You have to evaluate his marriage, even what I want.
01:03:40.040
So if that is the ultimatum of marriage and that's not what you want, then yeah, you need to, you need
01:03:44.980
to get out, but do you want to be married? Right. Do you, is that something that you do want? And
01:03:50.960
could this be someone you could see being that person for you? And if you don't have that reflection,
01:03:56.760
you know, then yeah, maybe you're making a mistake. So it's, it's, it's, maybe she's just immaturity and
01:04:03.940
maybe she, she wants to get married and she just doesn't know how to say it right. And yeah,
01:04:08.560
but that's, again, that's why it warrants a further discussion before you're like blow the
01:04:12.120
whole thing apart. But you, you know, you, you, a lot of times we don't look at the other person,
01:04:16.920
but Sean, what you just said a minute ago was actually an ultimatum. Like if a woman says this,
01:04:22.120
I'm out. So what you're saying is don't say that, don't believe that, or I'm out. That's
01:04:27.740
an ultimatum you have and it's okay. In fact, it's, it's probably a healthy thing because you know
01:04:33.880
what you want and what you don't want. So I think that needs to be communicated up front.
01:04:40.220
and that was one thing I was very clear on with the, you know, if it, it, as it came up,
01:04:44.200
I'd be like, Hey, look, just so you know, like most of my time and effort is going to be on this
01:04:48.260
thing. And like, if you're cool with that, we can continue dating and, you know, and it's either
01:04:55.620
an issue or it's not. Right. Cool. All right, brother, let's wrap it up today. Yeah. Well,
01:05:01.180
always good. Always great conversation. And obviously order man.com check out the IC it's
01:05:08.080
closed right now again, right? It is. Yep. When's that going to open back up or do you know that
01:05:14.000
will open up? Yeah. June. Yeah. June. It'll open up, open up again in June. So another three months
01:05:20.600
or so. Okay. Awesome. And then any other resources the guys need to know? We talked about the batter
01:05:27.160
planner app, your book, masculinity manifesto manifesto. We're working on getting sovereignty
01:05:32.800
back in on Amazon, which has been kind of a nightmare. So stay tuned, stand by on that one.
01:05:37.540
Yeah. I mean, for now, check out the battle ready program. You guys are asking about battle planning.
01:05:41.600
We have a 30 day free battle ready program. If you go to order a man.com slash battle ready,
01:05:46.220
you can sign up for that. And that'll walk you through a little bit more in depth, a lot more in
01:05:50.020
depth on what I shared about how I stay on track and what happens when I don't. So check it out.
01:05:56.620
order of man.com slash battle ready. All right, guys. Appreciate y'all great questions today.
01:06:01.020
Keep them coming. We've got some reserve questions for next week. We'll get to,
01:06:04.820
but until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.
01:06:08.800
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:06:13.120
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.