00:00:00.000Okay, when you rescue other people, and I've got four children, if I swoop in and rescue them from their consequences every time they make a bad decision, I'm removing the blessing of consequence.
00:00:13.960Because if it isn't painful or doesn't hurt in some way, then you won't learn from it. That's human nature.
00:00:20.380I made a post on Instagram just the other day that we as men, and humans in general, women as well, we operate through incentives and consequences.
00:00:30.000Hey guys, I want to share with you something that I think is going to be extremely valuable
00:00:35.280if you fall into one of three categories in your life. And I want you to understand that
00:00:42.460the moment, this might seem a little counterintuitive, but the moment that we
00:00:46.800start to begin to save other people, that comes at an expense, that comes at a cost to you.
00:00:55.360And I'll explain when and where it's appropriate and when and where it's not appropriate.
00:01:00.000But it does end up costing you time and peace and potentially your own mission.
00:01:05.620And I've seen a lot of guys fall prey to this.
00:01:07.540I've fallen prey to this as well, where we begin to rescue people or even behave in certain ways that not only hurt our own chances of success, but also end up hindering theirs.
00:01:22.640And what I want you to understand is that rescuing somebody doesn't always mean love for that individual.
00:01:30.000uh sometimes it's it's a role it's a it's a persona it's something that you're doing maybe
00:01:36.800even subconsciously to feel better about yourselves in some way and it's called as i was studying and
00:01:44.580and researching this topic i came across this phenomenon it's called the cartman drama triangle
00:01:49.840it was identified in 1968 and psychologist cartman identified three roles that are unhealthy
00:01:58.940that men fall into at times. And I want you to identify if you fall into one of these categories
00:02:06.260and we can talk about how to take ourselves out of these categories and approach this in a more
00:02:12.380healthy way. So the first category is somebody who is in playing the victim. Okay. It's, it's poor
00:02:21.300me. It's woe is me. It's everything's always wrong. Everything's always happening to me. Nobody loves
00:02:27.560me. Nobody cares about me. If there weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. And that
00:02:33.720individual feels powerless in their lives. I'm sure that you can quickly identify people who
00:02:40.140are playing the victim role. Even if it's in the micro, they may not do it all the time,
00:02:45.520but certainly at some points in their lives. And I'm sure that maybe even if you're honest
00:02:50.360with yourself, you can identify where maybe you've even played in that victim role. These are
00:02:56.020individuals who uh it feels like they need rescuing okay and then we have the second category and
00:03:04.280that's the persecutor okay this is this is the person who says it's your fault it's your
00:03:09.920responsibility everything bad that happens to me is because somebody else did it right it's your
00:03:16.060fault you didn't do this right you missed this you missed that and then they critique you and
00:03:21.000criticize you. And they just make it feel like somebody else is always out to get them. And if
00:03:29.820they could just fix that person, right? So they're not necessarily rescuing that person,
00:03:34.360but if they can fix that person, then they'll be the savior, right? And so they need somebody
00:03:41.880beneath them, so to speak, in order for them to feel important, powerful. And then it comes across
00:03:51.640as persecution rather than actual help. And then the third category that he identified is the
00:03:58.020rescuer. Okay, so let me help you. This is an individual who will swoop in, even if they're
00:04:03.900uninvited, unsolicited, and they're driven a lot of the times by guilt. And again, this need to be
00:04:11.700needed. You know, I have people in my life who I care about deeply who are the rescuer. And the
00:04:19.080only time that they feel important or valuable in life is if they're adding value, if they're
00:04:25.840needed by somebody else, and they're rescuing other people. Okay, but none of these positions,
00:04:32.940okay, the victim, the persecutor, or the rescuer are actual positions of strength.
00:04:38.860all three of those are reactive they're not chosen at least they're not chosen consciously
00:04:46.840and there's reasons why we as men fall into these roles and I want you again to think about your own
00:04:53.700life and ask yourself if you generally fall into one of these categories or if you have at some
00:04:59.080point in your life so the rescuer let's talk about the rescuer first this is a this is a man who has
00:05:05.560been trained from boyhood that worth equals usefulness. This is the category that I often
00:05:12.080fall to if I'm not careful. Fixing somebody, helping somebody, addressing their problem,
00:05:18.380even at my own expense, often comes as proof to me that I matter. So I will put my own stuff
00:05:26.180on the back burner. I will ignore my own responsibilities and even some obligations
00:05:32.940in order to rescue or help somebody else.
00:05:36.780And it's tricky because we're taught, right,
00:05:39.120from boyhood, again, to be useful, to be helpful,
00:05:41.900to be a contributing member, and we certainly should.
00:05:45.580But there's a line at which it becomes not only unnecessary,
00:05:49.740but unhelpful and actually detrimental to your well-being
00:05:54.680and the well-being of the people that you're trying to serve.
00:06:12.860Okay, it's criticism as a stand-in for power that maybe they don't actually have the authority or the credibility or the influence with other people.
00:06:22.260and in light of their own sense of inadequacy and inferiority they decide to persecute everybody
00:06:29.760else because it makes them feel powerful this is the perpetual hall monitor right you give this kid
00:06:37.440just a little bit of power and it goes to their head and it makes them feel as if they're the ones
00:06:42.500who reign supreme and that power is typically greatly misused if not outright abused now the
00:06:55.000third the victim is the role that i think least the least amount of men admit to but again it
00:07:01.960shows up as nobody helped me so why should i help myself they're used to excuses and justifications
00:07:11.540and rationalizations, and when they have stalled growth or just none at all, then they default to
00:07:19.500playing the victim card. It could not have possibly been me for the reason for our lack
00:07:25.000of success. Now, I think that men often default to the rescuer publicly, while secretly it's the
00:07:34.660victim narrative that's playing behind. Because we know, right? We know that if we play the victim
00:07:41.340card publicly, it doesn't always go over well. Now, I do believe in culture, there tends to be
00:07:46.680a race to the bottom, the victim narrative, the victim points. Who has it worse? And then whoever
00:07:53.140has it worse is somehow moral or righteous simply because they have some victim points. There's no
00:07:59.780righteousness in being a victim. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all of us are playing
00:08:04.540the victim. There are people who are actually truly victimized. And we can be aware of that.
00:08:10.120We can acknowledge that. And we can still take responsibility for our lives. But what we do
00:08:16.040publicly is we turn into the rescuer because that's what everybody looks at and says, oh,
00:08:21.760look at Ryan. Look how great he is. Look how many people he's helping. Look at all the wonderful
00:08:27.000things he's doing. And behind the scenes, there's some insecurities happening. There's some ego
00:08:33.200issues happening, there's some control issues happening, and I might not actually be addressing
00:08:39.420the things that I need to address. And the triangle between the rescuer, the victim,
00:08:47.540and the persecutor, it's not this static triangle. We cycle through all three of them,
00:08:54.980oftentimes even in a single conversation. That's why it's really important that we learn to be
00:09:00.280aware of how we're coming across and how we're presenting and our own thoughts and behaviors
00:09:05.160because we could very easily slip from rescuer to persecutor, right? If I try to rescue somebody
00:09:11.540and it's something beyond my control, then the persecutor will come out, right? Well,
00:09:20.480I couldn't control it. So again, it must not have been my fault. See, that person did that.
00:09:24.500They deserve that. Guys, the rescuer, and you might even fill in the nice guy here,
00:09:32.300they will burn out from overgiving. I mean, how many times have you done that in your life? And
00:09:37.600you may even resort to things like keeping score or covert contracts. We've talked about both
00:09:44.280because you're frustrated. You're not getting what you need and you're giving, giving, giving,
00:09:50.440giving all the time at your own expense. And so that rescuer will, again, flip into the
00:09:55.160persecutor, right? Keeping score. After all that I did for you, after everything that I did,
00:10:01.860I'm still not good enough. Or you're doing this, or you're behaving that way. That's the persecutor
00:10:07.020coming out in you. And the persecutor's guilt afterwards, after the fact, can easily flip
00:10:17.000into the victim. Oh, so I'm the bad guy now, right? Like I've done all this work. So there's
00:10:22.960the rescuer. I've done all this work and it's still not good enough for you. There's the
00:10:26.900persecutor. And so all of a sudden, now I'm the bad guy. There's the victim. Three ways of showing
00:10:34.160up in one single sentence that I'm sure all of us as men have uttered at one point in our lives
00:10:40.280or another. Okay. The victim, and you've probably heard this about the nice guy as well,
00:10:46.780manipulates people by guilting them into rescue mode. And then he resents them for treating him
00:10:56.260as helpless, right? So if I'm a victim and I'm going to make you feel guilty because you didn't
00:11:01.020step up or do what you needed or show up for me in a certain way, or give me my points or blah,
00:11:04.960blah, blah, blah, blah, then I'm trying to get you to turn into a rescuer.
00:11:12.260And then the minute you turn into a rescuer, I'm like, I don't need your help. I don't need
00:11:15.560anybody's help. I can do it on my own. I don't, you're treating me like a child. You're treating
00:11:20.520me like I'm worthless or helpless. It's a horrible pattern that we've all slipped into.
00:11:26.260Okay. It's, it's kind of a closed loop in a way. Everybody's playing a part and everybody's
00:11:32.360trying to manipulate and massage themselves into certain positions, but nobody's actually
00:11:36.400solving any problems. And guys, there's a cost of staying in this triangle.
00:11:44.080Okay, when you rescue other people, and I've got four children, if I swoop in and rescue them from
00:11:50.440their consequences, every time they make a bad decision, I'm removing the blessing of consequence.
00:11:58.700And you might say, well, how is consequence a blessing?
00:17:26.200So A.C. Choi says that victimhood now turns, or excuse me, becomes the vulnerable.
00:17:34.580And I'm very hesitant, as you guys have heard me in the past, to use that word because it has a meaning and it has a definition, and often we use it differently.
00:17:42.620I think modern culture continues to lean towards just exposing all your baggage for the sake of doing it as if that's to help, and it doesn't.
00:17:51.340In many cases, it makes things worse, okay?
00:17:53.840but when you learn to turn that victimhood mentality into vulnerability the way that
00:18:03.180i'm explaining it where you could admit struggle you can admit admit that you're having a hard time
00:18:08.440you could admit that you're uh that you don't have it all figured out without surrendering
00:18:14.320your agency by the way see that's what modern vulnerability says like oh i'll just say everything
00:18:19.040bad happened to me when I was a kid and I'm being vulnerable. No, you're being a victim
00:18:25.080because you're not acknowledging that you still have power over your life.
00:18:30.580You've heard me talk about the difference between reasons and excuses, right? A reason for something
00:18:37.700not going well is something you ought to acknowledge. If I have a struggling relationship
00:18:45.020with my children, there might be a lot of reasons for that. It could be hormones as they get older.
00:18:51.440It could be something that I've done or something that I've not done. It could be some other
00:18:56.120influence, whether it's other kids or other adults, maybe even another parent in some cases.
00:19:02.420But there's a lot of reasons why that relationship might struggle. But if you're doing it correctly,
00:19:09.000it should just give you data so that you can improve that relationship with your children.
00:19:13.660That's a reason. An excuse is you just throwing up your hands. Well, you know, they learned this
00:19:19.100from their mom. And so there's nothing I can do about it. Their mom's talking bad about me. And
00:19:24.380so, you know, here's what it is. It is what it is. That's not vulnerability. That's just you coming
00:19:30.180up with an excuse. Vulnerability in the truest sense of the word is identifying a problem,
00:19:35.300not to hang your hat on, but to identify a problem so that you can do something about it.
00:19:40.700If I'm a king of a castle and I've got this big, huge, beautiful wall surrounding the village and the castle and it's protecting all the citizens and the people in this realm that I'm responsible for, well, if I'm smart, then I'm going to either go myself or send people out to inspect the wall.
00:20:02.060and let's say in the east corridor of the wall, I find some faulty bricks or stones and it's
00:20:09.440crumbling and the foundation is eroding. We would all say that's a weakness. That's a vulnerability,
00:20:14.680right? In the truest sense of the word. But I don't come to the town folk and say, hey,
00:20:19.480just want to let you know in the east corridor of the wall, there's a gaping hole that any enemy
00:20:24.700can sneak through. And yeah, I just want you guys to know. And then I wash my hands and go back into
00:20:29.180the castle and sleep comfortably on my pillow at night. No, that's not what you would do. What you
00:20:34.040would do is say, hey, let's get the masons out here. Let's get the engineers out here. Let's
00:20:39.280get the bricklayers out here. And let's fix this wall. Vulnerability is only powerful when you do
00:20:45.500something with it, not when you just complain about your stuff. Okay, the next antidote in
00:20:51.320this winner's triangle or this empowerment triangle is that the persecutor now becomes
00:20:58.720assertive. So instead of just persecuting everybody and being frustrated and barking
00:21:06.240orders and yelling all the time, instead, you begin to state clearly what your needs are
00:21:12.300and what your boundaries are directly to the person. I've had conversations even just over
00:21:18.940the past week or so with individuals who, instead of coming to me with an issue that they have
00:21:25.840directly with me, they go to other people and talk about me. And I don't think it's malicious
00:21:31.720for the most point, but it's inappropriate at best. If you haven't given me the opportunity
00:21:39.760to listen to you, to hear what you have to say, to understand your concerns, then you shouldn't
00:21:48.460be going and talking with other people about that. Stating needs clearly is assertive.
00:21:54.900Nice guys have a hard time with this, but you need to be able to do this. You need to state
00:21:59.700what your boundaries are, how you will be treated, how you won't be treated without needing to
00:22:04.840dominate everybody else. And people can come along for the ride or they can decide not to.
00:22:10.620And look, if they decide not to, that's okay. They don't have to. But an assertive leader,
00:22:15.820an assertive man, is significantly more effective than one who's just persecuting all the time.
00:22:21.700And the third component of this winner's triangle is that the rescuer now becomes someone who's
00:22:29.300caring. He offers help only when it's asked and appreciated, and only in ways that build another
00:22:38.120person's capability, not their dependence on you. That's the difference between somebody who's
00:22:42.540rescuing and somebody who is truly caring. With my kids, I try to be the caring person, that I can
00:22:49.220help them to a degree that builds them up, builds them into powerful, responsible,
00:22:55.200self-sustaining adults without kneecapping them, without building their dependency on me.
00:23:03.200And you can see it, right? You know. When you see somebody else's kids who can't function in society
00:23:08.680without mommy and daddy's wallet, for example, or their approval or validation.
00:23:15.140But what we need to understand is that there is also a time where rescuing is important, okay?
00:23:21.880And I want to be very clear on this and throw this caveat. I'm not saying that you should just
00:23:27.080withdraw from this altogether. I'm not saying that you just need to become a recluse or a jerk
00:23:32.520or so self-absorbed that you can't recognize there's people out there who actually need
00:23:37.880genuine help. So when is rescuing somebody actually appropriate? Well, there's a couple
00:23:43.080of times. Number one, if it's a genuine emergency, right? You don't have to ask for their permission,
00:23:51.460right? If I see somebody who needs CPR, I'm not going to go ask if they need it and go through
00:23:58.800all of the normal modes of conversation and communication before I start administering CPR.
00:24:04.900okay they don't have agency in that moment so i'm going to act in that moment because there's
00:24:10.060a genuine emergency another example might be a short-term bridge with a clear exit okay not a
00:24:18.580permanent crutch so if i've got a teammate or a worker um you know somebody that i need to
00:24:25.880to talk with, um, then, you know, I, I can help bridge the gap. I can teach them things. I can
00:24:35.440solve a problem very quickly if I need to, especially if it's in a work situation and
00:24:39.940there might be an expense to having somebody else do it, but I'm not going to just micromanage the
00:24:44.700entire thing. I'm not going to take over the entire project. I'm going to say, Hey, let's do
00:24:47.920this together. And so I'm going to help that person individually work through whatever we
00:24:53.320need to work through so that we can move into this exit strategy of them taking control and
00:24:59.260responsibility for it. Okay, and that's the third component of where rescuing becomes good, becomes
00:25:09.220a healthy thing. It's when they're doing the work, and you're just supplementing it. And you're not
00:25:14.580doing the work for them. You're not carrying all the weight. You're just supplementing, especially
00:25:19.160if they've asked you to do it. And that's the fourth point. If it's asked for, never in the
00:25:25.000history of humankind has anybody truly and radically appreciated unsolicited advice.
00:25:31.820It's obnoxious at best. It's annoying. It's obnoxious. It's not helpful. It's not warranted.
00:25:37.560In many cases, they don't even need it. But people think, well, I'm just trying to rescue. I'm just
00:25:40.860trying to serve. I'm just trying to help. They didn't ask for it. And it's not your responsibility
00:25:45.160to give it unless one of those caveats exists that I shared earlier. So guys, I've got some
00:25:49.980challenges here for you as we wrap things up this Friday. I want you to name someone that you
00:25:55.640continue to rescue repeatedly over and over and over again. And ask yourself, are you building
00:26:03.660their capability or are you more focused on your own sense of being needed? Okay, practice another
00:26:11.520thing you could do for a challenge. Practice one assertive conversation. I have this boundary.
00:26:18.780Here's how I expect to be treated. I would like to communicate this way. Here's what I need out
00:26:23.420of our relationship, et cetera, et cetera. And then on the caring front, exhibit care.
00:26:29.160Wait for somebody to offer or at least ask for help and care about them. Love them. Don't do
00:26:36.980anything. Don't strip them of the consequences of their choices. Don't do all the things for them.
00:26:42.520Work alongside them, support them. But I think regardless of where you fall, and like I said
00:26:47.220earlier, most men fall on all three of those categories, the rescuer, the persecutor, and the,
00:26:56.500now I'm drawing a blink, the rescuer, the persecutor, and the, you know what it is, I'm sure.
00:27:02.220I don't know why I can't think of it, but guys, try to work on these things, okay?
00:27:07.540Focus on being the kind of man who is bold and assertive, who will help and be caring