The Relaxed Male

The Model Series The Model Circumstance Thought Feeling Action - This episode Results Your action What do you want to do? Is the action serving you? How this line fits into the model This is what we do based on how we are feeling. Our actions lead to the results. You have to change how you think of the circumstance if you want to change your action. Take trying to lose weight. Circumstance - You are 50 pounds overweight Thought - You can't stand how you look in the mirror Emotion - disgust Action - Eat to avoid feeling disgust Result - You don't lose weight and so you still cant stand yourself in the mirror This is where we often do the things we really don't want to do. Ask yourself does this action serve you? No. because the results aren't what you are wanting, are they? So you have to start changing your thoughts about the circumstance. You actually have to start being intentional in what you want and how you get to the goal. Intentional model Circumstance - You are 50 pounds overweight Thought - I have a plan to lose the weight Feeling - determined Action - Follow a diet and get exercise on schedule Result - You start losing weight You see how the action will change with a different thought. The new thought changes what you are feeling. That new feeling will help you with your new action. But remember that hippocampus discussion from the last episode? Yeah, you have to be very deliberate in your thoughts because the habit center of your brain wants to take over and it takes a lot of energy to change a habit. So you will fall back on old habits from time to time. This is where you have to use something like a journal to see your thoughts and work through your own models. See if that model is producing your results. If so keep at it. the small actions and the results from those actions lead to you taking massive actions in your life.

The Ruck March report The Model Series The Model Circumstance Thought Feeling - This episode Action Results What are emotions? VIbrations Emotions are vibrations that start in your mind and are felt throughout your body Emotions are also associated with different neurotransmitters and hormones your body produces dopamine - pleasure, happy gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), - Calming serotonin - Joy and contentment Oxytocin - love Endorphins - relaxed Hormones we avoid norepinephrine - FIght or flight cortisol - Stress Adrenaline - stress We often avoid these hormones because they don't feel good in general. Yet many people will seek them out like adrenaline because it also helps produce Endorphins There are also other parts of the brain that are into the process of emotions. Your brain's primary objective is to keep you alive. The prefrontal cortex - THinking part of the brain The amygdala - The Primative part The hippocampus - The habit center It is emotions that keep us playing small. They are sought out because we want to feel safe and The primitive part of our brain is the part that we don't want to have control. This is the warning system that we are venturing into unknown territory. Our brain also likes to not waste energy so as soon as a brain can offload a set of movements and thinking processes to the hippocampus it does. So with all this, it may look like you have a lot to overcome but your thinking part of your brain is the main control center of it all that is the prefrontal cortex. So how do you control your emotions? Emotions are not positive nor negative The 50/50- Principle Our life is 50% pain and 50% pleasure. You can spend your life fighting the perceived negative emotions and we do this by buffering or avoiding or indulging Buffering is using something to get the dopamine and serotonin hits we desire. We buffer to avoid pain but at the cost of suffering. Things we buffer on Porn video games social media food alcohol drugs Emotions don't last. The reason they keep coming up is because of our thoughts. We keep having the thoughts of something bad and we experience the emotions associated with that thought. Yet if you can do the thought work of changing how you see a circumstance you can change your emotion. Often we resist the so-called negative emotion and this act of dining the 50/50 principle causes us more pain and suffering. We avoid doing the hard things in life because we don't want to feel bad. We don't want to face the thoughts and beliefs we have formed. So we stay comfortable. We keep playing small. What if you were to allow the emotion to be. Allow yourself to feel that emotion. What would happen to you? What if we didn't run from that emotion just accepted that the emotion is there let it run its life and then carry on? What would you be able to do? You can choose to let emotion have power over you or you can choose to take the power you have back and live your life.

Announcements The Model Series The Model Circumstance Feeling Action Results This is the biggest obstacle you will encounter Thoughts are the start of your model, not the circumstance This is where the pain and suffering you have in your life is from This is where the joy and sense of accomplishment comes from Thoughts create the emotions you feel

Announcements Ruck March - Operation Tears of the 22 Operation Tears of the 22 website Operation Tears of the 22 Facebook Other Episodes on this series The Model Thoughts Feelings Actions Results When we are talking about The Model we have 5 lines that we are working with. The first line is the Circumstance line. Many people want to say this is the source of your problems but this is not actually the truth. It is the facts of your model but it isn't the truth. What is a Circumstance? Any event that is happening in your life. The event can be positive or negative, good or bad We often give this circumstance power These are things that are outside of our control They are facts and only facts. They do not have any modifiers in them (i.e. I spent way too much money, My wife is mad, My mother in law is controlling) If you are using words a person says that is to be a direct quote above all remember circumstances are neutral What do you mean a circumstance is neutral? No there are bad circumstances! The circumstance has no influence on your outcome. The choice of how you see the circumstance is how you will show up. The power a circumstance has over you is in your thoughts

What is actually holding you back? This is a question I ask often and for good reason because so many people focus on the wrong culprit. They think it is the thing in their life that is creating their pain. The Wife is making them mad. The kids are disappointing you. The promotion to that new position is because the boss is a jerk. None of these are the real reason why you are unhappy, unfulfilled, Feel as if you are chained to your desk. The person holding you back is you and the Model can show you how. What is the Model? The reason you are playing it small is because of your thoughts and that is what the model does so well. It shows you your thoughts and how they are getting in your way. The Model also shows if you are going off the path. Where your thoughts are leading you astray. Are you not getting the connection you want out of your marriage? Your thoughts and the model can help point out how What is it used for? Now The model isn't new. It's not anything I ever came up with. I am not that smart. The Model has been around for a good while or at least its concepts have been. My Mentor and teacher Brooke Castillo over at The Life Coach School is who put the concepts together to show people their minds. Show them that their thoughts are the biggest scariest obstacles they will face. The thoughts you have are a choice. What you choose to let rule you and it is what keeps you playing small or choosing to go for big leagues. So how does it help? What it does is, The Model allows you to see what you are thinking and how those thoughts you have, are giving you the results you are getting. You are not being oppressed by some boogie man you are being oppressed by you. You are unhappy because you chose to be unhappy. You are living in poverty because of the thoughts you had. Parts of the Model The model is actually simple to explain. You have a Thought about a Circumstance. That thought creates an emotion. That emotion leads to an action, and the action produces your result. So When you hear me talk about lines in the model they are as follows C - Circumstance T - Thought F - Feeling A - Action R - Result So let's break these down Before the Model; The Thought Download This is where you lay out all of your thoughts. You can make it about a particular topic, or you can just let your thoughts rain down onto a piece of paper. The choice is yours. The thought download allows you to see your thoughts and to pick apart what you want to. You can take 10 minutes or an hour. The amount of time is up to you. Now I do recommend that you do this with a pen and paper. This allows you to see your thoughts but it also allows your brain to stop trying to hold on to these thoughts. Our brain is great at thinking but horrible at remembering. So when you write your thoughts down your brain doesn't have to waste energy trying to remember stuff. This often gums up the thinking process. Therefore I recommend doing a thought download daily. If for any reason it just frees up space. Circumstance These are the facts of the situation. It has to be free of descriptors, feelings, or thoughts. If you are struggling with your marriage. Your fact is, "you are married". It's not, "your wife hates sex". It is "you were passed up for a promotion" not 'Your boss is greedy SOB" The circumstance line of the model is something we can all agree on. You could take it to a court of law and say yes that is a cat. Not everyone will agree that it is an extra fluffy cat because someone could say I know a cat that's extra fluffy and your cat there is just fluffy. Why? Because your circumstance is neutral. They are not good nor are they bad. Circumstances aren't positive nor are they negative that is until we apply thought to that circumstance. An example is The World Trade Center towers on 9/11 The attack was bad in our eyes. Yet on the other side of the world people were having celebrations that the towers fell. Was it good or bad? depends on the thought. Also, you weren't affected by the towers falling till you heard or saw the towers fall. Before that, you were having other thoughts about other circumstances Thought The Thought line of the model is what we think of the circumstance. This is where we apply the positive or negative aspects to the circumstance. This is where the problems or success originate. If your wife is not feeling lovey you can choose to have the thought of being a victim and thinking it's not fair, or you can have the thought that she isn't feeling connected enough, so how do you change it? More on Model switching later. More episodes on thoughts https://www.relaxedmale.com/disempowering-thoughts/ Disempowering Thoughts - Relaxed Male Podcast Episode 87 https://www.relaxedmale.com/the-root-of-your-suffering/ The Root of your Suffering - Relaxed Male Podcast Episode 103 https://www.relaxedmale.com/other-peoples-opinion/ Other Peoples Opinion - Relaxed Male Podcast Episode 104 Feeling These are the emotions you feel. Now before you gro

Many of us think we have huge insurmountable obstacles in our life. But do we really? Are the obstacles that are keeping you away from your goals and dreams really in your way? Are your problems as bad as you say? This week I wanted to challenge you on your thinking. You are telling yourself a huge lie in that you can't do something because of whatever the circumstance is. HOW? Well, I want to show you some men who overcame the obstacles in their world and it was because of their thoughts. Not the fact that they had problems but they refused to see their problems as something that would hold them back. A Hockey Accident It was Winter 1885 and A bunch of boys was playing hockey. Then suddenly a hockey stick collided with a young Wil’s face. It caused some serious injuries. These injuries caused Will to have to drop out of high school. Doing so interrupted his dreams and aspirations of going to Yale. Because of this, he did sink into a depressive state as he stayed home and tended to his mother who had Consumption. When she died in 1889 Will's brother and he opened a newspaper shop and eventually they pursued their passion for bicycles. From there they created the first heavier than air flying craft. Yeah, Wilbur Wright could have just decided that his dreams were over; he wasn't going to be rich or famous. Wilbur could have very well done just that. Yet he overcame the obstacles he saw as his circumstance and sidestepped them. With the help of his brother Orville, they flew the first airplane. Only One Sell You have heard of starving artists. How about a world-famous artist that only sold one painting? Yep, there was one man who had a passion for painting. He couldn’t stop painting. Yet he only sold one painting. Well, actually he sold only one painting. He sold several drawings but only one painting. And it was only 400 Belgian francs on top of that. Now this one does end on a sad note; he died at the age of 37 thinking that he was an abject failure. Yet now Van Gogh’s paintings go for millions. Try Try Again What do you do if something doesn’t work? Do you give up? Maybe try another angle and then if that doesn't work give up? Would you try 10,000 different combinations before you gave up? Most of us wouldn’t yet without the bullheaded tenacity of Thomas Edison we would still be using oil lanterns for light. Yet Thomas didn’t give up. He would try one way and then try another way. He would try combinations of the other ways that didn’t work. Thomas wouldn’t give up. When he finally got a light to work and didn’t go out in an instant, he knew he was on the right track. He is famous for saying I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. This is the way of thinking you have to put in your head. Keep pushing, as you start your new business or whatever adventure. You are going to get it wrong. Do I hear “yeah, but…”? How about he has maybe a 7-grade education. He had ADHD. He found school boring. Yet, he still found knowledge the most interesting around him. He didn’t stop just because he didn’t have a school to go to, No. He pressed on. Abject failure This young man tried his hand at business and he failed several times. Our Gent even tried to get into public office. His first wife, who he loved dearly, died. His second wife nagged and scolded him because he wanted better and he wouldn’t just settle for good enough. At 27 he had a nervous breakdown and suffered from bouts of depression for the rest of his life. He then proceeded to lose 3 attempts to get elected into congress. Failed spectacularly. He couldn’t even get the position at the Land Office That wasn’t good enough for our destined hero. He tried to get the vice president and failed at that also. 19 of the 21 clergymen rejected his offer for his first run at the presidency. Yet eventually Abraham Lincoln did make it. Even then when he did become president the country broke out into Civil War. Yet he was able to reunite the country and remove slavery in the process. Fightful story How about one of the most prolific writers we have today. Stephen King's first book Carrie was rejected no less than 30 times. His work was rejected so many times that the nail he hung the rejection letters on couldn’t hold them. He even threw it in the trash at one point in the writing. Yet thanks to his wife Tabatha She convinced him to keep at it. Keep pushing. Keep trying. He persisted. He didn’t see the rejection as a “no”. He saw it as “not this publisher”. He was willing to be uncomfortable till someone took him up on the book. He eventually sold it and he became wildly successful. That's not the end of his troubles. He developed a liking for cocaine and liquor. At the height of his addiction, he doesn’t even remember writing the book Cujo. Again Stephen faced the challenge and got himself clean. You see, all of these men had several obstacles in their life. They didn't give up and thought it was too hard. Some of them even had what would be called

Visualize How would you be when you are successful Dress for success What would you have? act the part Won't that make you a fake? according to who? Their reactions to your success is a reflection of their shortcomings This gets your mind wrapped around what it will be like if you are successful If you were to just become successful overnight you mentally wouldn't know how to handle the pressure and responsibility of that success. You would self-sabotage and wind back at your starting place. You grow the skills needed Your friends will change and that is a good thing Brotherhood of Men Work with Bryan

Where you are at in your life? Are you struggling to find meaning or maybe no matter how hard you try you just aren't happy? This is a common problem for most men. They are sitting on the couch, their life is sort of Blah. Maybe you are wondering how in the heck you ended up in this predicament? You had so much fire when you were young and then life just took over. Now you are overweight. Watching a game on the huge screen television. You have the house, the cars, the kids, yet you aren't really happy, You aren't depressed either you are just sort of Meh! You are married and yet the sexual wild child you married now goes to bed in 2 layers of clothing socks on and maybe she lets you have some nookie once a month or so. The sex is almost like pitty sex. It achieves the purpose but there really isn't much passion in it. Where did you lose yourself? It is not that you aren't happy with the life you are pleased somewhat with what you have yet you believe that there should be more laughing and happiness floating through the air. Yet each week there is a new fire to put out. You have a honey-do list that isn't shrinking at all. You aren't overly joyous with where you are. The dream was to have the house and kids right? Well yeah but that is only one aspect and you are not facing the other parts of your life. We were told that if we work hard we will get far in life. So why are you not happy? Why are you not filled with so much joy that you can't stop laughing? Your wife's clothes should be falling off the moment you step into the house. What could you possibly be doing wrong? You do all the things that make sense to you. You stay away from negative people. You may go as far as not allowing negative people into your life. You may even keep a little sunshine in your pocket and you are such the little sunshine that some people may go as far as calling you Toxicly Positive because you can't stand having people around you that are not happy either. Yet no matter what you do you aren't feeling that happiness. and you hate that feeling. You want it gone. Wrong Expectations That is the whole problem. First off you have the wrong expectations. You think you should have this life of happiness and joy. You and your wife are always going to be intimately connected. So much so that you are not going to have to really have the hard conversation. It's just "I love you" and a hug with a passionate kiss and the relationship is just going to be ok. You expect your boss to throw you a promotion. Simply because you show up on time and do your work. You accomplished your goal of having a house and kids and so you were expecting that the rest of your life would fall into place. Stop arguing with me because if you did know that you wouldn't be expecting the wrong results you are getting Your kids aren't going to be the model citizen you think they are. Your life isn't just going to be smooth sailing. In fact, no matter how hard you try you are going to have negative emotions. The 50/50 Life Life is going to have pain it is also going to have pleasure. The problem for many men is that we avoid the pain to the core of our being. We have been trained by years and centuries and millennia that pain is bad. If you are uncomfortable then you are going to DIE!!! If you embarrass yourself in front of others they will judge you and kick you out of the village and you will die. That was true a million years ago when man was looking for a cave to shelter in. If we get too cold and we don't have a tribe to accept us then we will possibly be a bear snack. That's not the case for today. Yet our Monky brain in the back of our mind doesn't know that. It was formed to keep us alive. If you are not at the home base you are not comfortable. If you are not comfortable then you are doing something that is dangerous. If you are doing something that is dangerous then you will die! So whether you know it or not your mind is always trying to work against you if you are trying to do something new and exciting. Even learning something new is not comfortable. Your mind has to expend more energy to make new connections. So to learn a new skill uses more energy than the brain is comfortable with. Why, because, what if you can't get enough calories to replace the energy spent learning this new skill? You will die! You see your mind likes a particular hormone called dopamine. You get that squirt of the good stuff when you do something that the brain perceives as good. When you eat it is pleasureful. When you have an orgasm you did good. Pleasure is something we are always chasing. That pleasure though is often not actually in our best interest. You get pleasure from Watching porn and from sleeping with your wife. Yet to have sex with your wife runs the risk of being rejected (this is perceived as bad). You may get criticized (This is perceived as bad). Yet porn all you have to do you open up a webpage and watch a video and your brain gets that dopamine hit when you ge

The clothes make the man. Have you ever heard that phrase? Well, there are reasons that getting dressed is important for you and what you want to accomplish. Dressing up is one thing but how do you normally dress? That is the question. This doesn't mean you have to be at the pentacle of men's fashion. In fact, I question the fashion industry and how they are trying to femininize men. Men do have a way to dress and the uniform they choose to wear for their battle is important. There is a reason for uniforms to be worn at work. The most common reason is to exude a standard for the customer. If you went to a Mcdonald's and everybody was wearing what they want you could have the cook wearing a tank top and a cap on backward. The person at the counter could have on hospital scrubs. The fry guy may even be shirtless. The standards would be way lower than they are now. Your impression of that establishment would be one that you may not go back to. The military has its own uniform standards and it is to help identify which side of the battlefield you are on. It also helps you to recognize who the leaders are versus who the privates are. Uniforms do serve a purpose. So what is your uniform? Sadly many guys don't have a uniform they dress in what is comfortable and don't care who they are out to impress. This is doing our women a disservice because the young men these days don't even dress to impress their date. I have seen some of the guys my daughter dated in high school and the impression was losers. When talking to kiddo about the guy she would make big fluffy generalizations about him having a nice personality. Yet a few months down the road she would be in tears because he cheated on her. My response to that is yeah I saw that when I saw him. How could I see that? well if you don't show yourself respect how are you going to respect others? That's how. He didn't show my daughter any respect by trying to keep his pants on his butt and looked like someone who is out solely for the chance to get a girl naked. So yes you can tell a lot about a man by how he dresses. That's not the only indicator of a successful man but it is a big indicator. Why is being well-dressed important? First, it shows others you are confident but also helps you feel more confident. To be able to make big strides in life you have to be confident that no matter what happens you are going to succeed. If you don't have confidence in yourself then the learning phase will cripple you. You also show pride in yourself with what you are wearing. If you don't have any pride, your outward appearance will show through. You look like a slouch people will perceive you to be a slouch. Not fair? Life ain't fair buddy. confidence pride in self You are perceived differently More productive Men who took pride in how they looked Washington - "nothing adds more to the appearance of a man than a dress." Gary Cooper How you can improve your dress Start with your base wear Take it up just a step You don't have to be the best dressed but dress better than expected. Look at styles that you resonate with Find ways you can step up your appearance get your hair in shape that goes for the beard

Do you have an attitude problem? Where are you now Not getting anywhere You are broke no connection in your marriage Feel alone Do you want to stay that way? The effects of your attitude Not having any friends Failed business Marriage is failing You can make a simple change Pay attention to your attitude My story Why change the attitude You will see people act differently around you. People will start looking at you as a leader, not as a hindrance What does a different attitude result in? Start taking responsability Start doing your job as if you own it. Start having the attitude that your wife has her own life and that you are there for the ride. Have the attitude that your kids are proud of the family Start having the attitude of you are going to be successful. The key is your attitude. Coaching Men's Group

There are many ways you can build your community. There is the church, schools, civic organizations, your place of employment, and your neighborhood. You can find men who you would like to aspire to be like just about anywhere. And right off the bat let’s point that out. These men will rub off on you. The phrase, “ Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future” fits. If you want to be successful in business you want successful men. If you want to get in shape, have men who take pride in their health. Good marriages? Same thing. Find men who are noble masculine men. These men are going to be there to stand by your side. They will help you and you will help them. Each man has their own journey but that doesn’t mean they don’t need other men in their lives. These men will start to become your 3 a.m. people. There will be bonds developed and strengthened as each meeting happens. Why a men's group? Simply put men need other men in their life. The term toxic masculinity is there because men don’t have other men as close friends. They don't learn how to use their masculine energy for production and so it gets misused. Many men who are married don't have male friends that they see regularly. and to get the masculine interaction they have put that burden on their wives. Yes, that is a burden. You are expecting your wife to build you up when she is needing you to build her up. Yeah, that phrase may sound offensive to some feminists because they want to think that women are their own island. Yet that is untrue. We pour our energy into those who need it. We get our energy from our band of brothers. The men we spend close intentional time with. A close friend who can listen to what your struggle is and help put the needed plan into place. They will work through the needed thought work. These men will help you to succeed. Even when failures happen. They will help you change your mindset and how you are working through the problem. They will poke holes in your plan. They will push you to become better and cheer you when you are uncomfortable. These men are the most important people in your life. So why a group of men and not a group of men and women? Well, you can have a mixed group there is nothing wrong with that. Yet there is something special about an all men's group when you get the resonance of masculinity working so much can be done. If you want to have a better financial life, better sex life, better marriage, a better family life. Find or start a men's group and get it to where you are meeting monthly if not weekly. Finally, it is because we need to have a strong community pillar in our lives. we need a strong tight-knit group of men we can turn to with our troubles. We need a healthy outlet for frustration. You need a group of men who are the most dedicated friends you have ever had. We need the connection of other masculine men in our lives and the right men's groups provide all of that. Can you start a men's group? Absolutely! I encourage men to join any group they can find. If they can't find a group then start on. There are groups everywhere and in every town. If they don't fit your moral premise then why not go and pull the men you want together. How? Well, that is going to take you getting out of your comfort zone. You will have to go and talk to the men you are interested in. You cant rely on others to do that work for you. You have to hustle and talk to the men. Do the ask. Ask and ask again. They may not be able to make it the first 10 times but eventually, you will get them to say yes and they can try it out. Decide a day and ask your group to meet. It may be at a basketball court or someone's house. Then again it may be the back part of a coffee shop. The venue doesn't matter. I have a few online groups. We don't get to see each other but we talk each week. Sometimes it is only 2 men other times it is 4-6 the range differs because each of these noble men is busy on their path and making their world better. Then stick to that schedule, this is going to be tough because life will try to stop you from having this group. There will be forgotten dates and sometimes you may show up and it is only you. Yet you stay consistent. Those men who are finding value from it will keep showing up. It takes time but if you are consistent and dedicated you will get it working. What to look for in a men's group? If you are looking for a men's group to join you want one that meets regularly. For the same reason as if you were to make your own group. The group needs to be consistent. Everyone meet at the same regular intervals Then the caliber of men are in the group? This is also important. You want a group grouping of men who are dedicated to becoming the best at what they do. They are dedicated to achieving success and they are willing to get uncomfortable. If you have a bunch of guys who just meet to get drunk and play cards and there is not much more than that in the group then you have to decide if you want to s

The start of the year is here. This is the time everybody talks about what their goals are, what they want to achieve, and how they plan on how they are achieving it. Why are goals important? Why do you want to even think of goals? IT seems that nobody actually completes their goals. Especially when it comes to New Years Resolutions People start with good intentions and then around March that fire and determination you had all the way back at January first is up and gone. Then before you know it, it's November, and your goals come creeping back and you are realizing you didn't do anything you set out to do. You failed and the frustration of knowing you are no better of than you were the year before is sitting on your conscious. So why even try? Well, there is a reason to try. that reason is if you don't try you will actually be worse off. If you don't try you will just float through life. The problem that you are having with resolutions is that yeah you fail at them but why are you failing at them? You are not addressing the skill you failed to learn so you are destined to repeat that test till you achieve it. So, why do we need goals? because we need a challenge in our life. This is how we become better at what we do. We have to have the discomfort of failing and trying again before we get good at it. If you don't have goals you don't go anywhere. goals are the road maps for your life. Do you want to improve at your communication skills? then you have to practice speaking. DO you want to have a dream of traveling? Then you need to figure out the logistics of it all. How are you going to pay for the trips and the other expenses? These are all part of the goals you need to figure out. Are you wanting to start a business? Then you have to set goals for that business. If you don't then you will not get very far. Look at anybody who is equal to your definition of success. If you look at what they do as compared to what you are doing. You will see that they have a vision and they plan and then execute. You may be surprised but when you find out how many times those plans don't work out. Yeah, the successful people fail early and they fail often. The failures don't define them. it is the wins. So, you want to lose weight? Do you want to start your own business? Then firstly don't wait for the first of the year. Start now. Start planning, and there are several ways you can do this, and here are some ways that I can think of off the start 12 week goals What would be able to accomplish with baby steps? If you said not much I would say guess again. because baby steps are easier to make than big huge giant steps. So you are able to accomplish more by taking small deliberate steps. That is where the 12-week goal setting comes into play. 3 months is a smaller bite than a full year. and you can break the larger goals up into 4 easier to manage sections. Then those sections can be further broken up into weekly goals. That is the glory of the 12-week goal system. You can make small detailed plans that will allow you to make those important massive action steps towards your big goal at the end of the year. If this sounds like something you want to try, you can go to Develop Good Habits You can download templates that will help you on your way. Long term goals Look to the horizon. What do you see yourself doing? Where are you in your life? Long-term plans are good. They give you a place to head. These plans aren't set in concrete because you can adjust your direction. You may find out that your ideas aren't as aligned as you first thought. That way you can change your path because you are not married to your path. Setting long-term goals are those dreams you want. You want to be rich and travel all the time. Those types of dreams are good as long as you are making strides to actually achieve them. SMART Goals I am sure you have heard of these before. I know I have talked about them many times before this podcast was ever started. https://www.relaxedmale.com/december-time-for-goals/ https://www.relaxedmale.com/5-ways-remember-goals/ And several more along the same line. Goals are important if you want to find success in anything you do. You can't just head out in a direction without knowing some of the key waypoints you need to measure how close you are to getting where you are wanting to be. This is where SMART goals come into play. If you haven't ever heard of SMART goals then here is a brief overview. Specific Instead of saying you want to make more money lay down a specific amount you want to make. I want to make $100,000 at the end of the year. I want to make $10,000 in a month. That is specific. You want to lose weight! great say you want to lose how much weight? If you weigh 260 and you would like to get down to 200 then you want to lose 60 pounds of weight. That is specific. Don't say you want to be in better shape that's not specific. say you want a specific goal. Make your goal specific Measurable This ties in with

What are traditions? They are the ideas and values passed down from generation to generation. They are customs and beliefs that bind a culture together. The raising of a Christmas tree during Christmas. The celebration of a new year. Your birthday is special. You brush your teeth with your eyes closed. All are traditions and rituals we do. We have rituals for everything and every occurrence. We mark special days for remembrance. These may be days of triumphs, or they may be days of loss. There are plenty of people who still remember Kurt Cobain's day of death, while others see it as any other day. These are dates that we find it important to remember. On these days we may do something special. The fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving. We hold the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox in March as a great feast of when Jesus arose from the grave, aka easter. Each culture has a different way of celebrating each of its own holidays. Christmas which is coming up n the next day or two has many of its own unique traditions. In the US we set up a tree we string lights all over the place. We find the prettiest pine tree and bring it into our house. We then add lights to it and hang decorations from its boughs. We string holly and pine garland around and the smell of Christmas is amazing especially when you are using real pine. Sticky but it smells so good. Now there are some people who talk about how this is not true Christianity and all that stuff is pagan traditions. Is it? Well yeah to a point. Yet it is a part of our traditions anyhow. We have a theory as to why we use a pine tree instead of saying a young walnut tree. The reason is so that the values that the pagans had actually fit nicely with what the Christians had. So incorporating their traditions to fit in with ours was a good adjustment of traditions. Then you add the additions of American society and you have Saint Nicholas riding a sleigh being pulled by reindeer. While if you go to the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas rides a boat and he has a helper named Black Pete who helps him disseminate the gifts through several days. They use shoes instead of stockings. Yet the primary character is still the same. Some cultures actually have scary monsters running around Throwing bad children into bags and whipping them. In America, we have a family feast. Turkey, ham, brisket if you are in my house. While in Japan you have a bucket of KFC Chicken. In Catalonia, it is customary to have a dude dropping a duce in the manger scene. Some families like to have the Christmas pickle hidden in their tree. Shoot in Norway you hide your brooms on Christmas so witches do run off with them. There are so many different and fun traditions in the Christmas season alone. We haven't even talked about the other days of the year. Then there were traditions that died out thankfully, like the act of wassailing. Now I think wassailing can be brought back just not as it was originally. It started out as a roving band of drunk people demanding food from the lords or they would start getting rowdy. Yet because of wassailing, we get the tradition of singing carols door to door. These and all traditions are a time for remembrance and looking back on how we are connected to each other. Yeah, there are those who want to say our traditions are bad or not fair or something to that effect. Yet they have their own traditions and customs they want to observe. Why traditions are important They link us to our ancestors They allow us to show respect to those who also observe our traditions We are losing our traditions There are those who have worked tirelessly to change our traditions. These changes are often done in the name of fairness You can start your own traditions I talked about the 14 Christmas traditions you can start this year. Have a manly Christmas Watch a Christmas movie Die-hard is good A Christmas story Meet with your Band Of Brothers Serve someone in need with the Christmas Jar Classic Christmas Carols https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6u8Ct3nQZcQupR1qyVUYwT?si=4f82f6f9e5814489 Classic Christmas Songs https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX6R7QUWePReA?si=73bb886465c04f90

There are changes happening in our society, and there are two groups of people who are involved. There are the people who realize they can do better and do something about it and then there are the ones who want to sit around and complain about the quality of their life and have stuff handed to them. Because of this, you have two different factions forming. There is the great resignation and then there is the antiwork. Another way to look at this is the boys and the men. The Great Resignation These are the people who have gone through the pandemic and been forced to stay at home for over a year. While at the house they had plenty of time on their hands so they decided to tinker with some entrepreneurship. They found some success in providing value to those around them. So when it was time to go back to work they liked what they were able to make and wanted to keep at it. So they resigned from their own employees and have started running their own business. They are learning and taking their own life into their own hands. They see what is possible and have decide to climb that mountain. These people have become producers. What is antiwork? The term antiwork came up a couple of weeks ago when there was a story about stores getting spammed with an antiwork manifesto. Then the term has been cropping up more and more in life so I wanted to look into it thinking that I would find a bunch of people who just want to sit on their couch and play video games and bitch about the condition that they are in. Know what I found out? Just that, I see people complaining about Kellogg's strike and that their actions ain't fair. I see a lot of communists bitching and moaning about how capitalists are evil. They want more pay for equal work. The ANtiwork crowd wants to get more pay to do the same amount of work. The equivalent of getting a participation trophy. They want fast food to be anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour. That is an entry-level job. If you want to make more you may just have to put down the bong and sacrifice some of your comfort for the dream of having more income. The manifest talks about fair pay. The question is what's fair? Should a person who has put in3 years of hard work get paid the same amount as a new hire? Should a Person who has put in 5 years of mediocre work get paid the same amount as a person who has done 3 years of exceptional work? What is fair is you get paid for the amount of value you put in. The capitalist means of exchange of value for value. Now they did get it right if you are not getting paid as much as you like then you should consider finding a better-paying job. Don't just sit in the same place complaining that you are not getting paid enough. Go find better jobs. Businesses are hiring all over the place. Poverty wages exist because people don't want to strive for more. The moment it gets a bit uncomfortable they back out. So the poverty wage is not the business's fault but it is yours for settling. Now Barnaby Lashbrook over at Forbes talks about this a bit as to say there is a problem with work-life balance. He talks about how life should come first and work be the enabler. Well, that is the case already. Yet many people choose to not take life by the horns they would rather sit at home and do nothing about going out and living life. Barnaby also talks about how employers should be helping with a better work/life balance which is a false argument. Then you have the pinnacle of capitalistic thought Slate. Talking about the antiwork movement from a huge victim point of view. They do give some points where people were very ingenious to create some code to do the work they were hired to do and that's a good thing. You are hired to do a job and if you can do it efficiently and don't have to do it harder only smarter. That is providing value. I am no fan of unions Now I believe I understand why people are striking, and that is because they are getting hammered with work. There are fewer people who returned to work after the Wuhan flu ran through the country and thanks to the government people didn't just get back to work instead the government paid people more money to stay home. That extra $600 in unemployment kept people home. Now many companies like Kelloggs are struggling to meet the amount of volume they are expected to produce. They have orders to fill. So the people who did come home are having to take up the slack of the people who don't want to work. They are working 60 days straight That is a lot of work. That increases the burnout in anybody Is it fair? No, but visit Kellogg's fault, or is it the people who didn't want to show back up? Then again maybe it's the government's fault for incentivizing people to stay home. Yet many love the people are striking because of these work conditions. Now Kelloggs is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are struggling to meet demand because they don't have enough workers to have a good schedule and then you have more people not work

It doesn't have to be fixed As nice guys, we really hate having people not be at a certain level. If they are unhappy or upset for any reason, we feel we have to fix it. Even if people are having more fun and laughing beyond our comfort level, we have to find a way to fix the issue instead of just allowing people to be. Nice guys feel that they have to fix a problem out of the hopes that that person will start to like and appreciate us. When in all reality people do t want us to just fix it. In fact, most people don’t want us to come rushing in on a white horse and rescue them. They want to figure it out themselves. Much like a two-year-old, “No! I do it” You are annoying when you try to fix When you jump into a person's problem uninvited or otherwise you often become annoying. And this creates so much of the marriage problems that nice guys see in their married life. That fear darling bride is getting annoyed with you trying to fix everything when she has it under control and here you come crashing in like the Koolaid man and mess the whole thing up. allow those around you to live their life and process their emotions This is the hard part that many nice guys face. They can’t just step back they believe a person should be a certain way and when they don’t meet that expectation they either start talking in a passive-aggressive way or often aggressive form and this keeps the other person from being able to live their life in the fashion they want to live. Yeah, it can create some anxiety in you when your wife is upset with you or her best friend or the neighbor down the street. But these emotions will not kill her nor will they kill you. You can just be there for her. Sit with her listen. Don’t fix let her live life and know that you are by her side. It’s not up to us. It’s not up to you to fix the problem. It is not up to you to have people like you. They will like you for being who you are. Yeah there will be some people who will not like you and that is ok. You will not suffer some catastrophic loss of your limbs if you don’t make them like you. They are just humans, being.

We find ourselves stuck in so many situations and those circumstances are things that are beyond our control this is true. Yet there are so many times that we believe that stuck in that situation and so we either do nothing about it or complain about our situation. That feeling of being stuck and not being able to change is a part of the self-programming that we do. We are just bad at sports or we suck as a husband. Maybe our wife hasn't been intimate with us in many months so we start trying all sorts of different remedies. Many are literal magic pills we think will help. Go look at any convenience store counter and you will see small packages that are supposed to help you be a better lover in bed. They make claims that you will have a larger penis or last longer during sex. Some are directed at her. We men have been looking for an aphrodisiac that will turn our wife into a wild insatiable woman for eons. Because we want to blame our wives for the circumstance we are in and not how we are looking at the circumstance. Then again you may have yourself in a dead-end job. You complain about how you are never offered a promotion. So you just sit there and grow resentful. Then you take that resentment home and brood on it while you sit in front of the television or on a video game and do nothing about the problem. You feel stuck and the more you stay the more bogged down you feel. You think this is your lot in life, it's not a lot but it's your life. Then start to drink or find other avenues to escape the misery and suffering you feel. What is keeping you stuck in your current life? Realize that what is actually keeping you stuck isn't your boss not saying "good job" and telling you that you should be Vice president of shipping or your wife isn't fridge. Your suffering is caused by only one person. That person is you. Harsh I know I wish Pink pussy cat really did work in turning your wife into a nymphomaniac but in the end, it doesn't. She isn't turned on, night after night because you aren't giving her a reason to be turned on, night after night. The course your life is on at the moment may look sad dark and bleak It is that way because you chose to be that way. But there is good news, since it is your choice, you aren't stuck! How do you change where you want to go? First, you have to realize that there is a problem. That can be the easiest part because you are not being fulfilled and feeling motivated. The hard part is not pointing the discontent toward those who are not actually responsible. You have to start looking inward and examining your thoughts to see what is actually possible. Pick apart the places where you are actually going astray. Looking and examining yourself isn't self-hatred unless you fall into dumping all over yourself. If that is the case then Lighten up give yourself some grace. You are only human and you are going to screw things up. Take those screw-ups as learning moments. Grow from those and have fun as you learn. Life is way too short to take so seriously. As you go on your journey, you will see where your life is on the wrong track and that you are actually allowed to change tracks whenever you want to. Make a Plan Once you have pinpointed what is actually wrong with your lives plan, You can then start making changes to your life. You can switch tracks and modify your plan so that you are able to be more fulfilled and have a sense of purpose. It all starts with a plan Layout your plan Maybe you see you need some coaching or do some research on what it is that you would like to do. Invest in yourself decide that you are worthy of investing in. This is a sad part of many people who are in scarcity. They don't see themselves as worthy of being better. So they go through life without a plan or if they come across a plan it is some easy quick fix. This is the folly we fall into, we try quick fixes instead of doing the real work that is needed. We try changing our situation instead of changing how we are looking at the world. Listen to what your excuses are When you come up with a plan listen to what you are telling yourself. You will find 100 different reasons as to why this plan isn't going to work. This is your mind saying slow down your current life isn't so bad it's actually nice. No hard work you don't have to expel any extra energy and so why work so hard? In fact, use this as a bit of a ginger counter if you aren't getting a bit scared and you aren't hearing any reasons as to why this won't work then keep looking when your mind is coming up with all those reasons hard and fast the is probably the path you really need to take. Look at fear as if it was a compass Start small but make it scary too You don't have to uproot your whole life but make small changes. maybe it is you needing to shore up one or more of your Pillars. So you may need to start eating right and getting out and exercising. Or you need to go join a group of men so you can expand your community. Start small and fin

Well as this comes out it is Thanksgiving! Time for the family and friends to come together and talk and share in each other's lives for at least a day. Then again it could be you have family that is coming over for several days. We have grandma wondering when you are going to stop being the bachelor or maybe it is your mom who is hounding you to find a girl and settle down. Your Uncle is wanting to share with you his latest conspiracy theory about how the lizard people in the government are using the nasal swab Covid test to mark those who will not comply so they can be rounded up and shot into space to fend for themselves. Maybe you have that cousin who is the family favorite and it looks like they have it all together yet to hear her talk you see that she is so deep in debt she can't see her way out of that hole. The point is that when we get our families together they bring their thoughts and opinions along for the ride. This means that you have liberals and conservatives sitting side by side. You have orthodox with the unorthodox passing bread. You have those that have been radicalized by our colleges making snide comments about how we are actually celebrating the genocide of the Native Americans and our taking over a continent. You have your devout Baptist Grandfather trying to convince your atheist uncle to come to church. This is life and this is family and this is a great scenario to talk about when we look at other peoples opinions We are thinkers Yeah, even your ditzy aunt is actually a thinker. We all are. We all have roughly 40,000-60,000 different thoughts each day. Then add to that mix that everything we have in our lives we have unique and individual thoughts. So your thoughts about a particular topic can never be the same as anybody else. Your thoughts are an opinion of that particular circumstance. Because us humans do like to mix our emotions up with our thinking this can cause many different emotions. You may have someone who likes to troll you while others may feel sorry for you. These are also just thoughts about the current circumstance that is happening. Remember all circumstances are natural, even when someone says, "you are wrong". That is just a circumstance and you have the ability to think whatever thought you want about the matter at hand. Many times when we hear someone else's thoughts we want to apply our own thoughts in the means of interpretation and make what they say mean something to us. When in reality they can mean just that or they can mean something the complete opposite. Then you add the element of emotions to that and now you start to see how things can get messy quickly. Because of our adding emotions to our interpretations we start getting worked up thinking that one relative doesn't like us or our cousin is just wanting the country to burn. When in reality that may be true or that may be nothing more than a thought. What about the truth! The truth that we are talking about is what we believe. A belief is nothing more than a thought we perceive to be true. I have talked a few times about what happens when someone changes religions. Were they wrong the whole time? They may think that but looking at the facts they just changed what they see to be true. It's not wrong. It's just their thoughts shifting with a new set of circumstances. With that, you can see that yeah Aunt Gladys simply believes that the government can control the weather and that there is a secret basement in a pizza parlor in upstate New York state. You can try to provide her with your interpretations of the facts but she can choose to disregard those facts for her own. Does the truth matter? Only to those who wield it. Nobody else cares about what your facts are They have their own. The whole political thing Yeah, you have your opinions about what is happening in your country. You may think some brilliant strides are being made, or you may think that your country is going to hell in a handbasket. Are you right or wrong? Does it matter what I think? No, You can have open and honest discussions about politics and religion. I actually think it is good to have these. I believe we have done our kids a huge disservice because these two topics were often banned from the dining room table. Yeah, some people are going to interpret what you say to mean something different. Yet, that is OK. Now don't take this as a means as to you not jumping into a discussion when it happens. That is the glory of the United States. You can have a different opinion and share it openly if you choose. That is why our country is so great. It is the sharing of different ideas and thoughts that create new ideas. How you can look at opinions Opinions are nothing more than thoughts. When someone gets upset with your ideas you can rest assured that you didn't make them mad or upset. It is their thoughts that have caused them to become angry or sad or even happy. You cant make grandma happy with your actions. She is happy with what s

As we talked last week on episode 102 we looked at our circumstances and talked about how those circumstances are actually neutral. So with that where does all of our pain and suffering actually come from? That is actually what I wanted to examine this week. Where does the pain in your life come from if it isn't from the external forces in your life? This is where many people actually get a bit turned off by what I am about to say. The results of your pain and suffering are thanks to how you think of your circumstance. Yep, your thoughts and how they are framed are where the hopelessness, the fear, the anxiety, the frustration. It is also the source of the joy, triumph, complete, and love all come from. It is how you think of what the circumstance means that creates the emotion. So I just change my thoughts? Well, it's not that easy. especially if it is a thought you have had for a very long time. It will take work for your mind to accept the new thought, and for you to believe that new thought. To be able to do that you will have to be aware of what your thoughts are and from there you can see when you are having that old thought and work to change it. This is often where having help like with a coach can come into play. This is because a coach will stay out of the emotional pit that you can find yourself in and help point out where the missteps are happening. A good example of this is what a business opportunity arises. As we know there is a battle over whether we as Americans have the right to choose to get a shot and still be able to provide for our family. There are companies that are firing or suspending their employees because they have justifiable reservations about betting the Covid vaccine. So this causes a bit of a quandary. Do you go against your values and get the shot or do you stand for your beliefs and try to find some other way to do your duty and provide for your family? An example of this is Andrew Crapuchettes, He saw the cancel culture and government actions are being wrong. He could have been angry or resentful or any other array of emotions, and who knows he may have felt all of those and more. Yet he chose to look at the problem not with a victim mindset and see it as this is bad. He saw an opportunity and took it. I am sure if you talked to him he had uncertainty about starting up a brand new adventure when the economy isn't firing on all cylinders. Yet his view was that it would work and so he started up a new job board. This job board is for those who have been displaced by the vax mandate and wants to put hard-working employees with employers that respect that person's right to choose. So he created RedBalloon.work and his site is growing as more people are wanting to work and want to choose whether the vaccine is a good idea for their circumstance. Maybe they already had covid and don't feel that they need to have the shot because of their natural immunity. Maybe an employee has an immune problem that could cause their immune system to overreact. Maybe there is a person who might have a heart condition and isn't sure the vax is a good idea. No matter what that person's circumstance is they have their own thoughts and RedBalloon.work is there to help put them with a company that understands their situation and is willing to stand against the mandates. Another example of this is the masks and whether or not they are needed we know the circumstances. Yet some people have the thought that they are not needed while others feel they need to wear a mask alone in a car on a lonely county road. Either of the people wrong? No, They are going off of their own thoughts. If you are interested in working on your thoughts then please reach out and contact me or Join the Brotherhood of Men

There have been a few events in all our lives these events or circumstances are always happening to us. These events can be seen as great and positive or they can be perceived as being disastrous and awful. I have had a few big events happen here recently. I have started certification in a coaching course that I have drooled over for several tears and the opportunity has finally presented itself. So, I decided to take it. I am going to be sharing what I learn and as I go through the class my definitions and uses of words may change as I make new discoveries about what I believe and if and when they change I will be sharing those with you here on the podcast and in the blog. Maybe your life has had circumstances where you were abused or you had a parent abandon you. Maybe you were raised by your mom and she had a parade of boyfriends come through each one treated you differently. Maybe you had an uncle who dumped all over your dream or a teacher who said you would never make it. Maybe you had a parent ground you from everything you liked to do. Then again maybe your life is in total disarray, or you live in an abusive relationship. You see your life as crap and the only solace you can find is a hit off the bottle or to drag on a bong. The point is we all have circumstances in our life and they are there. There is no denying that stuff happens. It may be good or it may be bad but it is a part of your life. What are circumstances? Now for ease, I do want to define what circumstances are. because our definitions and meanings of words can vary from person to person. What you think of as a circumstance by one person may be viewed as just an observance. So it will help if I can define what an event is. Circumstance = a fact or condition connected with or relevant to an event or action. In other words, it is the facts of your life. You are broken. May seem as if it is a fact when in reality it isn't. You may have gone through some stuff in your life but is that provable in court? What you see as a hard life may be seen as "easy street" to another person. Many people here in the USA may see the poor but when you compare them to those considered poor in India or Africa you see that our poor are actually very wealthy. Circumstances are nothing more than the bare facts of your life. They are not the emotions you are feeling nor are they the opinions as to what you are feeling. They are just the facts. Your bank account says you only have 32 cents left. That is a fact. Your wife throws things at you. That is a fact. Your son smokes cigarettes. That is a fact. Your son is disrespectful. Not a fact. Your daughter shows too much skin. Not a fact Your wife hates you. Not a fact. Do you see the difference? Facts are concrete. They are not what you believe. Beliefs are thoughts you perceive to be true. They are not thoughts that is what you are thinking of the circumstance. Facts are facts, and I get that the definition of facts has been warped thanks to those who like to play with words and change them to mean what they think the word should mean. I try not to do that, and for one the definition of circumstance will be the facts and nothing more. Circumstances are neutral Now, this may be a bit shocking for some. Facts are neither positive nor are they negative. They simply are. Circumstances do not have a meaning till we apply a thought to them. So your life is hard and challenging is the thought you have about the circumstance of you not having enough money to buy a hamburger. Many people want to push back against the thought that a circumstance is neutral. They say so a car wreck where someone dies is neutral? Yep, it is. Natural disasters are neutral? Yes, they are. Your grandmother dying is neutral? Again yes it is. Even the events of 9-11 are neutral. They all are neutral until we apply our thoughts to that circumstance. The people in the USA were mad and horrified by the toppling of the twin towers. So our thoughts were that this was horrible and created a feeling of unease and anger in us. Yet on the other side of the world in the Middle East, there were people celebrating the falling of the World Trade Center Towers. Was one wrong? Well, that is a thought. An example of having two different thoughts on a single circumstance is when you and your friend go to the same movie at the same time in the same theater and both walk out of the movie with a different experience. I had this experience when I was dating a girl and we went to see Natural Born Killers. She hated the movie and I thought it was great. Were we seeing different movies? No, she just had a different thought of the movie we had just watched. It's about your thoughts Your thoughts are what's creating your suffering. I get that there may be a bit of cognitive dissidence going on there, but it is true. Your thoughts are what actually create your emotions and those emotions are what keep you from doing the things you want to do. So do I just change my thought

I remember when I was young I was put out by the fact that I really wanted to be in a place of management yet I always had to start at the bottom. This feeling has gone on for many men for centuries. There are those who think they deserve to be in a higher position than where they are. They don't have the skills to even contemplate the amount of work that actually takes. Many workers only see that the Managers don't do the manual labor of that industry. They don't see all of the other tasks that a manager has to do for their job. This is also why from time to time when someone is promoted the great worker makes a lousy manager. They focus on what they think a manager does instead of what a manager actually does. The problem with this thinking Nobody owes you anything You have to prove yourself victim-oriented Scarcity oriented You have to have skills You learn these skills from that position that you are in to have the block needed to climb to the next level. You have to show that you are dependable These skills allow you to be efficient at the next level of your profession. This is why the CEO gets paid more than the receptionist. How do you get into higher positions? Have a goal in mind Know that it's not instant If and when you screw up you will need to add some time to your deadline. Work as if it is all you can do ask for more responsibility Take on other tasks that you see needing to be done. This goes for you starting your own business You may think that running your own business means for a while you get to choose your own hours and you can have 4 day weekends and other luxuries while the money just rolls into your account. Yet that is the farthest from the case The Different Hats There are many different hats that you have to wear as a new business owner. Many think it's sunshine and rainbows shortly after starting. Yet that isn't the case. Many see yeah getting started is hard but that's actually the easy part. Keeping the momentum going is where the work actually happens. This is the problem with the Tech Industry They go out and make a business that has to have venture capital and don't even think of how to monetize their product. They get angel investors to throw millions or even billions of money at them and then you see the founders running around in fancy cars and huge executive suites without actually getting the other needed skills to effectively run the business. Sign up for a Discovery Call

It is time to review I was thinking of what I could do for a 100 episode. I guess I could have really hyped it up and probably should. Was surprised by how fast it went. It feels as if I should be just now hitting episode 50, yet here we are at one hundred. I need to put myself out there more. I don’t step out and talk to people nearly as much as I need to. If I want the business of Relaxed Male to become as successful as I dream it will then I have to start saying more than just, "Hey! How's the weather". Let boys be dangerous Now I knew that boys like to do some downright dumb stuff. Yet watching boys skateboard down a set of stairs or see who can jump the farthest on the neighborhood sketchiest ramp is actually good for boys as they are developing. The need for danger and excitement actually stays with boys as they progress into manhood. We need to answer that call of the wild and go on adventures. Test our skills against nature. Audio gets better when you upgrade When the show started out I just used my phone. It wasn't the best and I knew it wasn't going to be the best as long as I used the phone so I had to et an upgrade in equipment soon. So I ended up picking up a Podtrac P4 by Zoom and I haven't looked back since. I thought of adding some sound effects to the podcast but I really haven't gotten to that point as of yet. My son is more popular than me This is a point of pride for me. One of the most popular episodes I have is the one where my son and I talk. The episode was fun to have and the fact that my son's friends jumped in a listened is quite awesome. I am not sure how many actually stay and listing to other episodes but heck as long as they heard some. I have a lot to learn I know I didn't know much but the more I learn the more I realize how much ignorance I actually had. I am learning so much about myself and about how humans interact with each other. I get that there is no way to know it all but at the same time, I have to take the time to actually invest in myself and the business. So To help me learn more and to accept the learning in a more efficient manner I am going to be taking a Coaching Certification program. This is to help me learn some new tools that will help my men become the strong noble masculine men the world needs them to be. It will also help me come to understand how to actually start making the ask that I shy away from. That there really was a Forrest Gump running around I found this interesting when I came across Timothy Dexter's life. This guy was under-educated and ignorant as the day was long. He couldn't spell or write correctly yet because he tried he succeeded in his dream of becoming wealthy. I am learning more about how men actually talk NOw I know that men talk very differently than boys but as a recovering Nice Guy I have been busy exposing myself to men and I am seeing and coming to understand the difference between how these two subsets of the males of our species actually talk. The fact that I use to talk in a very hymn-haw style showed me how I really wasn't talking in a very effective manner. In fact, I still struggle and have to rephrase my words in a more assertive and direct way of talking. Yeah, I feel as if I am going to step on a toe or two when I do talk this way, yet, I haven't had a complaint one. That I was more of a nice guy than I believed Thanks to Robert Glover and his book No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life I saw myself in way too many instances of the book. especially in the resentment from the lack of sex with my wife. For many years I was thinking it was her fault and come to find out it's because I wasn't being a man. I wasn't being the man who made her feel hot and bothered when she saw me. She saw a guy who was just wanting to sleep with her. That isn't being sexy to my wife that was being a sad creature. So I have really stepped up my game and I am making many changes to who I am and what I do so that I can be the man my wife married. My wife doesn't want fixed I have to stop reading with my elbow. Thinking this or that is something that my wife needs to get changed in her life. So I need to change my life first so that I can inspire my wife to want to make the needed changes. Then offer her the safe space to be uncomfortable as she starts her journey. The marriage is far from perfect Yeah, I have been married for 25 years. Though there haven't been too many huge rocks to cause turmoil in my marriage I do see now that there are a lot of places that I have dodged. These are places where we could come to know each other better. The conflict of learning about my wife has been shoved away because I couldn't handle the emotional rocking of the boat. I worried about what my wife would think, What if it gets too rocky for her and she leaves? There are many questions and what-ifs that actually never happen but because I wasn't confident in myself, so I let many opportunities pass. So my marri

What is burnout Burnout is the loss of drive to do a particular task. Often the act of burning out isn't so much the problem as the effort we put in to try to push through that burnout. As a whole, it is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. It happens when we become overwhelmed by the constant demands of a task. This often happens in an office scenario. Where the team is pushing to complete a project. Burnout often is very prevalent in the crunch for game programmers. What causes burnout? The main culprit is when you are not feeding your soul. The job is just that a job. You don't receive any emotional or mental reward for doing that particular job. When a person is doing a job that is in their Zone of Excellence but not in their Zone of Genius. When you are not in your Zone Of Genius you are often having a bit of resistance at first but as you go that resistance gets greater and greater till you burn out. Problems with burnout Burnout is one of those things that can be a slight irritation or it can even lead to a person's death. Depending on how severe the burnout is. I have seen men who have left their dream job simply because they just can't do it anymore. There is a reason Sunday night and Monday morning are when most suicides occur. Physical problems Take all the problems of stress and happy them here. High blood pressure? Yep Heart problems? Yep Weight gain? Yep Headaches Overall body aches? Yep yep yep Decreased libido? Yes to the limp noodle Mental problems Irritable or even anger Lack of focus sadness and depression Lack of sleep Emotional problems Causes people to seek other forms of escaping Increased alcohol intake Other drugs Affairs How do you avoid burnout? Notice the Signs of Burnout. Lack of motivation Sense of dread when thinking of work Avoiding Burnout Take a break! Take an extended break Mix it up find how to apply your zone of genius to the project Say No Talk to your Band of Brothers Eliminate delegate

Men need violence in their lives. For today's society that sounds almost scary. What! See this is toxic masculinity at its core! Men need to be removed from all of society because they are advocating everything violent. All the wars are fought because of men. Crimes are committed because of men. Well, this isn't exactly the case but the saying, Hard times make strong men strong men make good times good times make weak men weak men make hard times. this phrase shows how society has cycles, and those cycles need men who have violence in their lives. So there should be killing going on? Well no not fully to that extent of violence though non-masculine men do resort to that type of violence. When they think they have something to prove. Violence in one's life can mean many different things. It is more about doing stuff aggressively. To have controlled violence in your life is an element all men need for them to be able to maintain the needed strength and to have the calm they desire in their lives. When men don't have struggle and controlled violence in their lives this is where they often will turn to other substances and unhealthy coping mechanisms. This is to buffer the emotional turmoil they are having because they are not venting the violent need in their life Men are built for violence Look at boys at play They are always wrestling and roughhousing. This expels more energy than just running or swinging. They will imitate war when giving the right tools. Be it a stick and a pine cone. They will have machine guns to fight off an invasion or try to recreate the battle of Iwo Jima. Look through history Gladiators In Rome, there were violent competitions that pitted man to man and man versus nature. These were used as a form of sports. This distracted men from their day-to-day grinds. by watching men get eviscerated the violence we see helps with sedating the need for violence in our life. If a man is sedated then he is less likely to talk about any need to rise against any injustices he witnesses. Public executions Public executions also showed that men were always out to see violent events. No matter what their reason why public executions always brought forth huge crowds some as large as 100,000 people would attend if the convict was vile enough. No Boxing in the west Interesting boxing was huge in the east. There was and still is a large turnout for boxing matches in places like Atlantic City. Yet boxing never really took off in the west. Yeah, promoters would try to bring boxing to places like Dodge City and the such yet it never really caught on. Why? My thought is that the men had enough violence in their own life that they didn't need to watch men beat themselves up. Their need for violence was full. Look at Seattle and Portland for when men don't have normal violence in their lives. A recent example of men not having intentional violence in their lives is the young men in the west coast cities of Seattle and Portland. These men have needed manufactured strife in their lives. So they join groups like Antifa. Where they can justify their violent actions against a perceived enemy. They burn buildings hit people with bricks, skateboards, and baseball bats. Sometimes going as far as killing those who went as far as questioning their reasons. Sporting Events From Football to hockey there are men on the field who are interacting violently. This is one-way men try to satiate the need for them to get out and exercise their need for controlled violence Go, Hunting Besides getting outside this allows for men to provide for their family and community by harvesting meat from nature When a man has violence in their life they are more balanced in their mental processes. They are calmer Examples as to when men had satiated their violence Yes, some ignore the need for men to have violence in their lives. The APA even looks at masculinity with the wrong lens. They look at it in a way to try to remove violence from a masculine man when in reality men need to have that violence to stay sane. The Missing Point Doesn't violent men make for unsafe women? No, You are mistaking Unmasculine men with masculine men. An unmasculine man has all the tools for a masculine man. A penis and testicles and the testosterone that comes from this. The strength and muscle mass and added energy that comes from testosterone. The missing point is not knowing how to use this tool correctly. If you are using a hammer to drive a screw in you will do way more damage to the wood than if you were to use a screwdriver. If you are using a knife to pry apart two rocks, you run the risk of breaking the knife. Have a piece of the blade fly back at you and injure yourself. Each tool has a specific purpose and this goes with masculinity. It can be used to destroy or build. The choice is in the man. If a boy has been shown how a noble masculine man acts he will be a credit to society. If a boy grows up without a good and just man in the house he will learn

What are standards? Your standard is a level of quality you accept. Too many people tolerate things below their claimed standards. Maybe it is the incompetence of a co-worker. Your spouses infidelity Examples of low level standards Poor health Over weight Relationships The quality of your friends marriage quality Work relations Career the Level of your income Being skipped over for promotions Why are they important? How do you raise your standards? Set healthy boundaries Voice what is bothering you Why are you allowing substandard living? recognize when you are tolerating the low standards do the work start recognizing your value in the world. raise that value. let go of your limiting beliefs

If you have heard any other episodes or read any of my blog posts you know that I am not a fan of people who are victims. I often say, and rightfully so, victims are not respected because they dont earn anybodies respect. If that is the case then why do so many people turn to the victim mindset? Then you look at todays society and you see people parading around screaming about how they are victims of hate. Victims of white people. Victims of corporations. Victims of Slavery. Victims of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah Peanut butter and jelly sandwich is racist. The whole woke culture is a culture of see who can be victimized the worst and then they want to celebrate the victim. This is sad on one hand because of the absolute absurdity of it all, and horrifying because it is backed by the schools these parents pay for. So what is a victim? A victim is a person who voluntarily gives up their personal power to another person or thing. It is easy We all fall into the victim mindset from time to time so you know how easy it is to be a victim. Yet sadly it is a type of manipulation. You are lying to people saying that it isn't your fault that are in the situation that you are in. Yet if you were to be honest you would see that yes it was your fault for putting yourself into that situation. That is why men will take responsibility for those times that they failed. Those times that they didn't complete the work they were suppose to. Take being late for an event. Many times you will hear that it was traffics fault. When in all reality you left too late. You didn't account for traffic snarls. You didn't properly prepare for your journey. Yeah you may want to take the power you had and delegate it to the inanimate object of the traffic situation. Yet the real power is that you chose to leave too late. It gives immediate acknowledgment Someone will always come and feel sorry for you. They 'Help' you and tend to you and they show you how they are sorry for your hard times. It is comfortable Yes it is comfortable. Some people may try to argue, how being a victim is being comfortable. You think it is comfortable to be taken advantage of? I now dont have enough money to pay rent. This is what happens with the poor. They dont have the mindset to build wealth and then people wonder why they are poor. There is this concept called the upper limit challenge. WHen you exceed your upper limit you will do what ever you can to get back down to a more comfortable level. That is why if you give a poor man a 10 million dollars they will have it spent with in a year. The Victim's perception of worry is drowned out. Why worry about anything when you can have others do the work for you? That is one of the big reasons for playing the victim. it is too uncomfortable to actually fess up to the fact that it is your fault that you are in your own mess. The Victim avoid's responsibility It is always someone else's fault for the problems they are. You will see people complain that their pants are wet and muddy all because they are sitting in a mud puddle, and instead of getting up out of the mud they are handed a new pair of pants and complain about the same thing because they never changed their environment. All that sounds great but why is victim mindsets so bad? Because people get tired of the constant fires they have to put out for you. It is never your fault and so the other person eventually gets tired of the constant crisis and they leave. So the victim then has a real crisis on their hands. Nobody is going to come rescue them so they have to find another person to take care of them. Yet because you are always giving up your power you feel helpless and you starve your soul for what it needs. There for most victims become angry bitter and resentful. Many victims also have a scarcity mindset and do not feel gratitude towards anything they are helped with. There is a charity cycle that many organizations find themselves in when they try to help. At first the victims find themselves happy and grateful for the charitable gifts. Yet each year the gift is given those who come bace are more and more ungrateful and feel entitled to new and better. This cycle happens each time you help a person and not give them the ability to help themselves. Many will fight against helping themselves. They will come across every reason possible so that they dont have to help themselves. Victims can’t grow Because the victim doesn't take responsability and they are looking for people to rescue them, victims miss all the oppertunities available to them that allows them to grow and learn from their mistakes. Because they are usually in a state of scarcity they are often focused on what it is that they dont have instead of seeing all the resources that are available with in their reach. Since they dont want to see and are comfortable in their own misery they dont want to do the work needed to dig themselves out of that hole and to live their wonderful life.

You have heard of the Laws of attraction right? Some folks don't buy the whole laws of attraction they say it is only skill and discipline. These are the people who also believe that there are times that a person can get lucky. Well, I came across a guy in history who without realizing it applied the laws of attraction and achieved his wants and desires. This guy's name is Timothy Dexter. What is the laws of attraction The Laws of attraction has been around for a long time, but it first came to prominence thanks to Abraham Hicks. Which their whole story is a bit on the woo-woo side and a bit hard to swallow. Yet if you can get past the fake-sounding Romany accent on the tapes the information is pretty good. The Laws are the belief that the universe or God provides you what you truly want. It is all based on your thoughts. If you have a big sales meeting that you are cant be late to. Yet, your belief that something is going to happen so that you are late, Then you will wake up with a flat and your battery is dead. There will be a huge wreck on the way to the meeting. It will seem as if the universe is trying to make you late. If you think and believe that you are going to score that big account you are going to. The Laws of Attraction deal with a lot of visualizations and affirmations. Then add on your belief that you will either succeed or not succeed and the universe will manifest the results you most want to have. So how does Timothy Dexter fit into this? Timothy Dexter was a man who was born in 1747 to a poor farming family, He dropped out of school in the second grade, and at the age of 16 he decided he wanted to become rich. So he left the farming life to become a tanner apprentice. Realizing that he couldn't get rich being a tanner he left the business and married a wealthy widow, Elizabeth Frothingham. With his newfound wealth, he bought a mansion in Newburyport, Ma. Yet he annoyed the others who were of old money because they realized he was weird and very simple in his form of thinking. Yet he still wanted to be richer still. So the Continental Congress, to fund the revolutionary war, had started printing its own money so that they could pay their troops. The problem is that the money wasn't with anything. So the rich society folks of Newburyporttrying to ruin him told him he should go and buy up all the continental dollars because if the US wins their freedom then they will pay back 1% of the value of those dollars. That is precisely what Timothy did. Now many people really didn't believe that the new country had a chance of defeating the most powerful army in the world. When the US lost, all that money Timothy bought would be worthless. Well if you are paying attention to history you know that the US didn't lose and Timothy became even richer. Now what he did with all that extra loot? He builds the most ostentatious mansion in the middle of the rich district of Newburyport. He surrounded it with 40 large wooden statues of who he thought was important men, this included himself. Timothy also bought two ships for his shipping endeavors. Because his "friends" in society were a bit miffed that his bad advice had netted him some large gains. So his business friends suggested that he ship bed warmers to the Caribbean. Thinking that they will not have a use for bed warmers. Except they turned out to be excellent molasses ladles. They also suggested that he send woolen mittens to the same place. Yet They found some Asian traders who bought them all up so they could send them to Siberia. So his ships kept coming back making him richer and his friends even more befuddled and angry. Timothy then gathered up all the stray cats in Newburyport and sent them to the Caribbean only to again succeed because they were in the middle of a rat infestation. He sent bibles to the east indies and made a profit because there were missionaries that needed them. He was also convinced that he needed to buy up all the whalebone. At the time whalebone was losing value fast. YEt when he had a basement packed full of these bones suddenly it became popular for men to wear corsets and they needed all the whalebone they could manage. So again his friends had inadvertently given him an opportunity to make even more money. Now he was quirky and illiterate. Even so, he wrote two books. The first on A Pickle for the Knowing Ones was a 25-page essay with no punctuations. People couldn't understand what he had written because he wrote sort of phonetically. IME the first Lord in the younited States of A mericary Now of Newburyport it is the voise of the peopel and I cant Help it and so Let it goue Now as I must be Lord there will foller many more Lords pretty soune for it dont hurt A Cat Nor the mouse Nor the son Nor the water Nor the Eare then goue on all is Easey Now bons broaken all is well all in Love Now I be gin to Lay the corner ston and the kee ston with grat Remembrence of my father Jorge Washington the grate herow 17 sentreys pa

There is one thing women absolutely hate and that is the one thing society has pushed on men. The Nice Guy. Ever since the industrial revolution men have been raised by their mothers. Dads leave to go to the factory and come home at the end of the day. They may get weekends with them but that's not a guarantee. Now because of this, we have been getting more and more nice guys showing up in the world. Nice guys are not nice. Nice Guys and People pleasers are liars and manipulators. Just about everything a Nice Guy does is consciously or unconsciously calculated to gain someone’s approval or to avoid disapproval. Robert Glover "No More Mr. Niceguy" There are several tactics nice guys use to manipulate those around them. Covert Contracts They lie to others and themselves Not share ideas Try to control all aspects of the situation Cant handle emotions Emotions to a nice guy are anxiety-ridden messes. They cant have extreme emotions of any angle because Women have to be the leaders Because nice guys don’t want to be seen as being bossy they will not take the lead in anything. So to fill the void of leadership the woman has to take the reins and that isn't what they signed up for. Ask their wives for decisions. Instead of stating their intentions, they beg their wife and girlfriend if they can go out and play golf or ride a bike. The woman of the house has to become momma to this grown man. Nice guys are liars to make sure they are liked by as many people as possible they will change their story as to fit those around them. They will not even see that they are telling any lies because many nice guys pride themselves on being honest. They will boost to those who will hear that they are as honest as the day is long. Yet then over-promise and then make as many excuses as they can to cover when they are not able to deliver. They don’t have their own thoughts. Nice guys will go with the flow. They would be the greatest debaters they can be because they pick up everybody else's thoughts and make them their own. They will not have a thought that is outside of the norm because they don't want people to be upset. Seek the approval of women over men This often comes from their upbringing. Many times boys who are raised by women, only know how to relate to women Nice Guys don't have the skills to handle the interactions of men. So they hang around women more and have very few guy friends. Often they are also seen as a Momma's boy, because they are so loyal to the approval of their mom. Give up their balls Because they don't make the decisions and they give up their leadership they basically give up their man card in hopes of being able to sleep with their wife or girlfriend. Because nice guys won't commit to one thought they are soft and women hate men who are not able to take charge. Women love a guy who says they are going here or doing this. They want a guy who can lead. So they turn to the jerk because that is the closest semblance of masculinity they see. Avoid masculinity Men are loud, rambunctious, they are not always gentle with their words. Men will call it as they see it. This is scary to a nice guy. The actions and words used are intimidating to a nice guy so they avoid men. Which is to their detriment. This is because hanging out with good noble men is the best way to drive the nice guy out of a grown boy. When you hang out with real men you see how they act and you start to talk like they do. You talk in an assertive manner and you start to get noticed, which is also scary for Nice Guys Lack of meaningful relationships with men Because they don't hang out with men and do hang out with women more they don't have the needed masculine friends in their life that they actually need. Sacrifice for the approval of others. Nice guys will give up their integrity for the approval of others. Internally blame others When they don't get their way they blame everybody else. Resentful of the women they want sex from The nice guy will often perform different actions for the woman in their life with the covert contract in place. then when the woman doesn't follow that contract then he gets resentful. He will sabotage romantic endeavors so to prove his point. Yet he will not blame himself for the problem, it is her fault. Why doesn't she like sex She is just a bitch I try to help around the house and all she does is gripe about my work. I bought her a new ring so I deserve a roll in the hay. etc Is always playing the victim Since they are not able to take command of their own action and won't stand for anything, nice guys tend to be the victims. they blame everybody but themselves. People who cant take responsibility for their actions do not get respect and without respect, they don't get the attention they want. Now you see why the nice guy doesn’t have sex that they wish for. and women grow tired of having weak and pitiful men taking the place of a strong commanding man.

What does it mean when you are broken. Feeling a sense of no hope Beaten Whooped upon Feel like you need to just give up. Feel that you can't give any more Feel lost. How do you get back up? Understand what you are actually feeling. This is when you need that little extra push to get yourself past that sensation. That feeling of being broken often means that you are right at the cusp of a huge breakthrough. Feeling broken also can be helped by talking to a therapist. There is a whole group dedicated to ensuring that you power through this feeling of loss and you stay with us without checking out. How do you heal? Grant yourself some grace Get help from your Band of Brothers These men are able to help you but they can only help you if you tell them what the problem is. examine the feelings you are experiencing Use your purpose and your hobbies. Find the things that you can find joy in. Stick with the gratitude journal Understand that life is 50% pain and 50% Pleasure so yeah you are going to feel the unwanted negative, but you are also going to have joy and happiness and purpose and all the other positive emotions in your life.

When it comes to events in your life we have to take into consideration what you are starting with. Many times as men get frustrated with the lack of results that we get when we try something. The problem is what are you starting with? The meaning is this, guys, we want instant results. Many people grow frustrated with our jobs when we just started, we wonder why we are not higher up in the echelon of our jobs. We wonder why we have no credibility when we just start something. These are problems of us not wedding the leather before we start the pump. What are you talking about? What I'm actually referring to are the old-style hand pumps that used to be how people took water out of the ground. You have a well whole older well you dropped a bucket down the well. But later on, you would actually have a hand pump. This hand pump was just as it sounds you actually had to take a handle and move it up-and-down up-and-down until you got water to come out There were times that you would actually find these hand wells dotted around the countryside. Some were used a lot while others we rarely used. These later ones are what I want to focus on. Many times if you came across one of these wells there would be a bottle of water lying next to the well. Why was this bottle here? Because you have a choice. You can either drink the hot stale water that was in the bottle, or you could pour that water down the well. Now depending on the level of thirst you had, you may be tempted to drink that bottle of nasty water in the bottle. That would be something a person with a scarcity mindset would do. Yet if you have an abundant mindset you can pout that water down the well. Yeah, this may seem like a waste. You are thirsty NOW! Yet if you know how these old wells work you know that there are leather baffles in the well. IF this well isn't used much those valves dry out and they shrink. So you don't get the lift and suction you want from this hand well. You can pump and pump and pump and no water would ever rise. Yet if you pour that water down the well you wet the leather valves and they expand and start working as they are intended. Once the valves are wet they start drawing up the water and soon you will have all the water you could ever possibly drink. Now, this isn't the only problem. You also have the problem of how deep the well is. Sometimes you have to pump for 10 minutes or even more before the water comes rushing out. There is a saying in the south the deeper the well the sweeter and colder the water is. You have to put stuff in before you get stuff out. Zig Ziglar This also goes for work. When you first start on a job you have to provide value for your pay. The employer is actually taking a chance on you and your sales pitch. So how do you rise in the ranks of your work? How do you build the needed trust in your boss so that he knows you are up for the task with each promotion? You have to take initiative. You have to prime the pump of success. That means you have to do some menial tasks and work on them as if the whole company depends on your work. This also goes with customers you may be trying to get to sign on with your own business. They don't trust you at first. They see you as just another person selling to them. To wet the leather of that pump you have to take your time and fully understand what it is that they need before you offer them a solution. That may mean talking with them several times for the next few weeks. You have to listen and fully understand the problem before you do the ask. Goes for marriages You have to put into your marriage, emotional security. You can't just take and take, or you will wind up with an emotionally exhausted spouse who will one day decide that she is done and leaves. This is where the nice guys always fail. He is taking emotionally by requiring emotions from his spouse or girlfriend and he never repays the emotional debt he has created.

Men talk to each other in a way that women and some modern males don’t understand. You hear talk of how toxic masculinity is the problem with society and part of that toxic masculinity is how men talk to each other. They mention how we tease young men as they start to develop facial hair and we suggest putting some milk on that peach fuzz and letting the cat lick it off. Some folks believe that is mean and hurtful. When in reality not exposing your son to those innocent taunts is setting him up for failure We enjoy trash talk Men like to talk trash. It is a means to build bonds and to test each other’s wit and how fast we can think on our feet. It is a fun and challenging skill to have. To be able to talk trash and then back it up, cause if you fail at walking the walk you will get piled on even worse. This way it teaches a man how, to be honest, and to not be boastful. The ribbings are good for us They show the rest of the group that the new guy can take it. It is a means of understanding new guy It builds bonds Men talk directly Proper communication is direct. To hem and haw around the topic doesn’t serve anybody. Because what is implied by one man is easily misinterpreted by another guy. This is a skill nice guys have to fight off for the rest of their lives. it is so easy to fall back into the habit of beating around the bush that we lose the effectiveness of a good direct line of communication. Men talk assertively Nice guys don’t like to talk assertively Grown boys communicate in three infective ways Passive Aggressive Passive-aggressive We teach our boys how to handle their emotions by ribbing them. This helps boys grow thicker skin and not be overly sensitive. We do a huge disservice to our boys by coddling them. Yes that is what moms are suppose to do while men are there to help them understand how to use their emotions effectively. Many people don’t like this kind of talk because of the following reasons. they find it intimidating they find assertive communication to be mean.

What holds you back from taking the steps you are wanting to take? Now, these reasons can be many, but one of the biggest reasons is fear. We are afraid that we will change. We fear that our friends won’t like us. We are afraid of what happens if you succeed. We also fear what people will think if we fail. What happens if we screw something up? What if we are seen as a fraud. Do we really deserve this success if our idea takes off? According to Tripp Lanier, We want 4 things out of life. Freedom Love To feel Alive Peace. How do you achieve these 4 things? I let you in a little secret you have to play large. Many of us want to play life small and then wonder why we don’t achieve any of these life’s desires. This is because we don’t even give ourselves the ability to try for that awesome life. We aim for the easier that will do. Sometimes by sheer luck we get the awesome spot but that is so much rarer in this case than if we were to aim for awesome. Yet most of the time we are holding ourselves back. Why Aim for awesome? Because you will hit it more times than if you aren’t aiming for it. You may have to give up on the easy steps. You will also miss the crappy events a lot more. You will often land in the average zone, but your chances of being awesome are so much better when you are actually aiming for awesome. Why the Awesome life? Sit back and let your mind wander. You can even do this in the car. Ask yourself what would life be like if your dreams come true? How awesome and fulfilled would you be? What would you do? Now many guys would say they would take it easy, and that would be the wrong answer and that is why you have to keep working. The moment you start coasting is the moment you start slowing down. Now does this mean you don’t get to rest? No, actually you get more chances to rest and enjoy life’s sweeter moments but if you think you can just sit back on your laurels then you will find yourself back where you started. The awesome life isn’t an easy life. You have to find out what fulfills you. That is where you find your happiness and fulfillment. Many guys see that life isn’t an easy street when they reach a certain point. That is often because they failed to realize that they are not achieving that peace, aliveness, Love, or Freedom they thought they would have. Instead, they are wrapped up in the fear of what happens next. So they start to play small and with that small action, they let go of what they are really striving for.

There are times that life will throw you curveballs. You may have a boss that is just busting your hump and other days you may just drive up behind a jeep with a huge pair of panties on. What do you do? This is a choice you have to make. This was evident with a pair of Jeep panties I saw while over at the Byrd's Adventure Center. While I was at the Operation Tears of the 22: Off The Hardball event, the owner of the Jeep "Severance Package" talked often about how there are those who love the quirky undergarments while others come out offended. What is it about those Panties? This got me thinking about what does this means? I see that society is complex and there are those who laugh at the absurdity of a jeep having on women's underwear. To me that is good. The sudden shock of Oh my god there is underwear on that Jeeps tire. They might see it as the joke it is and laughs. As the owner of the jeep said If it brightens one person who is having a rough day good! They have done their job. Then there are those who don't like them. I see these people having a few thoughts that ignite their anger and outrage. Either they wish they could be as brazen as the owner is, or the image brings up other thoughts of how dare the owner shows such disrespect to them. Underwear is meant to be hidden and these are just hanging out for everyone to see. Either way, these people feel slighted for having something that might be construed as sexual in their face, and as I stated before the joke is lost to them. My point to all of this and what I wanted to point out here is that Life is too short to be taken seriously. We can lighten up and laugh at something as goofy as a very large thong being put on the spare tire of an offroad vehicle. Laugh at all that you can. You can even give yourself permission to let out a huge belly laugh. Laugh at all the odd things you see. Laugh at the delight that life brings. Do something odd that you think might bring a chuckle to somebody. You never know you might just touch the heart of someone who is in a very dark place at that moment and you have then shown them a gleam of light. It might open up the door for someone to make a connection. I am always making fun of myself. Heck, I had my first speaking engagement at Byrds Adventure Center. I could say it was an abject disaster because the words I chose distracted the audience from the point of my talk. I could say it was a serious discussion about how men can take control of their own lives. OR I could point out that I forgot I was talking to a bunch of ex-military and that they all have the minds of 13-year-old boys and that my choice of talking about a man's stick and handling a man's wood created a point of hilarity that was an awesome learning experience for me and the guys heard a memorable speech. For Help on living life on your terms The Brotherhood of Men

Main Topic Is coaching like therapy? The full answer is no they are not the same thing. What is therapy Therapy is used for finding and diagnosing mental illnesses. They help you find new and better coping mechanisms for past life events. Therapy is essentially for the past What is Coaching? It is the finding and helping with mindset problems. Coaches help people to reach their goals and climb to lofty heights that they are actually capable of. Coaches see flaws in thought because of faulty logging and help people to change how they see the world. Coaches Boiling it down Therapists help people with their past while coaches help people with their future. Both are needed for people to find the success that they want. If you combine the two and you find a therapist who is willing to work with a coach you can have the ultimate power of working on both your past and future. You are able to tackle your past problems while also building up the needed mindsets so you are able to springboard into the success you want. What a coach won’t / can’t do Coaches don’t do therapy while there are therapists who can coach. Yet when it comes to looking at possible mental illnesses or past experiences that could be the root of the problem you are facing Sadly many therapists like to try to point out that coaching isn’t regulated as if that is a bad thing. There is no licensing boards or governing body over who can coach in what. That is a good thing. You are the judge. If a coach doesn’t perform up to your standards then you can leave. Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat. There is more than one way for people to achieve their greatness. Sadly it does seem that therapists and some coaches have a scarcity mindset. There are therapists who see coaches as are taking clients from them. That’s not the case. Then there are coaches who want to be regulated and if you look you will notice that most of these groups that want regulation have their own schools that would benefit greatly from having to force people through these doors. That is the great part of coaching each person can have a different attack angle for the same problem. One tactic may not work while another is wildly successful. Therefore, another point that helps is that coaching isn’t locked into a particular way of helping a person. Unlike therapy, whereas a new disorder comes about suddenly you have everybody being diagnosed with that ailment. Look at anxiety for instance. So is therapy good? Yes, it does serve people who need it. Does coaching work? Very much so. If you are looking for a coach I would be happy to fill that spot. You can read more about my services at Work With Bryan

News going to be making some changes to when things are being released. I want to keep the current release schedule for the video of the week the Wednesday blog post and the podcast but I have lots of other plans for the site that are being ignored so Once a month there will be only a video and a podcast. If I can do the other plans and take out an item of the honey-do list and I still have time to write then you can consider the blog post a bonus. But I have been learning about some of the steps I am needing to attract more clients for signing up. To do that I have to focus on other parts of the site. For instance the landing page for the divorce recovery workshop. Still working on the name but I want to get it done so I can help those men struggling with their purpose in the midst of their marriage falling apart. I also need to work on the Brotherhood of Men's Landing page. I am getting people looking at it but they are not nibbling. So many items like this that need to be changed. The Podcast will keep going I am not willing to let it slide just yet. I know I need to work on my short game for this business and the long game will still be there. I am also going to drop the question of the week. Been doing it for about a year and no emails. So I will wait for enough listeners to show up and start asking questions when that happens then I will bring it back. It was a good experiment to see if I can get some people to interact with the show but they just are talking yet. Main Topic We are men of power yet what is keeping us from being powerful? We often want to point the blame to someone else or some external circumstance Examples of Disempowering thoughts It's not MY fault, Everybody/somebody did something to me and now I'm all screwed up. I can’t do follow my dream, I need to prioritize OTHER people because I’m a good person I can't think of that right now I am in too much pain. I don't have time right now I am just too busy. When the kids are out of the house When the time is right I will get it done someday I would if I have enough money It's easy for them! If I had their influence... If I had their money... If... I am practical I'm not that good That's how they get you That just how it goes I have the worst luck I suck at_______ I know they are laughing at me I should have started 10 years ago I don't want to be a jerk. It's easier said than done She doesn't like me She doesn't like sex I cant perform as she wants I can't satisfy her How to change why are you thinking small? You think small because of fear. You fear the worst may happen. Could the worst happen? what is the worst? For some, the worst is looking like a fool. While others fear being successful and being called all the. names they called successful people. It could be that you are fearing that you will be judged by your friends as a sellout or worse. According to Tripp Lanier many times we play life small because want one or more of these 4 things and we are afraid that if we don't play life small we won't get these Freedom Love Aliveness Peace In fact, because you are living life small is why you are not receiving most of these. Ask yourself probing questions Ask yourself questions that dig deeper into why you are thinking this way. What is your why? Why do you think the way you do? When were you told that thought? Who was always telling you that you weren't good enough When as you were growing up did you notice adults saying that very thing? Is what you believe really true or are you just basing it on what you were told? Did someone close to you tell you your dreams were wrong or impractical? Are your thoughts based on fear or scarcity? Where did these thoughts originate? Be honest with your answers This can be difficult but it is possible to tell yourself the truth. Often we will actually lie to ourselves so that we don't have to face the uncomfortable feelings of our beliefs are actually not matching up to what we are believing. Change your Programming When you find yourself thinking these thoughts that are holding you back change that programming. Instead of you are always unlucky, try I make my luck. I am not good enough to be a part of that group try I am good enough or I am going to be good enough that they can't ignore me. You can take those limiting beliefs and with determination, you can alter them. It's not easy and you will fall back into your old habits when you aren't paying attention. Yet, you can change how you view yourself. Start doing the opposite of what you are telling yourself. Think you can't cook? then start cooking. Are you going to burn the eggs from time to time? Yep, but you have a choice to get mad at yourself, make it fun give yourself grace and laugh it up. Life is way too short to take seriously.

Question of The Week By The Brotherhood of Men What are some unknown laws of manhood? There really aren’t any unknown laws of manhood. There are things in men's lives that they need to do to have a great and masculine life. Men have purposes and it needs to be at the top of objectives to find out what that purpose is. Most times that purpose is something that is bigger than them. They are helping other people to achieve their purpose. That could be through a service-based life. Like being the best employee you can be for your employer. You could also be that you need to join up with a charity or even start a charity. There is a chance that you see a need that isn’t filled. Therefore you may have the purpose of starting a business and helping the local community by providing a product that enriches their life. There really is a lot of options you can do. The objective of this is to live your life to the fullest. Don't sit around wishing that you can do something. Get up off the dirt and do it. take action. face that fear you have that it won't work. You never know till you try. Your uncle who is shooting down your ideas doesn’t know. Your parents don't know. You don't know till you act. Men are meant to protect their families. Provide for their family, and lead their family. You do this by making sure you take care of yourself. By working on your Mind, Body, Soul, and building a community of men who can help you. Main Topic What are beliefs? At the root, these are thoughts that you perceive to be true. As we walk through life we gather different beliefs. We see something that catches our eye and we decide whether we will put it into our basket of beliefs. As we continue through life that basket starts to fill up. There are times that we have to trade one belief for another or we struggle to try to keep both beliefs in the basket. Yet our basket is so full that we start going down avenues of suffering because we are trying so hard to make sure we keep all the beliefs together though they clearly don't all fit. The cool thing about beliefs is that though we use them to define us we can actually take a belief out of our basket and set it down. If it doesn't serve us anymore. If we find a prettier stone that would fit just nicely in our basket we may have to put the old belief down for someone else to find. It doesn't hurt you to change your beliefs often if you look at a belief long enough you will see that it's not quite as alluring as you once thought and so it doesn't do you any harm to set that belief down and go about your day. You are able to get a better knowledge of yourself as you examine your beliefs. As you read you are able to find new nuggets of beliefs

Question of the Week By The Brotherhood of Men If you mess up your life in the eyes of family and friends, how do you get it back? Well, know that the phrase “messing up your life” is just a thought. It isn’t a fact. It is an opinion. That is all. You not living your life to the prescribed manual that your family has for you just means that isn’t how they would do it. It's not right nor is it wrong. Every event in your life is neutral it's neither right nor is it wrong. It's not positive nor is it negative till you apply thought to it. So the events that have happened in your life are viewed by you, and they matter to only one person, you. Now you can choose to live your life by your family's manual, that set of instructions they believe you should follow. Then again you can choose to love life on your terms. However, you do it it is up to you to be ok with that decision. Your family can create their own suffering but having any negative emotion they want you aren’t going to feel that emotion, You are simply reacting to their actions. Main Topic There. are some movements that have been going on for a while and I trip over different factions of them from time to time there is the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) and the Red Pill. Now I wanted to look and see if I could find anything about the red pill to be able to better understand it. Did the preliminary search online and came across this Guardian article which is flat out doesn't understand. It is written by a woke journalist. The Writer Stephen Marche defiantly has an odd agenda but he does have a conversation with a guy who is a moderator for The Redpill subreddit which has apparently been around for 10 years. There are some telling parts to what The moderator is saying. I noticed that the dating game wasn’t what I was taught – what my parents prepared me for, and what I learned from movies I found myself putting in all this effort for nothing, it was very defeating. It’s not the way courting worked when my parents met. One interesting thing that is mentioned here is, "We’re accused of misogyny almost daily. I won’t deny that the language is colorful and there’s a lot of emotion expressed by the men on the forum." This goes against everything that feminists state about men in that we are not caring and that we don't express our emotions. Yet when we do it is often misinterpreted. Why are men turning to these movements? The main reason I am seeing from these different groups is that they are disillusioned and so they decide to give up and either decide that it's not worth it or that the field is stacked against them. Is this true? Not really it can seem that way. As masculinity is being shunned for all the good that it does in society there is something that has to take its place and many people look to feminists to do that. Yet as talked about before men and women process the same situation differently. While there are times for tact and men are good at that women are better suited for other types of situations. Can Women lead? Hell yeah, they can lead and they do a bang-up job. There are times though that man is needed. There is a time and place for everything a At the core, the MGTOW and Redpill movements are men who get wrapped up in their victim mindset and give up. This doesn't serve them nor does it serve society. Most of these guys like the moderator are actually Nice Guys and you know that nice guys finish last because nobody respects them. Women don't like Nice guys. because nice guys communicate in passive forms of communication. These nice guys are people pleasers and as we have discussed before people leaders are liars and don't think for themselves. They wonder why they can't keep a person around for long. That is because when manipulating another person it causes the person being manipulated to expel more energy than when you are in a symbiotic relationship. When one person can trust that you are going to do what you say, and not have to harp on you to do it. Women are actually often in leadership positions though they aren't in the limelight quite as much. I know many a huge burly man in my youth who wouldn't step into the kitchen after his wife mopped the floor. Now was this out of fear? A little but it was also out of respect.

Quick Mention about the Event Operation Tears of the 22, Off the Hardball, is coming quickly if you are a veteran this event is free, if you are not a vet then it is only $20 and you get a good time and you are helping out those veterans that are stuck in a dark place. Question of The Week by The Brotherhood of Men What is the most important thing to teach a child so they will be successful? That they are in control of their emotions. They can be happy or sad and that is OK. Nobody can make them feel anything they don't want to feel. To be able to teach kids that emotions are not things that happen to us but we feel because of a thought we had about an event. Main Topic Divorce is devastating. Not only for the children involved but for the men and women. Often we see the ugly side of people when the lawyers get mixed in. Suddenly the woman you loved and adored seems to be a greedy witch and is dead set on making your life hell. So how do you survive a divorce or even stop a divorce from going through? This is a challenge but this is where applying and working on your 4 pillars of a man come into play. You need to build those pillars back up and get them reinforced. Those 4 pillars are A man's Mind, Man's Body, Man's Soul, and a man's community. each one helps you to find the footing you are needing for the challenge ahead. Why are these helpful for a man going through a divorce? This is because they are intricate for you to have a healthy life. You don't have to curse women or go their own way or even take that red pill that many men are pushing Man's Mind This is your learning pillar. Always be growing More on this can be found In Episode 36 Man's Body This is your health pillar. You have nothing if you don't have your health. You can listen to more on this on Episode 35 Mans Soul This is your creation pillar. You need to be creating something. Be it painting carving a blog a business or a charity. It needs to be your calling, your passion. You can listen to more on this on Episode 37 Mans Community This is your band of brothers but also your family and your town. the different organizations that are involved in your area. You need to be an active member of the community and you can listen to more on this in Episode 38

The guest is Matt Sinkovitz He Helps men to overcome their attraction to porn. Social Media Facebook Group - Making Peace with Porn: We are Noble Men Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/matty2sinks/ How Can You Promote Change Your Brain on Porn - Book He has a How to Quit porn for good event

Event: Operation Tears Of the 22 Off the Hardball This event is to help veterans to reset mentally SIgn up Question of the week be Brotherhood of Men Why is the divorce rate so high, especially in Western countries, if love marriages work? Well, there are theories as to why. The number one resin though is the No-fault divorce. This was started in 1969 by one of the greatest presidents the US had. Now Reagan later said he regretted signing the bull when he was governor of California. He did this as a means to cut down the fabrication of wrongdoings being slung at each other trying to get a divorce. Since then the divorce rate has skyrocketed. For a long time, men were the primary people who started divorces but as time has gone on, now women initiate around 80% of all divorces today. Why? Well, that’s where the theories come into play. Most of the time it is because one person or another is having an affair but money issues also play a part. Yet with the affairs, the problem is that many men have stopped being men and now women are busy having to take up the slack. Men have been told they are to spill their emotional guts to their wife and that does nothing but add stress to their wife’s life. The overly emotional man causes the woman in the guy's life to lose respect for him. All because he listened to society and stopped doing guy things out of fear that he was going to be seen as a toxic masculine guy. Men have stopped doing several things that attracted the woman to him. These things are what turned her on to him. All because he was doing manly things and then after saying I do he started sharing way too much and ditching his friends for his wife. What did these men stop doing? There are several things men have stopped doing that caused their women to not respect them. These things are part of the 4 pillars of a relaxed male. Man's mind Men stop learning they get a job and start working and they think that is it. Job accomplished! Nope, they are providing for their family that is important, but he stops learning and expanding his mind getting smarter. Most men stop reading after high school and read-only if it is required. They don’t learn for the sake of learning. Man’s Body They get a dad bod. Now a few extra pounds isn’t a deal-breaker but 50 pounds? That isn’t sexy to a woman. Now men don’t have to be chiseled, but I shape so that if they can protect their family if needed. You hear women claim that they like a soft chubby man. Yet those claims don’t ring true when you hear who they think is sexy. Bro-Thor wasn’t nearly as hunky as fit Thor. You could hear that from the women's reaction when they saw Avengers End Game. Men need to be in shape so that they are healthy enough to take care of their wives when they get old. A fat man will not live as long as a healthy man. Mans Soul Men have stopped perspiring their passions after they get married. Women love to see men who are driven to accomplish something. Now, this doesn’t mean that the men are to become workaholics. This means that they have work and a hobby or a side business or an activity that feeds their soul. Most men when they are dating have something like this. Then they drop it when they get married and start turning their full attention to their wives. The wives have other things to do too other than sit around and give their husbands all their attention. Mans Community this is the pillar that falls almost completely apart after marriage. First off any friends before marriage disappears. The wife and kids get 90% of the man's attention. He can’t go camping because of his wife and the kids. He does go sit and talk with his band of brothers because of his wife and kids. It not that the wife and kids demand it all the time. It’s just we guys believe that is what we are supposed to do. So we lose our friends and we don’t replace them with new ones. Before we know it 20 years have passed and we have 1–4 friends. And maybe only one of them is dependable enough that we could call them at 3 am with a problem. We don’t have normally get together with other masculine men so we can talk about our problems. So what do we do? We tell our wives our problems. That’s because we have been told we are supposed to share our emotions with our wives. That is only partially the solution we are supposed to talk about with our wives but we share the positives with them and share the negative with our band of brothers. We take the negative from our lives we help them and we ask our close friends to help with the emotional weight it may have. Telling a wife all the financial problems you have doesn’t help her have confidence in you. It doesn’t help her to see you as the provider. You are extra emotional baggage that she has to deal with when you come in and start dumping all over her how crappy your boss is. Women won’t respect you for that and a woman can’t love a man she can’t respect. The other thing that will help a marriage last is to know how to fill your par

This week we have a conversation with John Teng. John is a public speaker author musician and lover of life. He has written a book called the Hero Mindset: Become(ing) the Hero of Your Own Adventure. This book is not just for men but also for women. People through the ages have struggled with one huge problem and that is the dreaded Midlife Crisis. John talks about how it actually isn't a crisis at all. Yeah, your life is almost halfway over but it really isn't a reason to panic and suddenly try to find yourself. We look at the different landmarks you have in your life to successfully navigate the different pitfalls of your midlife. Talk about laying out a map for you to use so you can enter and pass through the midlife area of your life and be better for it in the end John Teng has several avenues that he is enjoying life to the fullest and on his terms from rocking it out in a band to writing and helping others to find their path. So listen in and see how John Teng and his book can help you. Social Info LIVXTRA: www.livxtra.net Twitter: @midlifemagazine Instagram: @johnjteng YouTube: @midlifemagazine Facebook: @midlifemagazine

Also, Check out the Operation Tears OF the 22 Off the Hardball happening on August 5-8 at Byrd Adventure Center The Question of The Week By The Brotherhood of Men Help me. How do I stop feeling hurt when people say mean things about me? Is what they are saying true? If not then why are you giving these people all your power? You are volunteering your peace of mind and happiness to people who obviously don’t have your happiness in mind. Stop with the victim mindset. You have the power to let some bozo hurt your feelings or not. When you can look at your thoughts and decide how that affects you. You will gain the power back from people who don’t even know how to control their own emotions. They need pain from others to beef up their own selves. How sad is that? Now if what they are saying is true you still have all your power. You can take responsibility for what you did and make the needed changes. People only say things about you when they think they can take power away from you and you can choose to react or respond. The big difference between the two. There is an old saying that seems to have been forgotten in the last 20 years or so. That saying is Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Start applying it. Stop handing your power and agency over to other people. You have the power over what you think and how you think. Your emotions come from those thoughts not from some jerk offs actions. Remember that words don’t have power till you decide they have power. If it affects you and it is a lie, then I would ask why are believing the lies others are saying? Main Topic Aren’t we always present when talking to others? No, often we are sitting around waiting for our opportunity to voice our thoughts. Doing so What does it mean to be present? Being present means not trying to wait for a response. Not forming a thought and just being there with the person you are talking to. There can be a lot of details that are missed and even ignored when we are waiting for our time to talk. This often means that we are not fully understanding what the other person is saying. We are not hearing them we are listening but we are missing a lot that is being conveyed. How does being present help? Some people point out that you will have better concentration and more attention to details. And though they are right that is more because being present can be tied to mindfulness. Mindfulness is essentially paying attention to your thoughts which is of immense benefit when you are doing thought work. Better communication skills Better social skills Less worrying about wrong implications How do you become present? Being present can be difficult

Question of the Week by The Brotherhood of Men I suffer from anxiety and depression. Not debilitating because I keep a job and social life. I'm 32 and have never left home. My parents are enablers and never pushed me out. What advice would you give someone like me? By the way, you phrased the question I would say you already know the answer. You need to move out. You can function out in society. You have already stated that you have a job and a social life. So move out. That anxiety you feel is normal for everybody. My daughter actually came to me crying. All because I made a suggestion with her being 18, that she needs to start spreading her wings, and looking for a place she can move to. She had the thought loop that I didn’t love her anymore because I was wanting her out of the house. That was the farthest from the case. She was telling herself the story that I was throwing her out into this big world unarmed and that the lions were going to eat her. It is scary to move out on your own. You have all these new bills and responsibilities that you have to take on. Some are downright unpleasant, while other experiences give you a huge sense of accomplishment. The anxiety is from thoughts in your head. Your mind is just trying to protect you to your own detriment. Take that anxiety you are feeling and turn it into exhilaration by taking the first step. Move out. Your first apartment is going to suck and it is going to be small and not have anything you really want to have in it. Yet many of your favorite memories of your youth will be in that small apartment. That small apartment will also give you the incentive to find a way to create more value so that you get paid more so you can move to a larger apartment or even eventually a house. Don't believe the Crap your mind is telling you. Your mind is trying to protect you from dying but again the only way you grow and become better is to face the discomfort. Main Topic You have probably heard the phrase when you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME. This practice we have of assuming one this has some roots in trying to protect us, yet these days they are rare that you will be hurt. Now assumptions are not intuitions you avoid responsibility for action You are passing the buck They are thoughts It is us looking for a pattern assumptions are not facts It keeps us from connecting and getting to know people Ask yourself some questions from Harley Therapy What facts do I have to prove this thought is true? What facts do I have to prove this thought isn’t true? What is a more realistic, in-the-middle way of seeing this? Is this really my own opinion, or did someone else teach it to me and I didn’t question it? Is this even really what I think or want to think in the future? What would life be like if the opposite of this assumption were true? What if this assumption didn’t exist at all in my life – who would I then be? Assumptions leading cause of Misjudgements Common assumptions that are holding you back That being wrong is a failure It's about you You have to be available all the time Busy and productive are the same thing Your emotions are created by outside events You can do it by yourself You are a victim These assumptions are all bad in their own ways. CLAIM=ee28bc540d3b96875c62a004c5938eeaed9129d8=CLAIM

This week we have fellow coach Lindsay Marie Barber on the show. Lindsey is an expert on relationships and helps men to foster better relationships with those of the fairer sex. What is the biggest problem you see with men and their ability to effectively communicate? Website: https://lindseymariecoaching.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindseymariecoaching/

Join the Operation: Tears of the 22 Off the Hardball event for the veterans. WIll be happening on August 5-8 at Byrd Adventure Center In the beautiful Ozark National Park Sign up Today Question of The Week by The Brotherhood of Men All my favorite childhood things such as cartoons, video game characters, toys, etc., are becoming a thing of the past. Is this a sign that it's time to grow up and move onto other things? Well, I would ask what age are you? If you are 18 or older then yeah it is time to grow up. Now, do you have to let go of the nostalgia or your youth? No, you can dip into that past all you like but make sure that you are not living in the past. Spending all your time wishing what could have been will cause you to lose sight of all the greatness that is happening in the now. That is why your past is so rich with memories. You were living in the present that whole time. You were excited about the day and what lay ahead of you. You weren’t focused on what had happened. The future was things that were thought of from time to time but that didn’t consume your time either. You had stuff to do and you may have enjoyed the cartoons on Saturday morning and I remember cartoons coming on from 3:00 to 4:00 and that was a snack break before being kicked outside to play some more. Your past is good to remember but don't depend on it for who you are today. You are a different person from what you were 1 year ago much more so from 10 years ago. You can always enjoy the peaks in the past but like I said don't live there you won't like who you become. Main Topic Today there seems to be so much unrest and Yeah I have a view on that and my thoughts on why so many men aren't stepping up to the plate. I wanted to delve into this a little bit this week. Because I think a good part of society has a huge problem in their thinking and this is one reason they are having such a problem with being a victim. These men today are being taught a dangerous phrase that doesn't serve them. It doesn't help them in any way at all. That phrase is "feel safe". Men are being told they should have a safe place to express themselves or to be able to speak up in a "brave" way they need to feel safe and that is such a dangerous place to start from if you are working at trying to be a man. This is dangerous because the people teaching these boys that phrase is holding them back from trying anything daring. It screams stay comfortable. I cant get uncomfortable. I have to feel safe to do anything big in life. You know what? That safety is never going to show up unless it is in a school. That is the worst time you should be telling a young adult that they should play it safe and stay small. Granted some do have the drive needed to ignore that teaching and they go on to do great things. How many more successful adults could be excellent if the kids in college were pushed to get out of their comfort zone? How many more minorities would be successful and prosperous if the administration in college wasn't teaching them to stay in their safe place? Would there be as much perceived disparity if these young adults were able to handle discomfort and not claim they need a safe place to be themselves? What if they were brave enough to be themselves in public and to not worry about the opinions of those who honestly don't matter in their life? Why shouldn't people be allowed to feel safe? First off people have the ability to feel safe wherever they want. The issue is that they expect others around them to make them feel safe. That is impossible. I can not make a person feel something. The same as other people around me cant make me feel anything. I have to take that power myself. Young men are nervous anxiety-ridden wrecks because they are being told a lie. Many of these young adults want people to pander to their needs and often to the expense of that other person. They want to be heard but not have to listen. They have a strong misconception of what is safe. Look at Mike Rowe's Safety Third Initiative He knows you can't put safety first if you do you are more likely to get hurt. You are going to put your trust into something that will get you injured or worse. You can't control anything around you and to attempt so is a fool's errand. With that same concept have a person feel safe is folly because you can't control what other people will think or do. How do you feel safe when you are feeling uncertain? It's not easy but you have to gather your courage and strength and just say what you want to hear. Is everyone going to agree with you? No, and you don't want everyone to agree with you. If they do then there is a good chance that some of them are being fake. So how do you go from having your safety blanket to being able to walk and talk in an assertive manner? If you are used to playing it small then start by doing something that scares you. Just get out of your comfort zone. You will never grow if you are stuck on the couch watching Netflix every day

Question of the Week by The Brotherhood of Me Why am I not happy in my life? There are a lot of reasons that you are lacking joy and happiness in your life. Since I don't know you from adam I can only guess as to why you are unhappy and restless. The number one reason I would surmise is that you don't have a purpose. What gets you out of bed each morning? People need to have a why a purpose, a passion Whatever you would like to call it, you need one. Something that allows you to struggle and get out of your comfort zone. Sadly many people are just way too damn comfortable for their life. We need struggle and discomfort to have joy in our lives. Much like how we need the valleys of life to celebrate the summits of our achievements. We need dark to appreciate the light. It may sound like a horrible and cruel paradox but look at anybody who is genuinely happy and they will tell about the hard times they had in their life. Why do you think so many poor people appear to be so happy while rich people often appear to be so miserable. That is because of the benefit of the struggle. So how do you wade into something uncomfortable? I would say write down 10 or more things that scare you. Is it speaking in public or possibly joining a group. Start small. You may do what Jia Jiang did and just get people to tell him no. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZXgApsPCQ There find the things that scare you and start trying to do them. Don't be afraid of failure. That is a part of learning and skill-building. You didn’t just hop on to a bicycle and start riding no you fell over and over again until you got it. Be a part of something bigger than you. This could be a charity or maybe a project like starting your own business. Yes, the business can be bigger than you. A business is nothing more than you getting paid for a service you perform. So you can find fulfillment from starting a business. You don't have to worry so much about passion. That will actually grow as you get more and more involved with whatever you are doing. Use a gratitude journal You can't be unhappy when you are truly grateful. You can start to change your mindset and attitude by looking at what you are grateful for. Write down each day 3 things you are grateful for. You might even challenge yourself and say you can't use the same thing more than once every 7 days. So Go out and try it. Keep searching for that why and you will find it. Main Topic So many times we let the opinions of others dictate our decisions. Examples You are going to fail He looks ridiculous That is a fool's errand You cant do that What is an opinion? An opinion 1. a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. "I'm writing to voice my opinion on an issue of great importance" 2. the beliefs or views of a large number or majority of people about a particular thing. "The changing climate of opinion" 3. An estimation of the quality or worth of someone or something. "I had a higher opinion of myself than I deserved" Definitions from Oxford Languages Opinions are not facts they are thoughts believed to be true. In other words, opinions are nothing more than thoughts. My wife is being irrational, is an opinion. My kids don't listen, is an opinion. Opinions are also anything with an emotion tied to it. My wife is mad, is an opinion. We often take opinions and apply them to our lives. We were told out being a writer was a dumb idea because you can't make any money from it. You cant be an artist because you will starve. Those are again opinions, they aren't true for you. It may be that Uncle Joe failed as a screenwriter and he is sharing his opinion because of how much it hurt for him to fail. His experience isn't yours. Take the opinions as just that opinions. They may have nuggets of truth in them but that doesn't mean you are not worthy of trying. You never know what you can do till you actually take a swing at your dream. Will you fail? Yeah is it because Uncle Joe said so? Only if you allow it.

Join the Operation: Tears of the 22 Off the Hardball event for the veterans. WIll be happening on August 5-8 at Byrd Adventure Center In the beautiful Ozark National Park Sign up Today Question of the Week by The Brotherhood of Men How do I simplify life and be happy? How to always be happy? Well, I will break it to you you can and actually don't want to be happy all the time. How would it look if you were at your grandmother's funeral and you were just sitting around with a grin on your face? If you were punched in the face you don't want to be just all happy go lucky no you would be upset and rightfully so. So how do you be happy? You accept that life is 50/50. That is life is 50% pleasure and 50% pain. Now, what does pain entail, because it sounds unpleasant right? Yeah, it is anything that is unpleasant or uncomfortable. Feeling awkward is classified as pain. It's not fun feeling like a fish out of water but it is going to happen and it's going to happen often. So, you need to practice accepting that life isn’t going to be all sunshine and lollipops. That is where much of people's anxiety comes from they think they have to be happy and they aren’t they are feeling scared or awkward or uncomfortable in some way and they obsess over this fact that they don't feel like they believe they should. Now you can also mitigate your emotional being by understanding that all your emotions are not created by your environment. No, your environment has no control over you, people have no control over your emotions. They cant make you mad nor can they make you happy. You can respond to their actions. You can have a thought about what they said and if it isn’t pleasant then you can actually start working on changing the perspective as to how you are thinking. Take someone cutting you off in traffic. That person may not have seen you because he just got a call that his daughter was in an accident and is being taken to the hospital. Then again it could be that the guy is just being a jerk because he can. You don't know and you can't change his mind by honking at his car. Your emotions come from your thoughts. Your thoughts come from the circumstance you are currently in. The circumstance is nothing but fact. If there is an emotion tied to that fact that isn’t a fact it is a thought. Mrs, Johnson is being mean to me. That is a thought. I didn’t do my homework and Mrs. Johnson said I have to stay in for recess is a fact. Do you sort of understand? So how do you be happy? You choose to love others. See your world for all the opportunities you have available in your life. Writing out a list of what you are grateful for at that very moment helps a lot. Give a person the benefit of the doubt. Keep practicing allow yourself to fail from time to time. And eventually, you will start to see the rainbow cant be around without some rain. Main Topic The heaviest package you will carry You are always working on letting that grudge live in your mind. You are obsessing over what that person will do and that takes energy. You are often fooling yourself thinking that your grudge is thinking of ways to get you and they aren't thinking of you at all. Why are they bad? They cause undue stress That stress causes physical problems You are obsessing over something that often can't be fixed How do you get rid of a grudge? forgive them Let it go Write it down on a piece of paper and then burn that paper. acknowledge that this grudge isn't serving you Walk a mile in that person's shoes

Join me in helping Operation: Tears of the 22 and their first-time event over at the Byrd Adventure Center in Arkansas. This is happening between August 5-8 and are they ever putting up a bang-up event. There are going to be music and jeep rides on the many trails that span around the heart of the Ozark National Forest. on top of all that, there are going to be some amazing food trucks there to squash any hunger you have. We will also be having an auction where one of the lots is a 3-month coaching package with me! So join up and let Matt and Rich know that you are going to the event by visiting the event page Question of the Week by The Brotherhood of Men How can you instill the understanding early on in a child's life that gang members should not be looked up to as role models and, despite its appealing nature, to walk their path would be a great misfortune? That is a great question. Now I have a firm belief as to why gangs are so attractive to young people. now I can bash the music. The songs today promote and seem to encourage lots of today's youth to look at gangs in a romanticized manner. There are all the drugs the sense of comradery. you get to have guns and the like. Yet how do you change the hearts and minds of these kids from wanting to join a dead-end street like being in a gang? To answer that We need to look at what the problem is, that problem is that there is no father in the picture. Thanks to many well-intended government programs the role of needing a father in the house has been diminished. Now when a woman gets pregnant she doesn’t have to turn to the father and say we need to raise this kid together. Instead, they turn to their rich Uncle Sam and he gives them money for food and daycare and rent and everything else that a father is supposed to provide. This keeps the men from having to grow up and face their responsibilities of providing for a family and it keeps the women from having to face their responsibilities that they need to be making better choices with their men. The people that lose out because of this lack of responsibility are the kids, especially the boys. You have a group of boys who doesn't have any strong masculine guidance in their life, therefore they turn to the closest perceived masculine and that is a bunch of grown boys who are in a gang. So they learn what it means to be a man from a bunch of people who don't know what it really means to be a man. Instead of the dad, who would know best and having that father be a constant presence in their life. These boys now have a bunch of strangers who are saying they have to do this or that to be called a man. When in reality they don't know anything about being a man because they were also taught by a bunch of grown boys instead of a grown man. So how do we change the minds of these boys thinking that gangs are cool? We get fathers to become involved in their boy's lives. It won't be easy but it is possible. If you don't have kids then start finding ways you can be involved in the lives of boys who don't have fathers. Join up and be a mentor with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. It is a shift in culture which is going to be tough because today's society thinks all the good elements of a successful life are being white. Which the farthest from the truth. So there is a social change that needs to be done. How that is above my pay grade. Answer requested by Viktor Bondarchuk Main topic Today's society is one that they see who can win the race to being the biggest victim. This is why schools have safe spaces. Kids in college want to make sure they can say something without facing the repercussions of their actions. This is one reason the world so so upside down right now. Being a strong masculine man is scored and called out to be the cause of all the good that masculinity does in society. What is a victim? A victim is a person who has given up their power to someone or something else. Society is wanting it to mean that there is no blame to be given to the victim. Though many times that person actually got themselves into that predicament. A person was the victim of greedy capitalists. No, that person chose to spend their paycheck on a pair of high-top sneakers and then didn't have enough money for rent. The poor can't get out of their predicament because the patriarchy won't let them. Again no the poor often made some bad decisions that caused them to be in that environment. They can get back out again if they are willing to change their habits. Yet again you see that the poor supposedly doesn't have any power because of the patriarchy, whatever that is supposed to mean. Look at people who have been under real oppression. You see that though they are victims of that dictator they eventually decide to take back the power that they gave away and either leave that environment or gather strength and make them change themselves. To say you are a victim is to say you are powerless. Why the victim never wins This was touched on earlier, t

Mention The Operation: Tears of the 22 off the Hardball event is coming up on August 5-8 Free for veterans and their families. There are going to be Jeep clubs there for you to go rock crawling and other jeep trails. Fishing and hiking, Then there is the benefit of being our in nature. Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/tearsofthe22/ Question of the week Why does toxic masculinity exist in our society? The term toxic masculinity was a word created by people who needed a boogyman to pin their troubles on. Now with that said there is no actual toxic masculinity there are however guys who don't know how to act and the cause of this is because of a lack of strong masculine presence in these boy's lives. This is thanks to the no-fault divorce and the government coming in to play the financial part of the father role. There are many people who think with these events that men are not needed for much and that isn’t the case. Men are vital to the raising of kids and boys in particular. Men teach kids boundaries and why sticking to those boundaries is important. Men teach kids that being strong and competitive is needed for you to be successful. Men also teach their kids that hard work is imperative to being able to get what you are wanting. Men also show boys how a man is supposed to act. Without the strong male influence in a boy's life, they look to other boys who are older and don't have a father who taught them how to act. So the problem is slowly amplifying itself since the ’60s. https://qr.ae/pGTwqA Main Topic We have all heard the phrase happy wife happy life right? What does that typically mean to you or others? It seems that many people and this includes women, people completely misinterpret what this old saying means and how it is supposed to be implemented. How do you have a happy wife? You have a happy wife by making sure you let her know that you are on her side. Often we mistake this phrase to mean that if we don’t do her bidding then she will make us miserable. For many men that is true. If you don’t do something she wants you to do then there may be hell to pay in the long run. For many guys, this is essentially making it so that she has to micromanage you and this causes a reduction of respect, and that is where the problems start cropping up. That is because if your woman doesn’t respect you then she will find someone else who she can respect. Now if you are in a marriage where the wife doesn’t respect you already, sweat it but know that you are able to turn the tide and start building respect. You cannot make a person happy Now one of the biggest reasons that the saying of Happy wife is a happy life is because you absolutely can not make your wife happy. The same as she can’t make you happy, it is physically impossible. It is mentally impossible too. Your emotions are your emotions and those emotions come from your thoughts. Now you can react or respond to a person’s actions, but your thoughts are what create your emotions. For instance, if your wife tells you that you are not able to buy that new bass boat, you have the choice to be angry or to be ok with that decision. You can find a different way to acquire that new boat that will allow you to have it. Then again you can stomp around and be angry, which in my experience does no good. Sure you can pout like a 5-year-old who doesn’t get a candy bar, but you aren’t going to win your wife over to your side. She may cave but it will be with great resentment. That’s not helping your case either. You can also take the old stand by, buying flowers. You can think this will make her happy and it may very well do so. Then again it may cause her to think what did you buy now? See you can’t make her happy. She is the only one who can actually make herself feel the emotion of happiness or joy. Sorry man, you may be able to curl her toes in the bed but if she isn’t happy with herself she won’t be happy. This means to help them feel safe and secure To have a wife who is loving and engaged in your life. There are things you can do to actually ease her mind. The biggest is to help her feel safe and heard. This can be a challenge for us Mr, fix-it types because we try to do this all the time and it doesn’t work. Then we sit around and wonder why women are so hard to figure out. The key to helping her feel safe, secure, and heard is to talk. Don’t fix it, but listen till you fully understand what she is saying to you. Many people think parroting what we believe to be the key points will help, and sometimes it does. Yet it really rings true to her when you can summarise what she is saying. If she says no that’s not it or not entirely then it is time to go back and ask more questions to her until you fully understand. We also have to make sure that she feels secure. Not only financially but physically too. Now the physical part can be easy for use men, the financial part can be tricky especially when either one of you has a scarcity mindset That doesn’t mean that

If you are a veteran there is an event just for you coming August 5-8 in Byrd, AR. It is being brought to you by Operation: Tears of the 22. There will be food trucks, music, talks, and Jeep rides. If you are interested you can get more information on Facebook event page Question Of The Week How does someone adapt to not having a mother throughout their lives and not be bitter? A boy needs his mother yes. The same as a boy needs his father. The same as a girl needs both parents as well. Now why the reasons why your mother left can vary and I don’t know the reasons as to why you don’t have your mom in your life. Yet it could be that your mom wasn’t around because she died, to drug abuse, to some other very selfish reasons. People have had their mothers leave their lives for centuries and millenniums. Yet some people are able to carry on and others sit in self-pity feeling bad for themselves. Asking a question they can never answer. There are some good bits of news and some bad bits of news on this front. The Bad News Let’s get the hard part over with. Yes, your mother left you. It is sad, and you don’t have a reason why. The frustrating part of this is that you will never have a full reason why. Even if your mom is still alive, you won’t get all your questions answered. My mom left me and my dad. Now she was still in my life. So I was in a better boat Thani other people but she left my dad and me to live in a small town and she went to a large city. When I was younger there were times that I was sad that she left. Yeah, I was glad when I got to see her and knew that she loved me. Yet she wasn’t around. I went through a time of thinking it was me and I acted out in those times. really gave my stepmother a rough time. I am not proud of my past as a young man. I almost repeated the whole thing when my daughter was born. I didn’t see her first year in her life yet Thankfully I did see her and eventually had her in my house for several years till she wanted to go back to her grandmother’s house. Now I tell that whole story to explain we all adapt. How you adapt is up to you. There is very little in life you can control and the fact that you are wanting to know how to have that feeling in your life that you had a mom that cared for you. Now since I don’t know your mom I don’t know for sure but if your mom is still alive, there is a chance that she does still care about you. She may not show it in the ways you would imagine she should but that is where your resistance in life is coming from. You are shoulding on her instead of living your life to the fullest. You can’t control her actions or her thoughts. You can’t make her proud nor can you make her proud of you. The same as you can’t make your dad proud of you, or make anybody feel anything. THeir emotions cant be felt by you. Now they may perform an action to display their emotions but you can take those actions to mean anything. I would say if you had a mom how would she act? Then know that is nothing more than a manual for how our mom should operate. She will not live up to that lofty set of requirements. You have the ability to accept that your mother isn’t available. She is self-absorbed or she is homeless and drugged out of her mind. You can and need to apply all the facts you do know. You can choose to love her for all of her flaws. Yeah even if she is a tweaker living on the street. She is able to be loved. The same as you. You may think a mom should at in a certain way yet, moms are human and they will do what they want to do. You have no control over other people’s actions. Sad but true. If and when you have a 2-year-old you will learn this very quickly. They have their own agency and they want to try everything. You cant keep them from climbing the couch and jumping off the back and onto the cushions. The good news Because you don’t have a mom you can turn to right now or at any time you may feel as if you are not loved. You may feel as if you are unloveable. Have you ever really paid attention to that word loveable? Think about it. Mull it over while you read this next part. Do you remember how I said how you can’t feel other people’s emotions? The same goes for others. They can’t feel any of your emotions either. Your emotions come from your thoughts. They don’t come from the actions or events that happen to you. When a particular circumstance comes about you develop a thought about it. That thought creates an emotion. Right now you are having thoughts that are along the line that you didn’t have a mom that showed you love. Therefore you are having something in the way of thought that you are unloveable. That is simply not the case. Now let’s look at that word, loveable. Break it down Love and able. It points to exactly what I am saying you are able to love anybody you want to. The person who is in your life can be there strictly for you to love. You get all the benefits of feeling that love, and the other person can stop you. So you are you lovable?

Question of the week by The Brotherhood of Men How do I become a better father, husband, and steward of the community, despite having a rough past? by Bryan Whitson Build your 4 pillars of a good man. Your mind Read learn and grow. Learn about yourself. Read how to communicate with your son and with your spouse. As you read apply the lessons you learn. Write in a journal that way you are leaving a gift for your family. You are also able to see your improvements. Writing does a great job of cleaning your mind and empties your thoughts. with communication though know the secret to all of it is seek first to understand before you are to be understood. A good book to read is The Boy Crisis by Dr Warren Farrell. The first 3/4 of the book is great the last 1/4 gets a little iffy on some of the claims but that could just be my cognitive dissidence in action. your body exercise, build your body. I don’t mean bull up but take care of yourself. This will come in handy when your son and daughter are older. Men also need to control violence in their life, so get into jujitsu or some other physical sport. This teaches you to control and expels the excess energy that will cause you to become listless. your soul Find your passion work towards it. If you are dreaming of having your own business the do it you don’t have to blow all your savings on getting it started but work towards it. Start that journey. find something that feeds your soul maybe it is volunteering to help the homeless or working for some charity. Maybe it is building RC planes, or carving little figurines out of wood. Find a passion and stick to it. Hint what did you like to do when you were a tween or a teenager? That is a big clue to your calling. Have a hobby or something you do outdoors. This is another activity that will come in handy when your kids are older and you are wanting them to open up to you. your community Get in a church if you are religious. It doesn’t hurt to be in a church if you are not. You need a community that knows you and your family. Don’t forsake your band of brothers. Don’t stop contact with your old friends. They need you and you need them. Yeah, some will leave as you grow but you will also find others who will take their place but always have a group of men you meet with regularly. Be apart of a civic organization. Be it lions club freemasons or what. Have a group you can help be a part of something bigger than yourself. with all that you will be in a better place Main Topic Man, it is springtime and before we know it it will end up being summer. Now is the best time to get outside and start getting the benefits of being outdoors. What are some of the benefits you ask? You have vitamin D from the sun. This helps your mood and strengthens your bones. Vitamin D helps with serotonin production and the blue light helps you have a more positive outlook on life. You also get lots of fresh air when you are are outside. So it would do you good to get the better fresh air from outdoors than the polluted indoor air you have in your house. It doesn't matter if you are running a HEPA filter. Your house is still more polluted than it is in any city. The exercise you do when you are outdoors helping to get the blood flowing and clears the pores of gunk and it is said that you also sweat out some toxins that might be in your body. Does it? I really don't know but it can't hurt. Then add the fresh air and you are able to fully oxygenate your blood. How do you get outdoors? The answer is easy anywhere even in the city you can get outdoors. Yet, if you can get out in the boonies that would be better. You can go camping and see new areas of the world. The camping is really good because you can experience the 3-day effect. which happens when you camp for more than 3 days. So get outside. go camping go swim in a lake. enjoy the wonders of mother nature and all the life that it can give you.