Life is full of stress how you handle that stress can often determine what makes you or breaks you. Panic and stress Don’t use it as an excuse to not get your goal done Apply it as gas for your goal We panic and stress because we want to win Don’t hide/ resist it will tire you out

You look around you see many people of different degrees of wealth. Some are rich, some are very rich and others are filthy, stinking rich. The same goes for the other direction. You have those that don't make as much as you. Some are poor. There are those who are dirt poor and there are those who are so poor they can't even pay attention. You fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. You aren't filthy stinking rich nor are you destitute.  You often see people talking about the poor and how terrible it is that they exist. Some want to use the poor as a pawn for their own quest for power and try to pit the poor against the rich. People see people as being poor but in all reality, it is just people with very little money that they see as being poor. Yet when it comes to money you see the same people who cry for the poor say that they think money is the root of all evil. and the pursuit of money is greed. If you think of it, These strictly oppose each other.  So why do people want more money and curse money at the same time? That all boils down to the point that money is nothing but a circumstance. You have a certain amount of dollars in your wallet or bank account. You can also look at money as being a scoreboard for your value. You have a certain score and you want a higher score. So how do you increase your value? Money is a circumstance Money, as we have it today, is nothing more than an agreed-upon value. It's not worth more or less it just is.  It can also be seen as representing the amount of value you are providing to people. The more value you are providing the more money you receive. So the reason you have or don't have any money is completely dependent upon your thoughts.  Your thoughts create your results. They don't change the circumstance. Therefore why do you not have enough money? It is because of how you choose to think of money.  So why are the poor, poor? It is because of their choices. Yes, it sounds cruel but it is because of their thoughts about their circumstance. If they see it as a limited resource then their money is a limited resource. In contrast, those who are rich see money in a completely different light. They see it as something you can create. It is a limitless resource. Poor people see money as a pie and the more people take from the pie the less there is.  Yet when you look at the fact that there are more millionaires now than there were at the start of the industrial revolution you can see that money is always expanding. We make more value. It's not that the rich are getting richer because millions have left poverty behind and become successful. Do you think people who don't have money are a fact? Ok, let's put it to a test. So if we look at those who are under the US poverty level here in the US. Most food stamp recipients have a large-screen television. a car and a cell phone. Or they may have more than one of each of those. Now, look at those who are poverty-stricken in India. Do they have a car? Do they have a cell phone? Do they have a 60-inch television? You see the poor in the United States are still part of the 1% richest of the whole world. Your wealth is subjective. I know men who struggle with finding their purpose because they can't leave what made them millions. What happens if they don't make millions? They have enough to live comfortably for 3 lives but they are worried about going broke. Then you see people on Bimini who are all smiles and living their best life and barely clear 100 a week. Money is just a value, it is a circumstance. If it was a fact then millionaires would have the same reaction to finding one dollar on the sidewalk as the homeless man. People's thoughts about money How are you thinking of money? Does it elude you? Is Money hard to come by? Have you always been poor? Where does the money come from? How can you make money from nothing?  Why do you go to work? Is it because that's what you are supposed to do? Really? I know many homeless people who don't go to work, or they don't go to work as you see it. Why do you go to work? Is it just to pay the bills or is it because your business is to provide the best service you can to the company you work for? As I have been mentioning your thoughts about money will create your results in the money department. If you think you will never make enough, guess what. Your brain will only help you produce just enough cash to barely cover your bills. If you look at money as a limitless resource then you open a door that allows you to bring in more money. Why are there poor people? Though I have explained why poor people are poor I wanted to dive into some key aspects of what people believe.  scarcity mindset I have talked about the dangers of the scarcity mindset for a while. There are blog posts and other podcast episodes that talk about why scarcity holds people back.  You see when you have a scarcity mindset you are more focused on what you don't have and worry about what is not coming in and what is going out. Your view of the world around you is limited. Scarcity is a fear-based mindset. You believe you are going to lose what little you have instead of seeing how many opportunities are actually around you. Scarcity-oriented minds play a small because of the what-if factor.  The Scarcity people are more greed centered and less likely to share their thoughts because what if their ideas are stolen? I don't know how someone can steal a thought out of your head but that shows the lack of logic a scarcity-minded person is. Fixed Mindset Now Carol Dweck wrote a great book about the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset. The fixed mindset is your life's success is based solely on your talents. So when you hit your limit you can't do any better.  While a person of wealth looks at the world as a huge playground for learning. If they don't know how to do something then get out there and learn it. Get your hands dirty. It is OK for a growth-minded person to fail simply because they know they are learning what doesn't work in the process. don't want to get uncomfortable This is the biggest reason that poor people don't become rich. They are afraid to get uncomfortable. I have argued with folks time and time again about this. Their thoughts are have you been in poverty before? The answer is yeah I was broke before. I spent a couple of years eating ramen noodles and lettuce sandwiches. It wasn't fun but I also wanted a change and did something way out of my comfort zone. I joined the Navy.  Many poor are comfortable in their misery. They don't want to have to give up their vices and bad habits to better themselves. They don't want to face the uncomfortable thoughts that they have centered around why they are broke and face the life-altering realization that their poverty was in their hands this whole time. No, the man wasn't keeping them down, They were keeping themselves poor. They didn't want to give up the newest mobile phone so that they can get to a better house. Why are you poor? So why are you broke? Is it because you don't want to make the change or because you see money as a finite resource? How you view money is vital if you want to make more of it. You cant have a lot of money and believe it is evil. If you would like help changing your mindset let me know by signing up for a consult call. Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash

Boosts! Chad 8599 sats - I heard your Boostagram on PC 2.0 so I’m checking out your podcast. Main Show Why do you do what you do? Sounds like a weird question to ask yet we always ask that and there is a reason why we keep doing the same things over and over. Why do certain people keep falling into the same traps time and again? Why do men pick the same type of woman over and over again? Why do we struggle on improving ourselves? Why do we struggle on losing weight? Why do we struggle on improving our minds improving our souls or improving our communities? The reason is because of what actually motivates us to do what we do. And this concept is called the motivational triad. The reasons why you are always going for that piece of german chocolate cake even though you are full. Why you are a creature of habit. Why do you lie to your boss, though you know it puts you out of integrity? These three motivations are what get us out of the bed. Seek pleasure Pleasure is more than just sex. Seeking pleasure is what motivates many addicts. It is what drives us to please our spouses. It also is what drives us to want to make friends and to get paid for our hard work. Seeking pleasure is also the reason we take up hobbies and other things that bring us satisfaction. Satisfaction is a type of pleasure. Approval is also a type of pleasure. When we get approval from somebody we are sure that we’re not going to be tossed out of the tribe. This is one of the large reasons nice guys do what they do. Nice guys want to please the women in their life that’s why they manipulate so many people to try to force people to like them. Nice guys need satisfaction and the pleasure to come from those around them. The Nice guy doesn’t seek personal approval he doesn’t seek internal validation. The nice guy is a codependent who requires validation from other people. To be able to get the pleasure that they want they’re going to do the manipulation, because of the second layer of the motivational triad this is also why nice guys do covert contracts and we’ll get into that in the next section. avoid pain There’s nothing scarier than pain. Often you’ll hear kids ask will it hurt? But pain isn’t just physical pain it is also it’s not even emotional pain people associate discomfort with pain. Nice guys create covert contracts because they don’t wanna have to deal with this comfort pain of possibly being rejected. We often avoid having those uncomfortable discussions because of this part of the motivational triad. As humans we often Don’t want to do things that create pain for us. That can be admitting to something wrong. That can be us not wanting to go out of the house. This is what causes us to avoid doing the hard scary things in life. Our mind is programmed to avoid that pain. Instead we need to use that pain as a compass stay and remain efficient This third part of the motivational triad is the reason we develop habits because our brain wants to make sure that it stays as efficient as possible so it’s easier for the mind to dive into a habit than it is to learn something new. Learning something new means that there’s a lot more energy that has to be burned a lot more energy being burned means that we are burning off more energy than normal or more energy than we have to and white if we don’t get to eat later on today? Then that means that our learning could possibly have killed us. So having to pay attention to every little detail is energy intensive for the brain. So the brain going to find ways to reduce that energy consumption. It does that by forming habits. This part of the motivational triad is why our habits system exists. You can look at it as the low-power mode of our mind if he can throw stuff into that better. Yet this also is where our brain likes to turn to when it “doesn’t know“ if it doesn’t have to work to come up with an answer if deems that better. So What does this mean? It means that we are able to make changes to what we do if we are aware of the whys that we do. If you understand why you don't want to do something scary you can actually do that scary thing. Your mind doesn't want you to get killed. So how do you remove that fear? By understanding why that fear exists in the first place. If you would like help in getting to the best you. Reach out and let's talk and see how I can help you.

We often come across people who claim we are wrong, or that we have someone who is completely wrong and has no clue about the topic at hand. An instance where so many people who didn't know what they were talking about are often seen as blowhards or complete fools. Today it seems like everybody has to be right. Insistent on being right and even when you prove that they’re wrong. they find a reason to be right. I’m not pointing out one particular set of folks with this either. I find myself being very insistent that I am right. What does being wrong say about you? So many times we don’t want to be seen as wrong. This could be because we think it will be detrimental to our reputation, or that we will lose respect in our particular tribe. If we lose the respect in our tribe then who knows maybe we will be kicked out. We might be banished and exiled to the wilderness and then how are we gonna protect ourselves? This is the basis of all our fears. We often want to make the thought of us being wrong as being a bad thing. It is a detriment to who we are in society. It is problematic because people turned us for answers and so we have to know the answers. We have to be right all the time. These are all thought errors that we have when we are faced with the possibility of being wrong. We often want to make the thought of us being wrong as being a bad thing. It is a detriment to who we are in society. It is problematic because people turn to us for answers and so if we have to know the answers, we won’t be good leaders. We have to be right all the time. These are all thought errors that we have when we are faced with the possibility of being wrong. What if you are wrong? So what if you are wrong? Is that really a bad thing? Is it really that critical to you and your organization, that you have to be right 100% of the time? The answer is no. You don’t have to be right hundred percent time. You don’t even have to be right 50% of the time. Yeah you feel good being right but being right isn’t always good. The times that you get it wrong is where the learning comes from. This is where your team gets to shine. They are able to actually contribute to the solution. You help your team by not knowing all the answers. Ego is the enemy Most of the time it is our egos that are fueling the arguments and disagreements online. This ego stops us from fully understanding the other side's line of thinking. Whether it is a Twitter user who’s always sliding into your discussion with their own perceived irrationally laid out thought or your aunt who’s got to correct you on seemingly everything. The ego is why people argue. They have to be right because if they are wrong, who knows what will happen? It isn't who they are that irritates you. It is what you believe about that person. The stories you have told yourself about that person are what is causing all the strife. Use curiosity as a tool So what would happen if you stopped and listen to what the other person said? How would you show up if the other person you are arguing with showed you the respect you believe you deserve? Know how to get that respect? You get curious. you ask questions. Ask one question strictly to hear their full answer. Then ask another question pertaining to that answer. Just keep doing that, just ask questions. You don't have to get a word in edgewise. You don't have to give your side of the argument at all. You hardly even have to speak. Doing this and the respect you build with the other person grows. How are you supposed to win the argument? Who said you lost? If you think you are going to be doing and recruiting for your side then think again. You aren't going to convert a socialist to a capitalist overnight. You aren't going to bring your soon-to-be ex-wife back into your arms simply because you stated some fact. Remember they have their own thoughts about the circumstance. So don't even worry about perceived victories. You are just building understanding. As the 5 habits of an effective person say. Seek furst to understand before being understood Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People When you take the time to understand another person you build a rapport with them. When the other person feels they are understood by you they are more likely to listen to what you have to say. The defenses are down when you actually try to understand where the other person is coming from. It doesn't matter how many facts you have in your arsenal if the other person doesn't hear them you are wrong.

There is a myriad of emotions that we men go through. in fact, we have all the same emotions that women have. Whaaaaa? Yeah, Men have the same emotional depth as women, Now we express those emotions differently and we may not use the same language for what we feel as our feminine counterparts but they are there. Many times we use emotions for the very same reason. This includes our avoidance of emotions through buffering. What is Buffering? Buffering is the act of doing other activities in order to not do the work at hand. This could be actual work like what we use to procrastinate but also can be avoiding emotional/thought work that needs to be handled so you can reach the next level. Buffering often shows up as playing video games, eating, drinking, spending overtime at work, having sex, and idle dilly-dallying when you want to get something else done, or a particular event happens. We often buffer in the means of consuming without applying thought to why. That is actually where we get ourselves into trouble. We aren't applying any thought. We just are doing something while in idle mode. It's just a numbing habit that we have in our arsenal. Why do men Buffer Often men buffer because they don't want to face the thoughts and emotional weight that comes with particular thoughts. Be it the effect of a job that isn't a good fit for us or a situation we have with our spouse. When we feel pain or are anxious about something often we turn to a buffer to avoid the pain. These buffering habits come into play when we are facing something painful. We often kick into our buffer of choice without even knowing that we are doing it. Our mind believes that it is saving us from a problem because it is faced with something that is uncomfortable. When in reality our pain is just sitting off to the side of our minds waiting to be processed. You see life is 50% pain and 50% pleasure until you step into the pain and fully allow it to be processed. Those painful emotions and thoughts don't go away. How do you avoid buffering? Paying attention to what it is you are doing and why you are doing it. This can be tough and a big challenge. yet when you are able, to be honest with yourself and step into that pain. You will find that your life is so much more productive and brighter. That can be difficult because you do have to accept that you are avoiding pain. To remove the act of buffering is the act of facing the pain you are avoiding. Want help to stop buffering so that you can step into that life you want? Set up a coaching consult

Many people hear discomfort and they shy away from it because the word brings up images of their skin being flayed off, or they have to lay on a bed of nails. You know, horrible things being done to them. Yeah, they are right none of that is very comfortable. In fact, all that sounds downright painful. Yet pain and discomfort actually are good things to have in your life? They help you gain the skill you need for the task at hand. Discomfort is needed in your life to teach you about resistance and perseverance. All of these seem to be fairly abstract. However, when you experience them you know precisely what they mean. Going through a period of discomfort shows you exactly what you are capable of doing. Discomfort is a lot like a catalyst a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change. google So as you go through whatever trial you are going through you find that you are stronger and better because of that period of discomfort. You see discomfort isn't just pain. Though what we perceive to be pain can be involved. There is the pain of failure. It may just be the discomfort of learning something new. I am fighting through this discomfort now. I'm trying to get the coaching business up and going. It takes a lot of work and new skills to get out of the old way of doing things. There have been a lot of discomforts and still a lot more discomfort has to go on. Trying something new is what makes learning uncomfortable. We feel lost and unsure of ourselves. The confidence we need is not at its fullest and things we can do to increase our confidence is not easy to do. Yet we do learn it if we take the steps and make an effort. Everything great has to have a moment of discomfort. There are examples of this all around us. The Chick Hatching Ever watch a baby chicken hatch? They are having to work to get out of the egg. The struggle is an actual struggle for life or death. Yet the mother hen doesn't do anything to help. Why? Because, if you help that baby chick get out of the egg they are weaker. They have to have that struggle of getting out of the egg so they can survive. The Butterfly Emerging The butterfly is much like the chick hatching from its egg. The struggle to emerge from its cocoon is what is needed for it to get the fluid to the tips of its wings. If you help a butterfly out of its cocoon its wings are shriveled and never fully expand to their full glory. All because they didn't have the discomfort of fighting out of its cocoon. Want more tomatoes on your Tomato vine? Ask any old farmer how to get more tomatoes. They will say that you have to take a broom and beat your tomato plants. The act of smacking your tomato plants with a broom or even just giving them a vigorous shake stresses them out. This stress gives them a reason to make sure they propagate. Beforehand they were very happy plants they got all the food and water they needed why be in a hurry to expend extra energy to make tomatoes when they can just hang out and enjoy the sun? Want more apples on your apple tree? This is very similar to tomatoes. If your apple tree isn't producing strike it with a hammer. or trim some limbs off. The act of damaging the tree doesn't really hurt it it just gives it a reason to do what is needed. Crepe mertles are the same way. You need to trim the branches back from time to time so they flower more. Want more success? Do the thing you fear. Use fear as a compass. There is actually very little that will cause you irreversible harm. The discomfort you are experiencing is nothing more than thoughts you have in your mind. That is your brain making sure you stay safe and comfortable. Being safe and comfortable keeps your wings small. That comfort keeps you weak and lost and afraid Are You down for the struggle?

going up a hill is hard You lose momentum when making a decision you are under more emotional influence The hill is the toughest of the path You don't have enough data We are faced with decisions all the time. But when do you want to make those decisions? Many people often make their decisions at the wrong moment. What is going up the hill? Going up a hill is at a time of heightened emotional state. This is when you let your emotions make decisions, not your thinking brain. The uphill battle is where our biggest challenges occur. We will slip into monkey brain thinking without letting the logical part of our brain really get a word in edge-wise. We have had many bad decisions happen while going up a hill. The patriot act, The Japanese internment camps, and many other examples where we as a whole make bad decisions while facing an uphill.  When in your life there have been times that you broke the 90% rule. You made the smart comment to your wife when you knew you should have kept your mouth shut. You threw your hands up and left a project because you got some bad news. You lashed out at a loved one when they were just trying to help. while going up a hill you will start to struggle. This struggle is when you want to push through and see if it was a good choice after 

You draw attention to other's lack of action You lose friends who just want to hang Your mother will worry about you People will judge you People will actively hope for you to fail Other people will feel bad about themselves They will resent you Self-improvement is lonely All that sounds like a good reason not to better yourself, right? Wrong that is the very reason to better yourself. You have to look at their lack of action as a motivator to actually propel yourself to better heights. The other people can come along but they most likely won't. Why? because they're scared and don't want to become uncomfortable. If you are living your life to make others feel better then you are actively not bettering yourself. You are living on other people's terms, not yours. Yes getting to the top of your goal or dream can appear lonely. but if you look around there are people who are in the same boat as you. They are fighting each day to get around their obstacles. They are working on their thoughts of a certain circumstance and the only way they can do it is on their own. You have the choice to take care of your friends and family members who don't want you to improve or you can improve and show them what is actually possible. You will want to pull those who don't want to follow yet that won't work either. They have to want to get to where you are on their own. You have a better chance of them coming along when you do it yourself. It seems cruel to a people pleaser to go on that adventure and to just leave people you love behind. However, it is the act of loving them that you need to leave them behind. Give them a reason to care. Give them a reason to even try. The only way you can do that is by improving yourself.

Main Topic The magic question What if you could be successful? what if You could take that dream vacation? What if you did have that house on the hill? What if that girl did agree to go on a date? What if your wife did decide to stay What if you showed your wife the needed attention she wanted? Limiting What if Questions what if you got fired? What if your wife did leave? What if you failed in your task What if it doesn't work? Yeah it is visualization which has been discussed on a few episodes

Many times I hear the words I don’t care. This is in response to what others think to how they act in a group. Many guys will sluff off the phrase I really don't care or that's just how I am. Is this productive or is it a mean's for you to not have to try? What happens when you don't care? There are many effects of a man not caring about something. Isolated Aggravated Feel alone - because restless Why do you not care? There are many reasons that men say they don't care. From appearing to sound stronger and more resilient than they really believe they are to trying to protect themselves. Many men want to avoid the drama that others bring into the mix. Yet they have their own drama that they like to partake in Maybe you need to care If you are on your journey of increasing your community then it may be a good idea to start caring Afraid to care? Caring for people is scary. They may have altier motives for talking with you. They may be using you. Then again they may earn your trust only to completely destroy it. You might get hurt - I am sure you will There are hazards to caring for people. They have their own thoughts and emotions and that makes interacting with them messy and full of drama. You will have people that appear to be of one standard and then you will find out that they are not of that standard. There are nice guys and good girls hiding around every corner. Victims are waiting to exploit your kindness. Yet They are actually fairly easy to spot once you notice them. you can even allow them into your circle of influence while you don't let them actually influence you. If you want help getting back to caring about people again so you can grow your community Sign up for a Consult call and let us see if we can work together.

This week I am talking to both Rich Chelson and Matt Glesspie of Operation: Tears of the 22 and how they got started. How they did it without knowing what they were getting into. How they did it scared. Now the sound quality isn't the same level that I am used to cranking out but that is part of the fun of trying new things out. So Listen as we talk about how they overcame some of the obstacles they faced as they built a 501(c)(3) from the ground up. If you want help finding your why on doing something new and unknown reach out and schedule a consult  

August 4-7 Tears of the 22 Retreat Thanks Those who gave Sats. Main Topic Uvalde 400 officers standing around waiting for someone to give orders Sniper couldn’t get clearance Possible result of defunding the Police Police don't want to be put in jail Don't want the responsibility laid on their heads Reminds me of Atlas Shrugged Men need to take responsibility and action when needed Can't have men afraid of the consequences of their noble actions. Yes there are actions that are not noble but taking a chance is needed in life When life and death are at stake you do it. If you want help with removing the Nice guy from your life Reach out and schedule a consult

Thanks to Hastirongod29 6 sats Angeltovar22 1 sat eddieem Boost! 2 sats robertgomez 60 Sats Event! Operation Tears of the 22: Mission Critical Main Topic man has had religion their whole lives there are many different types of religion The key point is that all of them have a god. Abrahamic Religions all have god. And they break apart from there Judaism, Islam, Christianity Each of those breaks down into subgroups, And those subgroups into smaller subgroups There are modern religions that turn Man into a god. Modern deconstructionists. Covidien's for example The environmental religion worships the earth Everybody believes in something. Even atheists have a god they turn to. What is religion used for? Give us a moral compass A place to meet other people on a common topic What Religion is not a guilt trip Why do people leave the church? Abuse Don't see a purpose Peer pressure They see it as a hypocrisy They see religious people as hateful Change of beliefs How to get the most out of your religion You get what you put in.

Thanks to boosts stream pay's @user50456778804705802114 @mariost2104380 @user1418343976470596460 @user6465513779413332560 @robertgomez640 @user6895229526496442710@ user8725507786725826810 @moncadad96 @oscar1990diaz106 @user1996186395908832112 @eddiem I have screwed up. I have don't it over and over again. I wasn't the perfect brother. I wasn't the perfect Son. I have let down my family many times over. I found out why lying does you no good. I have broken hearts, and I have failed as a father on many different levels. I have failed as a husband. I have rattled my marriage to its core. I have people pleased and let folks down many times in my long and storied life. I failed in many different careers, and I have had at least 8 failed business attempts. I have quit smoking only to take it back up again. I have failed to see how extraordinary I could make my life. That is until I stopped and looked at the path of destruction I have made. I blamed so many people for my problems. My Stepmom, my bio mom, my dad, my wife, my bosses, my kids, for the longest time it was always someone else to whom I would pan all the responsibility off to. Heck, I still do in a sense. But then I started looking at the common denominator in every circumstance. There was only one constant in each of those. That was me. About 6 years ago. I realized I didn't stand for anything. yeah I would pick and choose beliefs when they were in line with who I was with. Yet did it really define me? No, it didn't. Until 6 years ago and I woke up to the fact that I could change myself. Create the future from the future, not the past You can start over now It feels unsafe but that's ok Your mind is just wigging out Is there something wrong with you? Accept that you screwed up Look at where you went wrong Learn and plan how to not do that If you want to see what you are capable of Set up a consult call and let's talk.

The Operation Tears of the 22 Mission Critical Retreat. Storytime - home town alma mater is giving away free school supplies and I raised the question of why this seems like it will end badly? I got a lot of parents from that area chimed in saying it was a good thing. I really don't think it is, for many different reasons. I have several thoughts as to why not having the parents provide the supplies Well this is when you really need to have that debate. Just leave it alone? why? Because it’s easier? It’s with good intentions? Remember what the road to hell is paved with. I agree it sounds good on paper but the devil is in the details. What are you showing the kids about life? That they don’t need to worry? The system will take care of you? Just accept that free lunch with out looking to see if there is a hook on it? I’m leery of free stuff with it being an altruistic motive. Altruism is one of the most evil things a man can do for another man. Because everything has a cost and altruistic motives cost the victim his ability to care. So is it worth talking about yeah I think it is. This is where my thoughts on altruism come into play. Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. … To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. Ayn Rand What you are getting when you're altruistic is that you have to hope for people to suffer so that you are able to give more of yourself. This is often why caretakers sabotage their wards. They have to be able to swoop in to rescue that person so that they feel needed. You are sacrificing yourself You are not taking care of yourself. You are putting yourself in harm's way You are causing that other person to be dependent upon you and your actions You are taking risks that are not needed You are not actually helping that person You are not allowing the other person to figure it out. You are making them dependent on you you are creating two victims at the same time. Miss conceptions of Altruism There are many different factors of altruism that many people get wrong. There are many myths Myth It makes you happy? Clears your concionce Makes the world better? Allows you to find new friends/partners Helps you get further in corporations More trust Truth No, it cants make you happy. Your thoughts can. Till you have to let the person live their own life Except that it takes care out of the world If you like codependent friends if not it makes them codependent Except that it erodes trust in the long run [Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value, and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships. Ayn Rand this is one of the big things that Nice guys do. They have an altruistic sense of morality. They do it and expect others to go along with their thoughts and when they don't they get upset and resentful. If you would like help stepping into the real you. You can set up a consultation call

What is intention? So many times we are living our life because we see someone else doing something or we are told how we should live our lives and we blindly just do it. We don't think about does that fit what we want in life? You often see teenagers struggle with this. These Young people run from one fad to the next. This is why the current fad of gender studies is so damaging. Because they don't know if the permanent changes to their lives are what they really want. They think they do but they won't even know who they are and what they believe till they are around 26. Even after 26 many people still, don't question who they are. What do they stand for? They don't know what their standards are, and many nice guys haven't even had a thought for themselves in so long they hardly even know how to do that. You hear the intentional life being mentioned from time to time. The speakers are often talking about living in a way that makes you happy. So you can be in a constant state of joy. Well, that's not possible. Nor is it wanted It is living life on your terms. Signs you may want to start living with intention. Your life isn't going the way you want it too You don't make plans You are feeling burnout You are always putting out other people's fires Are you asking Disempowering questions? Feel like you are spinning How do you live life with intention? Have standards Listen Have a plan Follow that plan Dream Big and go for it Have boundaries and Enforce them Have your priorities straight

Now, this may sound like an obvious bit of knowledge but I see many men ask why is divorce so hard? There are many reasons as to why it hurts so much, why you are having to suffer, and more thoughts like that. Yet we keep with the dirty pain and keep resisting the facts that are at hand. We want to control the circumstances in our life. Yet doing so only increases the suffering we experience. What is dirty pain? This is the pain we resist. It is pain that we believe is happening to us and is keeping us in a perpetual state of suffering What is clean pain? This is the pain we feel as we allow the feeling we have to process out and let the emotion run its course. Why does divorce hurt so much? You have your own thoughts about the divorce The fact that you have been served or you have only been told that your spouse wants a divorce the thoughts you have about the circumstance surrounding the divorce are what causes your pain. It's not the fact that your wife said, "I want a divorce" It's not any of her actions around the topic. It is only your thoughts about the divorce and the indulgent emotions you have that keep you in this state of pain. The divorce is neutral. It's not good nor is it bad. If it wasn't neutral you and your spouse would both be feeling the same pain. Yet you see her out enjoying life, while you are sitting at home drinking scotch on the rocks and wondering where you went wrong. Wondering why he gets to have a good time and not you? It is the severing of an emotional bond You and your spouse had an emotional bond. Now that bond is cut into two. That is painful. Everybody is hurting. This is often why you get so many people lashing out at each other. That is because of the pain and the fear that they are feeling. The severing and end of a relationship are hard and so yeah it hurts because you are grieving the death of a marriage. You are caught in a thought loop Ever find yourself thinking over and over about something that was said. Or how do you react? This often is associated with people who have PTSD. They go over and over the tragedy they experienced. A person who is told that their partner doesn't want to be with them cause lots of emotional turmoil and those emotions are from the thought you are thinking. Then you think them over and over and over again hoping that you have a different result. The sad part is that doesn't change the circumstance that your wife is wanting a divorce. Resisting the emotions We hate to feel bad. So we resist the emotions we feel. We will start to eat more. We may turn to alcohol for the blurring effect it provides. We may turn into our depression or even work because then we don't have to face the circumstances. Yet life is 50/50 and to experience joy all the time would be weird. How your you like to react with happiness by being told that your marriage is over? There are times to be sad and times to be happy. Without the low parts of life, we cant fully enjoy the high times. Can divorce be easier? Yes, You can accept the pain and allow it to flow its course. It doesn't make it hurt any less at first. Yet as you keep working on your thoughts around the divorce you can start to see places where you can be grateful for the experiences you had with your spouse. Do the thought work Look at each thought you have. You can do this with a thought download. This is where you write each and every thought about the divorce down on a piece of paper. From here you can see what you are thinking about. You can then see what thoughts actually serve you and what thoughts actually don't serve you. You can choose to remove the thoughts that don't serve you and look at all the thoughts that do. Thoughts that you may have why did I waste all that time with her? What did I do wrong? How come she gets to be happy? Will I ever find love again? Why are women such bitches? When does the hurt go away? How can I get her back? How do I save My Money? None of these thoughts serve you. Some are disempowering while others are just flat-out indulgent thoughts that provide no solution. Allow the emotions to be Finally allow your emotions to be. Don't resist them. Don't run from them. Look and examine each emotion as you experience them. From here there are many different ways you can help yourself. Get coaching Join the Brotherhood

NEWS Operation Tears of the 22 is having its retreat for Veterans again this year. But instead of Byrds Adventure Center, They are having it at Adam Sandoval's Kriver Campgrounds. You can get your tickets for 4 days of fun and jeeping around. There are going to be bands in the evening and I will be there coaching everyone who wants it and some people who don't. So Sign up here! Main topic One of the biggest parts of having a fulfilling life is having that important network of masculine friends. The need to be able to meet and talk with other noble masculine men is often exactly what separates the men from the boys. Yet so many men don't have a close-knit set of friends. Those 3 a.m. people who you know if you called them at any time of the night, they would be in their pickup and heading your way. There is some stats that say that around 15% of men don't have any close friends. While Men 30 years ago around half of the men had 6 or more friends while now the average is about 27% that have 6 or more friends In today's society when men get married they often drop their friends for their family. It almost seems like this is how it goes and some men will wrongly state that this is even in the bible. Which is a misquote. It is talking about men will leave their parents and turn to their wives for the family. It doesn't mean they abandon their friends. When a man is married this is a bigger reason that they have a group of men with who they can turn, and share their life. These masculine friends are the foundation for men to have healthy masculine lives. Yet in today's society, it is not happening. So why do men need other men as friends and confidants? Spreads the pain Men take on a lot. They have the pressure of work and the pressure of family and trying to make sure that everyone is attended to while also bringing home meat for the family. Women in today's society are just now really starting to understand what it takes to be a man and why men come home stressed. What pressure of the working world is actually like. Not saying they can't handle it but there are advantages to being able to stay home with their kids. So with all those times that suffering comes along, it is good for men to have other men in their lives. That is because men are able to process pain and negativity in a completely different way than what women do. We can take on more and we often see ourselves as being noble for sacrificing our health for our families. The problem is that if you don't dump the weight it does cause problems. This is why s many men turn to alcohol and drugs. to deaden the pressure that they feel. They turn to these substances because they don't realize that yes men can handle all that negativity but it is better when you let other strong noble masculine men help shoulder the load. Men are meant to take on the negative painful events from those around them yet. We then turn around and deny our friends the opportunity to do what we do best. Help our brothers who need that positive lift. A good way to look at this is to try to lift a car by yourself is next to impossible, unless it is a smart car and you are Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. Yet if you take 10 men they can lift and move a car with greater ease. This goes for your suffering and personal and professional pressures. Talk to your band of brothers and let them know that your wife is being distant. That you just got let go of your job and you don't know what to do. These times that you are suffering are the times you need your male friends. These masculine men are up for the challenge and can take the negative energy from you and spread that weight out amongst themselves and replace it with positive energy. That way you can share that positivity with your wife and kids. Beacon of positive light Speaking of positive light, men you are the beacon of positivity for your family. When you are positive and light the family knows that their world is good. When you are dour and negative your family responds to that. You aren't helping them live you are just spreading out the suffering to those who you are supposed to protect. This is why you give the negative to your close friends and they give you light. While you do the same for them. You and your friends can then return to each family and spread that light. Learn to be more masculine This is a tough one for the nice guys in the world. The nice guy often works very hard to be seen in the positive for the women in his life. that could be the teachers in school to their moms and their wife. Because men see through bull very easily and often will call out another crap. This is something Nice guys want to avoid. The emotional response isn't as easily controlled in men. So nice guys work very hard to avoid men so that they can manipulate the women who they see as easier. Nice guys don't realize that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Nice guys are afraid of masculinity and this is why so many are "feminists" and cry toxic masculinity when they see men being real men. Yet they desperately want what those men have. The only way you can become more masculine isn't by claiming you're an alpha and calling other males betas. No, you have to go and hang around other masculine men. Better mental health Now I have pointed at this a couple of times in this podcast episode but let's just finally say it outright. Men need other men in their lives for their own mental health's sake. Because you are able to share the pressures of your life with other men. You are able to relieve yourself of many mental problems. You also have the pleasure and satisfaction of being able to help those who are close to you. These men also push you to better yourself and encourage you to be in the pursuit of your purpose. Yeah, they may not agree with how you go at it but that is just fine. Because they know you will succeed. Men, you need other men in your life. For your health and happiness. Your wife isn't going to provide you with that happiness and fulfillment. She will do her part in it but when you are missing a critical part you are putting undue pressure on her. Want a better marriage then get some male friends. Want help finding your band of brothers? I can coach you Join our Brotherhood of Men group

How many times have you kept hitting the same wall over and over? How do you view events in your life? As we talked a couple of weeks ago about viewing your circumstances How do you act during a circumstance? Do you get riled up over some random dude cutting you off in traffic or do you just wave and carry on? Do you wonder why you are always finding the same women when you date? Maybe they are drama magnets or always having some type of emergency for you to come to the rescue? How about your kids? You have told them they can come to you for anything and yet when they do tell you they have and in algebra do you yell, scream and ground them for the rest of their life? Then when they are truly in trouble you find out they have been talking to that sketchy neighbor down at the end of the block. Ever wonder why they turn to them and not you? That could be because of the way you are seeing the world. Do you see doom and gloom all over the place? If you listen to any news these days I am sure you have some worry from one side of the aisle or the other. What would happen if you change the prescription? What would happen if you changed how you looked at the world? How would the world look if you stopped looking at the world as if it was out to get you and started looking at the world as if it was full of potential? How would you show up if you stopped thinking your ex was out to skin you for all that you had and started letting them just be as unhinged as they wanted to be? How would you show up for your kids if you chose to not let the Ex's antics affect you? Unconditional love It’s not rose-colored glasses. This is instead looking at everybody as if you are in a Disney cartoon. No, you have the choice to look at any relationship in your life and choose love as the lens you are seeing in life. Your son could show up with a D and you could show love. You can still provide consequences for that deficiency but you could do it in a way that you are showing your son that you love him and you are trying to help him. Yeah, there may be times that swats are needed but you can also do that out of love. Then again you may be able to choose a different action. Maybe you can actually give him chance to explain that he isn't able to see the board. There are a lot of better reactions to having when you come through life with the prescription of love than through the lens of anger or fear? What to do Stop Deep breath Ask yourself how would you like to show up? Is being worked up really serving your purpose? Pay attention to the words you tell yourself. If you say anything like if so and so would... I would if... I would like to but... I cant Not while... If you are pointing the finger at anybody other than yourself then you are playing the victim. You are not claiming your responsibility for your actions. and guess what they are all thoughts. There is not one single slice of fact in any of those statements. You are passing your power off to anybody if you are not taking the blame for your actions. If you want help changing your prescription let me know. I can help you look at what you are thinking and see what lens of life you are using. That lens may have served you for a while but now there is a better one you can try. If you are interested let's have a consultation and see what's possible.

Believe it or not, your woman wants to know if you are man enough. They need to be assured that you aren’t going to flake on them. That is what the 4 pillars of a relaxed male does, it helps men be there for those time their wives and girlfriends need them. He keeps himself up for these tests that will eventually happen. Now when I say tests I’m not saying these are tests that women even knowingly do. It’s not having your girlfriend's best friend try to seduce you just to see how loyal you are. These are tests women have been applying to their men for ages and those who fail, start having problems in their marriage while those who pass are stronger in their bonds. Why the test? Because they want to know how strong you are. Not just physically but in your convictions too. A woman likes to have a man who has a purpose. They like to have a man who will be there for them. Who will not change course just because someone in their circle tells them to? These tests have been around for many years and you can even find similarities to these in old bible tales and quests knights have to do for their fair maiden. We all have to face these quests and the better you do the more your wife will be able to relax and that will allow you to relax. Are you willing to give up your dreams for her? How many times have you started a project and I mean really started a project and the endeavor is starting to gain steam? Only for your wife to start getting moody and wanting to know that you aren't paying enough attention to her? Yeah for the last year of you not doing anything she didn't care about how much you shared in each other's world then out of nowhere she is demanding your attention? Why? Example woman wants her man to stop digging tunnel This is the test, Are you willing to give up on your dream or pursuits simply because she wants your attention? Many a nice guy has bombs this test. They take their project and go full stop, simply because their wife or girlfriend was making noise about their progress. What she is asking you is how real is this dream of yours? Can I stand between you and your dream? Can she? Only you can answer this. She may get emotional or even downright resentful about you pushing on. She may have thoughts that you are going to leave her behind. She may come up with projects that she seriously wants you to complete. What do you do? Do you ignore her? Leave your task to do her task or do you work twice as hard to get her project done so that you can turn back to your project? This again can only be answered by you. She isn't doing it to ruin you, in fact, she wants you to succeed. Even if she doesn't understand what you are trying to accomplish She wants to know that you are going to push on to your goal even as a hail of arrows comes flying your way. Are you man enough? Are you willing to give up your friends for her? Especially when you are getting engaged or freshly married. Many times women will see if they can get between you and your friends. She will complain that you are going out with your friends more than you take her out. You are talking to them from the moment you get home to the moment you go to bed. This really happens when you have a true band of brothers. This is a test many many men fail at and that is evident to those who go through a divorce and realize that they don't have any masculine friends to turn to. They made their wife and kids the center of their world and they are worse off for it. It is small part jealousy and partially wanting to see how much freedom you are willing to give up. This isn't malicious because if you persevere she sees what your dedication to her will bring. She will understand why you are called to do the thing you do. If you are not willing to ditch your friends then you can actually prove to her that she is safe. You won't just toss her to the side simply because someone wanted you to. Are you willing to stop being better for her comfort? Many times when you start improving yourself, and your wife isn't. Those improvements can make her uncomfortable. because you are reflecting back to her what she is failing to do. Are you willing to let her stay comfortable, or are you going to let her have her power and let her choose what she wants to do with her life? We each have our own choices and after we make them we want to be certain that we made the right choice. Many times we will even resist and hold on to our original decision not even realizing that we can change our minds at any time. You are the leader of your family. So lead by example. even if your wife comes up with reasons to make you late to your gym. Go and improve. She will see the benefits and may want to join you on your adventure. Then again she may want to stay in her current state. To give her the power to make her choice by not pressuring her to change is just as caring as what you are doing for yourself. So let her be uncomfortable, She can find her why and get healthy or she can choose to stay in her current shape. Yet if you give her the space to feel her emotions and you keep doing what you are doing she will see that you aren't willing to change for anybody and that you are dedicated to being with her through it all. Now sometimes there are women who just do not want you to succeed. These women are actually pretty rare. Though if you listen to Red Pill followers you would think that all women want you to fail and that simply isn't the case. Women want men who will lead by example. Yet If you find a woman who is just so unsure of herself that she takes any change in you as a threat to her security. You have a choice to make. You can change your life and sacrifice your health and well-being for her comfort, or you can let her decide what to do with her life. Now, these aren't the only tests women will do. They will often test you in many ways each day. How you handle those will determine how your relationship is. If you want to start improving yourself and how you see the world look into my coaching programs. Together we can remove the nice guy from your life and see what is fully possible in your relationship.

One of a man's responsibilities is to make sure his family is taken care of. It is something that we men often will take immense pride in. With that said there is one part of this responsibility that many of us men sadly drop the ball on. That is us being a good boy scout and being prepared for the unknown. Why prepare? Grocery stores only have about a 3 day's supply of food. We have seen supply chains disrupted many times in the last 2.5 years. There are still items that are disrupting the supply chain these days. There is the Bird flu that is hitting the US right now. You may have gone to the store and seen that pasta is running low or some other flour-based food product is scarce. You can thank the war in Ukraine for that. Then the fact that Russia produces 40% of the fertilizer for the world and now the other crops are going to not be as plentiful. SO there is a lot of uncertainty going on in the world. Then there is other problems that could crop up that could cause lots of problems for folks. Therefore it is a good idea to take the lessons learned from our great grandparents and those who went through the great depression and get prepared for something. What do you need? Food As mentioned before there is only a 3-day supply of food in a city. So it is good if you can have a garden. But if it is too late in the season to do that, then stock up on caned goods. IF you normally buy 2 cans of green beans then buy 3 and just store the extra. You want to have at least a 10-day supply or if you have the space aim for a 30 day. If there is ever a problem these cans will become valuable. So you can use them to trade. You can also help your neighbors if needed. Fuel. Your car doesn't run on hugs and kisses and if the grid were to ever go down then your electric car is screwed. Gas is still the best way to get from place a to place b in a relatively good amount of time. You may also need fuel for other things fuel is good to have. money How much money do you have saved up? It never hurts to have some greenbacks at the ready. If you have old coins that are valuable those can come in handy too. Have as much as you can stand free from the banks because they may one day lock you out of your accounts because you don't see their policies as right. There is a thing called ESG scores that banks are starting to slowly implement, and if our congress doesn't wake up to the dangers of it you may find that you have money but you are allowed to spend it anywhere. This is a delicate balance because if you have too much money the police will do a civil asset forfeiture. otherwise, known as legal theft. There are lots of stories of people who had 10,000 dollars of cash in a bag and the police took it and they never got it back. Network of friends This is huge. If you find yourself without a home a friend is often a good place to find shelter. They also have skills that you may not have. Know how to do basic repairs There may be a time that the plumber isn't able to get to your house. So you will have to learn how to repair that problem yourself. What if your car doesn't run? how do you get it to the mechanic? Know how to garden This is a great way to make money and help others all at the same time. Farmers' markets are rich in great healthy veggies and other items. So you could easily trade for some beef or other meat if you don't have any.

This episode is for both dads and moms because it is about our kids. Maybe not as much phone Let them struggle Failure is good for them Maybe get them out of the school system let loose of the reigns some Ask them questions without judgment Seek to understand before being understood https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-health-jill-biden-mental-1ebf72305a84aa70e14a8903ec90cad4?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab

Now through life, we all face circumstances in our life. Circumstances are not only the events we face, they are the fact of the events that we face. You see, when a circumstance happens around us, we have thoughts about that circumstance. Those thoughts could be good or they could be bad. It is all about how we think of that circumstance. In Episode 117 I talked about Circumstances and the fact that these events in our lives are not good nor are they bad until we apply thought to them. This is why people can have two different views of the same circumstance. Some people like the prequel trilogy of Star Wars and others don't. It isn't because they saw a different movie they have different thoughts on that movie. Try this experiment Grab a piece of paper. Write down 10 facts about your life. Now I want you to write a story of your life as if it was a tragedy. Use those 10 facts about your life that you wrote down, and it has to be true. Now on the other side of the paper, I want you to write out your life story as if it was a story of triumph or a story of redemption. Again you have to use all 10 of those facts and it has to be true. My stories 10 words Divorced parents Dad Remarried I was grounded Lived with dad Helped dad on the ranch Married Large Family VIsited Mom Mom remarried Moved a lot

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men. That they may act on their dreams with open eyes to make it possible T. E. Lawrence Do you dream during the day? Many of us men don't allow ourselves to dream. We feel that our world is what Our circumstances dictate. We as men often feel trapped, and we resign ourselves to this life. yet that we don't have to we can change everything about our world all we have to do is start dreaming. It is a lot like Sebastian from The NeverEnding Story. once Fantasia was completely destroyed he had the ability to rebuild it any way he wanted with just a wish. If he wanted the Rockbiter back, the Rockbiter came back. There was the racing snail. His wishes are your dreams. so what are you dreaming?  Why do so many men give up on their dreams? That's a hard question, The reasons are vast and as numerous as there are men. Many times, men give up on their dreams and stop dreaming all together because they were told to. Maybe they had their mothers and fathers tell them that their dream is not realistic. maybe they had a teacher who told them that dream is dumb. May have even had a good friend who said that dream is impractical. Why do we give up a lot of time just because we do just that we give up? The world beat us down when we were young and aspiring young men. we tried to persue a dream and we failed and we decided that was it. we also have bought into particular beliefs and lines of thought Mike I'm married and have kids so I have to be rational now. No, you don't. you do have to take care of your family yes you have a certain set of responsibilities that you have to keep up with, but you can still dream. Do you dream? are they small dreams or do you dream big? Many times some of us men still dream. they're not Big Dreams they're more aspirations, just fleeting thoughts that we have about that would be nice if… My other men do dream they have large dreams they have audacious dreams they have dreams that scare many other men. those scared men are the ones who don't dream those men are the ones who were told not to dream. They were told it's better if you don't dream. get those men who did dream, and have conquered, literal worlds. Alexander the Great had monstrous dreams and he accomplished those dreams.  Don't be JUST a dreamer Dreamers only dream. They don't take action to realize those dreams. While a dreamer of the day will take the actions and have the confidence to fail. Each action taken is an action towards its goal. Even failure is a lesson on what to do to reach your goals. Make dreams and Take action Therefore go out and dream boldly. Dream big. Then choose a dream you want to pursue and go for it. A man is a complete man when he is going for his dreams and realizing them. If you need help finding your dreams and what it takes to reach those dreams then see how Bryan can help coach you. Want to build your community? Check out the brotherhood of men      

Pop culture has a way of telling people what they are missing. What the vibe of society is from decade to decade. And that is evident in today’s popularity of superhero movies. Television shows on popular streaming services have superhero television series. Superheroes are everywhere. Why well I think it shows The mindset and thoughts of society as a whole. In the past, You saw way back in the 20s there were songs like we’re in the money, and then in the 30s you saw songs like brother can you spare a dime. In the 50s it was the ideal family and in The 60s everybody was tired of all the wars and so there was the antiwar movement and all the movies about antiwar and the songs about anti-war, they were popular. 80’s The 80s were optimistic and hopeful. so that’s why there were so many science fiction movies. Movies about adventure. Even in the late 70s when Sci-fi really starting become popular. Star Wars came out and Star Trek made a resurgence. You had the adventure of the hero's journey and that showed a lot of what society was wanting. They were hungering and hankering for adventure. There was also the teenage angst of growing up. Popular movies like 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science were popular at that time also because the number one moviegoers at that time were just that you teenage and tween kids. They were movies tackling divorce like Kramer versus Kramer and Irreconcilable Differences a lot of society's problems were talked about in pop culture. There were many other genres out there that were popular too. From self-discovery to the search for knowledge to thoughts of how scary the future could be. 90’s Misadventures stories American pie The hangover Gross point blank Rommy and Michelle's Class Reunion This showed that the teenage angst group was finally starting to stretch their wings. And were having their experience expressed in absurd tales. 2000 We had a dystopian societies show up like hunger games, insurgent, and maze runner. This really showed that society didn’t like the direction it was going. Things were going to start falling apart and one group was going to rule them all. The superhero really started to take off. Yeah, we had Superman series of the 80s. we had a campy Tim Burton version of Batman. Yet the 2000s is when X-Men came out 2000 is when the superheroes really started to show up. The start where we wished we had superpowers was the Harry Potter series. I believe it really expressed how we were not happy with our limitations. We weren’t happy about being common. We wanted to be special. With Harry Potter, you got to live vicariously through a boy who thought he was normal and turned out he was extra special and that he had something greater about him than everybody else. We also had the X-Men start showing up along with Spider-Man. Then in the 2010s. This is when people really started getting a lot of superheroes you had marvel television series you had DC television series, There are the DC cartoons that do better than DC movies. You have Batman, Batman, and then Batman. The wave of Marvel movies that have been huge hits. Even the ones that some people say bombed made lots of money. Really shows the true angst of society. So why does everyone seem to like these hero movies? The big reason is that people wish they could escape their humdrum lives. All they do is get up, go to work, come home, and Go to bed only to repeat this process till Friday. They then have one day they can relax and then the stress of Monday starts to loom over them, and the process starts all over. this is the same for women as it is for men. Hearing that process would you want to wish for more? Our schools don't help this either. They are too busy teaching kids that they are victims of a system they have no control over and that the kids may not be born in the right body. Therefore it isn't a wonder so many anxiety-filled kids are coming into society wishing that they had more options. They don't know what they are sexually and the world hates them. So yeah they want a superhero to be around to save them from this world. What Society doesn't know What society doesn't know is that there is a superhero in each person. Now they may not be able to fly or be a speedster, but they have the ability to find fulfillment in what they do. This is because society wants little worker bees that don't question anything and just do what they say. Sounds great on paper but it fails miserably in the practical. This is because each person is an individual and the majority of people who are born are straight. This is where dads really need to step up to the plate. Be there for their sons and daughters and protect them from those who are actually grooming their children to be used in horrible ways. Dad's You are the original hero. You just have to change how you operate and start listening to your kids. Stop with the lectures., and I get it it is hard to stop. You want to make sure they understand that they screwed up, yet already knew that. That is why they are coming to you. They need a hero who will listen to the problem and let them work it out. They will be far more confident in their actions the next time if you do. The time you can jump into action is when there is a real danger. You can also show your kids how they can be super on their own. Show them that being their own person is the scariest and most exhilarating part of being a human being. To not care that you are different. That you actually have standards and that nobody can shove you off of that hill. That takes confidence and the ability to give yourself grace. If you can do that you are miles ahead of anybody in their class because they are all scared to step out on their own because what if they get shunned by their classmates? Hmm, what would happen? If you don't have kids that is OK you still have your own superpower. You are able to live your life on your terms. You don't have to follow what your mom and dad wanted you to be. You always wanted to paint and you still have an easel and paints stored away in the back of the storage unit. Why did you give it up? because someone said that you cant make money as an artist? You are right if you look at making money as many artists do. Where you are hungry for good judgment and afraid of bad. That fear will hold you back every time. What would you paint out if you didn't care if anybody liked your work or not? How would you paint if you painted only for yourself? Can you make money? Yeah, You have to first take care and process the thoughts that you have about the old ways, then change them. See about having Bryan Coach you The Brotherhood of Men

Now there are many different types of relationships around. Many work and more don't. Wanted to examine one relationship "Style" that is being talked about and the Nice guy thinks he will like it, yet the woman will become miserable. That style is the Female Led Relationship Thanks, to the Woke wave of Feminism you are seeing women we are wanting to change the family dynamic. Why? well, they are entering into relationships with the mindset that men are the scourge of society and that the traditional roles are the root of all suffering. Yet their suffering is created by their own actions and choosing the wrong partner. So you have a victim who is wanting to have control and thanks to the nice guys in society they are getting it believing they are going to get a free ride. They don't have to make any of the hard decisions. They don't have to worry about the accounting. They can just be comfortable and not have to worry about anybody getting upset because they won't be at fault. Sounds like a man's paradise right? No this is a man's nightmare along with it reinforcing the stereotype that men don't do anything What is a Woman-Led Relationship There are levels of the female-led relationship According to Momjunction.com, there are 4 different levels of Female-led relationships. Low Leveled Female Control the woman has low authority, and all the decisions are taken mutually by the man and the woman. The man allows his partner to take the lead in specific scenarios and, sometimes, she needs the permission of the man to make a decision. Momjunction.com Moderate Level of Female Control the female can enjoy being a leader for a while and has a sense of ruling the man. It helps boost her confidence and morale and makes the relationship more positive. The man also often enjoys the dominant attitude of the woman. At this level, the woman usually takes the day-to-day decisions, but she also sets boundaries regarding how far she is willing to go. MomJunction.com Defined Control In this type of female-led relationship, the woman makes most decisions and takes on the male roles too. The areas where she can be dominant are defined to ensure there is a demarcation. MomJunction.com Extreme Control Here there is extreme control by the woman and servitude by the man. This relationship is for women who like to have the ultimate power in the relationship. MomJunction.com There are Rules too The female makes most of the household decisions. The man shares his opinion before a decision is made, and the woman may value it. The woman can help motivate the man to work on getting rid of any bad habits like excessive smoking or dependence on alcohol by being authoritative. Although the man and woman distribute household tasks, the man agrees to do chores like cooking, cleaning, etc. The woman takes most financial decisions, and the man trusts his wife to take care of things. The woman also takes decisions regarding social events and social gatherings. Why would anyone like this? Because according to Liveboldandbloom.com women offer unique qualities Compassion and empathy Sensitivity Resilience in the face of adversity A nurturing attitude Intuition Emotional self-awareness Persuasiveness Inclusiveness Lemetropolelille.com also has some points it would like to add Women are more likely to communicate, thus creating an atmosphere of openness. This usually leads to fewer disagreements when the male consciously steps back from the leadership role. Both partners become more attentive. Both partners feel freer to express their feelings. When women are pleased in their relationships, they would be more willing to give in to the man’s requests. This satisfaction often translates to better action in the bedroom. There is a clear division or even sharing of responsibilities, as women are more likely to acknowledge the need for variations. The relationship is not tied down solely by children and gender roles. It is carried by mutual respect. It is even initiated by respect, coming from the male who gave up his natural role to humble himself to a woman he loves. As you read this and other articles stating the benefits of a female-led relationship you will see how they paint the scenario as it becoming a better relationship. The man is happier and things flow so much better. Yet this is far from the case. This is one reason so many women are divorcing. They sense that there is a lack in the relationship and cant explain it. Then they come across a more masculine man and suddenly they are more enamored with him. This leaves the submissive nice guy sitting in the ruins of his relationship wondering why she left. This often causes men to turn to the Red pill movement or MGTOW. VIctim-oriented relationships lead to creating more victims. The Traditional Relationship The issue here is that the feminists don't see how the traditional means of relationships are actually allowed for the growth and improvement of both parties involved. First women do have power. Now if we rewind back to the 70s and 80s My grandfather was a mountain of a man. I don't remember how tall he was but he was a big man barrel-chested and with a deep growl of a voice. The marriage to my grandmother was one of care and gentleness. He was also viewed by many in town to be a bit of an asshole. So my Grandad was a complex person, just as everybody else is. The feminists would think that my grandmother didn't have any power. She was a slave to his words and whims. Yet my grandmother had her own set of power over her domain, that house. She ruled that roost with just an iron fist as my grandad had over his domain. Grandad didn't set foot on her floors if she just mopped them. He was respectful to her and she to him. He did the finances and she took care of their 5 kids. They didn't approach their relationship with a victim mindset. They had a relationship of mutual respect. Did they argue and fit? I don't know I would assume so but I never witnessed it. Changing the circumstance isn't going to change your thoughts If you think you have to control another person to be happy then you are going to be in a world of hurt. If you think you are going to be able to just sit back and chill because you have abdicated your responsibilities to the other person? You have another thing coming. When two people are supposed to work together and one person is just loafing around guess what's going to happen. Resentment is going to build. You have to have good communication skills but you also have to do the thought work. Understand why you think you are not being fulfilled. Why is your spouse not making you happy? because they cant. I have mentioned many times before that you cant make a person feel anything. What you feel is from what you think. So if you think you are a victim in a relationship. Then you are going to find all the reasons why you are a victim. If you see yourself as an equal then you are going to find all the reasons as to why you are an equal.

What is the River Of Misery? This is a gap where on one side you are mentally and on the other side of the river is where you want to be. The River of Misery is the effort you make to get to the other side and have a new and better thought. What represents water in the middle is the struggle to get to the other side. There is all the cognitive dissonance, the effort to power over to a new thought, The tripping and failings that happen when you fall back into old ways of thinking. Bridge Thoughts What are Bridge Thoughts? These are small stepping thoughts that allow you to span the river of Misery. This allows you to slowly shift how you think so that you are able to take action. Why is the River of Misery so tough? Habits Social Pressure Your own Thoughts

Fear is one of those emotions that cripple us from all sorts of opportunities. Fear keeps us playing small. We don't live up to our possibilities. We don't shine as bright as we could. all because we are afraid. Of what? That depends on the person. They may be afraid of what others will think. That people may see them as a fraud that they are. A person may be afraid to fail or afraid that they may succeed and then what happens? The opposite of fear is love Curiosity is the replacement of Fear Curiosity allows you to connect to others and better understand where they are coming from. This understanding comes from love. So ask questions when someone is upset. Learn how to get curious about what you fear. Why did you really get angry? Often it is because someone scared you or you had thoughts that were frightening. This is often why we yell at our kids that they did something that scared us.

Now with this being released each Thursday I am just now getting around to talking about the slap that everyone's talking about. There is a lot to break down in this major event. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock Now most people have seen this video but if not here is what I was able to find on Youtube https://youtu.be/myjEoDypUD8 The Slap Video Now First thing I noticed was WIll laughing after the GI Jane joke. but if you look at Jada's reaction she wasn't impressed. Second who slaps like that? Is it real? I don't know but This is what you get when you are not living life on your terms. Many people would call this a beta male and I would call it being a nice guy. The events that took place at the Oscars is all because Will Smith is a people pleaser or a Nice guy. They will sacrifice their own dignity. to please someone else. I don't know Will and Jada's relationship personally but it's not a hidden fact that they have an "Open" relationship. An Open relationship opens the door for lots of problems and gives one party of the relationship an excuse to not be committed. A nice guy may protest but by the looks of it, Will wasn't willing to be seen as his own man and decided to go along with it. I would say that to be nice Will sacrificed his integrity and his masculinity to make sure that he kept his family together. This is what happens when a man fails to lead in his family, and the progressive mindset of getting along to get along doesn't serve him.

As you may know, I did a thing back on the 22 of Feb and It helped me out in ways I didn't know. First I have sympathy for those with bad knees. Wow, my knees were not happy after walking 22 km with 22 lbs on my back. Yet as I was doing my three laps I was able to correlate some of life's events to a ruck march. We go unprepared Are we ever prepared for the first attempt? You can control the weight of your pack What you believe and the other thoughts you have can really start weighing you down. https://www.relaxedmale.com/your-basket-of-beliefs/ You are eventually going to be going at life alone There are stretches of your life that are going to seem to be lonely. You will feel as if you have no one to talk with. The burden you are carrying is immense but at the same time they are just thoughts and beliefs It seems easy at first Each lap is a section of life. Your youth is full of energy. While your middle lap is still ready to go but not as fast. while the last can be where the most learning can happen. You will hit a wall For me, it was the third lap of the ruck march. but for you, it may be that notice that your wife is leaving you for another man, or that you have been cut out of a huge deal at work. You will come face to face with a challenge that can be scary and insurmountable. What is your choice? For me, it was that I could do hard things You will start to welcome Church and friends Those in religion and friends become very welcoming as you go. The church offers a well-earned respite of life and allows you to gain a new view. Hills Suck These habits you form become harder as you go We all need a Bob in our life. That one friend who keeps checking in on you even when you might wish that he go ahead to without you. Find your Bob and thank him for his dedication Coaching services Brotherhood of Men

The Model Series The Model Circumstance Thought Feeling Action Results Your results This is the last line of your model. When done correctly you will have the results reflect back to your thought line. If you don't get it you have more than likely mixed up your models. Why is the results important? It shows you whats actually happening in your life It is proof that you are on the right tract when you are trying to take massive action With the right results you will be able to atain your goals. Examples If you are wanting to lose weight you can see if your thought of "why am I so fat?", is actually allowing you to lose the weight. Hint it's not. The results line shows you if you are making progress at making $10,000 a month in your new business. If you aren't you can see why.

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 groan understand yes we all have emotions. No this isn't an instance where you get in touch with your feeeeeeelings. No, but you need to be aware of your emotions and what emotions you are having because what normally happens is that when we experience an emotion and it isn't a "positive" emotion or one that feels good, we avoid it. We do things like buffer or turn to other urges. These distract us from what we are really wanting to do.   Action   This is what you do when you feel that particular feeling. Do you lean into it or avoid it. What do you not do? Maybe if your wife rebuffed your advances you go to the living room or pout.   Results   This is the outcome of your action. So if we were still sticking to the wife not wanting sex then the results would be that you don't have the connection needed for your wife to want sex with you.   What to watch out for   Model switching   This is where you notice that you are running a particular model and you don't like the emotions being felt and you just change your thought so you have a better emotion. This can be used as buffering. Denying emotions doesn't work. Our life is 50% Pain and 50% pleasure. If you don't have the negative you won't appreciate the positive.   Mixed models   These models don't give you a proper result.   Needing help with figuring out your models? You can reach out to me or if you want coaching on how to use the model or coaching in general you can see how we can work together  

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 a disability and they still didn’t stop. They had the drive and fortitude to press on till they found their acres of diamonds. This isn't all of them either. I could have talked about Ben Franklin's challenges or the fact that Jim Carry was homeless for a while. Walt Disney had some roadblocks on his adventure to become the largest media corporation in the world.

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 get your rocks off. The problem is that you aren't connecting with your wife. That connection isn't being built at all because you found an easier way to fulfill the need to have a dopamine hit. We also get a rush of dopamine when we eat. That rush comes because of all the calories that our body needs to run. Now your brain doesn't know that it's not the highest quality of food and honestly it doesn't care. It has a crazy amount of calories. Far more than the berries we have to go out and pick. So It is easier to fulfill that urge to eat at Wendy's because well they have bacon on almost everything. You also get a huge rush of dopamine when you take heroin. To our brain, these drugs are the best. Yet, we all know a person who is addicted to the dopamine blast that comes from taking illegal drugs. This is the best example of when we look to the comfort of the dopamine hit without examining what it does to us. This is the great thing about us humans is that we have a prefrontal cortex. No actions can come from our desires or urges without the forefront cortexes approval. That is one reason why tweakers are often very creative with how they get the means to acquire their drug of choice. It may not be the smartest thing in the world but it is ingenious. Your life is 50/50 which means that half of your experiences will be perceived as pleasurable and the other 50% will be unpleasant. Without paying attention to what you are thinking you will fall into the line of pleasure every time. While you will also avoid the painful experiences in your life. Life in Buffering Many times in your life you had some type of experience that wasn't pleasant. Maybe you were abused in some way. or you are just really beating yourself up for some reason. This negative emotion is often experienced as something that we don't want to have in our life. So we buffer from that experience.  The act of avoiding that negative emotion, will actually cause you more pain in the long run. a good example of this is overweight people who can't control their eating. many of these people are emotional eaters, while some are stress eaters. That basically means that they are one and the same. When someone who is an emotional eater has an unpleasant emotion, they push away that negative emotion by eating something that they like. for example, they may enjoy a whole tub of ice cream. this is because the ingredients in the ice cream send lots of dopamine to the brain. that makes the experience of eating ice cream very pleasant. so for a short time, their mind is not on the thought that generates the negative emotion. yet because they dodged that negative emotion they never really fix the problem. Therefore the overweight man can't lose weight because losing weight isn't a pleasurable experience at the start see. Now, it can be a pleasant experience at the end when he hits his target weight. The Emotional Bank A good way to look at this is like an emotional bank account. all the pleasant experiences are added to The emotional bank account. Buffering actually withdrawals from the balance of the emotional bank account. You are taking satisfaction and joy away from yourself. If you keep taking you eventually wind up like most people in some form of misery because you are overdrawn. You have trouble finding joy, contentment, and satisfaction because you don't have anything to draw from. So you can see that buffering only allows you to avoid the pain in your life. Yet it doesn’t absolve that pain. You have to face the fact that you don't like how you look. You have to face the fact that your wife may be looking at other men. Your means of avoiding the pain in your life leads to bigger problems. So it is actually better to face that pain and experience it now than to wait till the bill comes due with interest. The urge to not do it One of the hardest things to do in life is something new. You always seem to find something else to do. You could do your college thesis or you could play around of Call of Duty. You could learn the guitar or you could drink several beers.  We often wonder why we put off the project we know we need to do when that project may only take a few minutes. This is also why it is so easy for us to find ourselves browsing Facebook instead of doing whatever it is that we need to do. The instant reward is often more tempting than the delayed gratification we would get from doing the work. This all ties into the dopamine hits. We would rather be flooded from dopamine now than a small squirt at a later date. So we find interesting ways to talk ourselves into getting the dopamine hit than we do having the fear of maybe getting rejected while trying to find a client or making a sale. Yeah there is a bit of danger but why worry about that when you can be comfortable on the couch So why is this happiness not making you happy? Well its not so much not making you happy as it is leaving you feeling unfulfilled and that lack is what is causing your suffering. People who are not fulfilled are not pushing themselves to a big scary goal. They are trying stuff but they are not taking action to achieve their goals. The actions are not comfortable. They aren’t always fun. Sometimes those goals are uncomfortable and cause you to grow in places you didn’t think you had to develop.  Often when people are faced with something that is “hard” they seek out the easy way of getting it done. That is why so many people look for get-rich-quick schemes. They hope they can get rich without the difficult and needed mindset shift to actually have the money. That is why so many people show up on social media and then disappear a few months after they can't hold the money. You actually know this deep down and so you find excuses and talk yourself out of doing the difficult things because you don't want to do the challenging work on yourself. You end up playing small and then wonder why you can't make the big changes you need. You cant play small, you have to go big. Peaks and valleys As I mentioned before, we want to stay on the happy side of life. Yet that is impossible and we actually don't want to be happy all the time. You don't want to be grinning like a loon at a funeral. We want to be sad and grieve. Yet in normal circumstances, you will also have negative emotions, but you avoid them and don't allow them to happen. Why do you need the negative to have the joy? Because if we were happy all the time we wouldn’t know what joy really was. You have to have the valleys of pain and sadness to balance out the happy and victorious times we are shooting for. You need the valleys so you can get to the peaks without the valleys you don't have mountains. The higher the mountain the deeper the valley. Don't be afraid of the valley, yeah there may be swamps or other things down there but they are nothing you can't get out of. So how do you get satisfaction and accomplishments? You do the work. Use fear as a compass (Ep 26). Your life and your skills are like muscles and they have to be used. If they are new it will be messy. You will fail early and you will fail often. Yet don't look at those failures as failures but as points of learning. I am actually actively working on changing my vocabulary to get failure out of my lexicon of words I use. I want to start calling them points of learning. Because we all learn when something doesn’t work like we thought it would. Celebrate the wins you have. This will give you the dopamine hit you are looking for. Have your close friends and Include your band of brothers. Let them in on the celebration. Make each win as sweet as possible that way you get the reward your brain needs for the hard work. Notice when you are avoiding and succumbing to urges. When they are happening, listen to what your brain is saying, activate the thinking part of your mind. Go ahead and acknowledge what your monkey brain is saying and then set it aside. Your mind is just trying to protect you so ignoring it will only create resistance and that is where the urges become suffering. You have this. You can find and make the life you want. You can reach your dreams. You will find happiness in the struggle. To do that you have to get into the area of discomfort because that is the only place you will grow. Need help? You can work with me one on one or Join my exclusive men's group The Brotherhood of Men 

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 stay. If they sit around and complain but don't take any action and have nothing but excuses to provide as to why they failed then you may want to look for another group. You don't want whiners. You want men whose mantra is, "Let's Find Out". You also need to have a group of men that you can trust. This is one of the biggest factors you need to have in a men's group. What is said in a men's group stays in the men's group. It doesn't get leaked out. You don't steal ideas. You don't use what is said as a weapon against the other men. To do that you have to have trust as the biggest and most sacred keystone to the group. This is because men are going to open up to each other and share their worries and pains and they need the trust that these men are looking out for their best interest. If that trust isn't there then the growth and friendship don't happen. Word of Warning on Men's Groups Now there are some points you want to look at. when you are running a group or a group you have joined. these are key points that you want to watch out for. Pay attention to the men Are they dedicated to each other or are they out for themselves? This type of group doesn't foster trust and will rot the group from the inside out. Also, is someone's attitude and demeanor changing? If so talk to them privately and see what's going on. See what they are struggling with and encourage them to share it in the group. If it appears that there is some danger or the man in question is going down a dark path get the other men in the group to surround the guy and encourage him to get back up to his original baseline. That may include him getting some counseling or therapy. Your girl will try to get in your way Whether you are married or not. If you have a woman in your life, there is a good chance she will try to find reasons to get you to stop going to the men's group. either by teasing and demeaning the group as a whole (calling it names like, little boys club) or making comments about how you are spending more time with the men in your life than you are of her. This is partly a test and partly because she sees you becoming a better man and she may think that you are not going to find value in her anymore and leave. The key here is to not give up the men's group. You cant help her by being a weak man. You have to work on yourself and she has to do the thought work to get her in a better spot. When she sees you getting better this is going to reflect on her as to how little she is doing for herself. This is an uncomfortable feeling and she wants to have you on a lower level so she doesn't have to face her own shortcomings. All you can do is encourage and lead her so that she will be a stronger woman and find the value she has in herself. I have had men who would have family crises happen when they go out on men's trips. The girl would text and call at all times of the day. There would be drama and accusations flying as the guy is only trying to improve himself. When it is time to focus on you, that who you focus on. So stick with the men's group. When your wife starts to get antsy you know you are doing good. You are becoming stronger and it is time to love your girl and help her to be better by leading her. Protect your group Some men will show and not be a good fit for the group. You, being the organizer, will be the leader of the group. So some may come in to see how they can use the group to their own advantage, and you will have to lead them out. These groups are not for just one person's advantage they are for each member's advantage. No one gets out of this unchanged. Each man you have contact with will adapt to your way of thinking and you will adapt to theirs. Your old limiting beliefs will be burned away and the very base and truest belief you have will emerge. Is the group equal? Make sure you are in a group of equals and not a group where one person is pontificating. This is a group coaching session. Now there is nothing wrong with group coachings. You learn a lot. The reason I point this out is that you often hear some people use the term mastermind and a mastermind is a meeting of equal peers. Each man talks and shares his thoughts. If the "leader" of the group is the only one talking and the others are listening then it's not a mastermind. There are men's groups found everywhere. You have to look for them or make one yourself. If you are interested in joining a men's group I have a paid exclusive men's group that meets weekly. it is a true mastermind group of men who each help each other become the better form of themselves. If you are interested you can go to the Brotherhood of Men page and read more. Special Note: Operation Tears of the 22 is having a ruck march to raise awareness of the 22 soldiers a day we lose to suicide. If you like to help and join us for the ruck march in Chaffee Crossing In Ft. Smith, AR. We would love to have you there helping to save the lives of our veterans. Tickets Here

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 the specific. Use a means of measuring. numbers work great for this. This is so that you are able to see how far you have gone. Attainable If you are wanting to make $1,000,000 by the end of the year and it is December 1 then your goal isn't very attainable. You need to have an attainable goal. And still, make that goal scary. So if you have never made that type of money before then why not say you want to make $100,000 in a month and see if you can make that. If you can, then keep pushing and change the goal to a new number like $500,000. If you made the $100,000 then the next set could be $250,000 or $500,000 the choice is yours. Again make your goal attainable. Relevant you need to make sure your goals are relevant to what you are wanting to accomplish. If you are trying to grow your business then making sure you get to ride in the tour de France probably isn't going to align itself with your goals. Don't have a goal that is going to fight your overall goals. Timely Put a time limit on it. a goal is a dream with a deadline. You have a finishing line to strive for. The smart goal is a great way for new goal setters to actually find where they are needing help and what your strong points are. Visualization Now many people will have some problems with this but it is a powerful tool to have in your goal-setting arsenal. This uses the goals of smart goal setting and long term goals but use your imagination and feel, think, smell and imagine what it would be like if you achieved your goal. What if you could make a million dollars a year? what would that look like? What if you had your dream car? what would it feel like? what would it sound like? what your it look like? is there a specific color you want? How would you feel if you were able to attain that goal? You can with visualizations. making a vision board is one tool you can use. But the key to it all isn't just sitting down dreaming and then waiting. No, you have to get off your ass and get to work trying to get that dream to become real. Small bite-sized goals There is a book called Atomic Habits and you can work your habits into goal setting. Make small changes to increase your results. Make it a habit to exercise each day by doing pushups before you walk into your bedroom or chain together with other habits you want. The possibilities are amazing when you apply small steps to your overall plans. Tools to help build habits and complete goals 12-week planner template Atomic Habits by James Clear The Brotherhood of Men

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 working because they don't like the conditions. So Kelloggs is dropping the people who rejected the proposal and so Kelloggs did what every company has a right to do. You didn't show up to work you are fired. This is justifiable in my eyes you ain't gonna work then your not providing me any value so go pound sand. Now, who wins after the strike is over? I can tell you it's not Kelloggs and it's not the employees though they may see themselves as winning when it's all done because they are getting some extra time off and most likely more money in their pocket but who really wins here? It's the union bosses. They are the true mooches in this scenario. They did nothing other than getting more people for their members which means they get more money in their pockets. This is communism at its finest. Those at the top of the food chain get the money and power while the people they are supposed to be helping get scraps. Do I like unions? No. There is a time and a place for everything and rarely does a union actually help. They are more often than not, an arm of organized crime and they use their members to fill their bank accounts. The exchange of value is actually not there. What many people want to think is this antiwork movement is good. No its not it is not it is nothing more than a bunch of moochers who want to have something like universal income or something to that effect. Where they can receive some money for just sitting around and not providing any value. Success takes work and sacrifice Sorry, but if you want to be successful you have to provide value to people. Sitting around the house or going someplace and hanging out doesn't provide value. When you are home doing nothing you are consuming. That is what a grown boy does. While a grown man will go out and produce something. He will invest his time and energy and get paid little green certificates of appreciation for the effort. If he puts in more effort, he will get more certificates. The time it takes to make money is not the key it is the amount of value. and that is where so many Grown boys don't get it. They go to work and think that they are wasting their time. With that thought yeah they are wasting not only their time but their employer's money. They look forward to the coffee break, lunch break, the end of the day and they live for the weekend. While men who are producing don't see the weekend they see it as any other day. Do they take breaks and enjoy life? Yeah, and they can afford to go on very nice breaks. Then they are right back at work and feeling alive for producing a valuable product. Are you an Owner, a renter, or a squatter? I came across this concept on the Order of Man Podcast when Ryan Michler was talking to Pete Roberts of Origin. Pete talked about there being 3 types of people who are employed in a business. There are the Owners, The Renters, and the Squatters. A Squatter is a person who consumes the day they don't provide much if any value and only want to know what they get in return. They often can be seen skulking around the water cooler talking about how it must be nice to have all that the owner has, and complaining about what they don't have. The Renter does just enough to be a good employee. They show up on time and leave at quitting time. The Owner is the person with an owner's mentality and they show up early and they go home late. They take pride in the job that they do. They have no problem looking for other tasks that they can take on. Their eye is on the product. They want to make sure they provide the best and put their heart into what they are doing. These are the people who are often seen as the leaders of the organization. Instagram is instafake Many kids these days want to be successful. I heard a talk show host mention that his son is struggling with the concept of success. He is disheartened but the fact that he doesn't see himself being able to be successful. I have heard this several times and I believe it is because of what they are looking at on Instagram. You see many Young adults who are tooling around in nice cars and having these extravagant vacations. The interesting point is that many of these people don't own those cars and they are putting up airs that they are successful. To them, it is all about the followers. They are not providing much value and so they fall out of the limelight pretty quick. Yet the kids who see these people often don't realize they aren't seeing them as much anymore all they know is that a new influencer has cropped up and is showing them all that they wished for.

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 find the joy in that little dopamine hit you get with each small success. Those small steps are the keys to massive action. Don't worry about not following it note for note You may decide to have a 10-year Don't worry if it doesn't turn out exactly as you planned you will be way, way closer at that point than if you never started.

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 she has interpreted your actions to mean. So when your family members get upset about whatever, know that they are not angry at you. They may direct it at you but it's not your actions. They are reacting to your actions. This goes for every aspect of life. When someone chooses to get angry at something you said, most often it is because they had an involuntary thought of what you said. Then they are choosing to react instead of responding to that thought.