Question of the Week Brought to you by The Brotherhood of Men Read Bryan Goodwin's answer to My mom and I have been getting into fights. We’re both tired of it, but always seem to argue. How do I make things good again? on Quora Main Topic There is an old story about how a University professor came to China and was talking to a Zen Master about Zen. As they talked the Zen Master was serving tea. The master started pouring the tea till it was right up to the lip of the cup. Then he kept pouring until the saucer was full and finally the professor could hold his tongue anymore and blurted out its full you can’t get any more in! The Zen master replied, “This is you. How can I teach you Zen unless you empty your cup?” No, this week’s post isn’t about being zen or anything like that. It is about what are you putting in your cup are you emptying your cup or are you keeping your cup full. Are you listening to what is being said or are you just holding on to your preconceived thoughts? Are you Emptying Your Cup? Are you getting rid of any preconceived notions that you have and looking at a problem or listening with a completely open mind? Are you learning and applying those lessons you learned? You have 2 ears and one mouth Listen twice as much as you speak. You can hear what people are saying even if they don't agree with you. You can at least understand why they think the way they think. Empty Those Preconceived Notions Ask questions for understanding. Yeah, you may have your facts together but are they in order? The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west but the sun doesn’t revolve around us. You may find out that you have some facts but there is a different way to look at those facts. Apply what you have learned before you take on more So many learn and learn and learn and never apply what they have learned. They are those people who have a hundred books about starting a business but never have applied that knowledge. The professional Convention attendee. These folks are always learning instead of applying the knowledge they learn. Learning and knowledge do you no good till you apply that knowledge into a skill. Subscribe To The Podcast Sign up for a Coaching Discovery Call

The Question of The Week by The Brotherhood Of Men Read Bryan Goodwin's answer to How can I get good grades living with a toxic family? My stepdad hates me and always starts yelling at my mom or just in general when it is a lecture or test. on Quora Main Topic Have you even made a Life Statement? Do you even know what A life statement is? What is a life statement? This is a statement that give you direction into the best way to use your talents and your core values to help you make the best impact in your world. Why are life statements needed? they help you keep the course. You are able to see the big 30,000-foot view of where you are wanting to be. How do you get a life statement? Find your talents Find your Core values Decide what type of impact you want to make You can then lay your life statement out into a means that best describes what you want to do.

Question of the Week - Courtesy of The Brotherhood of Men Comes from a Youtube Comment but user D in response to the last episode Don't Settle "Don't settle for what? Lmfao. Some people don't have any choice in their circumstances you ignorant f***. By the way, no matter what action you take during your life, it ends EXACTLY the same way -…" D Youtube User Now sadly either he deleted the comment shortly after posting it or Youtube removed it. Either way, there is something wonderful about this comment. I love my haters they are hurting so much that they ask for help without realizing that they are doing so. This is a great example of how people react through projection. D here shows you how he sees the world as a hopeless endeavor and you are apparently screwed no matter what you do. Main Topic Finding who you are Find your core values Why are core values important? Your values help you to not only make decisions but also help make sure you conduct your life in a means you find worthy. How do you find your core values? Self-reflection Use a list Use your Brotherhood friends & family   Facebook group Raising Confident Men

Question of the Week By The Brotherhood of Men Why do Grandparents like to make quarrels in the house? Main Topic Why you don't want to become complacent. Becoming complacent causes you to rust. you miss many different opportunities that if you are on the lookout you could easily find. I call this complacency rusting. Because we men lose valuable skills when we start to rust. You can find rust forming on the 4 pillars of a Relaxed Male. Examples of rusting Mind - Fixed beliefs and excuses as to why you can't get better Body - Do you have a dad bod? Get winded walking up a flight of stairs Soul - Are you suffering from burnout Community - Are you losing friends? You can fix these but it takes work

This week we are talking about the current atmosphere in the US there is a lot of contention and lack of communication. We have the right rubbing the very being that drives the left up the wall. We are throwing “evidence” of why one side is right and the other side is wrong. So much that Facebook is almost unusable. I am actually thinking of installing the “Remove All Politics” Extension to my browser.  Now it isn’t because I don’t like a political discussion from time to time. I was poking multiple bears with a very short stick over on twitter during the first 2020 debate. But I will say that there was no real or honest discussion going on. It was as much a glorious free for all on twitter as it was on the stage. It was a bunch of people saying Trump should be in jail and Biden should be in the dementia wing of the old folks home.  The problem Nobody is actually throwing out facts just what they believe and there is a difference. This brings up why canceling each other doesn’t work. That is because there is no sharing of ideas. The moment someone says something that you don’t like we turn it off. There is no proof of anything being tossed around just “My thoughts matter more than yours!” Because of this we instantly stop listening and understanding the other person. We as people start shoring up our minds for the battering of our heads against the brick wall. It achieves the same results too. It doesn’t improve the standing of anybody and just creates a headache. So what is missing? The problem is that we have two sides that are not going to listen. One side yells and screams at everybody and actually achieves their goal of silencing a dissenting voice. Yet that really doesn’t fix the problem at hand. It gets the one side to stop talking but you didn’t change their mind. There were a couple of groups that have done this in the past. They used much of the same tactics as what is being seen in today’s political arena, and that is to silence the opposition. The communists in both China and the Soviets. In China, you can’t say anything bad about the government. If you do you disappear you may get lucky and wind up in a reeducation camp to become politically correct or you may just never reappear because your body is in a grave. The same was happening in Soviet Russia you may be sent to Gulag in Siberia if you had thought against the leadership. These tactics work but not for long. Like an abusive spouse, people get tired of not being able to think on their own and will start to rebel. Your son may be doing the very same thing. They are rebelling because you are not giving them room to spread their wings. What needs to be done? The big thing that needs to be done is to first stop watching television. I am sure you already know who you are going to vote for so watching for evidence to back up your vote is actually not serving you in any way.  The second is to have an open discussion set the rule for yourself that there is no yelling. Let the other person rant and rave but you will remain calm. Let the other person talk and express their thoughts. Then you can voice your opinions. Silencing people doesn’t change their minds. The honest discussion is. But be ready for your mind to not be the same afterward because you will grow.   Sign up For The Brotherhood of Men

Podcasts are becoming better known for the information they provide than just 3 guys and one brain. This week I just talk about why podcasts are so good and how they help you to become a better person

Why are both sides of the story important? often we spend way too much time thinking about what people should do instead of understanding where they are coming from. We focus on how we can control the situation instead of understanding and connect with other people. We write scripts in our heads all the time. We think of how something should be done and rarely get the other side of the story. We make a crappy first draft and then leave it at that. Instead of revising our script to allow for the whole person to show up.

Today's topic is about being successful. Why are you having trouble finding success in your financial life, or maybe the relationship between you and your son? The reasons are numerous, or should I say excuses are numerous. The truth is you have all the same abilities to be successful as the next person so why are you not on top of the world? The heart of the matter is how you are thinking of the solution. This episode sort of ties together the why Gratitude, and the abundant mindset work. Why the scarcity mindset keeps us playing it small. The term being used to this all-encompassing bond is the Laws of Attraction. These laws have been stated in one form or another for years. From before the time, Napoleon Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie for his Mental Dynamite Series to today. The term of Laws of attraction comes from Jerry and Esther Hicks. How the came to the term is a bit of the questionable side. Because the term is from Abraham who is a non-physical being channeled through Esther. Yeah, so you see why I say questionable. Any how Abraham coins the term Laws of Attraction and these are three laws that work with each other. The laws are The Law of attraction the law of Deliberate thought and The Law of Allowing The law of attraction is what allows the universe to bring to you what you want. That does have some key points to look at like bads things? yep, those too. This isn't just a feel-good force it brings whatever you want. A bad day? That's coming if your thoughts aren't right. The Deliberate thought law is how you focus your mind so that you are able to bring deliberate results into your life. While the Law of allowing is why you are not able to help others with their wants unless they truly want that help too. Also looking for men who would like to be a part of a group of like-minded men who are determined to have success in their lives. We are part accountability group part cheerleaders part brothers. If you are interested in joining this group please join the Conclave of Men

Main topic How to get back up after being handed a defeat Look at that failure as a learning experience. We all struggle and we all fall down. We fail at something. What do you do get back up or just lay there? Look at all the underdog stories. We root for rocky to get back up. We cheered when the US hockey team whooped up on the Communists. We celebrate the triumphs. Yet we as people shy away from struggling. Our amygdala's wants us to be comfortable and sadly we avoid the struggle. I do the same thing I know I need to get something done on the coaching business yet at the end of the day I will sit down and get lost in a video game. We all struggle with an obstacle. Mine is getting clients while yours could be more basic. Like finding food The act of getting back up is a new struggle that you have done before and you get better at it each time. Look at a toddler learning to walk they fall and whack their head on the ground a few times. That is part of the process. Having a sore butt from landing on it so much. Yet, as they learn their legs get stronger their balance gets better they learn the fine motor skills needed to put one foot in front of the other. People who struggle find the strength needed to go on. Picking yourself up often being knocked down is only part of the process. The rest of the process is getting back into the fight and learning how to get past the problem at hand Sadly we focus on the struggle as being a bad thing when it is something that is to be viewed with honor and reverence. I have started taking this stance with my kids. Let them struggle they are figuring it out. They will be better adults as they hunt for the answers. I am one who wishes I knew about the honor of struggling when they were younger. It would have saved a lot of headaches on my part. Join The Conclave of Men Have a discovery call with Bryan

Are you driving through life by looking through the windshield or are you driving by the rearview mirror? So many times we look in the rearview mirror instead of the windshield while going through life. Why do we do this? There is a reason we drive looking out of the windshield of a car and not through the rearview mirror. First off there is the size of the viewport. A rearview mirror is a very small piece as apposed to all the real estate that is the windshield.  So look ahead and there are more important things going on there than in the mirror. Yeah, past events are important but nowhere near as important as what is in your future. Your past doesn't define you as much as you wish it would.

What does it mean to be dangerous? For our guest host this week it means to stop playing it safe. Don’t spend your time worry so much about what the neighbors think and pursue the FLAP. We all want Freedom Love Aliveness and Peace. To attain these four wonderful items you have to examine why are you not reaching those levels? Whatis it that you are afraid is going to happen if you do achieve your goals. So being dangerous means stop playing it safe. So many men who do play it safe do so because they fear having to either a start over once they reach their goal or be they are afraid of what others may think. That other maybe your co-workers or your wife or son. So how do you teach your son to be dangerous? You can do so by example and through communication. How do you show your teenage boys how to not care what other people think? Because that is the Conformity pressure chamber? You talk with him. You spend time building the trust that you aren't going to blow up at him for every little infraction and mistake he makes. You can Listen to Tripp's Podcast The New Man Podcast buy Tripp Lanier’s book:This Book Will Make You Dangerous You can Also Follow Tripp on Social Media Twitter-TrippLanier Facebook- Tripp Lanier

This week we are talking about The Man’s Soul. This pillar has a couple of different facets. Not only does it mean building and creating but Feeding your soul is also tied to mental health. What does a Man’s soul mean?  In a nutshell, it is being creative. We are said to be made in God’s image He is also called the creator. He created the Heavens and the earth and all that goes with that. If we are made in his image then it would be thought that we are creators too.  Be A Creator So to feed your mind you need to be creating something be it painting, woodworking, peace within yourself. We all have a need and drive to be creating.  Find a Hobby This is why having a hobby where you are finding something you are passionate about is so important. Being a historical reenactor, flying R/C Planes, even talking to others. You are creating connections and feeding your soul. Enter your Zone of Genius Your soul also means approaching and finding your zone of genius. This is a term coined by Gay Hendricks in The Big Leap. This the work you were meant to be doing. You find it way too easy to do. You find it hard to pull away from. Time seems to both stand still and fly at the same time. It is the easiest for you to enter that flow state where you get so much done. Why is Feeding your soul so important? Ever been trapped in a soul-sucking job? Many men have. It is thought this is one reason why so many men commit suicide on Sunday night/Monday Morning. While others face almost crippling burnout. This is what happens when you don’t feed your soul. WE lose who we are, our soul. It is imperative for men to find a way to feed our souls.  It allows for your mind to unwind and expand in other directions. We are thinking creatures. This is what places us above all the other animals on earth. We have this ability to experience an event and reflect on it. Find that there are lessons learned from it and grow in our knowledge.  It isn’t being stress-free. Look at your kids as they play video games. They get tense and angry, and if you ask them why they play a game that makes them so mad they say because it is fun. Your passion is the same way. Feeding your soul isn’t about relieving stress. It is living in the moment. Shifting gears from the daily grind. It is taking time for yourself  That may mean going out into the woods and going for a walk. Doing some activity for the sake of yourself. You don’t have to get alone to be able to feed your soul you can also be with others who are on the same path. These people can have the same passions for the same things as you. You can build together. 

Why does a man’s mind need to be kept up? That is what we talk about this week on our continuing series about the 4 pillars of a relaxed Male or maybe fo a confident man. I don’t know I am playing with the thought and still working through some of the details. Either way, the principles of a man’s mind will stay the same.    What do I mean by a man’s mind You have to feed your mind to keep it strong.  Don’t mean just puzzles It is you You need it to make decisions  You have the power of reason Why is your mind important? Way to keep your mind strong Read nonfiction books Self-help Biographies  Learn a new word of the day Conversations  Practice mindfulness  Television will rot your brain Stay away from junk content How do you keep your mind strong? You have to keep your wits sharp You have to keep mental illness at bay You have to have logic and reasoning  Why is the man’s mind important to being a relaxed male?

Question of the week https://www.quora.com/Is-it-better-to-reward-good-value-or-punish-bad-behavior-during-parenting/answer/Bryan-Goodwin-10?ch=10&share=1a1465c2&srid=p0zJe   Main topic Why is the man’s body important to living a relaxed male lifestyle? The body is where you are at. Yeah, you are also in your mind but your body represents who you are. Are you fat or just slightly pudgy? Maybe you are a bean pole. How we look is important and tells the world a lot of what we think of ourselves. So your body is also about your health. This means getting your body in shape helping you to find the love you need for yourself. You want to exercise because you want to honor your body. It also helps you live longer.  We abuse our bodies so much and don’t show it the respect we need to show. So there is a change in ourselves we need to make if we want to be successful and prosperous. Treating our bodies right helps also show our sons what it means to take care of ourselves. You show them that nothing is easy but the results are worth it. Why is your health so important You have a better life. Your life is better when you are healthy. Now I didn’t say it was perfect but it is worth it. You have a better outlook on life and you see the possibilities in a clearer mind. You think clearer Yes, your mind isn’t as jumbled up with all the mess and extra thinking when you have a healthy body., Your body carries oxygen better which helps you think better. You don’t have as many constricted capillaries that allow the blood to flow even easier. This in turn helps keep your blood pressure down. We need controlled violent activities Men have this crazy chemical in our systems called Testosterone, and it is what causes us to have denser muscles and other attributes. One thing about testosterone is that it needs to be burned off. To burn it off men have to have controlled violent activities. This is why boys can concentrate better after exercise. Boys often have way more energy than what they know what to do with. So they burn it off by running and jumping and daring each other to try crazy challenges. As a grown man we have the same problem yet if we don’t use it up we produce less. So it is a case of use it or loses it. So this is why Jujitsu or some other activity is needed for us men. That is why if you want to have more testosterone it is actually good to just go out in the back and throw a heavy rock around the yard. Do something more than just a leisure walk. Do aggressive pushups or run some bleachers. So something in a more aggressive form.f It helps you live longer With better health is a better heart. A better heart gives you a healthier mind. With all this, you have a chance to live your life to its fullest. You have less stress When you have used up all your excess energy you don’t have the reserves to apply to stress. That stress is often just penny up energy that comes in the form of stress. When you aren’t thinking as clearly your mind thinks up other things to worry about. Proves that hard work is worth it When you work out all the time you see the change in your body. That change isn’t instant but one day you look and suddenly you have muscles in places you never knew you have muscles  Discomfort doesn’t kill you but it makes you stronger. You find out that those sore joints and muscles won’t kill you yeah they are uncomfortable but you press through it and you find that you are better for it. Now I am going to be doing the 75Hard by Andy Frisells’s 75hard program. This is where for the next 75 days I will do some rather challenging tasks. You may not think they are hard when you see them but I have heard many people quit and I hear my mind making up excuses right now as to why I can’t do it. So I am ready. Are you join me and we will get over this hump together.  Join me by starting here. If you are interested in making a group where we can support each other let me know.

Today I called an audible. I was going to do the first of the 4 pillars of Relaxed Male but instead, I decided to have a conversation with a good friend of mine Jake Warner. And we explored the challenging but best ways to approach racism in today’s environment. We explore what best can be done to address the issue from just shutting one’s mouth and listening with empathy, to have those scary conversations. You will learn more and connect better when you do have a  You can find Jake at all the places you can find podcasts Apple Podcast Google Podcast Podchaser IHeartRadio   Jakes Social Media  Twitter - Jake’s Profile Twitter - Big Brother Jake’s Podcast Facebook

Why are there pillars Like many things, you have to have a foundation to build on. Each pillar is centered around a portion of men’s life that needs to be kept up so that he can have a full and happy life.  Life a table with 4 legs you can have 3 out of the 4 and it will do ok but it isn’t stable. One wrongly places event and the table falls. How do the pillars work? Each pillar points to a part of a man’s life that is important for him to have a well-rounded life. Missing one isn’t going to wreck his life but he isn’t going to excel as much as he would like to.  The Man’s Mind Mans body  Mans Soul Man’s Community So having a well-rounded life that allows you to beagle to relax and be present in your son's life is important. Sometimes you have to focus in more on one pilar but keeping your learning and physical activity in balance with your soul and still going out and growing your community is very important.

Question of the week John Dude, I thought this was a podcast that was supposed to help dads with their sons. When are you going to start helping those dads with their sons? Main Topic We are often stoic for many reasons but can that be overdone? Yes, the answer is simply yes. It can be overdone. We as people develop different means to cope with the different events in our lives. Often though we use these coping mechanisms to help us avoid uncomfortable situations or events. As men, we have a different set of skills and abilities that we are able to use in stressful situations. These skills are often called stoicism. This is where we hold off on letting emotions take ahold of us until a later time. This is because we are often putting ourselves into stressful events, ie war, protecting our family, and similar circumstances.   Yet sometimes we as humans avoid those emotions or take stoicism to an extreme. Doing this we deny our emotions the life they need to live. We see emotions as this thing that just gets in the way of our comfort and so we avoid circumstances and events that cause unwanted emotions to crop up. We resist those emotions we perceive to be bad emotions.  Why you don’t want to resist your emotions Emotions are the color of your memories. When we remember back to times when we were young we think of how you felt. I remember the smell of my great grandparent’s property. Central Texas in the spring. Everything smelt green you had the fragrances of henbit and sage mixed with the humidity and I feel happy and free on their property. I would go to the creek to go fishing if there was water or just explore the rocks when there was no water.  As you see the emotions are the binding element of your memory it colors it and takes you right back to that time. Even times when it wasn’t just rainbows and lollipops still have those emotions tied to your experience. You even are able to look back and laugh at those times that were simply miserable. Maybe you went on a camping trip and it rained the whole time you were there. It was just a light rain it was a turd floater the whole weekend. Yeah it was cold and nothing was dry but when you look back on it you laugh. Especially when you have your friends involved. If you were in the military you know Bootcamp sucked but you still can’t help but look back and have fond memories of the gas chamber and getting smoked because someone left a locker unlocked. Emotions are apart of who we are. They may have been designed to help us know when we are safe but they are more than that now. That fear and anxiety you have now use to crop up when you were exploring a new cave to see if you can live there or was there a bear that was already inhabiting it. You would have been nervous and on edge, till you were able to prove to yourself that there wasn’t anything in there that could eat you. Once you had a fire and was able to eat yourself you felt comfortable and at rest. In today’s world we see an uncomfortable situation it isn’t a matter of life and death it is a matter of comfort or discomfort. You aren’t very likely to die if you get uncomfortable and you are not going to starve to death if you don’t go out. So we don’t have to bear the discomfort of different emotions as we use to. In fact, we have become averse to some emotions and we deny those emotions. Doing so has many problematic effects on us. We don’t grow Much like your muscles, if you don’t work them you become weaker. If you want to beagle to face the challenges you have in your life you have to experience the emotions that come with it. Life is 50% pleasure and 50% pain. You can’t escape the pains of life. And you really wouldn’t want to anyway. Why would you want to be happy at a friend’s funeral? You would want to be sad. You would want to grieve the loss of your friend. When you resist feeling emotions you resist the ability to grow. You develop stronger skills when you are stressed by an occurrence. You find out that that fear you had was just holding you back. If you don’t experience that fear and anxiety of trying that something new you will just keep avoiding it each time you encounter it. Instead, the more you feel that fear the more you are ready to head right into the problem. You cant become the great man you wan tot be if you are running away from everything that scares you. You can’t kill the dragon if you don’t approach it. We can’t relate When talking to people you share stories. What are stories other than tales that help others experience the emotions you were feeling at the time? Remember emotions are colors. So if you avoid fear and anxiety and other negative emotions you are not going to have the experiences that others will have. This will cause you to not be able to relate to what others are going through. You will be wrapped up in your own emotions and trying to avoid them. Addiction When resisting emotions we develop some harmful habits. These habits are made to distract us. They keep us from having to experience that emotion but making us feel something completely different for a short time and often at the detriment of our happiness. Look at a time in your life where you decided that you had a crappy day and you are just going to get drunk you can’t deal with what was going on anymore so you grab your poison of choice and get to work. Soon you are thoroughly polluted. That night you go to be and wake up feeling horrible. You are hungover. Your head feels like a bunch of kindergarteners are using it as a pinata and you have a bad case of sour stomach. Now imaging doing that every day and you are an alcoholic. You make yourself feel like crap because you don’t want to face the emotions of the day. What does that accomplish? Because you are resisting the discomfort of life you are in fact making yourself feel even worse. There is no logic in that. Yeah, your mind may come up with some clever excuse as to why but if you step out of your “oh woe is me” world you will see how screwed up that thinking really is. This addiction can go towards overeating. How do you feel after you have been stress eating? You don’t feel stress anymore but you feel bloated and sluggish. Which is honestly better? The stress of the moment or the bloated feeling you have? Apply that to heroin. Yeah, you leave this world but what is the cost? That cost is detrimental to you, your family, your lively hood, and your life. Resisting causes the denied emotion to grow. If you are trying to avoid stress or anxiety, you will often try all sorts of tactics to avoid that feeling. We often want to blame others for the source of our emotions and that simply isn’t the case. Your thoughts of a circumstance cause your emotions. So when you start obsessing over avoiding that emotion you are going to think of that emotion even more. Thus you are making your anxiety even stronger. Resisting your emotions cause you to also start to feel isolated and alone. This is the time you really need to have your friends close by and readily able to talk to. Yet if you are resisting that discussion your friend’s sense that you are hiding something and this causes your friends to start distancing themselves. So you make your problem grow even more. All because you are denying your emotions the life they are supposed to have. Feeling Stuck If you are not willing to go into the discomfort needed for you to grow and become the person you were supposed to be. Then you start to feel as if your life has become stagnate and you are stuck. So you have to find a way to get out of that rut and face the fear and discomfort of growing. To do that you have to face the emotions that you are feeling. How? So how do you allow your emotions to live? Well, the main way is to be with your emotions to give them space. Now, this is easier said than done. Your mind will fight you on going back to being comfortable. So it is easier to do when you have someone you can lean on. There is coaching that will help you see where your thoughts are leading you astray. A good coach will give you exercises that can help you see when you are lying to yourself and making excuses and much more. Another way you can get help is by joining a group of people who are committed to helping you. Often this is called a mastermind or just a support group much like The Conclave of Men.  Finally, if you have a friend who is on the same path you are. Start talking with them and actually listen to them. Now, what does giving space to your emotions mean? Giving yourself space means that you aren’t going to try to fight your emotions. IF you feel an emotion rise stop what you are doing and allow it to do its thing. Look at and examine that feeling with some curiosity. What does it feel like? Is it warm or cold? Does it have pressure somewhere on your body? What type of pressure. A shallow dull pressure or sharp and pointed? Look at it. Examine it. Give it a name. Often we won’t know what that emotion really is when it first crops up. But if you sit back and come to understand it you may see that the sadness is really grief and grief is a celebration of a loss of a connection. We remember what that person meant to us.  So Take the time needed to come to understand your emotions. Understanding them is good. You don’t have to let them run your life but you need to let them run their life. So many times we worry that we will drown in sorrow. When in reality that sorrow will only arise when we think back on the lost connection. That is ok and is just fine to feel the loss. It is good to feel sorrow. It is good to have that fire of determination. We need that fuel to get ourselves out of the hole we are in. Once we go through that fire we often find out that we are stronger and better equipped for the next challenge that comes our way.

This is part 2 of a 2 part series I would recommend you listen to episode 29 first. Now, this is a new concept for me and it was introduced to me from a friend of mine. She is a counselor who works with sex offenders. She was talking about how they use the information about The Man Box to help them. Now This episode is more than likely going to drift on the political a bit. This isn’t a political site. This website is men focused and meant to help men raise strong confident boys to they can be leaders in society. To do that we sadly have to get our political feet wet today. Again I apologize there are way too much politics and tribalism going on in the world today. When there is a line crossed I will take a stand. As a Man Should. So I got to looking at what in the world the man box was. I came across the ted talk by Tony Porter which is the very first video that pops up on youtube. Now Tony started out as a child in the inner city. He talks about how growing up in New York he was taught that Men had to be tough, strong, courageous, dominating, no pain, emotionless except anger and no fear, men are in change which means women are not, That men lead and you just fall in line, Men are superior and women are inferior, Men strong women weak, that women are less valuable. They are the property of men. Now he goes on and talks about his dad atone of his brother’s funeral, and how he held his tears in till the women left. He then progresses to a story about a girl name Shiela and his interactions with her.  From here he digresses into the problem with the man box and the problem I have with the man box. Where he says that all men function in the deepest foundations or the man Box we inherently undervalue women which makes us see them as objects. This Man box is the topic of today’s discussion. The biggest problem with all the studies I am about to talk about and it will be beaten in your head throughout this episode is that for people who hate stereotypes they love to stereotype when it fits their needs. Now again I do realize that that view is also a stereotype so this just proves my point even more. What is the Man Box? It is a perceived list of values all men are supposed to hold to. Now the “supposed to” is used on purpose because in this argument one side thinks that is how we act and the other side thinks how we don’t act. There are academic papers that are pushing this Man Box listed all over the place. There are studies about how The role of masculine norms and gender role conflict. There are studies about Toxic Masculinity The Man Box is also called Toxic Masculinity. This is where so many people get the idea of Masculinity as being bad, and we need to break the Gender norms and such instances as this. They are fundamentally wrong and we will get into these instances later. Now according to Richmond College, The Man Box is described as, A term that researchers use to describe the dominant form of masculinity in the United States at this time is known as Hegemonic Masculinity, which Mark Greene (2013) and others have described as the “Man Box.” Now that Hegemonic Masculinity is a $10 word and I had a 50¢ vocabulary so I did look up and see what Hegemonic masculinity means and it is according to Wikipedia Hegemonic masculinity is defined as a practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of the common male population and women, and other marginalized ways of being a man From what I see that is the common Alpha Male and Beta Male line of thinking. This is also an incorrect way to look at men.  Now the Term Man Box goes all the way back 40 years ago to an activist named Paul Kivel. His Wikipedia page isn’t very filled out so what is listed is. Kivel co-founded the Oakland Men's Project, a community education center focused on preventing male violence, and has been called "an innovative leader in violence prevention. According to one study called, The Man Box: A Study on Being a Young Man in the US, UK, and Mexico a rigid construct of cultural ideas about male identity. This includes being self-sufficient, acting tough, looking physically attractive, sticking to rigid gender roles, being heterosexual, having sexual prowess, and using aggression to resolve conflicts. This is the primary study that I read through and this took a while because of the double standard and I could only handle it at short chunks because of the double standard.  The 7 Pillars of the Man Box In the study the divided the man box up into 7 different categories and they are. Self Sufficiency A man never talks about his feeling if he wants to get respect. Men should figure out their problems on their own. Acting Tough If a man doesn’t fight back, he is weak. Men should act strong even if they are nervose or scared. Physical Attractiveness A man has to look good if he wants to be successful. Yet women don’t like men who fuss too much with their hair clothes and skin. And if men spend too much time on their looks they aren’t manly. Rigid Gender Roles Men should earn the money and women should stay home and take care of the kids. Boys should have to learn how to cook clean or take care of kids. Husbands don’t have to do chores Homophobia Gay men are not real men but it is OK to be friends with a gay man. (Yeah figure that one out) Hypersexuality Real Men should have as many sexual partners as they can and never say no to sex. Aggression and Control Real men use violence to get respect. A man should always have the final say in a family, and they should know where their girlfriend or woman is at all times. Already you are seeing the flaws in the man box theory. First, they destroy their argument in the Homophobia category.  Yet let’s look at some other problems men are in other studies. Boys are more likely to take risks and partake in risky behaviors. Yes, boys take more risks and the competition of being the best is in all of us. They are more fearless Boys like to show off yet women too like to show off in their own natural way. You have to be successful We all want to be successful. Men are more likely to take the risks needed to have their own business. Engage in watching pornography more Now, this is a problem. I agree. I am starting to look at what porn does to a man’s way of thinking. And I am starting to see what Pornography does to a man’s thought process. But it isn’t an objectification of women like many people want to think. Yet it does take away the connection to your wife if you are married. Yet I would say we need to look at why men turn to porn in the first place. Emotionless This is the natural inclination to stoicism men develop. This is a skill that men require not to turn their emotions off like a switch but to set their emotions off to the side until there is a proper time to process them.  There is a problem with both sexes in that they will run from uncomfortable emotions. They will bury then so that they don’t have to experience them. This does cause problems and this problem is again in both sexes. This is where much of the problem of overeating comes in to play, along with alcoholism and drug addiction. Have higher mental health problems This is going to have some finger-pointing. I believe this is from many of the outside influences on the boys as they are growing up. The schools treat boys as if they are broken girls. Boys are not allowed to be boys. There is a fundamental difference between the two sexes and all of the postmodern deconstructionism that is going on in colleges these days adds only more mental health problems and confusion. Attacks on masculinity as being bad adds even more fuel wind to the tempest. There are no healthy debates going on. There is way too much tribalism. All of this has stifled real men and boys from being able to have healthy talks. Trying to fix something that isn’t broke only breaks more stuff. More prone to bullying This is an increase across both sexes. This has gone on for centuries. Is bullying a problem? It can be but if you can teach a boy to be stoic and let him understand that each man has the ability to disarm the bully by using confidence. Any time you stand out from the crowd people is going to try to pull you down. This is called The Tall poppy syndrome. I talked about this in episode 23. I also see bullying as a normal rite of passage. It does strengthen you for life. You will face assholes all along your journey you have how do you deal with them? You have teachers who will not like you you will have upper-level managers who see you as a threat. You will have people who will delight in making your life hell. How do you deal with this normal everyday occurrence? You learn from them. One of the best ways to teach confidence for kids in school is to help them learn that they have power. That can mean that they have to bloody a bully’s nose at some time. That is actually a good thing it teaches the bully that their actions are not accepted and that you never know who you‘re messing with. So get your kid into some type of martial arts. They learn to fight when it is needed. Lack of friends to talk to Look at young boys they make friends at the drop of a hat. This skill is lost as we get older. Look at 45-year-old men they may only have 1 or 2 close friends. This on their head it isn’t because men can’t have friends it is because we get caught up in the grind of life. Helping our families. This is a problem but it isn’t strictly associated with men I know many women who have only 1 or 2 close friends. Will stand by and watch This is a societal problem. Not only do men stand by and let injustice happen but I see just as many women standing to the side with their phone’s camera out and recording. What are men in reality Men actually do the following We protect those close to us We do stand up for those who are our family. If the need arises we will fight. We will resort to violent actions. We may not want to but we will. This is why men go to war. They believe in a cause and are willing to put their lives on the line. This is where many of the Man Box categories are actually put to good use. War is risky so when being raised up this is why boys take more risk. We naturally train ourselves to do fearless activities. It shows us that 90% of the time we won’t actually die from being uncomfortable.  We have the needed aggression to do the hard work. That aggression is also used so that we go after what we want. We don’t give up just because something is in our way. The lack of emotions that these studies find also helps in protecting our families. WE do have to act in moments of fear and high stress. When loud explosions are going on around us we have to know there is a time and a place for everything and paying attention to the amygdala on a battlefield will often get you shot. This is called Stoicism and it is a good thing for men to have. So we aren’t just standing in the middle of a crowd boohooing.  Men serve their community WE have friends and working or running a business is serving the community. We have to take risks to run a business. We can’t succumb to fear when making a business decision because it will most likely be the wrong choice. Men provide for their family This is us reaping the rewards of serving the community. Life is a set of transactions and that sounds cold to many who think capitalism is wrong but it is a fact. You cant receive unless you give. This goes with respect, Having a wife, having friends, and having a business. Without many aspects of the Man Box, you cant have a stable society. These social constructs have been with us for many millennia. They serve us well and they are there for a damn good reason. Now I will say I agree with Tony at the end of his talk. Because in all reality I am doing a lot on this site to do what he thinks needs to be done to fix the Man Box. He stats that is it ok to not be dominating. It is OK to have feelings and emotions. It is OK to promote equality, it is OK to have women who are just friends, That it is ok to be whole. That is what I do on this site and this podcast. If you go through and look we talk a hell of a lot about emotions and what they are and why they are good to have. Equality is always something we all strive for real equality not to sacrifice one person's rights gifts and give them to a different person who someone arbitrarily feels needs more rights and special help. We all have the ability to be successful. And there would be more successful with less victim mindset. When we have the stoicism and integrity in your life you can have women as friends.  Other Relaxed Male posts about Toxic Masculinity There is No Toxic Masculinity Because Our Boys Aren’t Broken Let Boys be Boys

Now, this is a new concept for me and it was introduced to me from a friend of mine. She is a counselor who works with sex offenders. She was talking about how they use the information about The Man Box to help them. Now This episode is more than likely going to drift on the political a bit. This isn’t a political site. This website is men focused and meant to help men raise strong confident boys to they can be leaders in society. To do that we sadly have to get our political feet wet today. Again I apologize there are way too much politics and tribalism going on in the world today. When there is a line crossed I will take a stand. As a Man Should. So I got to looking at what in the world the man box was. I came across the ted talk by Tony Porter which is the very first video that pops up on youtube. Now Tony started out as a child in the inner city. He talks about how growing up in New York he was taught that Men had to be tough, strong, courageous, dominating, no pain, emotionless except anger and no fear, men are in change which means women are not, That men lead and you just fall in line, Men are superior and women are inferior, Men strong women weak, that women are less valuable. They are the property of men. Now he goes on and talks about his dad atone of his brother’s funeral, and how he held his tears in till the women left. He then progresses to a story about a girl name Shiela and his interactions with her.  From here he digresses into the problem with the man box and the problem I have with the man box. Where he says that all men function in the deepest foundations or the man Box we inherently undervalue women which makes us see them as objects. This Man box is the topic of today’s discussion. The biggest problem with all the studies I am about to talk about and it will be beaten in your head throughout this episode is that for people who hate stereotypes they love to stereotype when it fits their needs. Now again I do realize that that view is also a stereotype so this just proves my point even more. What is the Man Box? It is a perceived list of values all men are supposed to hold to. Now the “supposed to” is used on purpose because in this argument one side thinks that is how we act and the other side thinks how we don’t act. There are academic papers that are pushing this Man Box listed all over the place. There are studies about how The role of masculine norms and gender role conflict. There are studies about Toxic Masculinity The Man Box is also called Toxic Masculinity. This is where so many people get the idea of Masculinity as being bad, and we need to break the Gender norms and such instances as this. They are fundamentally wrong and we will get into these instances later. Now according to Richmond College, The Man Box is described as, A term that researchers use to describe the dominant form of masculinity in the United States at this time is known as Hegemonic Masculinity, which Mark Greene (2013) and others have described as the “Man Box.” Now that Hegemonic Masculinity is a $10 word and I had a 50¢ vocabulary so I did look up and see what Hegemonic masculinity means and it is according to Wikipedia Hegemonic masculinity is defined as a practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of the common male population and women, and other marginalized ways of being a man From what I see that is the common Alpha Male and Beta Male line of thinking. This is also an incorrect way to look at men.  Now the Term Man Box goes all the way back 40 years ago to an activist named Paul Kivel. His Wikipedia page isn’t very filled out so what is listed is. Kivel co-founded the Oakland Men's Project, a community education center focused on preventing male violence, and has been called "an innovative leader in violence prevention. According to one study called, The Man Box: A Study on Being a Young Man in the US, UK, and Mexico a rigid construct of cultural ideas about male identity. This includes being self-sufficient, acting tough, looking physically attractive, sticking to rigid gender roles, being heterosexual, having sexual prowess, and using aggression to resolve conflicts. This is the primary study that I read through and this took a while because of the double standard and I could only handle it at short chunks because of the double standard.  The 7 Pillars of the Man Box In the study the divided the man box up into 7 different categories and they are. Self Sufficiency A man never talks about his feeling if he wants to get respect. Men should figure out their problems on their own. Acting Tough If a man doesn’t fight back, he is weak. Men should act strong even if they are nervose or scared. Physical Attractiveness A man has to look good if he wants to be successful. Yet women don’t like men who fuss too much with their hair clothes and skin. And if men spend too much time on their looks they aren’t manly. Rigid Gender Roles Men should earn the money and women should stay home and take care of the kids. Boys should have to learn how to cook clean or take care of kids. Husbands don’t have to do chores Homophobia Gay men are not real men but it is OK to be friends with a gay man. (Yeah figure that one out) Hypersexuality Real Men should have as many sexual partners as they can and never say no to sex. Aggression and Control Real men use violence to get respect. A man should always have the final say in a family, and they should know where their girlfriend or woman is at all times. Already you are seeing the flaws in the man box theory. First, they destroy their argument in the Homophobia category.  Yet let’s look at some other problems men are in other studies. Boys are more likely to take risks and partake in risky behaviors. Yes, boys take more risks and the competition of being the best is in all of us. They are more fearless Boys like to show off yet women too like to show off in their own natural way. You have to be successful We all want to be successful. Men are more likely to take the risks needed to have their own business. Engage in watching pornography more Now, this is a problem. I agree. I am starting to look at what porn does to a man’s way of thinking. And I am starting to see what Pornography does to a man’s thought process. But it isn’t an objectification of women like many people want to think. Yet it does take away the connection to your wife if you are married. Yet I would say we need to look at why men turn to porn in the first place. Emotionless This is the natural inclination to stoicism men develop. This is a skill that men require not to turn their emotions off like a switch but to set their emotions off to the side until there is a proper time to process them.  There is a problem with both sexes in that they will run from uncomfortable emotions. They will bury then so that they don’t have to experience them. This does cause problems and this problem is again in both sexes. This is where much of the problem of overeating comes in to play, along with alcoholism and drug addiction. Have higher mental health problems This is going to have some finger-pointing. I believe this is from many of the outside influences on the boys as they are growing up. The schools treat boys as if they are broken girls. Boys are not allowed to be boys. There is a fundamental difference between the two sexes and all of the postmodern deconstructionism that is going on in colleges these days adds only more mental health problems and confusion. Attacks on masculinity as being bad adds even more fuel wind to the tempest. There are no healthy debates going on. There is way too much tribalism. All of this has stifled real men and boys from being able to have healthy talks. Trying to fix something that isn’t broke only breaks more stuff. More prone to bullying This is an increase across both sexes. This has gone on for centuries. Is bullying a problem? It can be but if you can teach a boy to be stoic and let him understand that each man has the ability to disarm the bully by using confidence. Any time you stand out from the crowd people is going to try to pull you down. This is called The Tall poppy syndrome. I talked about this in episode 23. I also see bullying as a normal rite of passage. It does strengthen you for life. You will face assholes all along your journey you have how do you deal with them? You have teachers who will not like you you will have upper-level managers who see you as a threat. You will have people who will delight in making your life hell. How do you deal with this normal everyday occurrence? You learn from them. One of the best ways to teach confidence for kids in school is to help them learn that they have power. That can mean that they have to bloody a bully’s nose at some time. That is actually a good thing it teaches the bully that their actions are not accepted and that you never know who you‘re messing with. So get your kid into some type of martial arts. They learn to fight when it is needed. Lack of friends to talk to Look at young boys they make friends at the drop of a hat. This skill is lost as we get older. Look at 45-year-old men they may only have 1 or 2 close friends. This on their head it isn’t because men can’t have friends it is because we get caught up in the grind of life. Helping our families. This is a problem but it isn’t strictly associated with men I know many women who have only 1 or 2 close friends. Will stand by and watch This is a societal problem. Not only do men stand by and let injustice happen but I see just as many women standing to the side with their phone’s camera out and recording. What are men in reality Men actually do the following We protect those close to us We do stand up for those who are our family. If the need arises we will fight. We will resort to violent actions. We may not want to but we will. This is why men go to war. They believe in a cause and are willing to put their lives on the line. This is where many of the Man Box categories are actually put to good use. War is risky so when being raised up this is why boys take more risk. We naturally train ourselves to do fearless activities. It shows us that 90% of the time we won’t actually die from being uncomfortable.  We have the needed aggression to do the hard work. That aggression is also used so that we go after what we want. We don’t give up just because something is in our way. The lack of emotions that these studies find also helps in protecting our families. WE do have to act in moments of fear and high stress. When loud explosions are going on around us we have to know there is a time and a place for everything and paying attention to the amygdala on a battlefield will often get you shot. This is called Stoicism and it is a good thing for men to have. So we aren’t just standing in the middle of a crowd boohooing.  Men serve their community WE have friends and working or running a business is serving the community. We have to take risks to run a business. We can’t succumb to fear when making a business decision because it will most likely be the wrong choice. Men provide for their family This is us reaping the rewards of serving the community. Life is a set of transactions and that sounds cold to many who think capitalism is wrong but it is a fact. You cant receive unless you give. This goes with respect, Having a wife, having friends, and having a business. Without many aspects of the Man Box, you cant have a stable society. These social constructs have been with us for many millennia. They serve us well and they are there for a damn good reason. Now I will say I agree with Tony at the end of his talk. Because in all reality I am doing a lot on this site to do what he thinks needs to be done to fix the Man Box. He stats that is it ok to not be dominating. It is OK to have feelings and emotions. It is OK to promote equality, it is OK to have women who are just friends, That it is ok to be whole. That is what I do on this site and this podcast. If you go through and look we talk a hell of a lot about emotions and what they are and why they are good to have. Equality is always something we all strive for real equality not to sacrifice one person's rights gifts and give them to a different person who someone arbitrarily feels needs more rights and special help. We all have the ability to be successful. And there would be more successful with less victim mindset. When we have the stoicism and integrity in your life you can have women as friends.  Other Relaxed Male posts about Toxic Masculinity There is No Toxic Masculinity Because Our Boys Aren’t Broken Let Boys be Boys  

Why are questions important? Your brain is a computer and will look for the answer you ask it. What does this make possible? Big Leap Questions Am I willing to increase the amount of time each day that I feel good inside An inner sense of well being An I willing to increase the amount of time my whole life goes well Work relationships Am I willing to feel good and have my life go well all the time? If you argue your limitations you get to keep them. Stop fighting to keep your limitations What’s the payoff for limitations? Limiting beliefs are erroneous but for your protections Are you willing to take the big leap in love money and creative contributions How much love and abundance are you willing to allow? How are you getting in your own way? Will you commit to living in your zone of genius all the time Zone of Genius What do I most love to do? What do I do that doesn’t seem like work? What is my unique ability Other Questions to ask Why is this problem important for me to face? Why is this problem so excellent? What is the best use of my time? Does this feeling serve me? How does this project advance my goals? What am I grateful for? What am I going to accomplish today? What is your greatest asset? Are you willing to forgive yourself? Are you willing to laugh at your mistakes? Why am I doing what I am doing?

Main topic Having gratitude can overcome most obstacles. How does gratitude help? It changes your mindset to one of the abundance EP14 - https://www.relaxedmale.com/ep-14-the-abundance-mindset/ You can't be negative when you see the abundance you have. It is the root of an abundant mindset - https://www.relaxedmale.com/why-gratitude-is-important/ while being grateful for what you have you are more open for seeing what is possible You are easier to get along with You are all around a happier person More difficult to get you down It stops the comparison game - https://www.relaxedmale.com/the-comparison-game-dont-play-it/ How to have more gratitude The best tool is the gratitude journal When complaining to stop yourself from complaining give three things you are grateful for in this current situation Ask yourself what does this make possible?

Question of the Week This weeks question is from Quora https://qr.ae/pNyZ5J Main topic Fear, is something we have all experienced in one form or another sometime in our life. I remember when I was a little kid I was in the kitchen at night and grabbing some snacks I wasn’t supposed to have and suddenly a large column candle we had on in there for smell goods and emergency lighting if the electricity went out suddenly fell off of its holder. Blam! The sense of fear that a ghost was about to start throwing me was the only thought I remember. That and the fact that I did an incredible Jesse Owens impression.  Another instance of me being in the full grip of fear was when I was at my great grandparent’s house. This incredible storm was booming. You could walk around the house without the lights on because the lighting was flashing almost continuously. The windows would shake when there were close strikes. It was a truly awe-inspiring event. So much so that I took an umbrella (because it was raining) and went out to watch it. As I was out in the middle of my great grandfather’s garden looking all around me as the clouds lit up and flashed and the Thunder was felt in your chest. Suddenly I started feeling oddly light. The hair on the nape of my neck was getting all tingly. All I thought was this is weird and then maybe 20 feet or so in front of me, my the world turned white. It also got very warm, very fast. The noise was deafening. After that the umbrella was dropped and from my lips came a battle cry for the cowards. UUUUUUUuuuuuuuurgh!!! I proceeded to return to the house as quickly as possible. Now these are two instances are an example of three things, Surprise, Stupidity, and Fear. Now the surprise of a candle falling and thinking it was a ghost could be garnered as ignorance. While obviously me standing out in an open field with a lightning rod in my hand during a thunderstorm is clearly stupidity. Both are also examples of unbridled fear. What is Fear?  Fear is your mind’s reaction to the unknown. It is thanks to the lizard part of your brain, the amygdala, is the emotional birthplace. Well all you emotions come from the amygdala, but when fear comes into play, your lizard part of your brain actually can take control of your body. It will take full control and you run on autopilot. That is what happens when you enter the fight, flight, or freeze instincts. Your amygdala is designed to keep you safe and comfortable. Now short of being struck by lighting or seeing a bus coming at you. These days the use of fear to run from a bear is very seldom. Yet it is still there. Most people avoid feeling fear because it is rather unpleasant and so we avoid fear as much as we avoid the bear. I want to propose that fear can be a tool and a very handy tool to keep you not only safe but to help you become more successful. Fear as A Tool Now I see fear as a tool. Like every tool you can use it the right way and the wrong way. Both ways are powerful but using it the wrong way is very destructive. Wrong Uses of Fear Using fear as a tool to manipulate people is the common way most people use fear incorrectly. They threaten people with their jobs if it is a boss with no confidence in their leading style or of exposing a shameful event if it is by someone who is blackmailing someone else.  Fear can for a short time influence a person to do your bidding. Because fear can over rid free will it is a common tool for tyrants and dictators alike. Yet eventually people get tired of living in fear and they will fight back. Using fear like this erodes people away it makes them less than they can be and doesn’t serve anybody even the person who is trying to control others. How to use fear to your advantage Now you can also use fear to your advantage and it can be used to accelerate your path to your goals and other success. Masting Kipp said it best. Unless you’re in mortal danger, fear is a compass showing you where to go. - Mastin Kipp As I said earlier, we avoid fear. Our amygdala wants us to stay comfortable in what is familiar. Yet when you are starting a new business or anything that is out of the ordinary we are faced with the biggest barriers around. Those barriers are fear. Yeah they may be mindsets too but often those mindsets are based in fear. This is why when you will hear people say if your goal doesn’t scare you it isn’t the right goal. If you use fear as a compass you will soon know that you re heading in the right direction. You can also change ho you look at fear.  Fear is excitement without the breath - Fritz Perls, MD, the psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt Therapy The key is to breathe and make them deep breaths make your feeling scared into the feeling of exhilaration. All you need to do is breath, also you live longer if you breathe deep Daniel-san.

One of the biggest factors that will hold a person back is the story and thoughts of how they arrived in the current circumstance they find themselves in. There are times that people may find themselves in a deep dark hole. When they look back on how they arrived there they want to point their fingers at anybody else other than the real person who is to blame. Look at an addict. They blame others for the circumstance that they are in. Yet in all reality, they are the ones who made the choice to start taking the drug. They may have had a tragic event happen in their lives and they may blame an abusive parent. Yet when that addict left that environment the choices they made are what actually got them in the predicament they are in. People who are poor often have the same problem. They blame companies for screwing them over. Yet if they were, to be honest, it is their spending habits that drain their bank account not an evil corporation that pays them very little. Why do some people wind up in bad circumstances? They wind up in bad circumstances because that is what they have deemed that circumstance to be? The events or circumstances in your life are all neutral. That is until you apply thought to that circumstance.  This is why two people can watch the very same movie and come out with two very different experiences. One person can love it and the other person can hate it. So when you have thought about your current circumstance, you can choose to make that circumstance a positive event or a negative event. The Mindset Many people who perceive their environment to be a bad event also see that it is someone else fault for them being in that event. The “Victim” may claim to hate that person because of what they did to them. They want to play the victim and give up all responsibilities to their actions.  If they are in an abusive relationship. According to the victim, it is someone else’s fault that they are there. Yet the person who wronged them may not have been in their life to the past 10 tears. However, the victim is giving up all their power to this person they claim to hate. My question is if they detest that person as much as they claim, because of how much they have ruined their life then why would you give all of your power to that very person? Now you are seeing the error in having a victim’s mindset. When you play the victim you relinquish responsibility for your actions. You can’t be blamed for staying in a crappy place if it isn’t your fault. But how can someone you haven’t seen in such a ling time actually control you? The answer is they can.  How to get out If you want to get out of the current circumstance you are in, you have to change your mindset and own up to the fact that your choices put you in that hole. It may cause some major discomfort but the moment you own up to your responsibility you can start making the changes needed for you to climb out.   You can start thinking about different thoughts of your circumstance. Now I am not saying deny the emotions you have from those thoughts but you can change how you think of your environment. You don’t I hope you wouldn’t settle. In fact, you won’t settle if your thoughts about an environment change. A victim settles for the oh well this is my lot in life. While a person who takes responsibility and admits that they are in a hole will start looking for a way out. You can do the very same. Decide you are done with the circumstance you are in and start making changes. The changes won’t be easy they will require you to grow and become stronger in your skills. With each new skill, you will be better equipped to handle the next step to get out and living the best life you deserve and desire.

We all have a story in our head. Yet we often have the wrong story. The story you tell is apart of whether or not you are going to succeed. Now, these stories are yours. But are you telling your story in the right frame of light or are you perhaps living somebody else story? Doing this doesn’t serve you and often it doesn’t benefit you in any way. What is meant by your story? Your story is what are you telling yourself. It can also be the story others are saying about you. Others can have whatever story they want. The real story is your story,  Other people can have their own story about you. Yes, people are going to have their own story about you. You cant change this and why should you? What the story isn’t truthful? Ok, but how does their thought of you affect you. They may tell the boss their thoughts? Yeah, they may but the boss also has their own thoughts about you.  Maybe some of their stories are true. What then? You work for your story. If the story isn’t correct their story will change on its own. If it doesn’t it really doesn’t matter it is their story. Are you living someone else’s story? Why would you live someone else’s story Many times we live other people’s stories for many different reasons. Perhaps it’s a parent that wants you to go to college so that you can take over the family business. They may say that it is your birthright and you don’t want to upset your parents. Yet you love welding and the family business is office supplies. These two really don’t fit together that well.  There are many reasons to why you start living by someone else story. Many times it so that we don’t rock the boat. Then again it could be because you have been guilt-tripped into that story. So you give up your dream or aspirations of being a writer.  Yet living your own story is important. You need to have your own story.  Are you telling yourself the Right story? Here is an example for you. When I was a kid I was the child of a rancher. And from time to time I was told to get up and go help with breaking up frozen stock tanks in the winter. The work was cold. It was made worse because I would have to dig the ice chunks out of the tank so that they didn’t freeze over again. In the spring I would be out in the rain looking for the weed that is shorting out the electric cattle fence. The summers were a combination of building miles of fence in 100° weather and grading roads in the wind.  That sounds pretty miserable, right? Or I could tell the story of Many times I wanted to stay under the warm cover and sleep. Yet since I was helping my dad when he was needing it. I would get up and help him bust up the ice in stock tanks we would talk about random things and with my dad’s sense of humor, I was always laughing at something. I may be building the fence in summer but dad would be right there with sweat just pouring off of him. I remember applying sweat with hard work and would apply that to my work ethic as I got older.  When the season to work cattle came around I remember the whole family would get together and pitch in. I would get to see my cousins and we would goof around as we loaded the cattle into the “snake” so they could be given the needed medicine, tagged and branded. These were such good times. See the difference one is a victim minded story of woe and the other is a story of relationships and learning. You have a choice in what light you are going to see your story. To find your story, can take a while. Maybe you need to change your story. The good news is that you can. It is your choice as to you want to live your story or live your parent’s story. You have the choice you always have that choice. Remember that not choosing is a choice in itself. So know that you are telling yourself a story and if you don’t like it then start making those waves.

Maybe you have heard of the analogy of the bucket of crabs. This is where it is easy to keep crabs in a bucket because as one crab tries to crawl out the other crabs in the bucket grab him and drag him back in. This represents the people in your circle. These people are your friends and family members who have an invested emotional interest in keeping you safe. There is that darn word again. Safe.  Why is being safe such a bad thing?  We work so hard on keeping others safe and in today’s standards safe isn’t keeping you away from bears or sabertoothed tigers. Being safe is staying comfortable. Yeah, it is nice to be comfortable from time to time but if you want to become the better person you want for your family and son, you have to step out of that lovely comfort zone and grow. So how does the bucket of crabs fit in? Well, your family members see you making progress and they become fearful for your comfort. That fear causes them to make certain comments and suggestions that are meant to hold you back. You may hear your favorite uncle suggest you not become a writer because you can’t make it as a writer. In reality, he tried the very same thing when he was younger and he lost everything because he wasn’t able to find a publisher. He became very uncomfortable and tucked his dream of having a book published away, in sorts he gave up and decided that it was too much trouble. He doesn’t want to see you go through that discomfort nor does he want his failure to be brought to light. It could be out of fear that he quit too soon. The Tall Poppy Syndrome The Tall Poppy Syndrom is defined as this: The tall poppy syndrome describes the cultural phenomenon of mocking people who think highly of themselves, "cutting down the tall poppy". Common in Australia and New Zealand, it is seen by many as self-deprecating and by others as promoting modesty. We often, as a society, also call out others who are doing what we would like to be. These people become the tall poppies. We make comments like  It must be nice…  He has more money than sense He is lucky He is  privileged Toxic masculinity There are other terms that are very prevalent in today’s vernacular that show the tall poppy syndrome too. Like White privilege or Happiness privilege, he is just out of touch. When we as a society condemn a person for being successful. These are times that tall poppy syndrome crops up.  Some examples of the Tall Poppy Syndrome by doing a quick twitter search. Your son while in high school will be faced with this often. If he tries to be his own person, his classmates will call him out on his uniqueness. If he is working hard and saves up to buy his first car many people will call that out. Some may even dip down to try to actively cut that tall poppy short by damaging his prized possession. Why do people hold us back? Now I mentioned a few reasons earlier. But Let dive a bit deeper. Safety This word really needs to be reduced in our lexicon of words. As before the vast majority of times, our fear for another person’s safety is actually our fear for their discomfort. We don’t want to see our loved ones suffer and fail. So to keep them from failing we try to keep them safe.  This is our emotional brain talking. We can’t predict the future yet we see the very worst about what is going to happen. So we try to talk our loved ones out of dong something that is actually good for them.  It really is self-defeating. We have an emotional reaction to the dream or plans our son hs. Maybe your son wants to go into the Army. That will scare many parents and moms more specifically because there is a real element of danger in joining up with any military. So we try to talk our possible warrior out of the idea.  Yet we ignore all the good that would come out of the endeavor. He could learn how to be more disciplined and more intentional in his actions. He would build up his personal network for his later success. He could make it a career and travel the world. He would then get a dedicated paycheck for the rest of his life.  The perks of joining the military far outnumber the reasons to not join. Yet because there could be a conflict erupt and he is then asked to get into harm’s way, we try to talk him out of it. All because we want someone we love to not go through the discomfort that will make him great. We have stopped letting our sons be dangerous those broken bones and scrapped knees all have teaching moments and yeah there can be an element of true danger in what they do, it is good for our sons to prove themselves. They see themselves in your effort Again this shows where we failed ourselves. Many times people cast judgment not because of what the other person is doing but because we see our own shortcomings. That right there can be very uncomfortable. Many of the opinions we cast when shaded in the light of emotion is because of this very fact. We see that we had the same energy and drive that our son has at the moment and we sadly feel as though we squandered it. I personally don’t like having my shortcoming thrown up in my face, and having my son do the thing I believe couldn’t be done, would be a constant reminder that I failed.  Scarcity mindset  This again is the bane of society. There is so much scarcity mindset running rampant throughout the world. So many people think that they can’t because they don’t have something when in all reality they do have what is needed they just can’t see the forest for the trees How do you escape the bucket? This is tough to do because you have to understand when emotions are playing a part in the advice. This is both when you are giving advice and receiving advice. there are few key points that you do want to focus on.  Your Why Focus on why you are wanting to do what others are trying to talk you out of. This is the foundation of you climbing out of the bucket Have the resolve to keep going You may actually make people angry at you. If you keep going. If this happens you need to be resolute about your decision. They may come around later after you have succeeded but then again you have to understand why they are angry. You are showing them their shortcoming and they are afraid for your discomfort. Filter the advice Understand what is fact and what is opinion. Separate the two and weigh the validity of the facts. When you removed the opinions and emotionally based thoughts you can see the facts and make a better decision on what was said. Now people don’t like to have their emotional thoughts disregarded but again most of the time they do change once they see that you are not in constant suffering. Masterminds Now to have a person give you advice without the emotional opinions helps out tremendously. So having a mastermind does this very thing. The people in the group are invested in your success, not your comfort. So that can give you straighter advice that will show you the risks and the rewards of what you are wanting to try. If you are looking for a mastermind The Conclave of Men could be the best fit for you. You are doing the same Pay attention to what you are telling your son. How does it feel to you? Do you feel a level of fear inside? Does that level increase if you were to tell him to go ahead. You may also ask yourself why do you want to keep this person from trying the idea they have. Honestly filter out the emotions when thinking through the problem. 

Why so dramatic? I bet you know many people who seem to love drama. They overblow what the worst that can happen. They relish gossip and add details to stories they hear. Yet I bet you didn’t know that you also delve into drama quite a bit too. Maybe you know you do and if so good job at least you are more aware of what is happening than many people. What is drama? When I refer to drama I am not meaning plays or acting. I am meaning when we allow our reptile part of the brain to add all sorts of extra emotions to the information we have. Most of the time the level of drama grows with the lack of information. Drama is the extra unnecessary emotions that fog up our judgment and create suffering and stress in our lives  We as people are emotional beings so we like to have drama in our lives. Look at movies would you watch a film that had just an ordinary guy doing ordinary things? Well no. it would be boring. Look at reality Television, these people are all about the drama that I am talking about. Example of how we make drama Say your son just got his driver’s license and he is wanting to go drive around and show off his new skill to his friends on the drag. You finally let him go and he has to be back at 10 pm. Around 10:15 your new driver still isn’t home.  What do you do? Most parents start o wonder why he isn’t home and as each minute that ticks by the scenario you have in your head get worse. First, he just lost track of time this leads to flat time. This leads to him having car problems to he was racing and crashed. This then leads to him lay dying in a ditch with dirty underwear on. Then around 10:36 he drives up and knows he is in trouble and it is even worse because we got ourselves all worked up over nothing. Perhaps your wife texts call me. Suddenly you start making stories of someone is in the hospital, or the back part of the house just was eaten by a sinkhole. Yet when you in a rush call her she was just needing you to stop by the store. We build so much into the lack of information. Why do we turn to Drama so much? Well, our brains are wired for drama. We take the little information we have and apply drama to it w]to fill in the gaps. Now some people are more predisposed to using their amygdala or reptile part of the brain than other people. So that is why you have some people who are easily more attracted to drama. My son dated a girl who I call the Choas Machine she was nothing but drama. Everything was in a state of panic and chaos for her. One example was when her stepfather died due to a drug overdoes, as part of the police investigation, she was questioned by the police. After that, she was convinced that the police thought she had killed him, and she would tell anybody who would listen that she was being investigated for this dude murder. No amount of other facts would dissuade her from thinking otherwise. Such a very tiring place to be is in this young woman’s life. People are wired for drama. We try to plan for the worst and when we don’t allow for the logic part of our brain to really hammer out the details our reptilian part of our brain takes over and starts to fill in the gaps. Since it is trying to keep us safe and comfortable we get the worst possible happenings. Drama as a whole really doesn’t serve us anymore. Some people may argue that we are able to prepare for the worst yet, in reality, we do better when we allow for our prefrontal cortex to do its job and work out all the logic parts. With drama we have more stress and suffering in our lives because we are busy working on things that most likely are never going to happen. The Rumor Mill Another place that drama really can play a huge role is in a company. When rumor mills start to churn out their product. Many times these forms of drama can be destructive if not addressed. Some companies have an actual rumor policy for their company culture.  This is because rumors are based on little fact and a lot of emotion. They crop up more when there is very little communication from the leadership. Rumors often lower the morale of the employees because again we are focusing on the worst instead of pressing on with our actual job.  Drama and choices It is easy to be caught up in the emotion of drama. In fact, when you notice you are in drama it can actually be hard to turn it off. A good example of this is to stop in the middle of the drama-filled story and try to reframe that story in a positive light. You will see your brain fight tooth and nail against that change. Want a fun experiment try that exercise on a friend who is telling you a drama-filled tale. You can see the struggle on their face.  How to minimize drama Since you can’t actually remove all drama from your life, you can minimize it though. The best is to ask yourself questions. The first being how does getting worked up in drama benefit me? Then you can layout the fact of the story and try to remove the emotions from the details. Doing so will help you to engage your logic part of your brain and start to minimize the emotional filled part of your brain. You can then see that that mountain you are afraid of is nothing more than a molehill.

The benefits of a mastermind are plenty and I wanted to share some specific benefits that you gain when you are a part of a mastermind. You are a part of a community You don’t have to worry about feeling lone nearly as much as if you were going on your own. You will have people who have been in your shoes before and can anticipate what may be around the unforeseen corner. You have people who can help and offer you support. Support In a mastermind, you have people who can give you the needed advice and support for those tough times that you are feeling like you are about to give up. Collaborations Sometimes you need help from people who have skills that are outside of your wheelhouse. So you can lean on the other people in your group for help by using their strengths Makes you think bigger The people in your group will encourage you to stop playing small and reach for the stars. These people who are looking out for you know what you are truly capable of doing. New perspectives Sometimes we can see the forest for the trees and so it helps when you have someone who isn’t buried in the day to day business you are conducting. They can offer a new and different way to look at a problem you are having. It helps when they are outside of your box. Remember you can't read the label from the inside of the bottle. You find out if your baby is ugly Sometimes you just need to be told that your ideas are bad. Yeah sometimes we do have ugly babies and that is alright. It is good to know that your brilliant idea isn’t going to work than to find out 2 years down the road. learn about yourself You can do so much, Yet sadly we tell ourselves storied that hold us back. Your mastermind can help change that limiting belief and make huge strides in your abilities. extend your network Sometimes you feel as if you are a whale in a tiny pond. You have to find new contacts and expand your network of people you know. Your mastermind can help you do that. There are many more benefits that can help you when you are in a mastermind. The Relaxed Male has a Men’s group called The Conclave Of Men that helps men forge their path and achieve the destiny they have been wanting. If you would like to join you can read more on the page

If you want to succeed you have to take action. Sounds like that is a no brainer. Yet one of the reasons most people don’t succeed is because they don’t take the steps they need to take. They will hymn and haw over what they should or should not do Why people don’t take action Fear Afraid of what others will think Fear that they will change Afraid that they will lose their friend's Procrastination (fear) Afraid of what others will think Fear that they will be seen as not good enough They don’t believe they know enough Don’t want to get out of their comfort zone Comfort is good to feel but if you stay there you will not grow. We have to have adversity in our life if we want to become the best we can be. You learn more about who you are when you clear an uncomfortable stage in your life. Often we fear failure and though that is a fixed mindset if you see failure as a way to not accomplish the goals you can by a method of elimination find the mindset and path that will lead you to success.

We start this episode off with a little rant about the changing times and how does this goes with why we suffer. We have hard all about how people suffer. Yet we don’t really look at what causes suffering. Why do we suffer? We suffer because we resist our emotions we try to make people do what we feel is best for them By not being in the present We look into our past more than we need to

So many people say they hate liars. You cant trust them. Yet many of those people are the worst liars around. Now there are two types of people who are inherently liars. No, I am not talking about Navy recruiters or politicians. I am talking about Addicts are liars and the other natural liar is a people pleaser. I want to talk this week about the second. I will address the first at some time down the road, but today we are looking at people pleasers. Why People Pleasers? People pleasers are people who go out of their way to lie to others so that they can control how other people feel and what they think. In other words, they are manipulators. We all know someone like this. They are trying to do 30 things at once. Often these are other people's tasks so that the person they are trying to please will like them. I am a recovering people pleaser. Aren't people pleasers good? Not really. These people give up on being their own person for the sake of someone who may or may not like them in return. Often, people pleasers, will say whatever they believe the other person wants to hear instead of speaking their own mind and being their own person. Helping a person out is good and we should help, but not at the detriment to our own life and mental health. Maybe you have known a "Yes Man" at the office. Sometimes these people are also called brown nosers. These guys often don't have the self-worth because they are putting all their worth into another person. People pleasing is called Sociotropy this is a person’s tendency to place an inordinate value on relationships over personal independence that will leave them vulnerable to depression in the response to a loss of relationships. These are people who act like your neighbor down the street who comes by and bakes cookies for you and keeps bringing them over. Or maybe you see your son always trying to please everybody and then really comes down on himself when someone becomes upset with him. People pleasers are people who... struggle with saying no. feel personally responsible for how other people feel. avoid sharing honestly, like not admitting when your feelings have been hurt. feel uncomfortable dealing with conflict and will do whatever you can to avoid it. sometimes find yourself “becoming” like whoever you hang around. The depression comes from the fact that you cant control a person. You can't make a person feel anything at any time. This will lead to the people People pleasers often will do something small at first and keep piling more and more if they don't get the response they desire they often become upset and can fall into depression or burnout. The drawback of people pleasing You cant be yourself You will burn out The huge strain on your mental health How to break free from being a people pleaser. Face the discomfort of expressing your ideas. Be OK when people don't like your ideas or change them. Understand that the person you are lying to the most when trying to please other people is yourself. You can't control everybody and it is impossible to even control some people all the time. They eventually get tired of being manipulated. Your lies do catch up with you Learn and use the most powerful word in the English language and that is NO. Then you have to accept that many people will not like that response and they will try to find different ways to make you feel bad because you have denied them. Set boundaries and then hold them Accept that you can't control people's emotions. Yeah, your actions may create a pleasant thought in the other person but hat doesn't mean they like you. A person likes you for who you are not how you make them feel because you can't make them feel anything.

What is a fixed mindset? The Fixed mindset is the thought that you are limited in what you are able to achieve by what your talent is. We often tell kids that they are smart and this is a huge problem for when the kids actually hit a limit on what their smarts are able to create. This problem can cause kids to shy away from a challenge and keep them from learning that getting something wrong is actually alright. It shows that you are able to improve. The fixed mindset causes problems because when the talent runs out the person in question thinks that they are not able to improve anymore, which is the farthest from the truth. People also fear that when they can't do something and it is pointed out they believe that deficiency is a fault against them. So it can be a problem with not only children but adults too. Test scores are permanent Hates challenge Finds fault in themselves when faced with failure Fishing trip example. Everyone else’s problem excuses The burden of talent Alfred Dunlap sunbeam and act paper

The concept of Growth mindset and it's counterpart Fixed mindset comes from Stanford Professor Carol Dweck Ph.D. in her book Mindset. In this book, she talks in detail what each mindset is and give an example after examples of people who display both sides. From Dorothy Delay the violin teacher from The Juilliard School of Music to Jack Welch, the man who saved General Electric. Carol talks about key points that exemplifies why a growth mindset is needed if you want to succeed and why the fixed mindset often causes you to have a meltdown like Bobby Night on losing streak. What is a growth mindset A growth mindset is a mindset that you are more about the ability to get better than having something of natural talent. It is interesting to think we are born with a growth mindset and then we slowly settle into a Fixed mindset. You see babies who keep trying to learn how to walk and we celebrate when they are able to start wobbling around. You even see a child who finally figures out that only one type of shape can fit into a certain slot. How many times have you heard kids talk about their love a challenge? The older they get the growth mindset often seems to wain and shrink. Key points of a Growth Mindset We accept that we are able to learn Work and effort are better than being smart. People who play video games can have We can have and often do have a mixture of growth mindset and Fixed Mindset Mia Ham used to be the only girl in the boy's soccer teams because she wanted the challenge. Not only boys but boys at the level above her. If you are the smartest person in the room you are in the wrong room. How to develop a growth mindset Accept that you are a work in progress. Failure is only an indicator of where you need to work. Change the words you use. If only I was smart enough to I can figure this out. What does this make possible?

This week talking about the opposite of the abundant mindset in Episode 14. That is a scarcity mindset and the problems it can cause in your efforts of being successful. We all have problems with negative thinking. Those negative thoughts are normal and have a purpose but they don’t serve us as they did in the caveman days. We use to not have enough and we had to fight for all that we had. Today that is still somewhat true but now scarcity is an element that holds us back. It keeps us safe and when being safe we are never growing emotionally or in knowledge. What is the scarcity mindset? The scarcity mindset is seeing the world and your resources as being a zero-sum game. You are only allotted a certain amount and then when you are out it is gone.  Stephen Covey talks about this in the “7 Habits of Highly effective people” and says this, Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. In addition, if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everyone else. Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People If you watch the news, which I advise against, you see a scarcity mindset running rampant in not only America but around the world. You see people fighting over the scraps when there is a whole garden sitting next to them. People talk about the haves and the have not’s. That is all based on what somebody else has and the others won’t ever have. As a whole scarcity, mindset is based on fear. It is fear that you won’t be able to get out of the current situation. The fear that you won’t have enough money or that you will never get that new television is exactly what scarcity mindset really is. We have one presidential candidate who is basing his whole platform on the scarcity mindset. That is how out of control easy this mindset can influence your thinking. Envy is based on a scarcity mindset. What does the Jones family have that you don’t?  That fear and anxiety of not being able to have nice things in your house create the thought that you are not worth your value. Hoarding is also based on scarcity. What if you throw away the 3-year-old copy of People Magazine and you need it for an article that looks interesting, though you never fully read it. Why does the scarcity mindset hold us back? The scarcity mindset is a bog. It sucks you down and keeps you from expanding and becoming more than your current situation. How can you when you see yourself and your resources as being limited. It is like being chained to a tree and the locks are not fastened. You can’t leave because of the chain. You hold on to the fact that you have a chain it doesn’t matter if you are locked up or not. The chain is not holding you back. Business owners suffer from scarcity whenever they struggle with charging somebody for their services. They see how easy it was for them to work in their zone of genius and feel guilty for charging someone $200 for an hour of their time. When in reality the customer isn’t paying for the time they are paying for the expertise you have. That goes with the story of the repairman. A company’s machine was making a horrible noise. It was an older machine and was difficult to find people who can work on it. They tried several people and each one failed. Finally, they found an old man who specialized in working on just that very machine. They called him up and the repairman said that he would be right over. The repairman showed up and walked over to the machine. He took out a stethoscope and listened to the clank a few times then reached into his bag pulled out a hammer and smartly tapped at a joint n the machine. Instantly the machine stopped clanking and started running better than it ever had for a long time. The man handed over his bill and the price was $2000. The Business owner cried that’s outrageous! You were here for only 5 minutes why does it cost that much. The old man said let me break it down for you. The hammer tap was $10 knowing right where to hit is $1990. Common effects of a scarcity mindset people. You play it safe You are not about to risk all that you have because you don’t have enough to spare for the risk. However, if you do spend that $18,000 on that course you can expand your influence which could actually make you $180,000. You see what you don’t have not what doors are standing wide-open waiting for you to walk through. It limits your opportunities Again because you want to play it safe you are not about to take a risk. Therefore, your opportunities are very limited. You immediately take off the table all the things that are possible with the words, “If Only”. Then when the opportunity slide by you see that you missed your chance and focus on that problem, instead of looking for the next opportunity that is already walking up to your door. You don’t give You don’t have anything, so how can you actually give? You may have all the time in the world but you don’t see value in that you see that you don’t have the money to spare. Again, you limit your opportunity to make an impact all because you don’t believe you have money to give. Maybe you do give some money but it is just enough to make yourself feel like you are contributing. Maybe you are at a Charity gala and while everyone else is handing over thousands of dollars, you pitch in $25. You are envious of others That whole keeping up with the Joneses, you see that they have a new bass boat or a new SUV and you say “it must be nice.” Instead of celebrating with their success, you scoff at them. You make up words about them like they are stuck up or Uppity. You don’t see that there is an opportunity for connecting with them. You only see that they have something you don’t. You love gossip magazines What is the first thing you say when you see that one movie star who uses to be this thin sex bomb is now 50 pounds overweight? Wow! She got fat! You often revel in the downfall of big stars. You take secret joy in seeing those better off than you in pain or suffering. You believe you are stuck in your current situation Why bother? What good is it going to do to contribute to the project? I know that Arnold is going to claim my idea s his own and they give him the promotion. So you decide to not even give the idea that could change the course of the company you are with. Yeah, it may end up even adding a zero to everybody’s bonus this year but you are not about to let Arnold take the prize. You have either seen or even felt that thought go through your head before right? Instead of helping the company out knowing that, your idea was the catalyst. You don’t believe that you have other great ideas like that you are concerned about how well it will put you in a better tax bracket you can’t stand Arnold. Limited thinking Because you are limited in your situation, you are also limited in your thoughts. You won’t allow yourself the think big because, what’s the use, right? Why try, it will just fail and it will be added to the pile of other half done projects and dreams that never took off. You over-indulge You ever get your tax return and completely blow it in a week? Most people with a scarcity mindset indulge every whim. They leave Walmart with the 80-inch television baskets full of perishable groceries. Apply the check to a brand new car. Maybe you were like me and when you were home, you would eat until you were full and then keep stuffing food in your mouth. I did that often. I would eat three or four helpings at the house and then when I would climb into the truck I would have food but also snacks and I would eat one bag after the other. Yeah, those were meant to stretch over the duration of the trip but often within 2-3 days, the “snacks” would be gone. All because I had, the food to be consumed and I couldn’t let it go to waste. It affects your sex life You remember how much whoopee you had when you first were married 2 kids and 10 years ago. Now you are lucky to have a roll in the hay, once a month. You focus on what you don’t have you aren’t seeing that maybe your wife is wanting to be intimate yet she doesn’t throw on a teddy and fix herself up. You start to have thoughts that men have had for centuries. Maybe it’s true she just wants you for just the paycheck. I mean what does she do all day? Walk around like you’re wounded and angry because she slapped your hand when tried to cop a feel. You react to the situation instead of finding a solution. Maybe it is her time of the month and her breasts are tender. Then again, your beautiful wife is struggling with her own insecurities because her body isn’t as tight and toned as it used to be. Not to mention what wife would find an emotionally immature boy sexually attractive so your actions could very well be the root cause. How to change to a more abundant mindset Gratitude journal My favorite tool for shifting your focus from what you don’t have to what you do. Each day write 3-5 things you are grateful for. Maybe it is your wife’s cooking. Maybe you have an old car with 200,000 miles on it. It still runs and gets you to work every day. Maybe, it is that the Jones you are so envious of allowed to borrow their chainsaw to take care of a limb that was roughing up the roof. There is always plenty to go around and if you focus your attention on what you do have, as instead of what you don’t have. My cousin, who is quite wise for his years, really said it best when he lost his phone Look for win/win situations There is always a solution to a problem. Unbelievably there is always a win/win situation it may take work and time but a solution is available. Many times commerce is a win/win situation. You pay money for a product or service that helps you out in some part of your life. If you are always looking for someone who is out to take advantage of you. You will find them even if the trade was actually a good one. So always, work for the win/win. Mind your thoughts Pay attention to the story you are telling yourself. Scarcity is a battle we will always fight. You will think that you don’t have a talent for something and ignoring the talents you do have. This is best stated with the Cut off your nose to spite your face. So when you see that you are telling yourself a story the is centered on scarcity and fear actively change what you are saying. Reframe the thoughts and even words that you say to yourself they have a huge impact on what you are thinking and what your mind believes is appropriate thoughts to have

What is an abundant mindset? People with an abundant mindset feel freer to give and share because they don’t see that the resources in their life are in scare supply. They have the motto of There is more where that came from. Often people who aim for and achieve big goals are people who have an abundance-oriented mindset. Because they aren’t worried about what they don’t have, abundant mindset folks are generally happier and easier to get along with they like to take people on their journeys and include more people in their success because they are not limited in what they can do. More control If you have an abundant mindset you aren’t worried about how is out of your hands. They will take what they have and use it to the fullest extent possible. They approach jobs with more gusto and enthusiasm because they are eager to see the results of their endeavor and don’t worry as much about what won’t happen. When they do fail, they take responsibility for their actions instead of wallowing in their failure. Being abundant gives, you so much more control over your options because you are in fact not limited in the possibilities. Characteristics of an abundant mindsetted person Clarity You see the path before you. That means that you are able to bend with sudden changes better and you know why you have to go through this problem. Choices You can better understand the choices you will have to make. A person with a scarcity mindset will only see what they don’t have. Therefore, they don’t think big and worry about the lack of choices. Instead seeing that a door is closed to you knows that yeah t could be open because it is possibly unlocked. Then again, maybe that door isn’t opening because you are pulling instead of pushing. Less pressing problems With an abundant mindset you focus on the problems at hand they aren’t as pressing because you know you have plenty of resources at your disposal. Freely share IF you have plenty of resources and thoughts, you have no problem sharing them. While if you are scarcity oriented you don’t share out of fear that you are going to run out. Focus on what is working Instead of bashing your head against a wall trying to make a completely big enough for you to go through, abundant mindset people won’t keep trying something that isn’t working. They freely try different avenues to get to their goal. Revel in the resources they have. There is an abundance so they enjoy being able to try everything they can. IF you look, you will see that there are always more opportunities than you originally thought. Proactive You will make a change to get over an obstacle instead of wasting your time reacting to every little problem. You can react or you can respond to a problem one is better while the other is filled with fear. Welcome change You understand that change is going to happen. Often your actions weren’t that change so you want to be accepting that the only thing in life that is constant is change. So when you approach a problem with the gusto that needed you can easily see what is and isn’t working so you have no problem making the needed sift. Gratitude Being grateful is one of the best resources you have at your grasp. Gratitude builds more energy for the actions you have to take. If you see more opportunities and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to approach them. How does this help? You become the go-to person People see the abundance in your life and they will migrate to you because you are helping them. Freely share resources You have enough to go around Easier to get along with Because you aren’t worried about what you don’t have you are nicer and easier going. You are OK with failing You understand that you are going to fail from time to time so you just get up and try a different approach How to develop an abundant mindset Proactive instead of reactive Be proactive instead of reacting to an event. You see farther down the path than others so you are more prepared for those inevitable pitfalls. Pat attention to your thoughts How are you thinking of a problem in your life? We have 60,000 thoughts a day and many of those, if we don’t pay attention to them, will try to bring us to a scarcity mindset. So pay attention to what you are thinking. Using mindfulness meditation can help greatly in this department. Ask yourself if that thought is coming from fear and scarcity or a place of plenty How are you approaching a problem? Is it through fear? Change how you think and your mindset will shift drastically Try to think bigger Stop thinking about just the next step look bigger. Do you want your own business or do you want a business that makes 100 million a year? Focus on what is going right instead of what is going wrong IF you fail, don’t try it again. Try something different. Find what is working and don’t obsess over what is not working. Offer words of appreciation Give thanks and give it often. Gratitude is an eternal wellspring of optimism that will help not only you but those whose lives you touch. Please Rate us on iTunes or On Podchaser

What is a mindset? It is the story you tell yourself. It is a set of beliefs that help you in determine how badly you are wanting a particular outcome. A mindset is basically a set of thought habits. So this helps to set whether you are actually going to achieve that outcome or not. It is able to be changed. It isn’t easy and you have to stay after it. Some people associate your mindset with the subconscious but it is something you can actively shift and start believing and approaching life in a completely different way. Types of Mindset abundance Scarcity Growth You see that you are always learning   Fixed School teaches you that if you are good you succeed If you don't learn you are a failure Need approval Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character Why is mindset important?              Mindset sets how resilient you are. How you approach problems How you handle failure

So there are so many people following each other it is actually pretty hard to see who is really leading. From Tattoos being a kind of interesting piece of art on bikers and sailers to now you see almost everyone with a tattoo.What makes leaders and successful people are that they are different. They don't march to anybody's drum but their own. Though people around them try to force them into their square hole. These people are unique. Don ImusHoward SternRush LimbaughWhat makes each of these three men different. Their careers started to soar when they started doing what they were called to do. They stopped listening to the crowd and started going on their own path.Now, this is different than rebelling against society or Men Going Their Own Way. Those are people using a victimhood mindset to make their decisions. Their motions have defensive intentions. While successful men go with a purpose. Those who march with a purpose don't care what others think. They have a vision and they are going for it. Yeah, there will be those who call them out. Yet they will not stop till they have achieved their reasonIn this episode of Relaxed Male, we delve into the concept of individuality and why it's perfectly okay to be different. As your host, Brian, I explore the societal pressures that push us to conform and the liberating power of embracing our uniqueness. We discuss how standing out can lead to personal growth and success, using examples from high school experiences to the careers of famous radio personalities like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. These individuals found success by breaking away from the norm and embracing their true selves.We also touch on the idea of the "screw it" wall, a metaphorical barrier that, once broken through, allows individuals to truly shine and pursue their own paths. This episode encourages listeners to be true to themselves, even if it means facing criticism or standing alone for a while. We explore the difference between genuine individuality and mere rebellion against societal norms, emphasizing the importance of being true to oneself without falling into the trap of victimhood.Throughout the episode, I share insights on how being different can lead to admiration and respect from others, and how it can disrupt the stories we tell ourselves, leading to personal growth. Join me as we explore the power of individuality and the importance of embracing who you truly are.

There are times that we are just flat out stressed. There are family duties, work duties, and other random problems that just want to heap upon us so that we just start to have a hard time concentrating. That stress we feel can create moments of higher than normal anxiety and the different health problems that the increasing levels of cortisol supply from high blood pressure, to lack sleep, upset stomach and lowered immune systems. Stress isn’t good for us when we are in a constant state. From time to time, it’s good to be in but day in and day out you have to find a way to relieve that stress. So, to get yourself into a calmer state it is good to find different ways to reduce your stress. There are many different ways to calm down and to find a state of relaxation, or at least feel calmer than what may seem like the norm. Exercise There is nothing like adding oxygen and increased blood flow to wash out those stress hormones. Exercise in any form allows helps you not only get you into better shape helping your capillaries to expand so that blood gets to all the nooks and crannies of your body, but it also forces your mind to focus on an entirely different topic than the thoughts that are causing the stress. Exercise also produces many of the different feel-good neurotransmitters like endorphins. While the repetitive action of walking, running or lifting weights allows your mind to enter a relaxed state much like meditation. It counteracts the effects of stress such as weight gain, lowers blood pressure, and as mentioned, improves blood flow. Then getting outdoors and taking in the fresh air adds to the effect of exercise. Therefore, you are able to compound the effects by getting outside and walking at least. Write Writing is great for relaxing. It does several things that help take your mind off what stress-inducing problem is plaguing your mind. People have used different tools with writing to find stress relief. Such as doing a thought download, or free writing if you are having a problem starting your pen. Thought Download This exercise is where you can either set a timer or just getting all out on paper. What you do is you just write down everything you are thinking about. It doesn’t matter if you think the thought isn’t important, write it down. Why aren’t there any purple kittens? Write it down. Can a paper airplane fly upside down? Write it down. Why do we park on driveways? Write it down. You get the drift. Write all your thoughts down on paper and when your time is up or you have exhausted all your thoughts you can then look at that list of thoughts and see what is actually bothering you. You can then decide what is needed and actually important for you to focus on and what is extra fluff, which is just taking up space in your head. Freewriting This exercise is where you just start writing doesn’t even have to make any sense. Just start writing words and as you write your mind will start putting words onto your paper. This helps because you don’t have to think about anything. In fact, it works better if you are able to clear your mind. Each thought will come out as it is created. You do this until you feel you have a good idea of what could actually be bothering you. So how does writing help you ease stress? The biggest reason is the repetitive pattern of writing. It allows the brain to just flow. Your mind loves to be as efficient as possible and much of our stress comes when our brain has to start using more energy because it has to process something new. Do you even notice how you feel when you write with your other hand? Your brain isn't used to that extra work it has to put in to do something it does with our effort when using your dominant hand. Writing allows your mind to draw out those random thoughts that are gumming up the system. The practice of journaling is a great example of this. You are able to write out all that happened on that day and your brain is able to process those thoughts better and more efficiently. Writing your thoughts out on paper also allows your mind to see the thoughts that are rattling around in your head. An effect happens when you see the words and thoughts written down physically through your hand. This is better with pen and paper but you can also type it out. I recommend to my clients to use the pen and paper method because your mind has a stronger connection to your handwriting instead of the sterile text of type. Because you get all the extra unimportant thoughts out of your head, you are also able to improve the cognitive functions of your brain. Your brain can actually be bogged down with random and extemporaneous thoughts. Therefore, if you clean house you free up the gunk in your mind and your brain can process thoughts better and faster. This helps with reducing the stress of not being able to think of the right slogan for your client. One last benefit of writing is that you work the fine joints, muscles, and tendons of your hands this helps to relieve and even possibly hold back arthritis. Spend time with friends and family This does two things one it gets you out of the house or out of the office. Your friends are one of the best tools you have for life in general. There are many health benefits to having good friends. I don’t mean one good friend, I mean to have several good friends. Having friends and the human connection is amazing for helping you live longer. Friends are great for distractions, especially those friends that keep you on your toes. We all have that one friend who shows up, throws a backpack at you, and says we are going to climb a mountain.  Friends can also help change the pace of your life. If it is fast and out of control, you and a good friend can pack up and go on a weekend camping trip. They can distract you with incredible conversations that help make you a better person. They also are great for a healthy laugh. I will get more into it in the next section but laughing is one of the healthiest stress relievers you can experience. Finally, friends help you not feel as though you are alone. They can listen to your issue and offer tips and advice on what they might do in your situation. They can help support you when you are really struggling. This is one of the best reasons that a good friend will often crack an ill-timed joke just so your stop your downward spiral and shift gears. Take time to relax with a good friend. Laugh As mentioned in the previous section laughter is a natural stress reducer. It provides a full-body exercise for your internal organs. The act of laughing actually will ramp up your stress responses and then release it in a gentle way. It could be viewed as an internal stretch. This action actually helps slow down your heart rate and floods your body with dopamine. So Laugh because it truly is the best medicine. Mindful Meditation Some people may be a bit put off but this next strategy for easing stress but doing mediation. There are many different reasons this is helpful, especially when that meditation is mindful meditation. First off, when you are using mindful meditation it forces you to control your thoughts. If you are just starting out you may get frustrated at all the times your brain goes off and start creating one of the 60,000 different thoughts most people have each day. Mindfulness makes you focus on your breathing and if you find yourself straying off you are to gently redirect your thoughts to your breathing.  As you keep this up you will develop the skill of being able to be better at focusing on one topic and allowing that through to be fully realized. One of the steps you take when you are practicing mindful mediations is that you relax your muscles. There are several different ways you can do this but the results are the same. Your muscles start to ease and you enter into a state of relaxation. You also focus on your breathing. When you are stressed, your breathing is more rapid and from the top part of your lungs instead of from the bottom and getting full diaphragm breaths. Your breathing of forced to slow down this tells your body that you are not in a state of danger and that the fight or flight instinct can stand down. If you are in a place that you can’t take 15 minutes to do a meditation session the just stop and take a series of deep slow breathes these alone should help ease and tell your central nervous system that there is no danger. Listen to Music We all love music, even those of us who listen to podcasts like to listen to music. Music stirs up emotions that can at least distract us from the stressful thoughts of our day. The interesting part of listening to music is that each song affects us differently. However, many experts say that slow classical leaning music does best to help us relax. You may be more of an RnB music listener. You can find a good set of songs that can put you in a more relaxed mindset so that you can release the tension you are experiencing. Make a gratitude list This harkens back to the whole writing to relax section but I wanted to dive a little deeper on this topic. Stress and anxiety is a very unpleasant emotion. Your muscles are tight and your stomach may be upset. Yet that is a hard state of mind to be in when you are in a grateful mindset. I often use this in my morning ritual. Where I list out three things, I am grateful for. It may be the good service I received from the water I had last night to thank for my wife and the support she provides. If you start each day with a list of grateful thoughts, you will be able to stay more relaxed and have a better abundant mindset as the day goes on. Chew Gum This one stress reliever surprised me. I didn’t know that chewing gum could help relieve stress. Apparently, there have been many studies done that show that chewing gum increases blood flow and can help with your concentration and cognitive abilities. It has been used by the US Army to help with soldiers and their stressful environment. Everybody does state that it is better if you use sugar-free gum not only for the cavities abut to help fight cavities. Get a Hobby Many times for us men to relax it is good for us to do a good 5 by 5 or in other words take a break from the thoughts and environment that is causing us stress. One classic way to do this is to get a hobby. Hobbies allow you to grow in knowledge and shift your mind to a lower gear. This is because you are doing something that you find great interest and passion in. Hobbies are good for distracting you from your problem and letting your mind work on a different task.  The changeup is often good and allows your brain to refresh itself. Stretch You ever watch a dog stretch. Isn’t that one of the best stretches ever? Stretching allows your muscles to tense up and get overly tense so that they burn up some of that extra energy. Then to just let that tension go allows more blood to flow into those muscles so that it can help repair them. A good way to stretch is to do yoga. Now I am no yoga master in any way but I have seen some folks work on their yoga and it is easy to see that yoga is a combination of deep breathing stretching and exercise. So you can possibly get a compounded effect of practicing yoga. Though I don’t know if I would look, too go in those pants. So yeah, you are going to have stressful situations all throughout your life. However, you can mitigate the effects of stress. You can choose to not allow stress to rule your life and you can have full control of how much stress you experience. If you do have, anxiety you also find out that you can get through it with the help of writing, friends, and family, and even chewing on a stick of gum. So as you take on your day. Relax it will be great.

Talking about failing to even start today. What holds you back? What are the factors that keep you from even taking getting far enough down the road to even feel stuck?Fear This is the biggest of all and encompasses just about everything that makes you not even want to jump off the diving board into the pool of cool success.Fear of Results But we want results right? Yes, we do. yet many times those results can be scary to think of. There are people who are afraid of what's going to happen to them if and when they become successful. What if success changes you what if you become fake? All of these different want ifs that happen in our minds but never happen in real life.Fear of Change The very act of changing scares people. That lizard part of your brain starts to activate and you are suddenly on the lookout for saber-tooth tigers and other unforeseen hazards. So, it is better if you were just staying in your cave and not come out. Of course, that means you will starve. Yet you are at least safe.Fear of Upsetting Others We worry about what others will think. Again we may lose some friends or be talked about behind our backs. Well, who wants that? Nobody if they allow others to control their feelings. You would be surprised to find out that most people who matter in your life will cheer you on. While those who don't actually provide value to your life will talk. Yet again since they don't provide any value they really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, which is your life.Fear of Failing We fear to fail. It could ruin us or cause problems. Maybe you fear people will talk or something to that effect. And that could happen more than likely they will see you get back up and ignore the fall. What the fall means is only in your mind.The Skateboarder My son when he was young wanted a skateboard and so we got him one. Several Months later, He wanted to go to the skate park and try it out. So we took him to the local park and it took him a long time of trying to go down the halfpipe before he finally attempted to go. What was holding him back? FearWhy does this happen? Over Thinking the situation Most of the time it is over thinking of the situationHow to Jump Some tips on how to jump and go ahead and get started.Make a plan Planning is goodSet goals Goals are needed for you to know how you are going to proceedTalk to others Get tips and tricks on how to navigate your path by talking to others who have gone down that road before you.Get a coach You can also find out how to achieve your goals and success by getting coached.In this episode of Relaxed Mel, we dive into the barriers that hold us back from pursuing our dreams and goals. As your host, Brian, I explore the common fears and excuses that prevent us from taking the first step towards change. From the fear of failure to the fear of upsetting others, we uncover how these fears are often rooted in our "lizard brain" and how they can paralyze us with overthinking.We discuss the importance of taking small steps and making plans to overcome these fears. I share personal anecdotes, including a story about my son learning to skateboard, to illustrate how fear can be conquered with determination and support. We also touch on the role of societal influences, like media-induced anxiety, in amplifying our fears.Throughout the episode, I offer practical advice on how to break through these barriers, such as setting goals, seeking mentorship, and embracing failure as a learning opportunity. Whether it's starting a new business, pursuing a hobby, or making a significant life change, the key is to acknowledge your fears and take action despite them.Join me as we explore how to change your mindset and become the leader of your own destiny. If you're ready to make a radical shift in your life, consider joining our community or attending one of our live events to gain the support and guidance you need.

We all feel stuck from time to time. The problem is when we feel stick and don’t know how to get past that feeling. We often are stuck and accept it as normal. We cope with the feeling and it often becomes normal. That is why so many people have started their great American novel, and it dies there. These folks start their novel and they are stuck and the fruit of their work just dies on the vine. Why do people, get stuck? There are several different reasons for them feeling stuck Procrastination Most people find other things to focus on than take the time and work needed to apply the foreword pressure to keep going on their dream or ambition. We procrastination is often the go-to means of not doing the work because we can always find easier things to focus on that doesn’t require the same amount of brainpower as it does when we are creating. We over Book With all the life throw at us, we often over book. The new projects and honey-do list keeps growing. This is often a huge distraction from our objectives. We see that we aren’t doing the job we need to do but we are stuck trying to get the priorities list taken care of so we can eventually focus on our dream. The problem is that the list never really shrinks. Either because we use the tasks as a means to procrastinate or we are not managing our time correctly. We don’t say No This goes in line with overbooking, but we also fail to say no or don’t set boundaries that allow us to take care of our dreams and goals. Someone needs a quick 29 project done and another person needs to talk to us to 10 minutes. As these people ask more and more of us we have less and less time to do what needs to be done. Therefore, you have to set boundaries and learn to say no. We Need a Change Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut. This happened in marriages and other relationships but also happens when you are trying to achieve your goals. You get in a rut and ruts are famously hard to get out of. Ruts can also be dangerous in they can hang you up or in old times, they would even break wagon wheels. Yet you have to get out of the rut and the best way to do that is to make a change. It could go outdoors and go camping or maybe you have to change your employment status from full time to part-time. There is something that can change that will help propel you to the next level you are trying for. We are not wanting to make progress Sometimes we just don’t want to make the progress we talk about. It could be out of fear or you don’t want to actually do the work. Both of these can be detrimental to a dream or opportunity. Yet if we buckle under and get to work, we can make progress in the field we need to slough through. Yeah, accounting sucks but you have to get it done. Afraid to Change Many people don’t want to change. They are comfortable and feel alright with where they are. Except that, they have this sensation that they are missing something or time is running out and they are right. They have to make the change and step out of their comfort zone before they can grow. A chick has to break free of the egg for it to be healthy. A butterfly has to fight its way out of its cocoon if it gets help the butterfly is not going to be a beautiful creature we normally see. It has to go through the discomfort of hatching so that the blood and other fluids are squeezed to the tips of the wings. Without it is it this flightless creature that will die suddenly. We have to face the change we are afraid of for us to grow. The experience of that discomfort gives us the needed skills to face the next task Way out of feeling stuck Thought Download You can take the time to write down every thought you have in a 15 – 30 minute period. Doing so allows your brain to register that the thought has become more real and effectively stops the thought circle. You would be surprised by how much you do think about that has nothing to do with what you want to be done. In making, a thought download you can physically see what you are thinking about and decide what is more important than other thoughts Take a Break There is nothing wrong with stopping project, stepping back, and accessing where you are being hung up Take action Be it Making a decision on a problem or hiring a life coach if you take action no matter how small you will be making progress

So many men have become dependent that it is actually scary to think of being self-reliance. Though being able to rely on yourself is an important part of being a complete and balanced man. Many people depend on others to make them happy or to provide for them. This does nothing but breed discontent in the person who is relying on others to be taken care of. The other people who are taking care of you may do it out of the kindness of their heart for a while be eventually they start to look at you like a bit of a mooch. I know this because when I was a young man just starting out on my own I was a mooch. I lived in an apartment with another guy who used to be my friend. I was able to make the bills if I didn’t eat. So I struggled and often had to have help from my roommate. This was ok for a while but eventually, it bred resentment in my roommate, and eventually, we parted ways and have not talked to each other since. Now some may say that he was just being selfish. No, he wasn’t, I was, and thanks to my roommate He taught me a very valuable lesson in that in any relationship you have to provide value. If you are always taking value and not providing the unbalance causes there to be anger and resentment.  So how do you become self-Reliant? There are several ways to do this. But the number one way is to get uncomfortable. You are going to have to depend on yourself and you are going to fail. Not that you may fail, but you are going to fail. Be ok with that you are will be well ahead of all the others who are struggling with growing up, otherwise known as adulating. Don’t wait on others This can be a bit difficult. Often we wait on seeing what others do out of fear that we are going to choose the wrong thing. Don’t sweat this. Just take action. If it is wrong, OK you now know what not to do. Chalk it up to a learning experience and try again. Taking action is the one thing most dependent men don’t do. They will stand around and wait for orders to be given to them. Then they wonder why the orders are of the crappy kind. Why can’t they do something they would rather like to do than say sweep the shop? That is because you didn’t take action. If you become a self-starter you are going to be a lot more thought of as a more dependable man. All because you got up out of bed when you said you were going to. If you wait for others to take action then you are already behind. Make a decision Where do you want to eat? I don’t know where do you want to eat? This is a question that can go on forever. There are internet memes that talk about how men and women not able to find a place to eat because neither one is willing to make a decision. So I say make a decision. In fact, if you take action you are going to look more favorable in your girl’s eyes because you did take charge. So if there is a choice to make that choice and stick to it. Don’t him and haw, make a choice and then don’t wait on others and get to work. Take responsibility If there is anything at the heart of being self-reliant that is you taking responsibility for yourself and your actions. As I said before you are going to get decisions wrong and you are going to make mistakes. Yet, as you keep making decisions and owning your dirt. The level of respect you have will keep growing. The more responsibility you have the more respect you also will develop. People will start to see you as a person who gets things done and knows that you are a man of your word. Take care of yourself This is important in that you are showing yourself the needed self-care and self-respect you need to be self-reliant. You are relying on yourself to get what needs to be done, right? So make sure you are taking care of yourself. Take care of your finances This is just as important as yourself except that you are also preparing to make sure you are taken care of in your later years. The only person you can actually rely on to be able to care for yourself in your later year is only you. You can’t and shouldn’t be relying on that the government is going to be able to take care of you. If you want to be able to live in relative comfort then you want to make sure you take care of your business yourself. Stop with the Comparison game This is the biggest thief of joy in your life. Trying to compare yourself to other people is unrealistic. This also makes you feel like crap and is useless to the overall plan of what you have. If you are looking to other people you are also comparing them to yourself. You see what they have versus what you don’t and that is never a fair comparison. So quit comparing yourself to others. You are looking at the wrong scenario.

Some people believe they deserve to be happy. Is this really true? This is what we explore in today’s podcast episode. Many people believe they are supposed to feel happy all of the time and then get flustered and even downright upset when they feel anything other than happiness. They are plagued by anxiety because they aren’t happy. People do so many different attempts at not feeling that anxiety that they start to fight all emotions. It is almost like a child who doesn’t get their way they pack up all their toys. Life is 50%/50% The part many people who suffer from constant anxiety and fear fail to realize that life is 50/50 or half of your life is going to great, happy and joyous. While the other 50% of your life is going to be painful negative emotions, and that is a good thing. You don’t want to be happy when someone dies. You want to feel grief and sorrow. You break up from your love. You don’t want to feel joyous. That is the death of a relationship so you should mourn the loss of an emotional connection. The sad part is that many people demand that they be happy. People believe that they deserve to be happy and that others should be making them happy and there is a fault in that line of thinking. That fault is that people can’t make other people feel a particular emotion or any emotion. To feel an emotion you must first have thought. That thought is needed before you can feel. For that thought to happen, there is an event or circumstance. This is where many people believe they receive their emotions. Yet, events are neither positive nor are they negative until you put your thought on it. Look at the times your kids have done something they are proud of, for instance drawing on the wall. You can see that as a destructive act and respond with anger and harsh words or you can see that junior is just trying to exercise his creativity. This is where you can have more than one emotion and that emotion isn’t wrong. The event is the same the thought is different and that thought creates the emotion of being angry or just put out. You don’t allow yourself to be happy Many people talk about how they want to just be happy. Yet anytime something happens they don’t choose to be happy about it. Often this is the pessimist’s line of thinking. They could look at the glass to be half-full but they can only see that their glass is half gone. They don’t allow the feeling of joy in their lives because they are too busy worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop. Yet because they are, the only ones who can make themselves feel joy happiness and love they are the force that keeps themselves miserable. They have chosen to be unhappy. You have to earn happiness Another part of being happy is often you have to earn happiness. That is because happiness is the reward for a job completed. That sense of accomplishment is the reward we are craving. To be able to earn that reward you have to get yourself out of your cave. You have to deny yourself the pleasure of Netflix or seeing what baby Yoda is up to so that you can go out and do something that will propel yourself forward toward your happiness. Therefore, get outdoors do something that gets you closer to your goals. One way you can do this is with the Camp and Coach event that I am hosing in Western Oklahoma. If you would like to change, you think so you can find the life you have been dreaming of then sign up for the Camp and Coach Event that is happening on May 7-10

A quick and shorter episode this week compared to Episode 5 at least. So this week talking about after-action reviews. This is a review strategy that can help you become better and learn from your mistakes faster. It does take some practice to think of it and practice it after different actions. Basically as a whole what you want to be able to do is after any event ask yourself the following questions. What did I do good? What did I do wrong? What needs to be improved What can be learned from this event? This can help you see your strengths and your weaknesses. You can find out what you need to work on, while also helping you understand any lessons that this event could teach you. After action reviews are used by many of the most successful people as a means of understanding where their goals worked and where their goals failed. You can also use the after-action review as a means to improve your communication skills with your wife.

The end of the year is near. Have you set your goals yet? Do you even plan to set goals? This episode is all about goals. We cover the Who, What, How’s, and why’s of Goal setting. Why set goals? Goals are important to men who want a change. What type of change? Any change you desire. You want to be wealthy. You have to set goals. If you want to have a happy marriage you have to have goals. Goals are the road map of your life. You can get around without a map but you will not guarantee that you will make it to the destination you want. You may make it there eventually but you will not make it in anytime fast. If you set goals, you are making the most efficient path to that destination. Now a map doesn’t show the different hardships you may encounter just the path. You can’t tell if there are potholes along the way but you know where the highs and the lows are. What are the benefits? There are several benefits to goal setting the biggest being the effect it has on you. The biggest is that you will build confidence in whatever new skill you take on. You also start having an abundant mindset as you keep making progress with your goals. This is because as you take steps toward your goals you are going to fail. Many times, you may want to give up on your goals. If you keep trying, you will get better with each attempt. The more you try the more you fail until you are able to succeed. Each attempt help you get a little further down the road. You can look at it as riding a bike. When you first started riding a bike, you didn’t know how you had to try. With each attempt, you got a little better and a little better. It may have started with figuring out how to simply get on your bike and then progress to figuring out how to get it to move. From there you had to crash repeatedly. Until you could ride, up and down the block without falling. Then you were faced with the obstacle of stopping. Eventually, you could do that without bailing off your bike. Goals are like riding that bike. With each success, you build more confidence and experience with the task. So Yeah, you are going to fail but those failures are preparing you for success. Another benefit is that you grow with each experience. Who needs to set goals? I personally think everybody needs to have a goal or two. You became a more resilient person when you set and strive to achieve goals. With each failure, you become more confident and you learn more skills. Yet most people don’t have goals they either try and fail the first or second time then never try again. Many of these people have a scarcity mindset or sometimes called a fixed mindset. They don’t believe they can learn anymore. So who needs to set goals? Anybody who wants more out of life needs to set goals. People who desire more success or want to reach for their dreams also need to make plans and set goals. If you are a person who wants a change then you need to start setting goals. If someone wants to travel, again they need to set goals. Types of goals There are a few different methods of setting goals. The two that I am the most familiar with are the following The HARD Method This method is new in my books. I just found out about it last month. Therefore, I can’t say I am an expert and though many say this is the best way to achieve your goals I do fail to see how it works so well. However, HARD Anachronism means Heartfelt – make sure you have an emotional connection to your goal. This part I understand. It is important for you to have a connection to your goal so making sure that you have a heartfelt connection to what you are trying to achieve is very important. I would say that it is key to any goals system. Be it HARD or SMART Animated – This step is misnamed but if you want to have a good Name for your system then I guess you have to make some concessions. This is actually visualizing your goals. What does it mean for you to succeed in achieving this goal? What does it feel like to reach your goal? What does it smell like? How will you act? What will you think? For instance, if you were to get a brand-new car, what color would it be? What color interior would it have? Is it Leather seats or fabric? How does it smell? You want to see this goal as being achieved. That is the point of the animated step. It is also very important to any goal you set Required – From what I have read about the hard method this amounts to your why. Why is this goal important? Why is it required to be achieved? Difficult – This goes along with the stretch goals. Your goal should be ambitus. You sometimes called a BHAG or Big Hairy audacious goal. Ok, it is good to have large goals. Yet this is where this method loses it for me because there is no timeframe. For success, I believe that a dream is only a goal without a deadline. You want a goal, not a dream. The SMART Method Specific – What is the goal? Instead of losing weight, you want to be specific, and say you want to lose 50 pounds. You want to make an extra $50,000, instead of making more money. You want your goal to be as specific as possible. Measurable – When do you know when you have reached your goal if you are going to lose some weight? You achieved your goal if lose one pound so you want to have a measurable goal line. This way you know that you are making headway and it is easier to see your progress. Attainable – You want to have an attainable goal. If you have never made a million dollars, how are you going to know how to make a million? Therefore, you want to try reaching a goal that is attainable like an extra $50,000 on top of the 50 you already make. If you weigh 300 pounds over your goal then it is going to take over a year to lose the weight if you don’t want to have surgery. Relevant – Make sure your goal fits your abilities. If you have never climbed a mountain before it probably isn’t wise to scale Mt. Everest. Timely – Set a deadline people reach their goals more often when they know they have a set amount of time. If not you are more likely to leave it until tomorrow. However you do it, you want to make sure you write your goals down. The acts of writing your thoughts on paper make the goals more real in your mind. You also want to talk about your goals as if they have already happened. That will help keep the self-sabotage to a minimum though it will still happen. How to set a goal First, write out all the goals you would like. Choose 3 that you want to attempt. Think of those goals and imagine what it would be like if you achieved them. Answer the reason why you want these goals. If it is to lose weight. You could possibly say something to the like to prevent diabetes and to live longer with your spouse. Find your, "why". Write these goals down on paper using your handwriting. This very act helps your mind see that your thought is real. Word your goal out so that it is as specific as you can be. Write down that specific goal. Make sure you have a means of measuring your progress. Give it a deadline Talk about your goal to those who will actually help you. If you have a friend who likes to be a “realist”, you don’t need to tell them your goal. Tell those who are going to help you reach your goal. Finally, take a step every day to reach that goal. Important points to follow to help with achieving your goals success Be OK with failing you will fail in your day-to-day attempts to achieve your goal. Try not to let that discourage you. Find a way to solve that problem and you will become better each time. There are several different ways you can keep your goals present in your mind. I talk about a few ways you can remember your goals. One of the best ways is to add them to your affirmations list. You can also use post-it notes so that you can see them each day. However, try to keep your goals in the front of your mind that way you don’t wake up with it being November and realize you didn’t do any of your goals. I have done that many times Cover Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU from Pexels

Emotions, it is one of those conversations many people don’t care to have. Men often see emotions as a messy hindrance in their daily life that many men avoid some emotions though if you were to believe some media sources you would think that men love to be angry and brutish all the time. This is because of people often don’t understand emotions. They avoid what they deem to be negative emotions while perusing only good feeling emotions. Both of these tactics with your feelings are not good nor healthy for your mental health. So this week buckle up men we are talking emotions. What are emotions? Ask a person what an emotion is and you will get a wide assortment of definitions. Yet, they all center around one key point. Emotions are felt. That would make sense considering they are also called feelings. We describe emotions as the action of being felt. I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel baffled. I am feeling powerless. All emotions are felt.  In its simplest form, an emotion is a vibration that is created by a thought. That is all an emotion actually is. Vibrations you feel. This is where we often get ourselves trapped. Yeah, we feel an emotion. We have a feeling, and with that, we think other people are experiencing that emotion as well. The truth of the matter is they don’t. The only person who gets to experience an emotion is you. As I said it is a vibration YOU feel. Not a vibration your wife feels. Where do Emotions come from? To explain how emotions work and how they actually affect you. We need to look at a modified TEAR Cycle. Or as Brooke Castillo Calls it the Model. This is where you experience an event. The Event creates an Emotion. That Emotion causes you to perform an Action. That Action generates your Result. Therefore, everything you feel comes from your thoughts. Your wife said you were going to get to have some hanky panky and she falls asleep an hour earlier. You may feel robbed or you maybe just flat out miffed that she did this again. Do you think she is feeling your anger? No, she is sleeping. Yet your mind has gone int to overdrive fueling that frustration. You keep pointing to this fact and that fact. Yet those thoughts don’t make you feel any better. Those emotions you are feeling affect only you. Nobody else, only you. Your actions may cause other people to have emotions that spark their own feelings but you can't feel those feelings. Does this mean that you don’t have to worry about anybody else emotions? Because you have seen your wife giving you the stink eye because you haven’t carried out the trash you promised you were going to do 3 days ago. Because her anger towards you doesn’t affect you. Well you are right it doesn’t affect you but you do want to express your love to a person. You want to care for them. You want to show them that you care. So you do things for them. You take out the trash. You make them supper. You rub their feet after a long day. These displays of affection and/or respect help you to connect to others. So why do men not show emotions? There are many reasons as to why so many think men don’t show their emotions enough, and that is the key point many want men to share their emotions as much as women do and we aren’t women. WE as men process our emotions differently. Many times men will tap in to being stoic which is the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint. This doesn’t mean we bury our emotions. No, We process our emotions at the needed time and place. So you are saying men hide their emotions? No farthest thing from stuffing our feelings down. You never want to suppress your emotions. These vibrations have to ring out their full life. Even if those emotions are negative emotions, they have to go the full extent of their life. When anybody be it a man or a woman repress their emotions, those emotions will eventually resurface and often in a more physical form. All of a sudden instead of experiencing an emotion you are experiencing an addiction. That addiction has taken the place of your emotion because now you have to have a much stronger tool to keep that vibration at bay. You are not able to have a good healthy relationship. You have mental health issues. All because you would allow a negative emotion to be felt. Yet men are being told they don’t share their emotions enough Well to a point that is right. To another point, these critics are completely wrong. Men do share their feelings. They just experience and process their emotions in a completely different way. Most healthy men understand the emotions they are feeling. Yet men do share what they are feeling. The big hang-up is that people want men to share their emotions in the same way women share their emotions. IF men do that those women reject that man. That's because women, in reality, don’t want those men to share their feelings that much. That is when men are called clingy and immature. They want to know what a guy is thinking a lot more than what he is feeling. So there is a time and a place for everything. The middle of a battlefield isn’t when a man needs to be expressing his emotions. With his wife after the end of the day yes share your experiences. Share your thoughts. Is this why men are so Stoic? In reality no. The definition of stoicism is, the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint. That doesn't mean that stoics don't feel their emotions. No, in fact, most stoics understand and appreciate their emotions. Stoics for off don't complain. There is no need to whine and moan about some hardship. Bitching and moaning about something isn't going to make it easier. Yeah, you may feel like you are being a part of a group, yet not really. You are just whining and complaining Other times Stoics knows that emotions get in the way of a decision. If you ever made an important decision while being emotional you often find out that it is the wrong decision. Want proof of this? Look at the Patriot act. The whole nation was just punched in the face by a group of terrorists. So what did we do? We acted on emotions and made the worst and most 4th amendment destroying law. All because of an emotion. We reacted to an event instead of responding to the event. Many times stoics are called cold and heartless because we won't tap into our emotions while someone is trying to pull us to one side of an argument. That is because that decision is an emotional decision and a stoic understands that we don't want emotional decisions. For more information read Marcus Aurelius Meditations* As I wrap this post up I do want to say there are hundreds of emotions each has their own special nuance and beauty about them. Yes, Emotions are beautiful. Especially because they are expressed by us weird creatures called Humans. We have been given emotions for the purpose of expressing them. Emotions are the colors of our memories. Though we do remember events we remember emotions more. So even if we could actually turn off out emotions we would lose out on so much. Stoics still feel their emotions they still recognize the anger the sorrow and all the other emotions that are available to us. The same as people who more freely express their emotions.

What makes a man? That is a big question. Many people ask that all that time. There are Quora topics on what a person has to do to be a man. Yet the answer is actually pretty straight forward. With all the navel-gazing many do over this topic, the answer can be summed up on a comparison. You have one man who is in his parent’s basement he is the stereotypical guy who just is aimless and has no drive. He really doesn’t have a why. Why should he? Now you have another guy who is in his apartment. He may be paying too much for it. But it is his. He has some furniture but it is far from fully furnished. Yet this guy gets up every day and leaves with a purpose. Now you may say that yeah he has bills to pay. And with that, you are partially correct. The difference between these two examples is besides one being aloof and aimless and the other has a purpose is that the man who lives by himself has a sense of responsibility. But why is this important? Gives a man his identity A man who drives a truck is a truck driver. A man who has a family he is a husband and a father. If he is making sure people are safe he is a policeman or security officer. Each of these titles has a particular set of responsibilities. Those responsibilities are what help that man identify who he is and how he fits into society. Has a sense of purpose With that purpose, a man is comfortable in his spot in society. His interests may change and with that, he can always switch where he fits in because he knows his purpose. The only thing that changes in that is the tools he uses to help his fellow men. With a sense of responsibility, men know that they are being helpful and providing. Men have to have something to do. That need is ingrained in us. IF we don’t have that “To-do” We become depressed and like the guy in the basement. An elderly man quickly goes downhill when his spouse dies because she is his responsibility. He lives to make sure she is alright. When she dies he often becomes lost. That is why it is good for an elderly man to find another woman to marry. HE can pick up the mantel of providing for her. It is what drives him He is a man with a purpose. Men who know what they have to do become a take-charge kind of guy. That guy is in every man he just has to have the drive to engage in his purpose. Without the drive, he is moody and withdrawn. When he has a purpose his confidence is up and becomes more outgoing While a man with a sense of purpose and has responsibilities feel more complete they also know they can handle the anxiety that everyday assaults them with. There are fires that come up but he can put them out. How do you find responsibility? Take charge of something. It may be as minuscule as the trash but if you start with one small step you will take another step and it will be for a larger chunk of responsibility. Ask your boss for a task. If it is your first time it may be a small task, but that should be welcomed fully. As you tackle that task you will get better. Be ok with failing and if you do fail to own your dirt and don’t try to hide it. Fess up to dropping the ball and tell the boss how you are making up for it. Have a plan. If you need help figuring out your purpose, you can sign up for coaching with me. We can do a connect session and find out how I can help you