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23 - Why Most Relationship Advice Fails (And What Actually Works) · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  problem with so much relationship advice in the world today is that it's being given by people who haven't been in long-term relationships.
• 0:07
  And
• 0:09
  I just don't believe that you can advise people on relationships, understand relationships, if you haven't been through the initiation, the forging, the crucible of a long-term relationship.
• 0:22
  And today, I want to share a little bit of my story and some of the worst relationship advice I've ever heard from somebody who was in front of the room at an event who had been paid a lot of money to be there.
• 0:33
  It's one of those things that stuck with me and I felt like I have to share somewhere.
• 0:37
  So I'll share a little bit of mine and Katie's story from the past few years.
• 0:41
  So in 2024, we decided to go on a sabbatical.
• 0:45
  It was one of those things that kind of had to happen.
• 0:49
  I had been a business coach for a long time.
• 0:51
  We had been running a business together called Simple Operations.
• 0:54
  And it got to the point where that business just didn't feel worth it anymore.
• 0:59
  Katie and I didn't have to work.
• 1:02
  We didn't need the money from that business, and neither of us was really happy.
• 1:06
  In fact, and I'm sharing this because you might be in this situation.
• 1:09
  You might be feeling this.
• 1:11
  You might have some of these symptoms.
• 1:13
  I just want you to know they're real.
• 1:14
  I was running a company where it got so hard to run it that we had a three-day event, and my body shut down.
• 1:21
  I could barely get out of bed.
• 1:22
  It was one of the hardest things that's ever happened to me, and it like—
• 1:26
  was this huge wake up call.
• 1:27
  So after trying to run this three day event, had trouble getting out of bed.
• 1:31
  The first two days I had trouble getting out of bed.
• 1:33
  Like literally I felt like my body was shutting down.
• 1:36
  The third day I actually felt a little better than Katie, really had a hard time getting out of bed.
• 1:42
  This is not what the podcast is about, but it's just an introduction to the story that we ended up shutting down that company.
• 1:48
  And within a week, my wife received this email that we could join this tantric mastermind for couples.
• 1:54
  And we were going on a sabbatical to understand our relationship better.
• 1:58
  And we had done some, I had done a bunch of study on tantra and, um...
• 2:05
  Taoism and you know I really like was into studying that stuff and understanding more about sex and sexuality and masculine and feminine and so here's this opportunity to join this six month container travel internationally it looked like it was gonna be a lot of fun and we actually got a lot out of it but I'm so glad that we had done the work in our relationship before we joined this container because
• 2:30
  The two people who were leading it were in a relatively new relationship.
• 2:33
  I think it was like less than a year, maybe two years old.
• 2:35
  And the woman who was there was a man and a woman.
• 2:38
  And the woman who was there is pretty well known in the relationship space.
• 2:42
  She does a lot of work with women, a lot of work in embodiment, a lot of work around sex and sexuality.
• 2:47
  Really well known.
• 2:48
  And the other person who was there was her relatively new boyfriend who was presented as a tantric master and somebody who had studied it his whole life.
• 2:59
  Mastermind went on, the more I felt like he just didn't really embody what he was teaching or talking about.
• 3:06
  And there's this one moment, this one interaction that sticks out in my head in this mastermind.
• 3:13
  It's been really hard for me to forget it.
• 3:14
  It comes up for me over and over again.
• 3:16
  I'm actually doing this podcast to see if I can put it out there and stop thinking about it because here's what happened.
• 3:23
  We were at one of the two live events in this mastermind and
• 3:27
  We left for a break, I think, and came back.
• 3:31
  And there was a couple that was clearly in rupture.
• 3:34
  They were fighting.
• 3:35
  You could tell they were fighting.
• 3:37
  They were having a really hard time.
• 3:38
  The two of them were having a challenge.
• 3:40
  And I think the way the interaction started was they asked, like, you know, hey, we're in this place of rupture.
• 3:46
  We're in this place of, like, not really connecting right now.
• 3:48
  And we're going to go into some tantric practices of, like, being present and embodied and with your partner.
• 3:54
  And so they, like, said something about it.
• 3:58
  And they explained that what had started the rupture, what had started the fight was that the husband was driving too fast to get to the mastermind and it really bothered the wife.
• 4:12
  And I remember when they explained that, I was like, oh, hey, I was like when I was in school and I'm like, oh, hey, I know the answer to this one.
• 4:20
  See, I'll share a little bit of my background with Katie with you.
• 4:22
  So my whole life I've driven fast cars, and I've actually been trained to drive cars on a track, wheel to wheel, 160 miles an hour, inches away from each other.
• 4:32
  And so when I would drive street cars, I felt like I was using like 50, 60 percent of the capacity of the car and not getting anywhere near where it would be dangerous.
• 4:41
  But for a lot of our relationship, Katie would tell me I was driving too fast or I was scaring her or I was making her nervous or I was making it really challenging for her.
• 4:50
  And for so much of my relationship, I saw this as her trying to control me.
• 4:57
  Her being too sensitive and and I would explain it to her.
• 5:00
  I would say, Katie, we're totally within the boundaries of the car.
• 5:04
  I'm not doing anything wrong.
• 5:05
  You know, there's nothing dangerous.
• 5:07
  I'm a really good driver.
• 5:09
  I mean, you should see what I do on a track.
• 5:11
  And no matter how much I explained to her, she would always have reactions.
• 5:14
  She would like grab the door handle and grab the handle on the top of a car and say,
• 5:19
  I could tell she was having reactions.
• 5:21
  And honestly, for a lot of my relationship, I'm ashamed to say it now.
• 5:24
  It's not a shame.
• 5:25
  Well, yeah, there's a little shame in there.
• 5:27
  I'm frustrated with myself to say it now.
• 5:29
  I'm frustrated with my past self that I didn't figure this out sooner.
• 5:31
  But, man, I'm glad I did.
• 5:34
  Because...
• 5:36
  I used to take every time she braced or every time she breathed deeply or all of those things, like I would get resentful.
• 5:43
  I would think she was trying to control me or she doesn't, you know, she doesn't trust me.
• 5:47
  She doesn't think I'm safe.
• 5:49
  And in all honesty, there was also times where I kind of lost it in cars where somebody would cut me off and I'd scream and yell at them.
• 5:54
  I'd accelerate or I'd make a dangerous situation even more dangerous.
• 5:59
  So there was actually some validity to what she was bringing up.
• 6:03
  But what I came to understand over time, and this is why when we were in the mastermind, I'm like, oh, I know the answer.
• 6:08
  The answer is get curious.
• 6:09
  Ask her questions.
• 6:10
  Understand what's going on for her.
• 6:13
  Because what came out over time –
• 6:16
  was that when Katie was a child, she had two dads, a dad and a stepdad.
• 6:20
  And one dad, her stepdad, would just like lecture her forever in the car and talk about things she didn't understand.
• 6:27
  And she would check out and disassociate in the car.
• 6:29
  So it was not a safe space with her stepdad.
• 6:32
  But with her actual dad, he used to road rage and do crazy things and drive in the shoulder and yell and scream at people and get red in the face and speed and make the situation way more dangerous.
• 6:46
  And so what I came to find out really far too long into our relationship was that my wife had serious trauma around cars and being in the passenger seat and feeling unsafe.
• 6:58
  And every time I would accelerate too fast or go into a turn faster than was comfortable for her or...
• 7:05
  Especially if I had road rage, she would feel unsafe.
• 7:09
  And I was triggering that inner child in her, you know, like what was happening.
• 7:13
  I'm sitting there looking at an adult woman and saying she's judging me and she's looking down on me and she doesn't trust me.
• 7:19
  And what was really happening was there was like a small...
• 7:22
  young part of her that was panicked and terrified and felt unsafe and didn't feel seen and didn't feel heard and didn't feel validated and felt like you know totally and completely unsafe
• 7:38
  Man, and as I share that, I get like reactions in my body because it went on for way too long.
• 7:43
  And the reason it went on for way too long was because I wasn't curious.
• 7:46
  I didn't slow down and say like, hey, what's really going on here?
• 7:49
  And I didn't let her talk about it.
• 7:51
  And I didn't let her tell me what was happening.
• 7:53
  I didn't let her explain to me what was really going on for her.
• 7:56
  And if I had, like I eventually did, if I had done that earlier, what I would have found out is like, hey, this is like a real thing.
• 8:04
  And I'm not being judged.
• 8:05
  This is my wife's trauma showing up.
• 8:07
  And every time that I do anything in a car that she doesn't feel is safe, I'm triggering her at a level that is way more for the present situation.
• 8:15
  Like it doesn't feel like she should be triggered like this.
• 8:18
  And it doesn't feel like she should be having these reactions.
• 8:21
  But there's a reason she's having them.
• 8:23
  And once I figured that out, I completely changed my tracking style with Katie in the car.
• 8:28
  I mean, I made it my goal to make it so she didn't brace.
• 8:30
  I made it my goal to make it so I didn't ever feel her being uncomfortable in the car.
• 8:35
  And I made it my goal to, like, slow down with her and make sure that she felt safe and she felt okay.
• 8:42
  And it radically changed how she acts in a car and the types of conversations we have in a car and how connected we are in a car and how much fun we've had in a car since then.
• 8:51
  Believe me, we've had some fun in a car since then.
• 8:54
  And I just wish I had known that sooner.
• 8:58
  And what would have gotten me there is being curious.
• 9:03
  And that's why this situation in the mastermind challenged me so much.
• 9:06
  Because I.
• 9:08
  The man shared that his wife was upset with how he was driving.
• 9:12
  And without enough questions and without enough inquiry, the person who was in front of the room, the expert, this guy who we had been presented as a relationship expert and a Tantra expert and was teaching the class, he said, when my partner asks me to do something that I don't feel like doing, what I say is it's not alive in me.
• 9:39
  And I remember my whole body reacting.
• 9:41
  I'm like, it's not alive in me.
• 9:43
  What does that even mean?
• 9:45
  There hasn't been enough inquiry here.
• 9:47
  There hasn't been enough questions here.
• 9:49
  They asked a couple questions, and that husband basically said, you know, it feels controlling.
• 9:52
  It feels frustrating.
• 9:53
  I want to be able to drive like I want to drive.
• 9:55
  We have a fast car, and I like driving it fast.
• 9:59
  And he was told that he should tell his wife, it's not alive in me.
• 10:03
  And I remember thinking like, man, this is so broken now.
• 10:08
  And it was one of those moments in a mastermind where I almost blew it up and I almost raised my hand and said like, hey, that's ridiculous.
• 10:17
  And I didn't.
• 10:18
  I didn't.
• 10:19
  And sometimes I look back on it and I'm like, man, maybe I should have because.
• 10:23
  It was a challenging interaction.
• 10:26
  It was a challenging situation.
• 10:28
  And I knew that that couple really needed to hear something different.
• 10:31
  But at the time, I wasn't doing men's work.
• 10:34
  I wasn't running the brotherhood.
• 10:35
  I hadn't figured out all the stuff that I've figured out now and all the things that I've been sharing with people where I get a really positive reflection.
• 10:42
  I didn't feel confident enough to say, like, hey, this is a mistake.
• 10:45
  Right.
• 10:46
  But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about that interaction.
• 10:49
  And obviously, for like the last two years, I've been thinking about the interaction.
• 10:53
  I wouldn't be talking about it now.
• 10:55
  Because it's one of those examples for us as men where we get really terrible relationship advice.
• 11:03
  And the advice that I would give you instead is to remain curious.
• 11:06
  Like curiosity is a path to containment, but curiosity isn't just a path to containment.
• 11:12
  Curiosity is a path to understanding the people around you better and showing up in a different way for them and being able to be more present for them and being able to be...
• 11:22
  safer for them and help them process and help them understand and help them learn.
• 11:26
  You know, bring brought up this other memory for me.
• 11:29
  of when my kids were younger.
• 11:30
  You know, when I look back at my life, I feel like I was working on masculine containment really my whole life because I did a podcast on this episode with my daughter, I don't know, seven years ago, eight years ago, something like that.
• 11:44
  My daughter Alexandra is now 16 years old.
• 11:47
  And I think at the time she was eight or nine years old and we were at a sporting goods store.
• 11:52
  And it was one of those places where
• 11:56
  I'm so glad I reacted like I did, but I almost blew it.
• 12:01
  And so here's what happened.
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  We were at the sporting store.
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  I can't remember what we were getting.
• 12:05
  And my daughter looks up at the brand new bicycles and she says, Hey, Dad, we should buy a new bike.
• 12:11
  My bike has a flat tire.
• 12:14
  And in a moment, here's what I felt.
• 12:17
  I felt like, oh my gosh, we make a lot of money.
• 12:21
  So she's entitled.
• 12:22
  She thinks she needs a new bike because there's a flat tire.
• 12:25
  You know, why wouldn't we just fix the bike?
• 12:27
  Like, this is crazy.
• 12:28
  I'm raising spoiled kids.
• 12:30
  We need a new bike over a flat tire.
• 12:32
  This just doesn't make sense.
• 12:33
  And I almost reacted.
• 12:36
  I almost reacted out of this place of like urgency and scarcity and frustration with her and all this other stuff.
• 12:44
  And I am so glad it was one of those moments as a father where I stopped myself.
• 12:50
  I felt the trigger.
• 12:51
  I felt it in my body.
• 12:52
  I felt it coming up.
• 12:53
  I felt like the energy with which I was going to reply to her.
• 12:57
  And I stopped myself.
• 12:59
  And thank God I asked a simple question like,
• 13:03
  maybe through like a little bit of a tense jaw and in a reaction.
• 13:07
  But I said, Alexandra, her name was Kennedy at the time.
• 13:10
  She's changed her name, but to her middle name, Alexandra.
• 13:13
  So now there's two of us in the house, Alex and Alexandra.
• 13:18
  And I said, why would we buy a new bike because of a flat tire?
• 13:23
  And she said, well, we tried to put air in it and it didn't work.
• 13:26
  And when we tried to put air in our volleyball or beach ball or whatever it was, and it didn't work, we had to get a new one.
• 13:32
  And I'm like, oh, okay, well, this is a simple misunderstanding.
• 13:35
  I was like, oh, Alexandra, let me show you.
• 13:38
  When a bike has a flat tire, you don't throw it away.
• 13:40
  When the ball was flat, like there wasn't really anything we could do about it.
• 13:43
  And when we tried to put air in it, it didn't work.
• 13:45
  But with a bike tire, you put an inner tube in it.
• 13:48
  And I walked her over and I showed her the inner tubes and we got an inner tube for the bike.
• 13:51
  And she's like, oh, dad, this is great.
• 13:52
  We can fix my bike.
• 13:53
  I didn't really want a new one.
• 13:56
  And my reaction would have changed that entire interaction.
• 14:00
  Here's what I know now that I understand containment.
• 14:02
  And here's what I know now that I understand what happens with our masculine nervous systems when we react.
• 14:10
  When we bring too much energy to a situation to solve a problem, we become the problem.
• 14:16
  And I know, like, in my heart, in my body, that had I replied to Alexandra with, like, why do you feel like you need a new bike just because the tire's flat?
• 14:25
  Like, that's ridiculous, you know.
• 14:26
  We don't need to spend all that money.
• 14:27
  We just need to get a new energy.
• 14:28
  Here's what would have happened.
• 14:30
  She probably wouldn't have heard a lot of what I said.
• 14:33
  even if I had taken her over and shown the inner tube, she still would have been upset and trying to figure out why she got yelled at.
• 14:39
  What she said for a kid made perfect logical sense.
• 14:43
  Like, ball didn't hold air?
• 14:45
  Chuck it.
• 14:46
  Bike tire doesn't hold air?
• 14:48
  Chuck it and get a new one.
• 14:50
  And so it turned into a learning experience instead of what it would have been.
• 14:55
  Because here's what I know for us as men.
• 14:56
  Once we react, we've changed the future.
• 14:59
  We've changed the possibility of connection.
• 15:01
  We've changed the possibility of understanding.
• 15:04
  We've changed the possibility of actually knowing what's going on for that other person.
• 15:09
  And so similarly, if there's a place where your spouse, your wife, your partner, the person you love, or even your kids is consistently reacting to you, if it's when you're driving or if it's when you raise your voice or if it's in certain situations,
• 15:29
  Slow things down.
• 15:30
  I took some notes here just to make sure that I really said the right things today because I feel like this is really important.
• 15:38
  You know, for us as men, when we see someone reacting to us, we can definitely react back.
• 15:45
  And honestly, so many of us have been trained and conditioned and shown and...
• 15:51
  have repeatedly in our lives reacted back.
• 15:53
  You know, if they have a reaction, we react.
• 15:56
  And if they have a bigger reaction, we react again.
• 15:58
  And oftentimes if they have another reaction, we exceed that reaction.
• 16:01
  And what we normally do is put that other person in a place of central nervous system instability.
• 16:06
  We put them into a fight, flight, fawn, or freeze.
• 16:09
  And they're not really understanding, not really hearing us.
• 16:13
  And the more often we do this, the more we're teaching that person that we aren't safe.
• 16:19
  Like I now know that every time I would take a turn too fast or accelerate too fast or whatever I did in the car and Katie would say something about it and I would explain to her how she was wrong.
• 16:30
  What I was teaching her was that I wasn't safe.
• 16:32
  What I was teaching her at the nervous system level.
• 16:35
  Not at the logical, I love you, you're my husband level, but at the nervous system level, I was repeatedly teaching her I wasn't safe.
• 16:42
  And every time I said, hey, you don't have to worry about this.
• 16:46
  It's not a big deal.
• 16:47
  I know what I'm doing.
• 16:47
  I'm a good driver.
• 16:48
  I race cars.
• 16:49
  All of the explanations that I gave made her feel unseen, unheard, invalidated, and unsafe.
• 16:58
  And as men...
• 17:01
  the more we can make the people around us feel seen and heard, the more we can validate the people around us, the more we can make them feel safe in our presence, the richer the relationships we have, the more influence we have, the more we can lead, the more we can share, the more we can experience love and connection rather than be the person that everyone's reacting to.
• 17:23
  And so if you're in a situation where you have that constant reaction with the people around you, first recognize the trigger in your body.
• 17:32
  When I think back to that day in the Sporting's Goods store, I mean, I remember like this feeling of heat rushing up to my body.
• 17:39
  And you know where it really comes from?
• 17:40
  My childhood.
• 17:41
  My childhood because...
• 17:45
  my parent, my dad, my, we didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up.
• 17:48
  And my dad used to yell at us about money and yell at us about wasting and yell at us about, you know, not taking care of things.
• 17:55
  And, you know,
• 17:56
  It was like childhood patterns.
• 17:57
  I had been taught like, you know, you don't spend money and you're really careful with money and you have to be careful.
• 18:02
  And, you know, you had in like that was that was me repeating the pattern of my childhood and I felt it in my body.
• 18:08
  And I'm so glad I had that split second recognition and slowed it down and asked a question and it sent the entire interaction in a different direction.
• 18:18
  So first slow down, recognize the trigger in your body, take a breath and then get curious.
• 18:23
  Okay.
• 18:24
  You know, if somebody is reacting to you over and over again, simple questions like, hey, why does this really bother you?
• 18:29
  And what's really going on for you?
• 18:31
  And, you know, I really want to understand this.
• 18:33
  Tell me what's happening for you right now.
• 18:35
  Tell me why this is like this for you right now.
• 18:37
  Tell me what's in the reaction.
• 18:38
  What's behind the reaction?
• 18:39
  What are you feeling like?
• 18:41
  Ask questions.
• 18:42
  Get curious.
• 18:44
  And it might change your entire interaction in that, no, it will change your entire interaction in that moment.
• 18:50
  But the more you do it, it might change your entire relationship with that person.
• 18:55
  And if that person's your partner, the person who is supposed to be your most secure attachment and who is really such a massive foundation to everything you do, you know, I've,
• 19:08
  I've been on a lot of missions in my life, and I know that there's this whole mission over marriage thing that men are taught, but I don't see it that way.
• 19:15
  You know, for me, I've been on a lot of missions in my life.
• 19:18
  I've had a lot of different businesses, a lot of different companies, a lot of different outcomes I wanted to create in the world, like the change I was going to make.
• 19:24
  But I've been with my wife for 22 years.
• 19:26
  She's the constant.
• 19:28
  And she is the place where I've learned more about myself and understood more about myself and developed as a person more than anything else in the world.
• 19:39
  And so...
• 19:42
  For me, remaining curious with her and understanding what's really going on with her and staying contained with her and letting her express herself has been one of the greatest growth experiences of my entire life.
• 19:55
  Maybe not one of the, maybe the greatest growth experience of my life has been the initiation that has been my relationship.
• 20:03
  Because instead of getting triggered, when I ask a question and I hear what's going on for her, I start understanding myself better.
• 20:11
  It's like, whoa, why was I triggered?
• 20:12
  You know, I wasn't in danger in the moment.
• 20:14
  In that day in this voting goods store, like I was going to react with anger.
• 20:18
  Honestly, I was going to react with violence.
• 20:19
  Like as men, when we have that violent energetic, that warrior energetic, that is reacting with violence.
• 20:25
  I was going to react with violence.
• 20:26
  Why was I reacting with violence in a situation where I was 100% completely and totally safe?
• 20:33
  Well, the reason was I was projecting forward to, you know, my kid is going to be, she's spoiled and she's entitled and this is going to be a problem in the future.
• 20:42
  And so, you know, I did something wrong and it's probably me judging myself.
• 20:46
  And like, I understood so much in that moment about why that triggered me.
• 20:52
  And the more I've done that with my kids, with my wife, with the people around me, and especially with Katie.
• 20:57
  the more I've understood that so much of my reactions are an opportunity for me to understand myself better and let go of energy I don't need.
• 21:08
  You know, there's this saying, like, every trigger is an opportunity.
• 21:12
  And it's really easy to just hear that and think about it like online on a bumper sticker, but, or on an Instagram post, but,
• 21:21
  Every trigger really is an opportunity to slow down and to ask yourself what's going on.
• 21:27
  And if there's no danger in the room, why are you triggered in a way that indicates there's danger?
• 21:32
  If you're not really in a place where you're unsafe, why are you reacting with a level of violence that really doesn't make sense?
• 21:40
  And if you're in a place where there is no threat, why are you reacting in a way like you're neutralizing a threat?
• 21:48
  As men, this process of flowing down, understanding what's going on, and processing that trigger and really training around that trigger changes everything in our lives.
• 22:00
  You know, I've run tons of multimillion-dollar businesses.
• 22:03
  I've had a tremendous amount of success.
• 22:07
  I think back in so many of those multimillion-dollar businesses were run by my inner child because I was in a place where I was so uncontained and reactive and frustrated.
• 22:19
  I live a life that I didn't know was possible.
• 22:21
  I have a connection with my wife that is deep and rich and exciting and extraordinary.
• 22:27
  With intimacy, I didn't know that I could achieve in this lifetime.
• 22:31
  And peace, peace in my house, peace with my kids, connection with my kids.
• 22:36
  You know, I have a relationship with my children, with my friends, or I have relationships with my friends that are deeper and richer than anything I've ever known.
• 22:43
  You know, I often see people post things like,
• 22:46
  You know, on your way to success, you're going to lose more friends than you gain and stuff like that.
• 22:50
  Well, you know, I think that's a lot of how we look at it and how we behave.
• 22:54
  Because on our way to success, if we start really understanding where we're triggered and we process those things and we spend time with them and we show ourselves that we are safe and we show ourselves that other people's emotions are safe and we show ourselves that we don't need to have those reactions, we can stay in our bodies.
• 23:12
  You know, there's a phrase, the calmest man in the room wins.
• 23:15
  I believe this is how you actually become the calmest man.
• 23:18
  I shared that phrase with entrepreneurs for years.
• 23:20
  You know, I've been working on this process forever, but now I really understand how to get there.
• 23:25
  The way you become the calmest man in the room is not by suppressing your emotions, not by pushing everything down, not by practicing stoicism where you don't react to everything, but instead understanding that when you're in a triggered state, there's emotions present and letting them process, like feeling those emotions and not reacting to them.
• 23:46
  Instead of exploding outwards, or what I used to do was implode inwards when I was triggered, I'd withdraw and I'd...
• 23:54
  get quiet and I'd go do a bunch of stuff, but I wouldn't really be there.
• 23:58
  And so when we learn as men how not to explode or implode, when we learn to contain our energy, when we learn to process what's coming up for us in the moment, when we understand that every one of us has triggers, you're not responsible that you had a trigger, but you're 100% responsible for how you behave afterwards.
• 24:18
  And how you treat the people around you when you're triggered.
• 24:22
  And the impact that you make on the people around you when you're triggered.
• 24:27
  And so the more that you can understand this and slow down and get curious, I believe the better life you're going to have and the better your business is going to go and the better your relationships will go.
• 24:37
  You know, I train men these disciplines, this martial art-like discipline of masculine containment in the brotherhood.
• 24:44
  And when I started this work last year in 2025, I had a theory that if men learned containment
• 24:54
  Not just would their relationships improve and not would they just understand themselves better.
• 24:59
  But I had a theory that men could save relationships that were faltering and they could improve the relationship that was going well and that they could improve their business and they could do better in their job or whatever they do for money.
• 25:09
  And that was a theory.
• 25:11
  And now that I've trained a bunch of men, I can tell you, we've had stories of men signing the biggest contracts of their lives, and they come back and say, hey, I couldn't have done it without this work.
• 25:21
  We've had stories of men who literally, as a couple, they had already paid for divorce proceedings.
• 25:28
  And canceled the divorce proceedings and the relationship came back.
• 25:31
  We've had stories of men that were on no contact, couldn't even talk to their partners and started containing themselves, connected, started understanding, leading with curiosity, not reacting to every trigger, asking what was going on and understanding the other person.
• 25:46
  And the divorce has been canceled.
• 25:49
  So this theory that I once had more and more is being proven through the outcomes that men are getting by slowing down, getting curious, understanding that we all get triggered.
• 26:00
  We shouldn't judge ourselves for being triggered.
• 26:03
  We shouldn't feel shame around a trigger.
• 26:05
  We shouldn't feel frustration around a trigger.
• 26:07
  We should feel opportunity to examine that trigger and move in an entirely different direction in our lives.
• 26:14
  And yeah.
• 26:15
  every situation where we have a trigger we can react and explode or implode and then we brought too much energy to that situation to solve the problem and in almost every single case we are going to become the problem or we can feel the trigger understand that it's there and react by slowing down and act with curiosity and really change the future like completely and totally change the future and create more connection more love more peace and
• 26:44
  And more momentum in our lives.
• 26:46
  And if you're a man who is interested in doing this work, it would be my honor to walk this path with you and to learn this theory of masculine containment, this discipline, this martial art-like discipline of masculine containment with you.
• 27:02
  And if you're interested, you can go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 27:06
  And you can sign up for either an interview if we're interviewing, which happens about once a quarter, or sign up for the wait list and we'll let you know when interviews are open for our next Brotherhood container.
• 27:17
  I'd love to have you there.
• 27:19
  When you can understand this information and understand who we are as men in the presence of men from around the world that all want to learn this is one of the most healing and amazing and life-changing experiences you can have.
• 27:35
  It's the greatest privilege I've ever had to lead this content and to share with men.
• 27:39
  And I'd love to share it with you.
• 27:40
  So go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 27:43
  Sign up either for an interview if we're there or a wait list.
• 27:45
  And I look forward to meeting you.
• 27:46
  And thanks for being here with me today.
• 27:48
  And remember, curiosity creates containment.