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Adam Allred: The Most Important Relationship a Man Will Ever Have · Becoming

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: God wants me to be the most powerful version of myself.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: That's what he's made me to be. And that's my
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: primary purpose in life is to be the best version
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: of myself first and foremost. That relationship with myself is
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: equal to that relationship I have with God. They're one
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and the same. They're symbiotic. Me becoming my most powerful
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: version is the best way that I can follow God.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: And when I do that, it's not selfish. It's synergistic.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It makes me better at everything else I do. I'm
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: better if I'm first aligned with myself and aligned with
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: my divine calling. First and foremost, everything else starts to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: fall into place.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Welcome back, everybody. I'm your host, Bubba Page. As you
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: guys have known, we've been calling this the Fatherhood Movement
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Podcast because fathers and fatherhood is so close and near
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and dear to my heart as a dad of eight.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: But we've been making some changes around here and I've
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: been building in the background something called Becoming. So joinbecoming.com
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: is more inclusive to all of the women following and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: friends that we have here as well. And we have
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: an incredible new product coming out, you guys. So go
• 1:00
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• 1:09
  Speaker 2: task management, even some inspiration to help specifically with the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: overwhelm of being an entrepreneur, a business owner, a parent,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: combining all the best things that we can. But today
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: we have got the one and only Mr. Adam right here.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: So excited to have you on the show. Thanks for
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: coming all the way down.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Bob, I'm glad to be here, man. It's good
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to see you again.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: A couple of days ago, you were up at the
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  Speaker 1: house with eight kids. Yes. We're living the good life.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: This is such a funny story. So we were actually,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: so that the audience knows, we got introduced by a
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: mutual friend, Brad. So I'm glad he did that. We
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: were going to do a podcast this last Friday, and
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  Speaker 2: your wife had planned this amazing get-together.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: That maybe you weren't totally in the know of.
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  Speaker 1: My wife is in shambles on my schedule. Yeah. So
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: she schedules things, tells me about them. I promptly forget
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  Speaker 1: about them. And that was this moment. I love it.
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  Speaker 2: So instead he says, instead of recording, come up to
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  Speaker 2: my house for a swim party. And I honestly don't
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  Speaker 2: think you thought I was going to say yes.
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  Speaker 1: I was hoping you were. I didn't think you would.
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  Speaker 1: Cause I don't think most people don't say yes to life.
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  Speaker 1: You did. I was actually really excited you were coming up.
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  Speaker 1: I was like, my bubba's coming up. He's bringing his
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  Speaker 1: eight kids.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: And I think you had a plus one as well. Yep.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I had a squad up there. Everybody's having a good time.
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  Speaker 2: So nine, it was myself and nine kids, 16 and
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  Speaker 2: under just come bombarding into your backyard. That was so fun.
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  Speaker 1: That was a blast.
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  Speaker 2: The kids, kids had an absolute blast. The reason why
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  Speaker 2: I was able to see us is because I had
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  Speaker 2: that time blocked out already. And my son was going
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: to come to the podcast that you and I were
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  Speaker 2: going to record. And so I already kind of had
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  Speaker 2: this structure. So when it was like, well, let's just
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: swap from podcast to play. I was like, done. I'm
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  Speaker 2: bringing all the kids over.
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  Speaker 1: It worked out perfect. Could have been better.
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  Speaker 2: You guys, so as I've been devouring your content online,
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  Speaker 2: this is what's so cool. So introduction. So Adam, you guys,
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  Speaker 2: serial entrepreneur. You have multiple companies. You have also been
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  Speaker 2: through a divorce. You're remarried now and even have two
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  Speaker 2: little ones to make this new family of yours, which
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: is so awesome. We have a lot, I think, that
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  Speaker 2: we relate on. And as I looked at your content,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: by the way, go follow him. Make sure I'm saying
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: it right. What's the exact handle?
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  Speaker 1: Adam Allred Official.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Official. I wanted to make sure I didn't. So,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: at Adam Allred Official. Go and check out his content. Fantastic.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot that we share and comment about. But
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask, what compelled you to even start
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  Speaker 2: sharing in the first place? Most dudes are not sharing
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  Speaker 2: online in this kind of a way. So, this is.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was no expense. I had no anticipation of
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  Speaker 1: being that dude either. Like I was going through the
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  Speaker 1: divorce and in the process of that, I mean, a really,
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  Speaker 1: really rough first marriage. And then just, I mean, all
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: divorces are rough. I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
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  Speaker 1: They're like the hardest thing you go through. And I
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  Speaker 1: realized like so much of what I had been programmed
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  Speaker 1: with from my youth, from family and church and school
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  Speaker 1: and culture and whatever else had just not worked. And
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  Speaker 1: not only had it not worked, you know, I'd, I'd
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  Speaker 1: followed the scripts. I'd been handed, do this, do this.
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  Speaker 1: This is what a good guy does. And not only
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: had it not worked, it made things worse. And I
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  Speaker 1: was able to start observing that. And as I was
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  Speaker 1: going through this visceral, like existential crisis of going through
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  Speaker 1: a divorce, uh, it made me, it put me in
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  Speaker 1: a position, which I'm so grateful for now to start
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  Speaker 1: questioning everything in my past, everything that I've been told,
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  Speaker 1: this is right. All the sacred cows that I had
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  Speaker 1: in my backyard that I was unwilling to ever question.
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  Speaker 1: I started looking at these things and decided, does this
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  Speaker 1: actually work for me or not? And having a really honest,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't a day or two, but over months, couple
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  Speaker 1: of years really like assessing things that I'd never questioned
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  Speaker 1: in my life. I just accepted and, and choosing what
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  Speaker 1: worked and what didn't work. And in the process of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: going through divorce, I had, um, when the, when the
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  Speaker 1: word got out, I had, uh, at least 50 different
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  Speaker 1: guys reach out to me, friends or associates of friends.
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  Speaker 1: Cause some people I'd never even met, but they knew
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  Speaker 1: and heard about it. Ask me what, what the process
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  Speaker 1: was like. A lot of these were just good guys
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  Speaker 1: in really, really rough marriages. trying to do everything right.
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  Speaker 1: Just like me. And, um, so I was like, man,
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  Speaker 1: I gotta, I should start sharing some content on social media.
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  Speaker 1: And prior to that, I didn't really have any social
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  Speaker 1: media is post up a couple of pictures of family
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  Speaker 1: or whatever, you know? So I was like, I'm just
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  Speaker 1: going to start posting up some content and share some
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  Speaker 1: framework that I'm getting right now. That's helping me move
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  Speaker 1: the needle in my life.
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  Speaker 2: Share your experience.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. Bingo. And, uh, like my fifth reel got
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  Speaker 1: like 2 million views. I had no followers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Like almost overnight, I had like 10,000 people follow me
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  Speaker 1: on Instagram. People follow me on Facebook and Tik TOK and,
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  Speaker 1: And then it became kind of intimidating. I was like,
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  Speaker 1: wait a minute, these people are like, I'm getting DMs.
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  Speaker 1: So I kept making content and it kept growing. And
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  Speaker 1: within a short period of time, I still have a
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  Speaker 1: lot of these messages saved. I would have guys saying,
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  Speaker 1: I've never met, just guys through social media, like, dude,
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  Speaker 1: your content gave me enough courage to fight for another day.
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  Speaker 1: I was thinking about killing myself today. Wow. That was
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  Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I was getting in my inbox.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
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  Speaker 1: And so it went from being like, hey, let me
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  Speaker 1: just share some ideas and see maybe if three people
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  Speaker 1: like this cool, maybe it helps them. I felt kind
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  Speaker 1: of morally obligated to do that to almost a sacred
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  Speaker 1: calling where it's like, dude, this means more than I
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  Speaker 1: realized it would mean to a lot of people.
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  Speaker 2: You feel compelled.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It becomes a calling. I don't know how else
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  Speaker 1: to describe it because I don't, you know, and what's
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  Speaker 1: interesting and kind of ironic is that first year that
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  Speaker 1: I was posting content, I hated it. Like I didn't
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  Speaker 1: want to do it. You know, you don't know what
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  Speaker 1: kind of response you're going to get. There's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of negative comments that show up. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people misunderstand what you're trying to say. And then you
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  Speaker 1: don't always get it right. You're learning, evolving. It's not
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  Speaker 1: like I feel like I've got everything figured out. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: oh man, maybe I didn't say that right. Oh, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: The internet's not forgiving.
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  Speaker 2: Oh man, you better have thick skin, right?
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  Speaker 1: You got it.
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  Speaker 2: People say all kinds of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I had to learn to have some thick skin, but
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  Speaker 1: I literally hated it every night. I would be like, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do it tomorrow. And then I'd
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  Speaker 1: wake up and I'd feel again, this obligation, like, because
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  Speaker 1: I'd seen more messages in my inbox of people saying, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: that really helped me. And so it kept me going. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So that was the, that was the journey, man. Interesting. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Here's what I found as I, as I've consumed some
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  Speaker 2: of your content is to be able to see one,
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  Speaker 2: you don't hold back. You just share the reality of
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  Speaker 2: your situation and what you've learned through what you it's
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  Speaker 2: super authentic. And I think people can feel that. And
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  Speaker 2: I think when you're online, sharing authenticity is the key
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  Speaker 2: to that connection. and vulnerability. Like you, you've been vulnerable
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  Speaker 2: to share the hard things. I think you've also been
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  Speaker 2: able to call people out. And when you call people out,
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  Speaker 2: not that it's contrarian by nature, but it's, you're helping
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  Speaker 2: people think a little more openly about life and what
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  Speaker 2: they believe. And I know for me, I mean, we
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: talked to, you talked about some of the sacred cows
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  Speaker 2: or beliefs that you've had in the past that you've had,
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  Speaker 2: you've changed some of those, those beliefs or thoughts. What's
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  Speaker 2: been fascinating for me is that as I've, as I've
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: looked at my own faith or testimony in, you know,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's religion or, you know, God above. And when
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  Speaker 2: you have to go through heartache and trials, I think
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  Speaker 2: you're tested. And, you know, where are you going to turn?
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  Speaker 2: Are you going to deepen your relationship with Jesus? Or
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  Speaker 2: are you going to get bitter and angry? And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: from what I've seen, it seems like you're leaning more
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  Speaker 2: on God And it may not be through the same,
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  Speaker 2: you know, upbringing type of thoughts, but you've, from what
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  Speaker 2: I can tell, you've deepened that belief in him, who's
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  Speaker 2: that master healer. So how have you kind of gone,
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  Speaker 2: how have you gone through these trials and hard things
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  Speaker 2: and strengthened that faith in God, even if it didn't
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  Speaker 2: look like what you were raised in?
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  Speaker 1: Man, that is such a good question. And I've never
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  Speaker 1: been asked that question. I'm going to try and answer
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  Speaker 1: that as best I can, kind of processing this. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, catch people off guard a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah. So first I, what you were talking
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  Speaker 1: about earlier about authenticity, that's been something I've found that
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  Speaker 1: served me well, my whole life that the more authentic
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  Speaker 1: I can be warts and all, this is who I
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  Speaker 1: am not pretending to be something that I'm not trying
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  Speaker 1: to just be honest about what it is. I feel
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  Speaker 1: and be openly vulnerable about everything. There's a superpower in
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  Speaker 1: that I've learned over the years that the more The
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  Speaker 1: more I accept my weaknesses, the more I can see them,
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  Speaker 1: the more I can get to the punchline before somebody
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  Speaker 1: else can, I can own that ground, the less it
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  Speaker 1: has any power over me. There's something about being just
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  Speaker 1: open that is so liberating. And so that's something that
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  Speaker 1: I've tried to take into social media, something I've learned
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  Speaker 1: a lot over the years to lean into for a
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: myriad of different reasons. One, it's healthy for me, makes
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: me happier just to be open and not feel like
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  Speaker 1: I have any skeletons in the closet or anything I
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: can't talk about or don't want to address. But it's
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: helped me to find just deeper connections with people. When
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you're open, it invites other people to be open. When
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you're around somebody who's authentic, you know, you find somebody who's,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: even if you don't agree with them, you're like, man,
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  Speaker 1: I like this guy. You know, even if they're an asshole,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: but they're authentic about it, you're like, I kind of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: like him. He's still an asshole, but I kind of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: like him. You know, cause it just aren't who they are. There's,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: there's no pretense. So that's helped me a lot in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: my life in a myriad of different ways. But the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: evolution with my relationship with God has been pretty profound
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  Speaker 1: because when I was going through that, um, I, I
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: was having, I was having a spiritual crisis when I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was going through my first marriage and divorce. And there
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: were a lot of times when I was angry with
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: God and I was throwing my temper tantrum as a kid,
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  Speaker 1: having a human experience, just like, F you God, this
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  Speaker 1: is bullshit. You know, just having these fights, but I never,
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  Speaker 1: I realized on some level that it was me just
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: being a kid and I was throwing that temper tantrum
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  Speaker 1: and I, I never threw God out. So what happened
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  Speaker 1: because I, I, I kept hanging on to my relationship
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  Speaker 1: with God is it evolved significantly and it broke out
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  Speaker 1: of any of the dogmatic packaging that I'd been given.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that happens for a lot of people.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: If you don't just get bitter and throw the baby
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  Speaker 1: out with the bathwater with your life experiences, it's, if
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: you lean into it, you'll, you'll find that your relationship
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: with God deepens in a lot of ways. And a
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: lot of the things that you used to think, this
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: is how God is kind of go out, out the window. And, um,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: that's been really healthy for me. I think if I
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: was trying to hang on to religious frameworks, I probably
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to hang on to my relationship
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  Speaker 1: with God. And I think that a lot of people,
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  Speaker 1: when they go through really, really hard moments in their life,
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  Speaker 1: they have to find a new a new level or
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  Speaker 1: a new relationship or new standing with God.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: Because those Sunday school answers don't carry you through a divorce.
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  Speaker 1: They don't carry you through an abusive marriage. They don't
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  Speaker 1: carry you through a lot of the vicissitudes of life. Um,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and it's good starting point. I don't fault my religious background.
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  Speaker 1: I'm super grateful for it. It gave me a foundation
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to build on, but I don't think religion is the destination.
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  Speaker 1: I think at best, it's a tool that helps us
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to start developing our own relationship with God. And I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: really believe this, that for every man to level up,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: for every man to build that type of relationship with God,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you fundamentally have to cut out middle management. You have
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to stop asking other people's permission for how to follow God.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You got to stop trusting someone else's experiences or someone
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  Speaker 1: else's opinion on who God is and what God wants
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you to do for your life. And you got to
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: go into that wilderness yourself, naked, stripped of your ego,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: stripped of everything and find God in that space. And
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  Speaker 1: that has been the most important journey of my life.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm so glad you touched upon this. And I
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: want to, I want to give some distinction here because
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I think the people that are listening to give some clarity, uh, and,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: and correct me if I'm wrong here. Um, Adam and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I both served LDS Mormon missions, right?
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Um, I was in Brazil. Remind me where you went again.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Riverside, California, California.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: That's right. Um, so served missions. Uh, did you get
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: married in the temple?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: First time. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Both times. Both times. Yeah, ironically, we don't have to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: dig into this, but ironically, both times I was turned
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: down for marriage in the temple for both of my
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: wives that I've had. So my first wife and my
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: second wife, we couldn't get married in the temple. And
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't because we were having sex. Anybody who's listened
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to this with an LDS background, that's the natural conclusion.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with that. It was other
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: things that were also started making me question the authority
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: structure and stuff like that. But afterwards, we both, in
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: both marriages, got sealed in the temple.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: That's fascinating. Okay, that's helpful. today, day-to-day practicing LDS?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: No. I go to church. Okay.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: No, I, yeah, I, I go to church.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I don't mean to like call you out or anything.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Nothing's off limits. I have no, nothing makes me feel uncomfortable.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Cause I wanted to bring this up because this is
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: what's look, we're friends. We're new friends, but we're friends.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: And I think the authenticity here has immediately deepened. There's
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: a connection that has been there because we're authentic. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm, this is what's so fascinating is, There
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: was a recent podcast that just went out with a
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: woman who was raised Mormon LDS and then has since left.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: And we had this incredible discussion about how she and
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I still have a great connection and such a deep friendship.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And we love each other. No matter what faith or
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: beliefs structure it is, we just love each other as humans.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: And I hope more people that are hearing this too,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: like we can have a deep friendship and still love
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: each other no matter what. our faith or Sunday activities
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: look like. And I think sometimes, and maybe it's just
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: in the Utah culture, I grew up in California. So
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of my friends were not of my same
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: faith growing up and that was normal and it was
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: totally okay. And we all loved each other for the unique,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: authentic person that we really were. And it's fascinating because
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I am, you know, an all in type of Mormon,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: you can call it LDS, Latter-day Saint. And And yet
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: that authenticity is that's, that's for me. I don't put
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: that on you. I don't put that on anyone else.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That's just me and what I've chosen to do.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And, but I need people to know, I want people
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: to know we can have this deep relationship that starts,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, only a few weeks ago and goes deeper
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: moving forward and still have a brotherly love and a
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: respect because of our authentic relationship and our authentic beliefs.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and we love each other for it kind of a thing.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And I just, I fear sometimes, and maybe it's just Utah,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: but I fear sometimes that culturally it pulls people away
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: from each other. And I actually got the question the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: other day, they said, somebody was asking me online and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: they said, how do you have these deep friendships with
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: people who, let's say for some of my friends drink,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: some of my friends do, you know, make choices in
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: life that I wouldn't choose to do. And they said,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: how do you do that without getting pulled into those activities?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: And I, and I just commented and I said, look,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's just my own confidence in myself that
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I don't need to go do whatever they're doing to
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: make myself feel good. Like I know who I am
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: and I know, I know enough of who I am
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to be my own strong, unique individual self. And, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I can still be friends with them and still go
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: on vacation with them and still not get pulled into
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: maybe some of their habits or their other things that
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Choose to do.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Um, and so it, it came down to this self-confidence
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: and it's almost the sec, the security you've talked, I
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: think on your socials about insecure and avoidant type of,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: you know, people. All right. So we'll shift from the
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: faith a little bit. And I want to ask you
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: a question. As we go from this, you know, faith
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: discussion and how we can still have a deep relationship
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: and friendship and respect because of the authentic person who
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: we are, pull that into marriage. Because I know I
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: lost part of myself in my previous marriage to the
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: point where I became the people pleaser. I was the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: nice guy that, you know, that the book No More Mr.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Nice Guy talks about. And I had no idea that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: this was happening until it was literally too late. You
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: had mentioned in one of your posts about attraction and
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: how that's going to go away for the nice guy.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So maybe let's take this discussion and shift it a
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: little bit to relationship and let's help these men. I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: wish I would have known these things five or 10
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: years ago. I wish I would have had a concept
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: that my own insecurities were going to be the trap
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: that led me down a path that I wasn't being
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: as authentic to myself as because I thought I had
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: to be what I thought she wanted me to be
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: instead of just my true authentic self. Can you help
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: us understand? I want the men to hear this.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is heavy. This is a lot. And I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: think this is so profound in the world that we
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: live in now because I fell into the same trap.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And I don't think mine were, when my first marriage
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: were so much stemmed around insecurities. I think it was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: just really around how I'd been raised with all of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: this conditioning that I was supposed to, when I found
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the right woman, She was supposed to be my purpose.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It was my job to make her happy. It was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: my job to serve her. And in a real sense,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: pedestalize her. And I believed in this sort of chivalry
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: thing that I'd read about in books as a kid.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And then you go to church and you get this
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: constant messaging from the church. And I don't say this
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: as a criticism. It just is a reality from my experience.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: It is such a reality. I would say the words,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: this is my better half. I would literally introduce her
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: and say, this is my better half thinking that That
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: this was the right way.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: You're doing something virtuous by praising your wife and elevating her.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And men were conditioned that way to do that. Men
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: are also, good men are also conditioned to sacrifice for
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: those who we love. It's an instinctual reaction in most
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of us. It's a form of masculinity. But it has
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: to be tempered with a knowledge of who you are,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: what your purpose is. And your purpose is not somebody else.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: No matter how important that relationship is, your primary purpose
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in this life can never be your relationship with somebody else.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I say this all the time. The most important relationship
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a man will ever have in this life is the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: relationship He has with himself. And people push back on that. No,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: it's God. No, it didn't. I'm like, no, because God
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Just look at the Pharisees. The Pharisees studied the scriptures.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: They thought they knew God better than everybody else. And
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: yet they had this really corrosive projection of who God
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: was that then they imposed on other people. So it
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: starts with you building a healthy relationship with yourself. And
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: if you haven't done that, or if nobody's taught you
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: to do that, then the natural inclination for many of
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: us is we get into relationships and we lose ourselves.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: We don't know how to hold boundaries. We don't know
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: how to lead. No one's ever told us, hey, you've
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: got to know your purpose as a man. You've got
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to be on that. And you've got to be focused
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: on leveling up. Because until you're good at being a man,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: which is what God made you to be, Bubba made
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: me to be, you're never going to be good as
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a husband. You'll never be good as a father. And
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: so it was easy in that first marriage for me
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to project all of my problems onto my ex-wife. And
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: she has her demons. She has her issues or hers
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: to take care of. But I realize in hindsight now
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: how much I dug that pit myself. One shovel load
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: at a time by creating this sort of um relationship
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: where she was my better half and you hear it
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: from the pulpit it's like god saved his greatest creation
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: for last the women and i'm not tearing women down
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: i i think women are the most powerful force in
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: this universe they create life there's something so divine in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the feminine energy and there's something that a woman does
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: that a man can't do in terms of carrying the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: torch on for human civilization that That needs to be
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: praised and recognized, but it also needs to be tempered
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that men bring an equal value to the table as well.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But I had just been caught up in that idea.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And so I, in a lot of ways, pedestalized my wife.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I was conditioned. Once you get married and you have
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: your career, you don't need your friends anymore. That's kind
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of more immature and you got to just focus on
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: your wife. And I just made so many bad decisions
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: early on subconsciously because it was just the script that
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I'd been handed. And I followed that script. I was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: all in on the LDS church till I was 40.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: In fact, when I went through my divorce, I was
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a counselor and a YSA bishopric. And we were just
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: coming to the tail end of that calling when the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: divorce finally kind of, the whole marriage melted down. We
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: finally hit the divorce point. I just learned so much
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: on what to do differently. And I learned so much
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: about myself in that process.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the condition that you talk about, Similar upbringing,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: similar race with, you know, same faith type of concept.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I also didn't grow up in Utah. So that's probably,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of similarity there. My old man
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: was in the military, so I was born in Utah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: but I grew up all over the world. Very active,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: very staunch LDS family, went on a mission. Mission was
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: foundational to my development. I can't, I can't, yeah, how
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: important that experience was for my life. I can't overstate it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So even though theologically, I just want to make this clear,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: theologically and dogmatically, I no longer adhere to what the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: church claims about things like that. Uh, I still find
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: it as a very powerful tool and I'm still deeply
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: grateful for my experience being raised in the church. So
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I love the church. I love go, I go to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: church with my family. I just have a different approach.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Would you recommend to young men to still go serve
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a mission so they can get that life experience?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Or something similar akin to that, because I felt like
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that just took me from being a boy and put
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: me into being a young man.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I love that. So, so this is what I found
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: too with my own, um, discovery of my own faith.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Because I think you have to, you're growing up and maturing,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: you're going to have to discover for yourself what is
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: real or what's not. And so, you know, looking at
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: my life as an active member of the Church of
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving the mission, getting married
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: in the temple, I was always active and doing my
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: callings like you did as well. But it wasn't until
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: about 2016 where I had to shut down one of
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: my companies and And it was devastating to me. And
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I know for some, it may not be a big
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: of a deal, but for me, it was huge because
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I had only had success up until that point. And
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: so this was like the first life failure that I
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: had ever achieved, you know, had, and I'm sure there
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: were lots of other failures along the way, but something
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that was meaningful to me. And when I shut down
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: this company, I luckily had another one that was taking
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: care of our family financially. So I took time off
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: and I just started to dive in to me because
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: it was the first time I ever felt anxiety, depression.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't know who I was. I labeled myself as
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur. And then that was like taken away because
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I had to shut down this, this tech company. And,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and it was the first time where, although I had,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: you know, served the mission and done the church thing
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the whole time, I decided to like put this to
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the test for me. And it was interesting because as
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I dove deeper and studied way more than I had
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: ever studied before and like going to the temple every week.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I did that for a full year consistently because I
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: was like, I just need to put this to the test.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Like if people are talking about it. And what was
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: fascinating for me is whatever story works for us to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: get closer to God, that's how it's supposed to be.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: In my story, I needed that to get me closer
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: to God. I don't know why, but that process of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the deeper scriptural study and then my solo time worshiping
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: inside of a sacred place that I, you know, the
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: temple for me, that is what drew me closer to God.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And that consistency helped me to be prepared for the divorce,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: eventual divorce. that I think I could have fallen completely
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: apart if I didn't have that spiritual foundation. But what
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I want to clarify is that it wasn't necessarily the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: same cultural gospel or church that is what got me
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to that deep core of my relationship with Jesus. It
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: was me doing it on my own. Although I had
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: the foundations of the church to help me, it was
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: me and God alone. that created the relationship. And it
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: seems like you've done the exact same thing, although somewhat
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: of a different path, which is totally fine, but you've
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: created this unique, deeper relationship with you and your maker.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And I hope anyone listening to this, whatever choice you
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: go down your path, that you find that relationship with
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: God on your own, and that it's not reliant upon
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: someone else that you're not basing your own testimony and
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: belief on anyone else. Because it is only you and
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: your relationship with God that will get you to that point,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: is how I see it. Whether it's a religion or not,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: it's your relationship with Jesus.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And I think anybody who's in
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the pursuit of the truth, being authentic, pursuing that which
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: is divine, it doesn't matter what path you're on. Everybody's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: going to the top of the mountain. And so I
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: share on my social media content a lot of just
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: trying to, the way my mind works and musings uh,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: outside of the box and to try and encourage people
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to think outside of boxes and not necessarily to follow
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing, because I think we're all super unique
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and everybody's relationship with God is going to be unique.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So what works for me may not work for somebody
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: else and vice versa. And that's why I see people
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: who are deeply invested in religion. And I understand that
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I was in that and I don't feel like I've
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: transcended to some other place people need to follow. I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: feel like for me, I needed to follow the journey
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that I'm on right now because it's the, it's the
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: path that has made the most sense and helped me
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: to elevate and develop that relationship better. But you being
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: all in on the church, I totally get that. I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: understand that. And I would never try to convince you
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: otherwise you're on your journey. And I think anytime you
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: approach anything with the intention to truly come closer to God,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: it's the intention that matters. So speaking of the temple,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I used to do the same thing. I used to
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: go to the temple every week. For about a year,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and I used to go regularly all the time, had
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: profound spiritual experiences there. And sometimes my family members, when
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: we have these conversations come up, they'll push back on it. Well,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you know you had spiritual experiences. And I'm like, yeah,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: but I've had spiritual experiences on top of the mountain.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I've had spiritual experiences in my office. I've had spiritual
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: experiences in Hindu temples on the other side of the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: world because I've gone there to find God. I went
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to the top of Kilimanjaro with some of my sales
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: guys years ago and had one of the most profound
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: spiritual experiences of my life. But I was going to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the top of the mountain to see the face of God,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to meet God. I had this intention as I was
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: going there. And of course, God meets us, I believe,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: where we're at and shows up. And so, yes, you
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: can have spiritual experiences in a sacrament. You can have
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: spiritual experiences in the temple. You can have spiritual experiences
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: on a hike or in a Catholic church or in,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you know, going to the, you know, the mosque or whatever.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I think as long as your heart is pure and
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you're in pursuit of the truth, God is going to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: meet you right where you're at. And, He's going to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: communicate to us in a language that we can understand
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: based on our paradigms and our perspectives and our filters
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and our biases and everything else. God will meet us
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: where we're at and talk to us. And so everybody's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: on their own journey. And I think when we can,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: my problem fundamentally with religion, and it's not exclusive to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the LDS church, just in general, is too often the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: culture and the authoritative structures within churches are in the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: business of dividing people. They sell this ego, the certainty
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and shame. And it's not all religion does, but these
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: are a high level. Something I see very common in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: many religions is that you're the special kid on the bus.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: God likes you more than everybody else. It's not said
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in these words, but it's kind of conveyed this way.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: You're a peculiar people. You're more special than everybody else.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: You are more valiant than everybody else or whatever else
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: we use. And, you know, if you pledge your allegiance
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to us, we can guarantee you something in the afterlife.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And if you don't, you're going to hell. And so
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it's this ego shame sort of thing that gets played on.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And then this idea that you are on the, on
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the special bus. I just happen to believe now from
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: my experiences that God loves all of his children equally
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and everybody's life in this human experience is significant and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: profoundly important to the individual. And nobody's having a better
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: or more exclusive experience than anybody else. And that's where
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I kind of my biggest issues are with religion in general.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: So.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I go, I use it as a tool. I find
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it very valuable for me as a family to come
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: together and have common values and community and stuff like that.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: But I no longer subscribe to ideas that there are
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: only a certain group of people that God's going to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: save after this life. And they have to say a
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: certain set of words or make a certain set of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: commitments or whatever else in order for God to be
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: pleased with them and accept them back into his good graces.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I just don't believe.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you sharing this because what I hope people
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: can feel and see is the mutual respect, right? The
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: mutual respect that, that anyone out here that we can have,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: even if there are different opinions on whatever it is, because,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: and I hope that people saw this in the political
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: world because we can, can't we all just get along,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: you know? I mean, it's ridiculous what's out there in
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the world, but, um, but I appreciate you sharing because
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: it's something that, uh, that I hope those that are
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: listening or watching, uh, can see that we can all
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: have deep friendships rooted in the right stuff.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And by the way, when I say, and I love
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: this conversation, I love this energy because this creates so
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: much connection. I don't, I want it to be clear.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've got it figured out for anybody else.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I don't even think I got it figured out for myself.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a work in progress. So when I say this,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I share my thoughts, my ideas passionately and with conviction,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: but I believe in standing where you're at with conviction
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and yet keeping your mind constantly in a place of uncertainty.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: where you're open to new ideas and you can question
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: your own narratives and your own story. So I'll speak
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: with conviction, but I don't want to come across like
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I've got it figured out. I know the answer and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: people should agree with me, disagree with me, push back.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I get on my social media. I love it. My
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: opinions on social media on a lot of fundamental topics
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: have evolved because of the comment section. And I'm like,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you know, they actually, they actually make a better point
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: than me. And I have to consider that. And then
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I start to evolve a little bit. I really love that.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: So I'll speak like again on social media, I'll speak
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: with conviction. But so much of my own internal belief
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: systems are constantly evolving as I go.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: But that's a level of humility that I think we
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: all have to have. Because if we're truly going to
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: come to know God, we have to have that level
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: of humility. None of us have it figured out. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I found, even as I studied the scriptures, there are
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: some of the doctrines on there that are so out
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: there that I don't even understand. I have to put
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: it on the shelf. Because I don't know how to
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: understand it. I don't know how to comprehend it. So
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: for me, I put it on the shelf in a
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: sense of, I'll get back to that. And there have
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: been a couple things that over a course of a decade,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: it was on the shelf. And then somehow, some way,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: some form of revelation to me personally, through a life experience,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: answered that question. And I've just found for me that I've,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the deeper I go into my studies, the more I
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: know I don't know, right? And I think this is
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the humble statement humbling effect you're talking about is that
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: we don't have it all figured out. We don't have
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the perfect layout structure. And the deeper we study, the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: more we are going to find out we don't know
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: what's going on. And there's a song I just listened
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: to yesterday. I think it's by a band called Smithfield.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: And essentially, it talks about how nobody knows what they're doing.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Like we're all just playing along and doing the best
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: we can and learning every single day of our life.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And that no one has the perfect system or perfect process.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: And as much as I work hard on this, and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I'm literally trying to build something at joinbecoming.com to help
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: have that process or that system to encourage, it's not
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: going to be a perfect system. Is it hopefully better
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: than anything else that I can find out there? I hope.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But the idea is that I want people to give
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: me just as much feedback, just like your comment section.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I need them to give me the feedback on this,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just using this as an example, on this product
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: to make it as best as possible. And I think
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: our beliefs are the same. We have to be open.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: How can God speak to us if we're closed-minded and
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: only this one construct that we understand when we don't
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: know God's ways? Like we only know what we know
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: right now. And I think our minds will continually be
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: expanded upon as we gain more experience and that's become
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: closer to him. But it's frustrating to me sometimes when
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: there's some doctrinal topics, whether it's in the old Testament,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the new Testament, whatever it is that people don't want
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to talk about because it's too deep. It's a mystery.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: And to me, we've been commanded to study the mysteries.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: It's said multiple times in the scriptures, we need to
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: know the mysteries. But people stay away from it because
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: it's scary. And if people study too deep, they say
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: they're gonna fall away or leave. And I have found
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: in my own journey that the more I study and
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the more I come to know that I don't know,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the deeper my faith in Him, who is mighty to save, comes.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: So I think humility is the beginning of wisdom. Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to hold myself up here as
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I'm the example of humility because I'm not. I got
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: an ego. I wrestle with this stuff. We all do, right?
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: But I think that's the beginning is where you can
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: question yourself. And I think certainty is what's the opposite
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of faith. I think for faith to be faith, you
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: have to have doubt. And I think that doubt is
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: actually profoundly healthy. We look at doubt as like, oh,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: don't have doubts, doubt your doubts or whatever. But I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: think to have at the core of what faith is,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: is to be able to act in the face of,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of uncertainty to be able, I don't know, but I'm
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: going to take action. And I think any framework or
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: strategy that we come up with is better than no framework.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And this is one of the issues I see with
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: people who leave religion is they throw out framework and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: now they have no framework and their life goes to shit.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Like everything falls apart and you're like, see, they left religion,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: let religion is what kept them together. Well, they completely
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: threw out a framework for me. I knew that going
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: into this questioning of my theological positions that I'd been in,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: was I wasn't going to throw out the framework. Instead,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I wanted to evolve it. Again, look at the things
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: that were working, hold on to those. Question the things
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that weren't working, no longer from a place of, I
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: can't question this because this is what I was told
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: as a kid in Sunday school. but it'd be like, actually,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I don't really believe that. And it's okay for me
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: to admit that with myself. It's okay for me to
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: be honest with myself. And it doesn't mean anybody else
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: has to agree with me either. Nobody else has to say, well,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that's what, you know, I'm not preaching some new gospel
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to somebody or I'm not, I don't have some place
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to lead anybody.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: You didn't build a new church. No, people are paying you.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Just question our own selves and then act accordingly anyways.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And that's been a very, very healthy thing. Albeit it
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: takes a lot of work. And I think the human
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: psyche is, what most of us want is easy and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: it's easy to just have certainty. And the more you
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: tell yourself something that's true, the more it becomes a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: reality for you. And then you stop having faith anymore.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: You have sort of this kind of blind allegiance to something.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And in fact, most of my life was characterized by that.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I thought I was being authentic. I thought I had
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: my own relationship with God. I didn't, you know, I thought, well,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I know God, but I was following a script that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I had never questioned. I had never really opened myself
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: up to being like, maybe this works or maybe it doesn't.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And so for me, that was so intensely healthy, albeit
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: very difficult. Second to going through my divorce with my
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: wife has been kind of like the hallmark hardest thing
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I've gone through in my life. This evolution of my
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: spirituality from a religious framework to a personal relationship with
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: God has been the most difficult and yet the most
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: rewarding experience of my life so far.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I love that. There's so much truth
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: that you're speaking about, the personal relationship that we have
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: to have. And there is... Unfortunately, if people can't break
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: out of their own cultural or religious framework to find
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: their own personal relationship, however, which way they're going to
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: do that. And then the second thing I love that
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: you said you had, you were okay to now say
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: out loud that things had changed for you and that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you didn't necessarily believe some of the things that you
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: believed in the past. That authenticity is what's so key
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: to me. Cause I just fear that there's so many
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: folks out there who have these similar feelings and, or others,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: and they're not willing to be open and honest about
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it with other people. And that open and honest, the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: openness and that honesty is what's going to create deeper relationships.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: The hiding, the pretending, the doing things just because you're
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: checking it off the box. No, like if you're not,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: if you don't have that conviction, be honest about it.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And that's okay. And that's okay. That's who you are
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: right now. That's the path you're on. I felt like
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: people were more honest with themselves.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: And they were more honest with the outside world, with
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: how they felt. And it was almost like they had
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: more freedom to do so because the culture wasn't as
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: strong as it is maybe here, where people feel like
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the expectation is X, Y, Z religious framework, right?
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Is that okay?
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I want to add to that if I can. Sorry,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to interrupt you if you were cooking
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: because you're saying some really good things. So I think
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: probably what you're experiencing similar to me growing up in
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the military is that there was so much more diversity.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: So there wasn't a heavy-handed oppressive sort of feeling to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: fit in. Because I think human psyche, again, is like
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: we would, and it was, I think, Jeff Bezos who
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: said this once, for better or worse, but he said
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: that humans are more concerned about fitting in than they
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: are about the truth. And I think that's true for
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: most of us. So when you come to Utah, and
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: almost everybody's Mormon, whether intended or otherwise, it becomes very, very,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure to fit in to conform,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to conform to that. And I think you see the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: dangers of that. And one of one perfect example of
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that is the story of Christ. You know, he, he
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: comes on the scene, he starts challenging the religious authorities,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the people who claim to know him and claim to
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: speak for him. He starts questioning all that. Not only
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: does he question it, it's the only condemnation he had
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: for anybody where the religious, the sinners, he had infinite
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: amount of patients with the woman caught in adultery said, Hey,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not condemning you go level up the publicans, the harlots,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the Gentiles, the unbelievers, Jesus had all the patients in
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the world, but the religious that were certain He came
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: at them with some pretty heavy insults and criticisms. Vipers,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: whitewashed sepulchers filled with dead men's bones. You're all going
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: to hell. Blind leading the blind. I mean, the epitaphs
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that he attaches to the religious. And I don't think
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: he was doing that to be cruel. I think he
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: was doing that to try to shake them out of
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: their certainty. Yeah. And to illustrate to the people what
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the trap of certainty looks like when all of a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: sudden you think you have God figured out.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Your humility is out.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Your humility is out. And it gets very dangerous because
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Christ shows up and so many people see him for
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: what he is, the truth. They resonate with his message.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: It's authentic. He's not trying to convert people to an ideology. Instead,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: he's trying to raise human consciousness. My reading of the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: New Testament is he's trying to raise human consciousness and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: people resonate with that. And, you know, if I could
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: go back in time to any moment in history, top
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: three moments would be to go back when Christ goes,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. You know, the pit of hypocrisy,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: his enemies, the pride, the religious epicenter, and Christ rides
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: in on a donkey. And the people see him for
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: what he is. They're laying down their coats. They're laying
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: down palms. they're calling out, thou son of David. They
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: can recognize the truth because I think humans, we have
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: that ability to sense what's authentic, whether it's conscious or subconscious,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: we resonate with it. And they could see that and
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they celebrated it. And the irony, the tragic irony is
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: that a few short days later, those same people were
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: crying out, crucify him. So what happened? What changed? How
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: did they trade the truth when they saw it and
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: was so obvious at one moment, and then a few
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: short days later, they're killing the truth. And I think
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: this whole experience, this whole story of Jesus is, I
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: believe it's literally true, but I think even broader than that,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it's a metaphorical truth that we do this as humans
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: all the time. We'll sacrifice the truth to fit in.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I think that's what happened. Jesus gets locked away. The
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: religious come in and start threatening people with eggs. I'm
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: using a little creative license here. From the synagogues, you
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: won't be part of the community more. We're going to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: cast you out. And so people flip the script and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: now they want to be accepted more than they, you know,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: more than they want to go back to what they
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: felt was true and authentic. And I think that's a
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: trap that all of us are susceptible falling into. It's
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: just something I've become aware of as I've gotten older
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that I try to be really hyper-focused on that. I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: don't allow myself to fall in this trap of trying
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: to fit in, uh, yeah. And, and sacrificing what I
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: actually believe to do that.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: To me, so much of that has to come down
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: to your own internal confidence, right? If you believe in
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: yourself or if you believe what you believe, no matter
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: what anyone else is saying, it's okay. For example, when
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I meet people, I've heard this now quite a few times.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: The first time I introduce myself, a lot of people
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: will walk away thinking, there's no way this guy is
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: that happy. There's no way this guy smiles that much. No,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: can't be real. He's fake. That's just not who he is.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: But then by the third, the fourth, the fifth time,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: they see I am the exact same person every single time.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: They'll come to me sometimes, not all of them will.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: And they'll say, you know what? I thought you were
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: totally fake when we first met. But now I just
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: see that's who you are. And I'm so grateful that
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: they're at least willing to tell me that.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Um, this is probably the most important compliment you can
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: get in your life. Honestly, like that's the highest praise
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: when somebody says, man, you are who you are. I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: see you and you're authentic to me. I don't, I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: can't get a better compliment than that in my life.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: So you started off by giving me that compliment. I
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: just want to tell you, thank you for that. It
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: means a lot because it is super important to me
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: that I, I want to be that. And I want
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: to come across that way.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I want more to see it as an example. because
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I just fear too many of us are hiding behind
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: a facade. We're hiding behind a mask.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Gosh, it's suffocating too. It's so stifling.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: And if we do this, and I've watched this with family, friends,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: my own self going through this process and having to
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: take off the mask, I started to lose myself. We
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: mentioned this a little bit earlier. I started losing myself
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: in the previous relationship, not being as authentic to myself
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: as I was in the past, mainly because I thought
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I had to become what she wanted me to become.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: And instead of me just being who I was and
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: not just not being lazy and not progressing, but like
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: truly being authentic to me, that's not what was being loved.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: And so I thought, okay, well then I better change
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: who I am. And I missed the point of, I
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: can level up my authentic self versus changing who who
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I am completely to conform to someone else. For me,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't know the difference. And I found today that
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I can become the most authentic version of myself while
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: still leveling myself up. And that is the healthiest version
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: that I can become versus putting on a mask to
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: pretend I'm something that I'm not.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I love that. So we are so in sync on
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: very similar journeys. I think authenticity is two sides of
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: one coin. The first one is meeting yourself right where
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you're at and loving yourself right as you are with
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: all your warts, with all your flaws, with all your imperfections.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you're pretending like you don't have them.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: It's just saying, hey, I know you're screwed up. I
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: know you're imperfect, but I love you. That's self-awareness for sure.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: That's the only form of true love. Any love that
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: meets somebody with a standard and expectation of selfishness on
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: some level disguised as love. But if you really love somebody,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you don't need them to change to love them. You
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: love them as they are. And learning how to do that, again,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: it goes back to this idea that the most important
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: relationship you have is with yourself, knowing yourself. Like you
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: just mentioned, I know who I am. I have confidence
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: because I know I am. That's how relationship you have
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: with yourself. The other side of that coin, though, is progression.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: So it's not being stagnant. Those are the two sides
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: of authenticity or spirituality. To me, that's what spirituality means
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: at a core. When somebody talks about being spiritual, it's
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: not like talking to houseplants and wearing bamboo pants. It's
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to love myself as I am. I'm going
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to meet myself with no expectations in terms of my
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: love for myself. And yet I'm going to love myself
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: enough to grow because growing is sacred, not from a
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: place of shame, not from a place of unworthiness, but
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: from a place. I love you so much, Adam. I'm
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: going to get emotional sometimes. I love you so much.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I want you to be the best version of yourself,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: but it comes from a place of love, not from
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: a place of shame. And that is a totally different experience.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: And I want to share a personal experience if I
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: can about my, my going through my divorce with my
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: first marriage and how this relates. One of the issues,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: biggest fundamental issues I struggled with with God going through
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: my divorce was this anger and frustration that I had
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: towards him that I didn't feel like he answered my
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: prayers because I'd spent eight years of being married trying
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to change. Everything about me that made me who I was,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: my wife criticized. She didn't like. And I felt like
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: there was something wrong with me. And you go to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: church and you hear from the pulpit, brethren, you got
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: to make your wives happy, serve your wife. It's your
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: job to make your wife happy. And so I took
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: that seriously. And I was like, I'm trying to change.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to make her happy. And it was a moving target.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And I could never do that because ultimately what I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: realized was she wasn't happy with herself. And so it
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: was always going to get projected on me and there
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: was no way I could make her happy. I didn't
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: know that though, because I was conditioned to believe I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: could make her happy. Not only could I, it was
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: my responsibility too. And you can't make somebody else happy.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: You just can't do it. It doesn't work that way,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: but I believe that. And so then I projected that
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: onto God. Well, God, you said one of the most
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: profound scriptures I've ever read. I've read the book of
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Mormon probably a hundred plus times from cover to cover.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Ether 1227, and if men come unto me, I'll show
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: unto them their weakness. I'll give unto men weakness that
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: they may be humble. My grace is sufficient for all
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: men to humble themselves before me. For if they humble
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: themselves before me and have faith in me, then will
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I make weak things become strong unto them. I believe
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that because I'd experienced that truth like gravity in my life.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Like I had applied that. If I turned to God
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: in my weaknesses and I had faith in God and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I got to work on it with God's help, those
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: weaknesses often in my life became strength. But I had
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: twisted that scripture inadvertently thinking, Um, and asking God, help
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: me change these characteristics about me so that I can
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: make this marriage work. And when the marriage fell apart,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of frustration towards God. I was like,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I came to you. I prayed you. I fasted. I
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: did everything I knew how to do to change and
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: evolve as imperfect as it was. I don't want to
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: sound like I was some sort of saint. I was
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: just like anybody else struggling with very difficult circumstances and
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: not getting right often. But I tried, I gave that
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: everything I had. I, that was the hardest I ever
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: worked at anything in my entire life was that first marriage.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: And I was angry with God for a long time.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I said, that promise in ether 1227 didn't can work. God,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: it didn't work. And over time, as I got a
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: little out of the, you know, the initial divorce stages,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: there was a one afternoon I was sitting in my
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: house by myself without the kids. Um, and I was,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I asked God that I just sat there as one
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of these moments where my guard was down and I
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't angry. And I was just like, God, I don't
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: know what happened with that. And I was asking from
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: a humble point of view instead of from an angry
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: point of view. God, why didn't you answer my prayers?
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Why didn't you help my weaknesses become strengths? And I've
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: had maybe five times in my life where I've heard
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the voice of God in my head, but it was
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: not my voice. I only know how to describe it
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: as a divine voice speaking to me. And God said, son,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: All the things that she wanted you to change, I
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: made you that way. She wanted your strengths to become
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: weaknesses and you were trying to do that. I made
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: you to be you first. And when I understood that,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: everything changed. I mean, that was a catalyst and a
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: crossroads for a complete transformation with my relationship with God.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Realizing that for so many years I was asking God
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: to make strengths about me weaknesses. And trying to change
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: myself at my core to try and make somebody else happy.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: And it completely evaporated any frustration that I had towards God.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: It humbled me on a level I can't even articulate.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: It's ineffable to try and explain how that worked for
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: me inside. But that voice completely calmed my heart and
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: put me on a different trajectory. God isn't looking for
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: me to be subservient and just to be like a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: doormat or to be low-key. God wants me to be
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the most powerful version of myself. That's what he's made
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: me to be. And that's my primary purpose in life
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: is to be the best version of myself first and foremost.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: And that comes, that to me, that relationship with myself
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: is equal to that relationship I have with God. They're
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: one in the same. They're symbiotic. Me becoming my most powerful,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: best version is the best way that I can follow God.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And when I do that, it's not selfish. It's synergistic.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: It makes me better at everything else I do. Every
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: other relationship that I step into, every other role of
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: responsibility that I carry, I'm better if I'm first aligned
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: with myself and aligned with my divine callings. first and foremost,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: everything else starts to fall into place.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Amen. That's going to resonate with so many people. I
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: just absolutely love, I mean, that's a testimony right there.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I just hope anyone that's listening can feel what's happening
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: here and that they might be able to see that
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: they can do this for themselves. The idea that God
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: wants you to be the best version of yourself. We
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: can be working in his, as an instrument for him.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: If we're at our best self, I just, uh, ah,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: that rings so true to me. That rings so true.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: You know, what's ironic about that. So you were talking
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: a minute ago before we kind of got on this,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: we kept on this tangent that we were trying to
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: get off of to go back to relationships or get
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: to relationships, this idea of love and attraction with women.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: And how does a man play his role in that?
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So if I can touch on that for a second.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Please, just come back to it.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So I believe that love is a choice that we
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: all make. We choose to love. And it's a reflection
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: ultimately of our relationship with ourselves, our ability to love others.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Because if we can accept ourselves, then we can accept
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: others right where they're at. We don't have to meet
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: them with expectations. But if we can't accept ourselves, we're
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: going to meet everybody else around us with expectations. Love
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: is a choice. A woman can choose to love a man.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: She can choose to be faithful to him. She can
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: choose to be loyal to him. She can choose to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: stand by him. And not be attracted to them. And
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: those are two very, very different things. And intimacy with
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: a woman is not linked to love. Men get this
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: confused all the time. She loves me. I love her.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Why is our intimacy gone? Because a woman's intimacy is
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: not turned on by love. It's turned on by attraction.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: And attraction for a woman is a reaction to the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: partner she's with. She doesn't have control over it. She
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't wake up in the morning and decide, oh, I'm
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: going to be aroused today. That's not how it works.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Whether a woman is attracted to you or not as
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a man is your responsibility as a man. It's not hers.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: And attraction is not the same thing as love. Attraction
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is instinctual. And the most attractive energy a man can
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: emit in a relationship for a woman, the most attractive
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: energy by far, is a man who's leveling up and
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: becoming more powerful. It draws a woman to you in
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: a way that just creates this intense attraction.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: A polarity.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: It's a polarity, but when a man is in that
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: energy of becoming his best version of himself, he's leveling up,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: he's growing, he knows his mission, he knows what he's about.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: He's not asking for permission. He's not trying to read
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the room and who do I please right now? How
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: do I make my wife happy? How do I pedestalize her?
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: which is contrary to everything that we learn in culture
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and Hollywood or whatever else, just pedestalize a woman, gush
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: over her and they immediately get turned off. Like a
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: woman is fundamentally attracted to a man who's kicking ass
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: at life. And I don't mean, I don't mean an
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: egotistical man. I don't mean a man. And I'm not
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: saying you in any way, this is some sort of
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: slight to women or disrespect. I don't mean that at all.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, a man who knows who he is, a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: man who's on a mission, a man who gives his
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: kicking ass at life. It allows a woman to step
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: into her feminine. And it allows her to feel safe
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: and secure. I'm with a man who knows who he is.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I'm with a man who's kicking ass at life. I'm
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: with a man who knows how to solve problems. I'm
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: with a man who can create order out of chaos,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: who can create peace. A man who has the capacity
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: to do that. I saw one time, it was just really,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: it seems like a trivial experience, but I was in
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Mexico with my wife shortly after, my wife now, Kylie,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: who is just the greatest person on the planet. I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: love it. The contrast between my first marriage and now
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: is so stark. I pinch myself. I feel like I've
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: just won the lottery every day. She's so cool.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: We were, we were on a, uh, uh, at a
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: resort in Mexico. We were at this nice restaurant and, uh,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: her and I are talking and I watched this couple
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: walk in and this woman walks in first and she's
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: probably in her mid fifties, just put together. Well, wearing
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: like Gucci, this bag, like looks like this boss, babe,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: walking in with all this energy and behind her comes
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: her husband. He's got a suit on. He looks good,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: but very, uh, low key, different energy. Um, a little
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: more humble, at least in his outward expression. Yeah. And
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: they sat down next to us. It was a very
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: interesting couple because I just wouldn't have automatically put them together.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I watched them. They sit down next to me and
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: me and my wife. And I'm kind of ear hustling
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: their conversation because I just find this couple fascinating and interesting.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: How does this work? And I don't know if the
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: man is in business, if he's an entrepreneur, but I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: thought he was just the way he carried himself and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the way I could hear him talking. But I realized
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: this man knew who he was. He had gravity and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: he had self-respect. And this woman... that probably would have
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: chewed up almost every other guy in that restaurant, spit
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: him out. She showed deference to this guy. Wow. She
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: was attracted to this man. And it was because he
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: had created that attraction by being attractive to himself. He
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't trying to chase her. He wasn't trying to please her.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: He knew how to manage the relationship. He understood her.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: He knew what buttons to push, what levers to pull.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: He knew how to make her feel safe and secure
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and how to make her feel seen and appreciated without
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: sacrificing his own masculinity. And I just was just this
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: kind of brilliant moment of just being next to a
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: couple and listen to them and seeing that energy and dynamic.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: And it was another one of these little aha moments.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Like again, if you want to be attractive in a relationship,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: you can't lose yourself trying to please your spouse. You
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: have to be kicking ass at life and attraction automatically comes.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: And then you'll find all the intimacy and all the
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: love in the world that you want, but it starts
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: with you as a man being on that journey. When
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you sacrifice that for anything. I mean, I just talked
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to a guy recently, a buddy of mine older than me,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Him and his wife have been married for decades. They
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: haven't had sex in 30 years.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's horrible.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: 30 years. She loves him, but she's not attracted to him.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And I don't, I didn't really know in a brief conversation,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: he came to me and started telling me about this,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: how to like really like dig deep into this with him.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, that's the issue is somewhere in that process.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: When they got married, he lost himself and she no
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: longer had attraction. She had all the love in the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: world for him. She was faithful to him. She wasn't
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: leaving him, but she wasn't attracted to him. Wow.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: So first of all, we need to be self-aware that
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: that's happening.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: And that was one of the things I didn't realize
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: that I wasn't self-aware enough, unfortunately. And it's sad. I
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: think a lot of us are, we're not self-aware until
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: it's too late. And so one of the reasons why
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I even came up with the idea of the fatherhood
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: movement was to help others learn these things way before,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: because I wish I would have known five or 10
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: years ago about a polarity about the masculine or about feminine,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: about this dynamic of becoming the best version of yourself.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: And maybe I had heard those things, but I had
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: never taken it to heart. And so fair warning for
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: anyone that's listening, please take this to heart, become more
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: self-aware of where are you at? Are you leveling up?
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Are you becoming the best version of yourself? Because that attraction,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: if it's gone for too long, may change the trajectory.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: of your future.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent. And it will also give you a
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: lot lower, like life quality in your relationship. When you
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: lack that attraction, everybody's like, where'd the spark go? You
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: stop being attracted to each other. That's not an automatic phenomenon.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: It's a choice. It's a series of choices. Most of
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: which are subconscious because we run our lives according to scripts.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: There was some data that I was just listening to
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: on a podcast. And the guy was talking about the
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: three things that are most attractive to a woman. And
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the third one out of the three was kindness. not niceness, kindness.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Someone from a position of strength choosing to be kind
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: to somebody in an inferior position. Ultimately, what kindness is,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: is somebody that's lesser than you, at least in terms
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: of let's say business, you're higher up on the totem
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: pole in a company, but you're showing kindness to somebody
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: lower down. You don't have to do that. Very attractive
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to women when they see a man who's kind. The
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: second one was intelligence. The third one was a man's
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: ability to provide future resources, not necessarily have future resources
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: right now, but his ability or potential to create future resources. Interesting.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: All of that lends itself to exactly what we're talking about.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Attraction is you becoming the best version of yourself. None
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: of that is attraction. She's attracted because you treat her
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: like a princess. That wasn't on the list. That wasn't
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: the top three. It was a man who was kind,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: a man who was intelligent, a man who was getting
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: after life, working hard. And that was the, those were
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: the three things. Statistically, the women found the most attractive
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: about a man and all those are a man's choice.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: So again, if you're not attracted, if your spouse is
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: not attracted to you, you're not going to have intimacy.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Intimacy will have to be coerced. You're going to be
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: chasing it. You're going to be negotiating with it. You're
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: going to be waiting until the stars line up. It's
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: your birthday. You've got all the honey-do lists and she
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a headache. And now maybe she'll do it
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and then it's like a chore and it feels gross
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and you want to shoot yourself in the head afterwards.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: That's what so many men are stuck in right now
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: because they don't understand this principle. She's not attracted to you.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: by you abasing yourself and becoming a door, a glorified lapdog,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: she's attracted to a man who's kicking ass at life.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: I love that. Okay. So here's a question. So earlier
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: in my career, it was all about building business, all
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: about providing for the fam, creating financial freedom. As those
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: things started to occur. And as I kind of had
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: more of a spiritual awakening for me, I had less
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: desire to go and win all the awards and be
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: on covers of magazines and whatever it was that I
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: had previously in my career from a, maybe just a
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: purely financial or business structure. I had less desire than
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: I did in the past for the level of goals
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: I did earlier in my career. But I think what
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: shifted was that I had already achieved a certain level
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: of that financial freedom to where I had built the
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: lifestyle of our dreams that we had created the, the,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: um the life the house the toys the cabins the
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: you know the things that we had always wanted and
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: as i deepened my soul into like what did i
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: really want it was um i think it was scary
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: for uh you know for my partner at the time
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: to kind of see that my my desire had changed
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: had shifted a little bit so maybe i'm the only
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: one who's dealing with who dealt with this but like
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: I love building. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an investor. Like
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: those are just who that's part of who I am.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: So I have to be building, but the, the drive
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: changed to do something that I was compelled to do
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: rather than just what would make the most money. One
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: of the reasons I even do this podcast is it's more,
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I hope more of a give back. You're doing the same.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: You're sharing things and experiences that you've learned to hopefully
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: help other people to be able to see this beforehand. This,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like, is a give back. I've felt compelled
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: to share, like you have, share online some of these principles.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: And as I've built businesses now around this compelling feeling, And,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: you know, the fatherhood movement and now join becoming, and
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: you've done the same with Doughboy where you felt compelled.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: You have other businesses. Maybe if I can get around
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: to this question though, how for me, I am more
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: motivated now by what I feel compelled that I need
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: to do rather than just what's going to make me
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: the most money. I assume because that passion and a
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: mission that will still bring me the same level of
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: attractiveness is As to somebody who's just doing it just
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: for the money, or maybe it's even more because I'm
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: so compelled and passionate about it. Help me understand. Now
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: we're talking about entrepreneurs.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So good. This is a great question. And I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: think it absolutely makes you more attractive and it may
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: not make you more attractive to every single woman out there.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: There's a wide range of different type of women out
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: there with different things that they want, but I think
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: it makes you a far more attractive human being. And
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: I think what you've gone through is some of the,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: so I have been categorized and I coach guys on
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: this all the time with dough boy. Three different categories
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: of masculinity. The first one is the lost boy. And
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the lost boy is manifest by somebody who doesn't know
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: who they are. They're either playing the nice guy, which
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: is fielding everybody else's scripts, doing what they're told in life.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And they're usually resentful and bitter. And they're very, very reactive.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: On the other side.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Recovering nice guy.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Many guys are. And we get conditioned by society to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: do that. So guys that are trapped in that, it's
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: not generally not their fault. Now, just because it's not
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: your fault doesn't mean it's not your responsibility. Everything is
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: your responsibility. So not everything's your fault, but everything is
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: your responsibility. So once you start to wake up to this,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you have to own this. You can't just wish it away.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: It shouldn't be like this. That's not going to serve you.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: You got to be like, okay, I got to start
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: owning this. I got to own where I'm at. So
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: the lost boy falls into two camps. It's either the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: nice guy. Or it's the very reactive, egotistical guy that's
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: just angry and bitter at the world. Then you get
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: into guys who start to figure out they can take
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: control of their lives. They can start to level up.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: And what that looks like for most men, especially young men,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: is we externalize our validation. So we think we'll be
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: valuable as a man if we provide X, Y, and Z.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: So we get the boat, we get the house, we
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: get the money, we get this and that. And when
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: you do that, for most of us men, you start
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: to realize it's not the point and it's not really
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that satisfying. And sometimes it takes you getting that success
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: to start to realize it. Often it does. That you've
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: been externalizing your value and saying, this is what makes
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: me a good man. If I can show this to
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: the world, I'll finally get some self-respect. But self-respect is internal.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: And so you have this, I call it the adolescent male,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: which is consumed with external validations. And then you start
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to step into the realm of comprehensive man. And the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: comprehensive man realizes that the only validation he needs are
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: internal validations. His validation with him and his God. That's
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the only validation that really matters in this life. And
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: that all the external things at best are just mile
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: markers on the journey. And the journey is what matters,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: not the arrival points because there's no arrival. It's not
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: getting the boat. It's great to have a boat, but
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: it's not the point. It's great to have a business
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: and sell it for millions of dollars. You realize it's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: not the point. All those things are cool.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: I'm smiling so much because this is just resonating. It's
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: so good. So keep going.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: So when you step into that realm of becoming a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: comprehensive man, a lot of things shift for you, but
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: your energy goes through the roof. Your self-respect goes through
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the roof. Because it's no longer outsourced to other things
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: that may or may not be within your control.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: It is now like, do I respect my- The watch
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: isn't going to make me feel good about myself. No.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: The supercar isn't going to make me feel good about myself.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: But having it's not bad either. So I'm not demonizing that.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: If you like it and it's fun, cool. Celebrate your successes.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Have some mile markers on the journey.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: But don't look for validation.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: But don't look for your identity and your validation from
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: those things. And it takes a lot, usually a lot
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: of runway for us guys to start to step into
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: that space where we realize- all these things I was
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: chasing really didn't fulfill me. Ultimately really didn't make me
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: any happier, better, uh, may have made life more convenient,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: may have given me some more perks, but really wasn't
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the point. The point always goes back to the relationship
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: you have with yourself. And when you stop looking for
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: other people's validation and you start looking for your own validation,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: your life goes from black and white to high definition color.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is so good. Please. I hope you're, I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: hope you're Cause I just wish, I wish I would
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: have had this instruction 10 years ago, five years ago, even.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: I just wish that somebody would have sat me down
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: and shook me enough to be like, you have to
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: listen to these things because it was such a fascinating
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: process to have to go through it myself. And maybe
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: that's why I feel so compelled like you do is
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: because we had to go through hell and back in
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: order to share these stories. And it just makes me
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: so sad as I watch other men who have had
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: to go through, maybe it's a divorce or, or some other,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: you know, struggles in their life and they haven't been
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: self-aware enough yet to see this type of dynamic. Um, ah, okay. Ah,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: this is just, this is so good. I know we're
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: already running out of time, but this is, this is
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: so critical. The information that we're talking about here, I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: hope that men and women who are listening can, can
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: understand this fact. If you were able to leave us
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: with a little bit more wisdom before we close out,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: we've been talking to men most of the time here.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: We've been talking about, are we self-aware enough coming to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: know ourselves? Are we building our own self-confidence and our
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: own self-worth without external validation? If you were to speak
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: to the women and leave something, because there's quite a
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: few women followers between us. I know there's quite a few.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: What would you say to the woman right now about
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: these types of principles? Is there something you could leave
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: us to help the women in this regard to be
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: the best version of themselves and to help their man
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: to almost wake up to his, the realization?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: They're not in control of their man. They can't change
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: their man.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: And they shouldn't try to. Yeah. That's the first thing.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: Is I know they love this conversation or else they
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be following us.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I will say this. I'll say this from experience. Let
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: me share it. Maybe this will hit the nail on
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the head. Maybe it won't. We can go deeper if
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: we've got a few minutes left. But my first marriage,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: my wife met me with a lot of criticism. It
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: was constant. Everything I did was met with some degree
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: of criticism. And I did not realize it. how much
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that affected me. It's like the frog in the boiling water.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: You slowly heating up and you don't realize it. And
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: then you're just in a place where you've lost yourself.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: You've lost your self-esteem. You've lost your identity. You're constantly
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: met with criticism. You cannot criticize yourself enough into loving yourself.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: You can't shame yourself enough into changing. And you can't
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: do that with your partner. Criticism and shame will never
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: create a better relationship with your partner and will never
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: be something that will make long lasting change in your partner.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: This goes for men and women, but I'll just say
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: this women, because I have this contrast, my wife now, Kylie,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: she never criticizes me. She gassed me. She doesn't, she
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: knows I'm not perfect. She knows I'm far from perfect,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: but she doesn't hang up on those things. She constantly
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: celebrates me. And you know what? I constantly get better.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: And I want to be better. And I want to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: be the type of person she sees me as. I
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: want that more than anything else. I want, I want
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to beat the guy she thinks I am because I
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: know I'm a long ways away from that, but it
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: is my driving core and motivation in that relationship is
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: to become the type of man my wife thinks that
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: I am. And it goes both ways. So if it's criticism,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: you're going to create a monster. If you're showing your man,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: you're showing up with for him, you're taking care of him.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: You're showing him how much you love him. You're celebrating him.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: And it's, Ladies, it's okay for him not to be perfect.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Now, there's fundamental things you have to understand
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: in a relationship about holding boundaries for both men and women.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: There are certain lines. Relationships are different than love. Relationships
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: are contracts. Relationships have to have boundaries. They have to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: have standards. And there comes a point in relationships where
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: you just have to say, this isn't working for me.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: That can happen. And I'm not saying ignore that. But
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I'm saying be very careful about how you treat your
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: partner because how you treat them is going to create
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: so much of who they become in a relationship. So
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: if you want to be married to a king, treat
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: him like he's a king.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: So let's give the scenario. I've found that women are
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: more self-aware than men in most cases. And I don't
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: know if that's just culturally. I don't know just how
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: God made women. It seems as though there are more
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: self-aware women than there are men. If there is a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: more self-aware woman who is working on herself and progressing
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: and growing and the man is not, He's just grinding
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: at work, trying to provide, trying to be a good dad,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: but he's not realizing that he needs to be growing
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: as well. I found that sometimes women get to a,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: in their mind, an elevated progression and then they bail
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: because the man hasn't leveled up. I know they can't
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: force it. They can't change the man, but how can
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: there be a positive encouragement or a positive example? What
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: is it that they can do if they have been
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: progressing and their man is not? What can they do,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: if anything, to help their man start to level up?
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Well, one, I think if you have a man that's
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: faithful to you, he's showing up, he's getting to work,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: he's taking care of his responsibilities. I think you first
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: have to be careful what you're labeling as leveling up
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: because that's a good man. That's a good man. I'm
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: not saying he's where he needs to be, but that's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: his journey with God. As a spouse, their progression is
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: not my responsibility. I only have responsibility for my progression. Now,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: maybe it gets to a point where the gap has
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: gotten so big That it's no longer a functional relationship
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: and you have to get to the punchline and that
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: can be a difficult process that happens. But I think
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: if you have a good man that's showing up and
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: taking care of his responsibilities every day, you celebrate that
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: man and vice versa. You have a good woman that's
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: taking care of her responsibilities and kicking ass. Even if
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: she's not on the same intellectual level as you or
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: culturally aware level as you or political green. as you
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever, I think you have to scuttle some of
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: those things and say, what's the core of this guy?
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: Is he a good guy or not? Is she a
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: good woman or not? And then celebrate that. So be
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: careful about what you label as being leveled up because
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of times what we level is being leveled
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: up as ego.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: I think you've got to be really careful about that.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: So if you've got a good man or a good
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: spouse in general that's taking care of their responsibilities and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: showing up, then be grateful because a lot of people
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: don't have that. Now, if you want to encourage better
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: behavior in your spouse, I believe. I come home from work.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: I pick up the baby. I love playing with my kids.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: I get the dishes done. And my wife says to me, baby,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: I love when you came home and just took care
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: of the kids for me, gave me a break. And
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: it meant so much to me that you did the dishes.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I love you. Thank you. Guess what I'm fucking doing tomorrow.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: When I get home from work, I'm going after that.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh man, she labeled me as this. She
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: identified me as somebody who does that from a positive,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: loving point of view, not from criticism, not with laced
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: with some undertone of dissatisfaction, just pure, just sell it. Like,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for doing that. It meant a lot to me. Gosh,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden I'm so motivated to do more
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of that. And that goes both ways. So I think
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Be grateful for what you got. Gratitude is the antidote
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: to ego. Gratitude is the antidote to depression. Gratitude is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the antidote to so much. Be grateful for what you have.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: If your partner's fundamentally breaking commitments in the relationship, like
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: not providing, not showing up as a parent, not showing
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: up for you as a partner, then you have to
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: own that. And those are moments a lot of us
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: get into. And you have to go through that journey,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: and it's a difficult one. But if you have a
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: good partner, celebrate them and celebrate the things that they
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: do right. I love it.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: Gratitude is huge, huge for me. I'm naturally inclined to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: be a glass half full kind of thinker.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I can tell. Very, very positive energy that is all
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: natural and authentic.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, thanks. I feel sorry or bad for those who
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: are inclined naturally to have a more pessimistic attitude because
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: that'll be a challenge for them, right? And even some
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: of my children have naturally more pessimistic attitudes. And so
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to help encourage the positive thinking But this
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: self-awareness I think can be so powerful for some of
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: those who have more pessimistic, you know, mindset. Sometimes they
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: could be a little bit more self-aware.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Gratitude is the antidote to that half glass is half
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: empty mindset. And so is a paradigm shift that served
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: me so well. I can't remember who said it. I
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: think it was Jim Rohn, but he's, you know, the catalyst,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: the mental switch in your head from going from being
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: naturally negative to naturally positive is when you stop seeing
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: life as happening to you and start seeing life as
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: happening for And if you can own that, it will
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: naturally start inclining towards a more positive disposition because you'll
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: start to see all these things. They're all important. They're
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: all good for me. And I take ownership of them
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: and they're all happening for me instead of to me. Amen. Yeah.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: Big change.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: Last time I heard that was at a Tony Robbins conference.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: He probably copied it from Jim Rohn.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Jim Rohn was his mentor.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: So I think that's for sure. Oh man, this is
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: so good, Adam.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: Where can people find you? I want them to come
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: and follow you. So it's Instagram.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All social media platforms, Adam already official. Come check
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: it out. Join the party. Hit me up in the
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: comment sections. DM me. I'll try to get back to you.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: As you know, with social media, it becomes overwhelming to
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: try and respond, but I try to. Also, for men
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: out there who are looking for a group of men
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: to be around, iron sharpens iron. And one of the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: big lies that we've been conditioned with, I believe, is
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: that men's friends should be optional. I think your friends
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: that you choose in this life are profoundly important. They're
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: each a reflection of who we are. And our friends
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: are the family we get to choose in this life.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: So when you're around, it's good men that make good men.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: When you're around good men, you start to become a
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: good man. Amen. Iron sharpens iron. So if you're looking
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: for a group to level up with, we do a,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I do a dough boy. You can come check out
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: D G H B O Y. Doughboy Nation, come check
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: it out. And if it's something that looks like would
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: be a good fit for you, come join the party.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Look forward to seeing you there. I love it.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on. You guys, I'm your host, Bubba Page.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: We've got Adam Allred here. Hopefully this was helpful. If
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: you felt compelled at any point of this podcast or
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: this video you're watching, please share it. Share it with others.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: The more we can get these types of messages and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: principles out there, the more people we can help. We're
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: doing this because we feel compelled to share some of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: these stories to help other people. Hopefully, the goodness of
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: our hearts to be able to help those around us. So,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: Appreciate you being here. Until next time.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Bro, good work. That was great.