Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 27: You’re Allowed to Outgrow Yourself

Transcript

EP 27: You’re Allowed to Outgrow Yourself · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kier Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose. We talk about pressure. We talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: about what it actually takes to become a full, comprehensive man. Hey,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what's good, y'all? Welcome back to another episode of the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Learn the Hard Way podcast. I am your host, Kier Gaines.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I am a licensed therapist. I'm a husband. I'm a father.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm a New York Times bestselling author. I'm a keynote
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: speaker and it is my pleasure to be here with
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: y'all every single week talking about the things that are
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: actually happening in people's lives and not just spinning the problem,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: but trying to find some realistic way through, man, to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: cut through the noise, to cut through the stuff and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: say the things that will bring forth the things that
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: actually make us better. Not just feel better, but make
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: us better, better in life, better in our own minds,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: just better overall, man. And it's funny because this is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: an episode that's out. I'm going to be personal in
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: this episode. This episode means a lot to me. It's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: something that I've been really wrestling with lately. And I've
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: been trying to figure out a way to come onto
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the pod and talk about it so that it could
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: be a discussion that illuminates and enlightens all of us.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Because I know I'm not the only person that's here.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And I really do believe that We don't always get
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: great value in our lives when we negate to tell
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the truth of our reality, no matter how messy or
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: incomplete it is, whether we have all of the answers
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: or not. There is something that's almost medicinal about getting
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it out there and allowing the things that you're working
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: through to exist somewhere outside of your own mind. And
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful to have an outlet like this pod, and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful that y'all have a place to come and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: hear it. and also be a part of the conversation too.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: But something that's been on me constantly is performance. I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: tell y'all all the time, like it's weird being in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: an aging man's body. I am a 40 year old man.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And I just get reminded of that all the time.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And in the world we talk, I think the conversation
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is heavily dominated by this idea of performance. With men,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: we usually talk about performance in the bedroom, which is,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it takes up way too much conversation. I understand that's important,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: but other things are important too. But when we talk
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: about performance, we also talk about it in this way
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that's really getting to an idea of masking and trying
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to construct this disingenuous, unrealistic, idea like this caricature of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: who you are and it masks deficiencies and it masks
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: incompletion and it's just a performance and we talk about
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that with masculinity all the time performing masculinity i always
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: say you can't perform it you have to be the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: thing but it's more to that though because there's another
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: side of performance that perhaps we don't talk about quite
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: as much I find myself in a place where I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: am realizing that the majority of the people in my
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: life are dependent on my performance. Hear me out. This
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: is not an indictment on them because my children are
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: dependent on my performance. If I have a rough day
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and when I come home, they're dependent on me to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: perform as a capable present parent, no matter what I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: have going on in my mind or in my heart.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: You know, my wife depends on me to perform as
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a capable and present partner, no matter what I got
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: going on, no matter what my bandwidth, what my time
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: looks like. My family needs me to perform. I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: like aunts, uncles, cousins, they need you to show up
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: in a certain way. Like you have to produce almost.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And what happens when you ain't got it? Let's take
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: it a step further. What happens when your body. Not
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: just your mind isn't able to perform like it once did.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And a majority of your identity is tied up in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that thing. What do you become when the thing you've
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: always been isn't the thing that you can continue to be?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Not successfully. And it's not your fault. You hear the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: football all the time. They say a player is on
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the wrong side of 30. The body, the mind, the will,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the desire to it eventually breaks down. And today I
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: want to have a real honest conversation about what happens
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to men when when that occurs, when that takes place.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: What is left of you and what do you do
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: about it? This is going to be one of the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: long intros like Notorious Thugs, Bone and Biggie. The intro
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: like 15 minutes long. But I want to make sure
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that I say this because I want to make sure
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that I do this conversation justice. We have it all
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the time, but I don't feel like we have it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the right way. Every time y'all see me somewhere, if
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: y'all see me on a podcast, a TV show, daytime
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: television show, it don't matter. Whatever you see me on,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: just know I didn't just pop up there just spitting
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: stuff off the top of my brain. I come up well-researched.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I'm well-prepared. I got to be quick on my feet.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I got to be creative. I got to be thoughtful.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And it takes a lot of work. I remember one
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: time I was bedridden. I had some oysters in a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: month that didn't end in airy. Like I had oysters
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: in July. Don't ask me why. I was feeling it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I thought that's what we was doing that day. And
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: then this thing called food poisoning came out of nowhere
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and just hit me in the stomach and I was
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: down for three days. On that second day, I couldn't
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: even keep down water. But you know what I had
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to do? I had to edit a video for a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: paid partnership. that we had already agreed to. So I'm sitting,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I'm laying in the bed, fluids threatening to come out
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of every side, but I still have to produce and perform.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And it hit me. Like, wait a minute. Why am
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I doing this? Oh, wait, because no matter what my
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: bandwidth is, the mortgage is due every month. Every month.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Health insurance is due every month. I know that men
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: are often Taught as little boys to measure themselves by
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: what we provide, produce, procure and endure. But it isn't
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: for no reason. So what does happen when your athletic ability,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: your energy, your circumstances, all these things change? The thing
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: you used to be able to do ain't the thing
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you can do anymore. If I got diagnosed with a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: debilitating illness tomorrow and I couldn't work, my family will
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: adjust before a while. We're going to be cooked. What
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: happens when that pressure all descends on you, but you're
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: not able to do the thing? I know personally, it
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: makes me afraid to get old, makes me afraid to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: get sick. It makes me afraid sometimes to admit that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I don't have the capacity. Not because I think I'll
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: be loveless or that my family won't value me as much,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: but it changes the calculus of Of everything that I'm
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: responsible for. And it changes. The amount of work and adjustment.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Necessary for everybody. That I'm responsible for. And with that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: being said. Let's jump into the episode. Let's grow. You
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: know how they be doing the DMX joint. What? What?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I want to just name all the things. Just get
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: them out the way early. All the things DMX style
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that that you may not have the same capacity for
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: after 30 that you did before 25. Like so many
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: things get in the way. Injury. What? Aging. What? Fatherhood. What?
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You think you out there hustling? No matter how much
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you hustle, you got to be a lone wolf and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a dog out there getting it. When you become a father,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: you cannot do that the same way and still be
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: regarded as a good father. You can argue me all
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you want, but I do not think that you can.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: You can't have that same fervor. You can't have that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: same energy. You got to preserve. You got to be
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: home has to be the new basis. That's the new
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: main thing. What about career shifts? What? Burnout? What? Illness? What? Divorce?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of my friends are getting divorced right now.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: What layoffs? Well, simply realizing you don't have the capacity anymore.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That's such a hard reality to deal with. Like, damn,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I'm really I'm really not that guy anymore. There's a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: shame associated with being a man that used to be.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Like the man that used
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to be. a good ball player. There's a shame associated
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: with that. That's why sometimes you find men struggling with
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: adding more to their identity than that because that was
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the thing. I put so much time and energy into
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that and now that I can't be it anymore, I
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: don't always know what else I can be or everything
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't always feel good on my skin. And it leads
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to this question. Why is it that a change in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: what we do sometimes Feels like a change in who
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we are. And I think the simple solutions just say, well,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you invested in a thing. So you got all your
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: eggs in that basket and you should have put more
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: eggs in other baskets. Fair but narrow. I think it's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: bigger than that. Our identities are comprised of multiple things.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: is what we believe is what we think is what
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: we've experienced throughout our lives and also is is what
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: we do these things together and there's multiple other things
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: but these are the main things that i find that's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: what shapes our identities But out of all those things
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I listed, what we believe, what we think, what we experience,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: what we do, which one of those provides the most
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: tangible results? In my mind, it's what we do. I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: can't hold my love for my children in my hand.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I can't hold the belief that we need to live
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: in a fair and equitable world in my hand. Those
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: are abstract things. But what I provide, oh, I can
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: hold that in my hand. I can hold my paycheck
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: in my hand. I can hold cash money in my hand.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I have evidence of what I provide all around me.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I'm dressed in it. I'm living in it. I drive
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: in it. I bathe in it. It's tangible. And because
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it's something that I can hold and I can see
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the value of in a different way than something that's abstract,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it takes all of my awareness, just like it does
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: many of us. So what you do becomes, it starts
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to take center stage over, not over what you believe.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to, well, let's, let me phrase it
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a different way. I don't want to say it takes
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: center stage, but it starts to have a larger share
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of voice of all the voices of all the things
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that create your identity. For some reason, not for some
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: reason on purpose with little boys who become men, what
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you do seems to always scream the loudest and it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: societally reinforced. It's reinforced by parents. It's reinforced by school.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I remember being in the third grade and I did
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: some third or fourth grade and they say, see, you
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: ain't going to never have no, you ain't going to never,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: if you keep acting like that in class, kid, you're
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: never going to, you're never going to get good grades.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So you're never going to get a job. And that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: means you're never going to be able to provide for
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: your family. I remember them telling me that in like
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: third or fourth grade, I was in Ms. Michelle class.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It was fourth grade. She wasn't the one who said it,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: but I just, that goes to show you how vivid
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that memory is for me. And that wasn't the first
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: or last time I've heard that. I've been conditioned to
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: believe that throughout my life, as many other little boys have. Remember,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: we didn't grow up in 2026. Boys are allowed to
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: have feelings. You're allowed to be a whole person. That's
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: today's mantra. I didn't grow up today. I grew up 30,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: 40 years ago where the mantra was very different. So
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I don't just have today's messages in my mind or
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: today's messaging. I got an accumulation of the last 30,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: 35 years in my mind, and it can be very
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: conflicting sometimes. So we don't feel these things for no reason.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: There is a societally reinforced reason behind it. My wife
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: recently posted on her sub stack. By the way, please
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: go check that out. No, Amy gains a sub stack.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: She posted on her sub stack something about grieving how
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: she never grieved the person that she once was. Like
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: she became all these things and had all these opportunities
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and got all of these blessings. And she's been so grateful.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: She spent so much time being grateful for it that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: she never got to say, damn, there's a part of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: me that never crossed the finish line I envisioned for myself.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And I never grieved her. And when I read it,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I never thought about it that way.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: There are parts of me that no longer exist that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I never got a chance to grieve. I didn't sit
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: in a moment with it. I didn't examine it and
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: really feel it through. I did what my brain tells
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: me to do. I moved forward and I paid a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: price for that. So then it begs the question, now
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: that I'm in a more reflective space of my life,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: what does it even look like to grieve that? Well,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I got some ideas. I think that healthy eating Healthy
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: grief is comprised of a lot of things, but the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: two that come to mind, one is allowing yourself to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: be sad. And in my experience with a lot of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, but very specifically men, there is
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this reluctance to allowing yourself to be sad. And I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: get why, because being sad is not just being sad.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It comes with a lot of other feelings like sadness
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: is a gateway feeling. It opens up so many other
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: things that you probably don't got the bandwidth or the
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: desire to really sort through. Sometimes when you say you
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: start feeling hopeless, you start feeling weak, you start feeling incapable.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You know, and those aren't comfortable feelings to sit with.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So what we do is we try to positive or
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: solution our way out of it. But a part of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: grief is recognizing that sadness and. And reconciling with that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: sadness without trying to bury it, put it away or
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: rebrand it into something that's more palatable. I understand it
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: does not feel good to be sad. I get it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I get it. And I used to be a man.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I ain't going to let nothing make me sad person.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: That ain't who I am. I'd be I'd be sad.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And when I'm sad, I wear it on my sleeve.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And one of the worst things that I did for
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: my own my own developmental maturity is. was to ignore that. Nah,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: sometimes the sadness is there to teach you something. And
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: when I'm so busy trying to climb out of the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: feeling because I don't like the way that it feels,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: when I'm so busy trying to rebrand it and call
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: it something else because I don't like what it says
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: about me being sad, the sadness doesn't go anywhere. I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: just buried it so deep that I can't even find
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: it to feel it anymore. I always say you get
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: good at the things you practice. And when you get
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: practice burying sadness, ooh, boy, you get good at it.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: You'd be like a squirrel. You can't remember where you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: buried that joint. It's somewhere deep down. And when you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: need to access it so you can feel everything that
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: is here to teach you, you won't be able to.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So that's one thing about grief. And I think the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: second part is allowing yourself to reminisce or miss that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: part of your life or what used to be without
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like without jumping in. to necessarily fix it. A lot
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of times we feel like we, the way that we
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: feel is stupid or immature. Man, I should be over
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that already. Man, that's dumb. I ain't even gonna think
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: about it that way. What's the point of being mad
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: about something that already happened? That's dumb. It happened. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: just need to deal with it. Like, well, the point
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: is the fact that you're sad or upset about it.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: That is the point. The point is to recognize the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: feeling and allow it to be. Even I'm not saying
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you got to sit in it and have a have
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a pity party for yourself, but you got to allow
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: that feeling to be. It exists for a reason. Feelings
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: need to be expressed. Even if you do it alone,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's OK. But you cannot continue to walk
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: over a feeling that exists and belongs to you and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: lives inside your mind and body. There's nothing good that
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: comes out of ignoring them joints. I mean, I'm not
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: going to say that's temporary relief like who? I can
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: kick the can down the road a little bit, but
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: when you're kicking cans down the road, you're going to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: meet that can again. At what point did you put
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that joint in the recycling bin, fam? You have to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: do something with it at some point. All right, y'all.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Real quick, I want to read some reviews because y'all
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: have taken the time out to let us know how
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: much y'all like the pod, and I don't think that
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: should just go unnoticed, so got some reviews i want
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to read out this is my my way of shouting
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: y'all out the first one is from angry twitter voice
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: tweet man what oh man angry twitter voice tweet man
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: says um i just watched to make sure i'm not
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: asking too much as a human man thank you for
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: allowing me to be seen as a person and not
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a machine wow that's incredibly timely for this episode Absolutely, man.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. I'm glad that you get
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that from what we do here. That's that's man. That's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: worth more than this weight in gold. The next message
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: is from MLD Shy. And it says, I'm a huge
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: believer in mental health and seeing a therapist just as
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you would take your vitamin supplement for your body. This
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: podcast is a great mental supplement for your mind and spirit. Man,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: that's so fire. Listen, sometimes when people. be talking about
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: reviews that they have. I always think it's fabricated, but
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: these aren't, man. These are real people who we did
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: not pay or ask to say this. So please make
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: sure that you rate and review. I ain't telling you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to leave five stars, but if you do, if that's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a reflection of what you get here value wise, that
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: would be appreciated. And with that being said, back to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the episode. Thank you. Now, when you do something with it,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: grief can shift. It can shift to a feeling of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: shame and resentment and withdrawal absolutely you don't just miss
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: other people you can you could absolutely miss yourself especially
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: if you're a parent if you're a parent i know
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you can feel that or just keeping it man and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that's my podcast we're gonna keep it funky even being
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: in partnership we just finished the episode like your partner
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: can't be your peace all the time Your partner cannot
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: be your peace all the time. Your partner is going
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to be the reason for a lot of your problems.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I don't care how amazing they are. It's just by default,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: just them being another person with a difference of opinion
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and a different philosophy. It's y'all are going to clash
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and that's OK. That clash is fine. healthy. But when
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: you internalize your grief and it makes you feel worse
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: about yourself, what do you do about it? Well, it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a few things you could do. One is realizing that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you can't process what you don't accept. And when I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: say processing, I want you to think about, instead of
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: thinking about it as feelings that you're sitting with and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: thinking about and trying to figure out what to do
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: with or where to put, I want you to think
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of processing as like a product. Like think of an
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: assembly line, right? It starts off as a raw product,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: starts off as just a lump of sugar, and then
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it goes into a machine and it gets heated up
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and then the sugar gets melted. crystallize it hard and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it goes to another machine and it gets dipped in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: like peppermint juice. Bear with me. I don't know how
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the shit work, but it gets dipped in something to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: flavor it. And then it goes to another machine and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: gets dipped in something to color it. And then it
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: goes to another machine and then it gets wrapped. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: then it goes to another machine and it gets put
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in a bag. It's a process. Every step along the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: way adds something to it. It becomes almost like a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: different product in that regard. Well, hold on, time out.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that analogy lands because with feelings,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: it's not like putting together a piece of candy. It's
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: more like deconstructing it. So I ignore that analogy. That
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: analogy actually doesn't work. But I think the point that
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to make here is every stop along the way,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: this thing turns into something else. You add something to it,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: you take away something from it, and it's not what
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it originally was. Your sadness, remember we were talking about
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: primary and secondary and tertiary feelings, like the longer you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: sit on them, you realize that there's something else under
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it or behind it or inside of it. That's what
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: processing is, is breaking that joint down to a simplest form.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: What is going on with me? How is this really
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: affecting me? Thinking about the way you think and thinking
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: about the way you feel. So if you think that
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it's stupid or immature to feel a way, Ideally, you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: get to a point where you're like, hey, it doesn't
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: matter if it's stupid or immature. This is the way
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I feel and I need to sit with this. It
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I should be over it by now.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not. The ideal can't stay. You can't stand ten
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: toes on the ideal that's a million miles away from
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: your reality. It doesn't work. This is the way that
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I feel. I don't like it, but I accept it.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I think those are the two steps that you take.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: To get away from the shame, blame, guilt side of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the grief, because that will eat you up. It'll take
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of brain space, but you won't really be
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: moving through that process for real. Something to think about.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I want to take a moment and talk about how
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: much of a man's self-worth can safely be built around
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: being useful. It's such a tricky topic, man, because I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: think we frame this as like a men's issue, but
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it's really a human issue. I think people need to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: feel useful and feel utilized. I think a big part of.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the collective human experience is feeling like you're a benefit
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: to community, either community being your immediate family, community being
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: your neighborhood, community being folks within your racial group, you
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: identify with gender group, whatever, your community, people that you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: have shared experiences with. I think there's a part of
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: us that strongly desires to feel useful and utilized in
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: those spaces. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Ain't nothing wrong
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: with that at all. But for men, it gets narrowed, man,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: just because of, of how masculinity has traditionally been and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: what you're not allowed to do and not allowed to feel.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And y'all know the spill. Y'all know how it goes, man.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Somewhere it goes from, I want to contribute and it
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: goes through that process and it comes out on the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: other end. I'm only valuable if I contribute. And a
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: lot of TikTok think pieces do a great job of saying,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you know, this is men's problem. Men built this. Men
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: have to deal with it. to the elimination of realizing
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: how strongly it's enforced in every area of our everyday lives.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Like these dudes ain't just come to this, this conclusion
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: by themselves. It's such a awkward and in an ideal
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: place to exist. There are reasons that these men are
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: thinking this way. I break it up into two parts.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a responsibility on the individual when
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it comes to the whole, I'm only valuable if I contribute,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: because I want to deconstruct that, man. I feel like
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that's important. I think there's an individual responsibility. And then
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I think there's a responsibility on the people around that individual. Now,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the individual, man, I think because
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: we've heard this messaging so many times in our development
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and our maturation, that it just plays in the background
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of our minds. I think that the provide piece and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the value piece kind of gets stuck together. Like candy, like,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? Like candy in a hot
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: car and it becomes inseparable where they actually are two
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: different things. And because of the way a lot of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: men are taught, we overvalue the actual provision piece. Ryan
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Clark said it in one of the first episodes of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: this pod. And he talked about how he thought going
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: out here And doing the whole provider thing is what
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: his family wanted. And really, it's more so a vision
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: of what he wanted to do for them. And they
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: didn't feel, well, I wouldn't say they didn't feel supported
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: or provided, but there was something else still missing, even
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: though he was handling that part of the business. He
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was handling that part of, he was upholding that part
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of his deal. Now, with men that come into the office,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: We always explore where else are you valuable, bro? It
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: may not be the same as when you, you Fred Flintstone,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: bring home that big piece of meat, the brontosaurus leg,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and you slap it on the table and the whole
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: family say, God, man, good job, dad. Good job, baby.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: You really did it. I don't, I don't think that's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a realistic expectation that they're going to clap for you
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: like that. That's just, that's not going to happen, dog.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So sorry. You'll get it sometimes, but expect that every time.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I think that, that, I think that's a heavy expectation
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: on a family system. But where else do you feel
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: value where you don't have to produce anything? It may
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: not be weighted as heavily as that because that's been
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: attached to masculine identity. Like, but for me, my group chats,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: all I got to do is show I don't got
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to take care of nobody. I don't got to I
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: don't got to show up for nobody. I don't got
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: to show up as my best self. I don't have
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: to perform to be valuable, unvaluable just by virtue of existing. Oh, kid,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: that's my frat brother. What's up, cute dog? I'm valuable
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: by virtue of existing. Hey, oh, man, kid, that's my cousin.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, little cuz? Hey, we love you, dog. I'm
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: valuable just by virtue of existing sometimes. And I think
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it's worth it to take a step back and look
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: at all the other places in your life where you
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: are incredibly valued or there's some value to you and
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: dilute the whole I'm only value when I produce thing
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: with those perspectives. What else exists outside of that? And
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: it may feel like that's the only thing I challenge
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you to dig deeper. I challenge you to look at
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: something else. You know, my family is a double edged sword.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: It's regardless of what I do for them. If I
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: can't do it anymore, would they be uncomfortable? Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Would it be some will people be upset with me? Absolutely.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Would I still be valuable to them? Yeah. Yeah. I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: feel valuable when I go on a four day work
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: trip and I come back and my wife's like, babe,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you back. This thing just don't work
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the same without you. It's so much harder parenting without you.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: That makes me feel valuable. Even though it's arguable that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I am contributing something, I'm providing the care for my family.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It's not like I'm toiling to do it. It's me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: If the provision is just me sitting with my daughter
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and talking about her day while running my hands through
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: her hair so she's less stressed and she don't stress
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: my wife out. I feel valuable in them spaces. What
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: else exists for you, bro? Now, for the people around you,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: they got to provide you with more feedback. I think
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: just telling a man who is stuck in this provider mindset,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not stuck, but like that's such a big part
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: of his identity. Thank you so much, baby. We love
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: what you do for us. I don't know if that's
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: specific enough. You love what part of it? Like, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: as a, as a man, I think this is, this is,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: this is your thing to hold. This is your conversation
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to start. You have to seek this feedback. People aren't
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: just going to give it to you. I had to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: ask my wife straight up. Like what, what is it?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: What part of what I do makes you happy? Telling
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: me that I make you happy is great, but if
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I don't have specific data, I don't know what I'm replicating. Listen,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: can I tell y'all the secret? We've, With parenthood and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: with partnerships, sometimes I'm just throwing things against the wall
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: and seeing what sticks. I don't know what I'm doing
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: most of the time. I have no idea. And when
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I do something, I'm like, oh, that was the right
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: thing to do? I bet. The problem with that process
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: is you can't replicate something that you accidentally ran into
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: by just doing everything that you possibly could. And also
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: doing everything that you possibly could is a super highway
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to being burnt out. Ask the specific questions. What is
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: it about my presence? What is it about my existence?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Not just what I do. What is it about me?
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: What is it about the value that I offer if
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I don't open up my mouth, if I don't get dressed,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: if I don't go to work, if I don't bring
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: home no bacon? What is it about me that makes
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you happy? Don't guess it. Don't guess. Ask. Don't assume.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I don't assume nothing no more. I don't care how
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: obvious it is. I don't assume that anybody knows anything
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: that I didn't tell them specifically in high detail. Here's
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: some examples of what I believe would be good feedback
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: of what you offer, even though you're not having to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: provide anything. Something like, you know, sometimes you walk in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And you have this smile on your face. And seeing
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you that happy. Makes me happy. Or. I'm trying to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: draw the line between. Provide and contribute. And I'm trying
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to battle with. Whether or not they're the same thing
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: in my mind. Oh you know another one. Sometimes I'm
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: having a really tough day. And you come in and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: you give me a hug. And it makes me feel warm.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And it makes me feel safe. And it makes me
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: feel thought about. Or you know I get. There's something
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: about when you start to talk about things that you're
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: really interested in, you get this spark in your eye.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And it's so beautiful to see you excited about something,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: to see you into something. Like those may seem like really,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: really small examples. But from the men I counsel and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: from the men I talk to and from the men
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that I treat sometimes, you'd be surprised how infrequently they
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: get that. Not I like what you do, not I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: like what you bring, but I like what you are.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I like what you are. I like what you've become.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Even telling somebody a story of how you see the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: change in them. Our social media feeds are dominated by,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you know, men need to do this better. Men need
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to do that better. Men aren't doing this. Men are.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: It's so deficit frame. And that's not for no reason.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I think that criticism is important to our collective growth.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I really do. But there's the counter in society doesn't
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: exist like the counter in individual relationships don't exist sometimes.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: What are you doing right? What what what how do
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: you know what you're doing right? You know, the other
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: day you just called me randomly just to check on me.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And I really appreciated that. I think I don't know, man.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to our society in the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: last 10 years where we think some somehow if we
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: affirm certain behavior. The person to get too high and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: mighty and stop doing it. But to me, affirmation is
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a receipt that you're doing the right thing. Oh, that
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: works when I do that. Like the human brain is
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a sucker for rewards. That's why gambling is starting to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: become an out of control phenomenon. The brain is a
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: reward pleasure powerhouse. You give the brain a reward system
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: for something, it's going to keep doing the same thing.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I think that if I think it's fine to be
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: loud about where a person needs to improve, I think
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it's also fine to be equally as loud about where
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: they have improved. How have you gotten better? You used
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: to be argumentative. I remember 10 years ago, I would
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: bring this thing to you and it'd be a whole
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: big topic. And right now we're having a civil conversation
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: about that, even though that's the expectation, even though it
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: may be like, oh, that's, that's bare minimum. I don't,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that that's bare minimum in a relationship
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: because people's minimums, man, they, They they drag the basement
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of hell sometimes. But I do think affirming that is
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: valuable in a partnership. You used to do this thing.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: You don't do it anymore. I'm so proud of you.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: This is I love that about you. I think that helps.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It helps you know where you are. It helps you
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: know what you're getting better at. It helps encourage you
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to know that you're not just this person stuck in
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: a deficit. You're this person who. It's achieving the things
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to make this family system, this relationship a more equitable
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and happy place to be. But you got to know
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that in no uncertain terms. And people aren't just going
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to divulge that information to you. You can't rely on
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: your family to just give you that. You got to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: go and find it. And it's not, I know, I know,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know. You might not like that.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I feel it. I get it. I wish we could
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: do that through osmosis or easier way. But that, that
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: is what I wish. And we don't live in my wish.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: We live in reality. You got to go and seek
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: that feedback. You know, it's, it's funny, man. I asked
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: my kids maybe about two weeks ago. I said, man,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: what does daddy do that makes you happy? I assume,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I assumed, I assumed that I knew what
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I was doing to make them happy. I was so wrong.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I thought I knew, man, I thought I was on it,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: but no, my youngest likes when I quiz her. So what?
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: She likes to prove how smart she is. She wants
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to prove to me how smart she is. She likes
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: when I quiz her. I thought she hated it. I
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: was just doing to make sure she, you know, you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: your ABCs and one, two threes. But if I never
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: asked that question, I wouldn't know what strength to lean into.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: My oldest really likes when I spend individualized one-on-one time
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: with her. And we are doing something that we both enjoy.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Which seems obvious, but at a certain age, kids just
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: seem really ungrateful about everything. So, you know, you don't
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: really know which way is up. But had I not
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: asked for that specific feedback, I would have never gotten it.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't know what to lean into and do more
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: or less of. So I can't stop doing all this
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: other stuff. I'm jumping through hoops thinking this work and
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: they don't even care. Oh, well, that's something I can
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: put down. That's the value of the feedback. That's the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: value of asking the question and getting the answer. And
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: sometimes you get an answer you don't want because sometimes
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: they go a little too far. Like, not too much
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: on daddy. Not too much on him. It's still worthwhile
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: information to have beyond the way me. Sometimes it comes
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: with a little shame, a little guilt. Like, damn, I
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: could have been doing that the whole time. And that's okay.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I don't ignore that feeling. I counter it. I don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: counter it. But I also introduce the other thing. But damn,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: now I got an opportunity. My kids are still young.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I have so much more time ahead of me. Lord
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: will it. to repair this, to do something different, to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: try something different. And guess what? In two years, everything
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I'm doing now that works, none of that's going to
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: work anymore. And I'm going to have to start the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: cycle over and over and over and over again. And
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the more I realize and just accept that reality, the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: more fluid and flexible it makes me. And I think
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that's something I would encourage you to try on. Not
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: putting forth the effort because this is the one-all solution
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to fix everything, but because... This is what's needed right now.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And one day it won't be needed. But if I
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: can hone in on what's needed right now and I
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: can practice being aware and present of what's needed right now,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: when a different thing is needed, I'll have that muscle.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll have the practice of doing that. Wait
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a minute. Let's pause because I feel like that's an
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: oversimplification because asking for feedback, you can ask for feedback,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: but you can't dictate what feedback you get back. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes people keep it a little too real with you.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: It's like, hold on. Especially kids, man. You ask them something,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: they'll keep it 200 with you. And it might hurt
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: your feelings. So I always ask, especially, you know, you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: might not ask your kids, but if you're asking your
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: partner or your friends or whoever's dependent on you, whoever's
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: dependent or expecting your provision, I think it's a... It's
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: a good idea to frame it up well, because like
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm a tone person in the wrong tone
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: will affect the way that I hear something. And I
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: want to hear you. I really do. And I ain't
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: even tone policing you. But if I'm feeling blamed and accused,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: it's hard to get to your stuff through feeling being
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: blamed and accused. I got to I got to make
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: sure that I'm in the right place with that mentally
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: before I move on. So that might not be your thing,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: but the framing of it, you need to prepare people
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: for how they got to talk to you. So this
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: is one thing that I always encourage is saying something
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to the tune of, hey, you know, I've really been
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: struggling with this thing lately and I need some feedback.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I want you to be honest, but it's a little
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: sensitive for me. So just keep that in mind when
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: you're giving me the feedback. Typically, even the harshest person.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: will reevaluate the way that they give you the truth.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: They're not going to reevaluate the truth that they give
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you as much as they reevaluate the way they deliver
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: it to you. And the way that a truth is
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: delivered to you really does dictate the way that you
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: absorb it. A lot of times, a lot of times,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: if you feel like this is an exercise you want
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to do, you got to what we call norm the audience.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: You got to norm the people who you're talking to
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and let them Give them a lay of the land
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: on what your expectations are. Kind of what you can
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: take and what you can't. This ain't about being tough, man. Like,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I realize when it comes to this family stuff or
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: when it comes to relationships or when it comes to
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: taking care of you, it ain't no, the toughest thing
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you can do is be self-honest. Like, fighting through something
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: that hurts, it ain't no reward at the end of that, man. Like,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: it's really not. It's really not. And you struggling harder
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: through that thing does not produce a bigger reward. I
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: think Allowing messages to land on you in a way
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that you can really like you could you could. Hey, I.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like the way I don't love what you said, but
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the way you said that I can I can see that. OK,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I can work with that. If you got something you
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: can work with, you off to the races. If you
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: are just telling people to keep it real with you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: and you are not prepared for that, that is not helping. Hey,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: hold on, y'all. Real quick. My very first book, It
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: All Starts When You Do, is available right now. If
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: this podcast has ever helped you, I think this book will, too.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I want you to just search It All Starts When
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: You Do by Keir Gaines, wherever you get your books. Oftentimes,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: we like to tell men to stop tying their worth
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to provision, which I think is a great message. I'm
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: with that. I'm with y'all on that. But there's this
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: other side that we are horribly dishonest about. And that
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: is the idea that your family reinforces the fact that
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you may not matter beyond what you do. And it's
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: not anything. I want to take this away from the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: area of maliciousness or malicious intent, because sometimes it ain't intentional.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: And sometimes nobody's trying to be malicious. It's just it's
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the way that it works. We live in a capitalistic
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: society where. Gas is spiraling out of control. Jobs are
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: not plentiful as they used to be. Education and child
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: care is out of control in terms of costs. Health
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: care is out of control in terms of costs. Food
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: is more expensive. Being a human has just become more
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: expensive and people don't have to tell you verbatim with
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: these exact words that you have to provide in order
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: for you to feel that pressure. damn the credit card
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: bill do again. Oh man, there's more this month that
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you that you got to
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: go out and provide to handle that. But if the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: expectation in this system is that you had those things
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and this is the problem, I need you to make
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: one plus one equal to big boy. And I know
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: we love the terms like that's the, that's the bottom.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: That's the, what's the word? I'd be out of touch
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: with people who think like this. This is the, uh,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Not status quo. Why am I blanking on this joint?
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: That's the bare minimum. Man, that's the bare minimum. That's
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the bare minimum. And, you know, I know expectations for
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: people are low, but it seems like the bare minimum
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: rises a little bit more every year. And there is
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: something invalidating about your best effort through challenging circumstances being
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: framed as a bare minimum. And that leads me to
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: a question. Is it only a man's internal identity challenge
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about here? Or is it a response
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to how the world treats him? I think it's easy
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: to say now that's his problem. He needs to work
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: that out while ignoring all of the social reinforcement that
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: repeats it on volume 20 every single day. Even if
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you ask people, even folks who say that men need
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: to put that down, ask them what their definition of
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a man is and just notice whether or not it
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: implies protection and provision. I've never asked that question. It
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: had it not imply that being a man, the definition.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: isn't tied to protection and provision, which I don't have
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: a problem with. But it sends mixed messages when that's
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: how we define men in society while also begging men
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: to define themselves with more and beyond. That's the definitive
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: thing we use. But also, I need you to kind
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of scrape the ground and find something else or something different.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: It's not always a part of the conversation. It wasn't
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a part of your upbringing, but you still have the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: responsibility to find that. OK, well, how how do you
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: find that? How do you find that identity outside of?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: What I'm able to put on the table, because there's
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: an argument that everyone has to contribute in a family system,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: except for the kids. Not sure they contribute joy, you know,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I guess sometimes on a good day. But the adults,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: everyone is doing something to contribute to this greater whole. OK.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: So how can a man who wants to see himself
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: beyond take the first step? And I said it earlier,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: but I'll say it again. You got to be the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: driver of the conversation. I don't know if this happens.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: If you're not, you have to be the driver of
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the conversation. I think the conversations need to happen early.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: They need to happen often. And they got to be
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: very specific to your family system, not some generalized idea
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of what a man is supposed to do. I get that,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: but that may not apply to your family right now.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: It has to be specific to what's going on with
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: y'all and what your history is, how y'all work, how
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: y'all operate, how y'all bounce off of each other. I
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: think at some point, like gender scripts, we could talk
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: about hegemonic masculinity and toxic masculinity all we want, but
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: I think that there are parts of those systems that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: all of us hold on to. There are parts of
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: it that we hold on to. And I think in
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: order to move past this, you got to deviate from
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the gender script a little bit. Men, let me say
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: this right now. In a world where I hear many
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: men say that the world is trying to feminize men,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: trying to take your teeth away, trying to make you soft,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: trying to make you like just a different version of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a woman, I guess. I hear that argument. I know
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: exactly why men say that. I see what y'all see,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: but I feel a little differently. I don't think that's
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the whole truth. But the gender scripts got to drop
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit, man. This is what a man is.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Says who? Like, it's up to you to define what
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: kind of man you want to be. And if you
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: got to go off the beaten path, bro, nobody's telling you.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: And y'all forgive the crudeness of this, but just keeping
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: it real because men think diversely. And there's some men,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: nobody telling you put on a skirt, bro. And I
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: say putting on a skirt makes you less of a man,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: but that's how a lot of dudes think. Like no
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: one's telling you to put on a skirt. No one's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: telling you to go against how you see yourself. I'm
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: saying that there needs to be another interpretation of masculinity.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Because if it's all hinged on this man, when the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: floor drops, bro, where do What happens to you? And
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I am so sick of seeing so many brothers stuck
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and lost in the void because they can't answer that question.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: It's exhausting, man. And I want different for y'all. This
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: does not have to be our existence. So let's talk
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: through it. What can we do to kind of climb
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: out of that? The gender script. What a man was
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: in 1962 ain't what a man is now. It's just not.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: And for better or for worse, it's just not. How
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: do we adapt to what it is now? In your family,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I get that we got fed this idea and we
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: still get fed this idea that we're supposed to have
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: all the answers. We're supposed to have a plan for
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the family. We're supposed to know what we want and
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: be definite, definitive. Cool, man. What's the mutual goal? What
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: are y'all working towards? What is this whole family aiming
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to do? If the whole goal is just to exist
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and be happy, cool. How? How? How are you going
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: to exist? How am I going to exist? How are
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: we going to coexist? What's the goal? I think that
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: has to be identified. So when I say drop the
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: gender script, this is this is what I mean. It's
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: not necessarily being less of a man. It's just adapting
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: to your environment. I don't know much about education and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: schooling and stuff. I don't I don't know. I just
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: it's just not my wheelhouse. It's not something I'm really
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: that interested in whether I'm supposed to be or not.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: It's just I'm not that knowledgeable. My wife was a
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: different type of educator than I was. She's very invested.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: She knows a lot about schools and education and what's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: best for the kids. When you are a man, they
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: feed you this idea that you have to lead everything
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in your house, man. You got to lead. You got
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: to lead. You got to lead. You got to take
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the lead. You got to take the charge. You got
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: to take the initiative. You got to lead. You got
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: to lead. You got to lead. Hey, yo, I had
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: to drop the gender script on that. Hey, I don't
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: know nothing about this. I will defer to your genius.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And that's not... necessarily leaving her to do all the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: work but the leadership is in her hands in that
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: department of our lives why because she is the most
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: capable person the thing is I don't always see the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: vision that she sees she's like man the kids got
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to go to a school I know it's crazy it's
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: an hour and a half a drive it's going to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: be a long way it's inconvenient but this is going
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to help in their development first response I got is
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: hell nah I'm not driving an hour and a half
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: you crazy you tripping but And when you're taking somebody's,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: when you're under somebody's leadership and you trust their vision,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: you say, man, I don't see the vision. I'm going
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to trust you on this one. And we're going to
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: make this uncomfortable drive and do all of this crazy
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: stuff for the next 12 years. My schedule, my everything
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: is going to be riding around the kids, riding around
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the kids schooling. But I trust you. I trust you.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: And you, you, you, I'll let you develop this. game
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: plan this is your thing and i will i'll come
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: i'll come in and support and even saying that i
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: don't even know why i stuttered on that because i
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: don't know why it's weird the idea of a man
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: supporting his wife man these gender scripts are just fuck
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: god man they so frustrating they so because it don't
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: it don't work in a real relationship dog it don't
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: work And we keep reciting this shit like it works
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't. It works when it works. And that's
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: not all the time. And when it doesn't, it's horrible.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why it's such a big deal to
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: default to the leadership of your partner, especially a woman.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: That's just, that's wild work to me. I don't expect
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to understand it, but that's what I mean. There are
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: certain dudes that look at me and be like, nah, bro,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: if you don't like that, you need to put your
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: foot down. That's not what we doing. Yeah. You're referencing
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: my discomfort. And the needs of the many outweigh the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: needs of the few. And if my discomfort is still manageable,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: but leads to greater educational outcomes for my children, because
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: my wife has a vision that I don't have. So
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: be it. So be it. Hey, talking about being a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: great leader, man, if you can't be a great supporter
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and a great follower, you're never going to have a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: good marriage. No, I have a good partnership. Okay. How
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: much time you put in? How many dates you go on?
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: None of that shit. If you can't, Realize when someone
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: has something going on that's beyond what you can see
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and you can't fall in and support that even though
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: you don't want to. Ooh, I know. Another conversation for
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: another day. I think that creates problems in a relationship system.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: But that's what I mean. That's what I mean. That
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: don't take my teeth away. That don't take nada. I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: want some masculinity away from me, man, that helps support
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: my family in a way that's probably going to pay
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: off dividends in the future. And look, here it is
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: on the back end, though. If it don't work out
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: like that, you can't be that. I told you so. Man,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I ain't never want to do this anyway. This was
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: all your idea. Can't do that. No, we collectively decided
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: to do this as a family. And this is the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: result of it. We could probably could have did things different.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: But what can we do now? You know, sometimes a
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: big part of this is also when you're when you're right,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: not being the one to say, I told you so.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: So let's move the conversation forward a little bit, because
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I also really wanted to talk about what happens when
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: pushing through it don't work no more. Pushing through it
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: just don't it don't do it no more. It worked
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: a while ago, but it doesn't anymore. And you realize that.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: So what do you do? I think that we have
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: a pretty long track record of. Celebrating men who fight
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: through pain and injury and exhaustion and adversity. But we
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: don't have as much of a track record around talking
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: about what happens when that push through makes everything worse.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: It's not working. Not only is it not working, but
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: things are getting worse. So what do you do? Well,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I think one of the first things is distinguishing resilience
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: from denial. And there are a lot of ways that
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: you can do that. My personal definition is I know
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: when something in me is resilience and when it's denial.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Resilience is when I can take a loss or I
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: can take things not working out the way that I
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: thought it would. And I can still continue. push through
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: i don't allow it to completely defeat or deflate me
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: denial is different denial to me is when something's not
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: working for me and i still have the determination to
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: push through even though the evidence is telling me that
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: that's not a good idea i think in all the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: difference between resilience and denial for me is with denial
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: you're running a lot of red lights And, you know,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: you kind of run a red light sometimes, but you
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: feel like if you run enough of them, you'll get
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to your destination faster. That's always a tricky one. And
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I've done a lot of work to help myself realize
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: when I'm in denial about something. And this man, a
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: lot of y'all, it sucks sometimes. I'm like, I'm in
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: denial about this. I'm not ready to confront it yet.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: But in my mind, I'm able to say I know
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: that this thing exists. And I start to prepare myself
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: to confront this, this huge thing that I don't want to. That's,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: that's the difference. And maybe that's a self-awareness and a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: self-honesty piece that we could talk about in a later episode,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: but you got to be able to distinguish those two.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important. So then it moves to, well,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: what are the signs that a man probably needs to
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: adapt rather than just try harder? I think it's a
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: couple of them. One, When it's not working, like when
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: it's not working, sometimes we do this thing called a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: sunken cost fallacy. And I know I've talked about it
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: here before, where you've put so much work into it,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: you're afraid to throw it away because you put so
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: much work into it. We usually use a car. When
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you only pay $ 1, 500 for a car, you've paid $ 2, 000
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: in repairs so far. And now something else broke that
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: cost $ 6, 000. And I'm just going to pay the $ 6, 000.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute. Now you are paying much more for
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: repairs than what you pay for the car, but you
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: have a sunken cost fallacy going on. So you're like, man,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: I already paid so much. I already invested in so
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: much in this. I might as well keep going. I
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: can't let it go. I would beg to differ. I
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: think it will be hurtful and disappointing to let it go.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: But to say that I can't probably does more damage
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: to you in the long term. I think another sign
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: is when it just it's it doesn't produce better results.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: It's self-honesty piece. You got to keep it a buck
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: with yourself. Like, ah, this ain't really better. It's different,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: but it's not better. I think when the efforts are
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: leading to declining outcomes, not only is it not better,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: it's actually getting worse. This is of far less quality.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: With me putting in either the same or more work,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I'm getting back something that's of lesser quality and lesser value.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I think that that's a sign that there might be
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: time to adapt and do something different than just push
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: through it. Also, man, you know what? It just came
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: to mind when you find yourself doing more self convincing
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: than you are observing. If you find yourself trying to
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: constantly sell an idea to yourself, like just imagine moving
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: stuff around in your mind, like you will move furniture
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: around in an apartment. Well, no, if I just do
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: this and take that and just move that around, if
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I ask my aunt and then maybe I can do
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: this and maybe I can do that. Like some of us,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: that's how our brains work. But if you find yourself
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: doing that more often than you're actually observing what's really happening,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: if you're making room for possibility where possibility isn't, instead
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of observing the possibility that isn't, I think that that's
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a good sign that you might need to adapt and
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: change your strategy. Just take a second. All those things
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I just mentioned, do any of those stand out to you?
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Do you notice yourself doing that in quiet moments? Do
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: you notice yourself leaning toward, like your brain naturally wants
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: to go in that direction? This ain't an opportunity to
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: judge yourself or anything. It's just to observe the way
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: that you think and the way that you move through
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: your own thoughts. Something to think about. So as we
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: land this plane, a question pops in my mind that
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to talk through because I don't
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: know if I know the answer to, but I want
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: to present it to y'all And that question is, how
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: do you tell the difference between working hard for your
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: family and using your family to justify your ambition? And
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: can those two coexist? You know, I think it depends
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: on the person. But the more I talk to successful
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: men about what it took to get there, the more
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I'm realizing that they have a challenging time keeping family
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: first and then keeping business first at the same time. Why?
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Because there's only one first place. There's only one. And
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: you can try to do both. But what I find
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: is a lot of men either oversimplify like, oh, it's
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: really easy because, you know, the work his wife doing
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: on the back end, she getting smoke or a lot
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: of men chose business because the shame of being an
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: absent provider is more tolerable than the shame of being
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: an absent father. Absent father is heavy. Let's let's roll that.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Let's dial that back a little bit. Internet does enough
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: extreme talk. I don't want to add to that. Not
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: being as present as you could be if you weren't
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: as heavily invested in providing, because that doesn't mean that's
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: not the same as being absent. How do you tell
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the difference when you're working hard for your family, man,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: using your family to justify your ambition? I think it's
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: listening to the family and paying attention to when it's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: not working. You know, some people, some men will say,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: you know, my family makes me go harder and that
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: may be true, but man, bro, if depending on where
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: you are in life, there may come a time, especially
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: if you like hustling hard, two jobs for the family,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: you know, let's not say you even got a family, man.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Let's say you just got a partner and, y'all trying
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to look to move into a bigger spot or you
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: know maybe y'all want to prepare for engagement and engagement
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: ring ain't cheap and brother it's going to be incumbent
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: on you to purchase that joint they are not they
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: are not cheap and the wedding is not cheap the
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: father the bride's not always going to pay for the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: wedding like there's a lot of costs i don't know
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: why we don't why we ain't discussing but When you're
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: working hard for your family, I think one of the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: most deflating things that can happen is realizing that ain't
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: even what they need. Like you'll be out here killing
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: yourself in society, working, working, working, working, working. And you
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: get home and realize that, nah, what we want is you.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a sweet sentiment. But what you
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: want me in a cardboard box? You know, these lights
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: still have to stay on. And at some point you
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: got to, I'm not going to say try to find
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: a balance because it doesn't exist. The more I listen
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: to Michelle Obama talk, The more I realized what that
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: presidency did to their family. Not saying it was awful,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: but that that man had the hardest job in the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: world for eight years. And his family paid a toll
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: for that. I think when you're working hard for your family,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: you keep in the pulse on the family. It's not
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: when you're working hard. It's not just about the provision.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: It's about everything that's required of. And it's not just
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: making sure you show up to everything that's required of you.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: You got to learn how to stand up for yourself
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: in your own family system. Like, hey, that's too much
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: pressure on me. I cannot do that. Let's talk about
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: what else is needed that I can't actually do. Because
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: capacity is a thing. You can only do what you
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: could do. But not being honest about that leads to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: a whole nother set of calamities that is probably destined
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: for a different episode. But I think that when you're
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: using your family to justify your ambitions, When the family
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: systems require something out of you that's not protection and provision,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you might be slow to respond or react. I remember
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: one of my homies, man, he was all hustling for
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: his family. And his wife hit him up and said, hey,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: we need you at home. And he was like, yo,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: we ain't got no money. Like, I can't be home
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: because we don't have anything. And I remember telling him, bro,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to hate me for this. But if your
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: wife say you need to be home more, you got
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: to find a way to be home more. I don't,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know another way to put that.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Like that is, that's the reality. Cause if she's saying
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: that probably the kids probably think that, you know what
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: I'm saying? Like it's how willing are you again to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: adapt to what's being asked of you in the moment?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Personal ambition is a beautiful thing, but when it comes
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: at your family expense, you have to ask yourself, how
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: much is it worth? What is it going to cost me?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: And realistically, am I willing to pay it? Maybe this
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: is a little personal for me because not this exact
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: scenario I'm referencing, but man, I'm coming to a career crossroads.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: This stuff is exploding, man. And I can't act like
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: my family does not miss me. And it's not even
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: just work like, oh, I got to go out and
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: make the bacon and make the money. It's the fact
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: that we started this thing that's really, really, really rolling.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: But the needs of my family have changed a lot.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: In the last five years. So now I'm in a
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: place of value. This is how I know that I'm
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: not just trying to justify my ambition. I'm trying to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: work hard for my family. I'm trying to think of
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: how I can do less in the world to be
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: more present for the family without secretly resenting them. Like
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: they cut me short of my glory. You know what
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I'm saying? I got to be honest with myself about
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: how I feel about that. And if I say that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: family is first, I can't just allow that to be
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: represented in my words and in my content if it's
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: not also represented in my actions. Keep in mind, I'm
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: picking up. I'm dropping off. I'm giving baths. I'm putting
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: kids to sleep every night. I could be in New York.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And I will get back in time to make sure
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I can drop the kids off to school, make sure
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: that I'm done with work by the time they get home,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: make sure that I'm here handing off towels and helping
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: you find the lotion and the shower caps at night.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Like I'm doing all the things. But bro, even when
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: you do all the things, there's going to come a
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: time when it's still not enough. And then what? So
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: something for you to think about, not for me to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: answer for you necessarily, but are you working hard for
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: your family or are you using the family to justify
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: your ambition? And the answer, can they coexist? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: They can coexist, but they don't, they don't play well together.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: They don't play well together. And it's not just your,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: your ambition doesn't just cost you. So, you know, when
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: I'm talking to a billionaire and, and, they've amassed an
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: incredible amount of wealth, but their kids don't rock with them.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I don't see evidence of something that I want. When
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I think about if it can coexist in my life, yeah,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: of course, but not for very long. And then what?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: I think at some point you have to make a
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: decision on which direction you want to go in, even
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: if it changes later. But it's not just meeting the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: needs permanently. That's not a thing in every evolving system.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: You don't just do what they meet the need, credits roll, end.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It's meeting the need for now and being open to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: how that will change in the future. You know, we
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: talked about a lot today, man. And it just it
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: leads me to this final question of who am I becoming?
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Because I share a lot. I laugh because I don't know.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: And I feel like because of who I am, I'm
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: supposed to have the answer. And I am going to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: punt on that because I'm not entirely sure. I will
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: say this, you know, from the time I had my
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: first kid to the time I got married to the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: time that I had my second kid to the time
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: I started this business to the time I've been introduced
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: to all of you all. It's been a series of
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: about 10 years. And in the last decade, I walked
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: into before I had a kid, I walked in very
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: sure of who who I was, what I wanted. And
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: what left me feeling full. And I ducked my head
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: down to take care of family and to make sure
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: that my wife felt like she had a supportive partner.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: And to make sure my kids felt like they had
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: a present dad. Make sure they had all the things
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: that they could want and need. And no one wants
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: or needs for a damn thing in here. By the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: time I peaked my head back up, the things that
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: used to fulfill me don't fulfill me no more. I'm
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: a different person. I don't like being around people as
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: much as I used to. I don't like going to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: places that I used to. I can do those things
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: all I want. They used to be me peace and
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: now they don't. I am a provider, man, and I
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: am a protector and I take great pride in it,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't make me and it doesn't learn. It
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't make me happy. It checks a box, but it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't make me happy. So I think I'm a person
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: who's working through experimenting with new things that make me
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: feel happy and fulfilled. I have things, but the 40-year-old
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: version of me, just this brain and this body needs
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: something different that I've never tried before. So instead of
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: trying to position myself like this great, great godly guru
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: that has all the answers and the know-how, I'm going
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: to tell you honestly, I'm experimenting. I'm trying stuff because
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know anymore. I'm not sure. And it's not
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: like I'm sad. It's just the fact that I don't
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: know Whether I'm chasing what used to be fulfilling. Like
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: I'm chasing that feeling of being fulfilled in that way.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Or whether I'm just trying to find what works for
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: this space in my life. Because I got this feeling
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: as soon as I figured out I was going to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: change again. But that's not going to stop me from
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. And if anything in this
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: episode resonated with you. If you were in a space
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: where you don't know exactly where you are or what
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: you want. I thought I wanted a lot of stuff.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: And now that I have him like, ah, that ain't it.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I could, I could do, I can downgrade this about
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: three or four times lower and still be perfectly fine.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: If you come to that conclusion, man, don't just keep
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: it to yourself. Share with me, hit the learn the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: hard way pod.com. Leave a message. If any part of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: this episode, either about grief of previous versions of yourself or,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: expectations on you or providership or protection or gender scripts,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: any of that hits you in a particular way, man,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: leave me a message so I can know what you think.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Cause I grow more when I get the opinions of
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: other people, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. But, um, today,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: you know, it's, it's some episodes are different from others.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Today is one of those episodes where I feel like
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: it's speaking to what's going on with me and what's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: going on in the world. And I hope that you
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: could take a pause and not necessarily evaluate, not judge,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: not survey, not see. but just notice what's going on
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: in the world around you, particularly in your own mind
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: and heart. And ask yourself, is this really what I
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: was going for? Is this really what's going to leave
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: me fulfilled? And this is really a good representation of me.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: And I think the answer that you come up with
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: immediately and the answer that you eventually come up with
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: may not be the same thing, but it's definitely worth
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: taking a look at. Until next time, when I see you,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: when you hear from me, we back on the same accord.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Take care of yourself. You be good out there. Job
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: well done. Learn the Hard Way is a production of
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast. I'm your host, Keir Gaines. We're produced by
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Courtney Deans and Kacen Alexander. Ashley J. Hobbs is our
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: senior producer. Our executive producers are Will Packer, Dr. Joy
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Harden Bradford, Alex Baldwin, and Carla Wilmaris.