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Why Men Don’t Fulfill Their Potential in Life | Ep. #56
87 Plays1 year ago
We all desire to “reach our potential,” but how the hell do you practically do it??? Today we’ll dive into the primary actions a man can take (both practically and emotionally) to learn how to be more present in life and ultimately unlock his true potential.
In this episode you'll learn:
- The scariest but necessary thing you need to do on a regular basis.
- The top three things that hold you back in life are.
- Why you need to establish a “core” of men.
- How to build your core if you don’t have one.
- What you need to let go of in order to become more present.
Links
Host: Josh Cearbaugh
https://instagram.com/joshcearbaugh
Recommended
Transcript
Unlocking Male Potential
00:00:01
Speaker
You want to access your potential as a man more than likely unless you feel that you have arrived and you've maxed out your potential. There's a couple core things that you are not doing and that you can be doing. And we're going to dive into what some of those things are today on today's episode.
00:00:20
Speaker
And when I say potential, I'm referring to just living at the fullest version of life that you feel you can. So I know sometimes potential is a little bit overused, but it's really, do you feel like you're maxing out, you're firing on all cylinders and you're maxed out, not in the sense of burning yourself out, but in the sense of really being present in life.
00:00:44
Speaker
If you feel like you're not, then I would encourage you to go ahead and listen to today's episode. And as always, please share this episode if you feel like I actually have a lot of listeners that their wives that then listen to the episode to better understand their husbands and then go ahead and share it with their husbands. Maybe it's like a subtle way of saying, hey, maybe you should work on this type thing.
00:01:07
Speaker
Share it with somebody that you may think benefit from it. And as always, please feel free to either send me an email at contact at Seer Ball Consulting. If you have any podcast ideas or topics that you would want me to dive into and please leave a review. All right, let's dive into today's topic. Men, we are not simple, chest thumping, rock smashing, fire starting barbarians.
00:01:31
Speaker
We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving.
Redefining Masculinity
00:01:45
Speaker
We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
00:01:54
Speaker
All right, so I feel like it's necessary to start today's podcast by giving a little bit of a disclaimer. And that is that I don't feel like I am living up to my full potential or maxed out as far as what I could be capable of. And the things that we're going to be diving into, have I been working on them for the last several years? Yes, I have.
00:02:18
Speaker
But by no means am I coming from a high horse saying I have arrived and this is really the key to being able to access what I have found. Really what it is is more so these are the things that
00:02:33
Speaker
I have personally found have been deeply beneficial for me to get out of my own head, get out of my own way, which sometimes is terrifying to do, and really begin to lock into the things that I know that I am called to.
00:02:49
Speaker
with that disclaimer out of the way let's go ahead and dive into why you may not be accessing your full potential or maybe maybe a different way of saying it is why it is that you feel like you're not really fully present with yourself or with your spouse with your kids just in life
00:03:06
Speaker
You're somewhat checked out or you're somewhat numb to who you know that you can be.
Vulnerability and Healing
00:03:14
Speaker
And if you've listened to more than one episode of mine, you're going to not be surprised by the first thing that I want to dive into.
00:03:21
Speaker
And that is probably in my opinion the most important thing, and that is vulnerability. Because without vulnerability, both with yourself as well as with others, you are never going to peel back the layers of the onion to find out what's lying beneath the surface of who you actually can become.
00:03:44
Speaker
Because without vulnerability, you stay trapped in what I like to call your false self. And that is the man that you have become. But as a byproduct of, let's say trauma or childhood experiences or disappointment or regret,
00:04:02
Speaker
These negative elements that can begin to brood and fester under the surface of who you actually are. It's your false self. Your true self is confident. Your true self is present. Your true self doesn't let fear and insecurities get in the way of taking risks, etc.
00:04:21
Speaker
And so without vulnerability, you stay really locked into or trapped within that false self. And obviously the byproduct of that is that you can't heal. Now I have five kids. I have three that I created with my ex-wife and now we're a blended family and I've got two more beautiful girls.
00:04:42
Speaker
And really a big drum beat for myself and my wife and even my ex is we want to work on the things that we need to work on to get healing in our hearts and our minds and our bodies, really to draw a hard line in the sand and say, we're not going to pass on this bad attribute or this mindset or this fear.
00:05:08
Speaker
We're not going to hand that down to our children. No, we're not perfect. There's going to be things that our kids, as they grow and evolve, will have to navigate because of our own mistakes that we do. But really the journey of healing, it's for you, but it's also for more than just you.
00:05:26
Speaker
As you heal, you begin to draw that hard line in the sand for your children. As you heal, you begin to become more present with yourself and with others. As you heal, you begin to lock into the person that you are actually meant to be. Healing does not come without vulnerability. It's a prerequisite. It's the key that opens the door to healing.
Growth and Courage
00:05:52
Speaker
but you have to be willing to take that risk and be vulnerable. Because otherwise, you're going to stay within your comfort zone. It's our nature to want to stay comfortable. To be fat, to be married, to be comfortable. I still fight that urge. I fight that urge to be comfortable often.
00:06:14
Speaker
I would much rather sit around and not just stay on the couch, but metaphorically be on the couch and be within my home and eat the foods that I want. But that comfort is not going to offer me growth. And the emotional side of it as well is if you stay within your comfort zone, you are locking yourself into a smaller version of who you can be. And the thing that's required there is
00:06:44
Speaker
that courage to step out of your comfort zone because that's where you find that growth. But stepping out and having that courage, it comes with vulnerability.
00:06:56
Speaker
because otherwise it's really easy for you to build a life based around coping mechanisms, to build a life around mindsets that are actually limiting you, to build your life around blind spots. We all have blind spots and areas of our life that we think that we have locked in or that we feel good about, but they're limiting to us in one way or another.
00:07:25
Speaker
and vulnerability opens up the opportunity for you to be able to explore what those blind spots are and to begin to identify what those coping mechanisms are. I like to say that, especially with my clients, is if you don't think that you're using something as a coping mechanism, no problem. Just remove it from your life for a week and see what happens.
00:07:51
Speaker
And you will be surprised whether that is, I mean, for some people, it's being involved at church. For others, it's eating food. For others, it's porn. It's video games. We have a laundry list of things that we now have available to us. Maybe it's going to the gym four hours a day. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with working out, but if it's become a coping mechanism where a part of your unhealthy identity is locked up within that, then it's limiting to you.
00:08:20
Speaker
And so you can try to remove one of those things that you're like, yeah, I'm not really addicted to that. I mean, it's no secret, no surprise, the addictive nature of our phones. And I'm guilty just as much as anybody else as using that on a frequent basis. What I like to do sometimes is go ahead and delete an app from my phone and literally remove it. Now that doesn't mean
00:08:43
Speaker
that I can't go back into the app store and I can't read download it, but sometimes putting a few self-imposed barriers into those coping mechanisms helps you realize just how addictive they are in the first place and two, how often you turn to them.
00:09:00
Speaker
Maybe you grab cookies after the kids go to bed. Well, put the cookies on the highest shelf of the cabinet just for a week and see what happens. Because your gifts, who you are as a person, the gifts that you have to offer, they often hide behind pain that we've experienced or fears that we have.
00:09:20
Speaker
and to access those gifts every single person you know i was at a gathering yesterday and there's a gentleman talking about singing his song and that everybody has a song to offer now the last thing you're gonna want me to do on this podcast is to begin singing because i don't have the most beautiful voice
00:09:43
Speaker
But emotionally and deep down inside who you are as a person, we all have one of those songs to offer the world. And you have to be willing to lean into vulnerability to find out what those are and then to begin to risk sharing them with the world as you begin to explore them.
00:10:06
Speaker
But then it begs the question, okay, Josh, great. I need to be vulnerable. That sounds nice. That sounds awesome, but you don't understand. I've been hurt. I've been let down. I've been disappointed. And so who the hell am I going to be vulnerable
Building Trust and Supportive Networks
00:10:23
Speaker
with? Because anytime I open up my heart, well, then I get hurt. And that poses that question, which is very fair. And that is who do you be vulnerable with?
00:10:34
Speaker
You know, if you are a person that just wears your heart on your sleeve, I don't know if you've ever heard that phrase before. That's actually an emotionally immature person because you shouldn't be vulnerable with everyone. A lot of times people that wear their heart on their sleeves.
00:10:51
Speaker
They're the ones that actually have their identity wrapped up in their pain because they just open themselves up and expose themselves to anybody and everybody. If you are meeting somebody for the first time, you're not saying, hey, my name's Josh, and these are all my insecurities, and these are my fears, and this is where I'm coming short, and can I cry on your shoulder?
00:11:13
Speaker
That would make for a pretty awkward interaction at a party. You have to really begin to establish that trust and build the relational equity required to open up your heart. There's obviously layers within that, but what I always encourage my clients to do is
00:11:32
Speaker
Try to identify for you men. Try to identify one to five. Really one to three. If you get three, you're doing good. But one to five men that are your core. They're the posse that you're running with. They're the men that you turn to in your darkest hour. They're the men who will show up for you. I have a friend who's going through a hard time and what is showing up for him look like. He's part of my core.
00:12:01
Speaker
Well that was literally me going over to his house on a Saturday and a Sunday with a chainsaw and cutting down a bunch of trees. Down here in Texas we had an ice storm that blew through and on my ranch as well as his land we lost a lot of limbs and these big beautiful oaks fell down and a bunch of cedars fell down.
00:12:21
Speaker
And he's offered to help me out, but right now he's at a place where he just needs to not be alone in his journey and his process. And so because he's part of my core, because we've established that trust and that relational equity, I'm going to show up for him. I'm going to do what I need to do to be that good friend.
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, I always say that good friends are inconvenient sometimes to build a deep, meaningful relationship with someone. There are going to be times that it's inconvenient. I could have very easily not gone over to my friend's house and cut down some of my own limbs and trees that needed clearing. And like I said, he's offered to extend that same invitation back to me, which is great, but I wasn't doing it for that.
00:13:12
Speaker
I was doing it because he was actually one of the friends that when I was at my lowest point when I literally had a gun to my head at times thinking I don't see a way out and I would call him crying on the phone saying I feel overwhelmed I feel scared I'm in so much pain it's unbearable he's like I'll be there in 10 minutes
00:13:35
Speaker
and he showed up for me. Now he's got his own kids, he's got his own career, but he dropped what he was doing and showed up for me. And so there's a reciprocal aspect to that where you obviously you can't do that with everybody. You can't just show up for everybody because one, it's not practical and two, you overextend yourself.
00:13:58
Speaker
You know, we're in this society now with social media where it's not uncommon to have 5,000 quote unquote friends from social media. I'm not saying that you can't be connected to a lot of people and there's something wrong with that, but you really need to find your core and establish who those are and then be willing to be inconvenienced at times to show up for them.
00:14:21
Speaker
to create space for them to just process and be vulnerable themselves. Because when you show up for them and you are a safe place to just listen to them, then that is reciprocated. Or if it's someone who is going to stay in your core, that needs to be reciprocated.
00:14:42
Speaker
You know, your core, it needs to be men that are willing to hear you, to hear the ugly parts of you, to hear the scared parts of you, to hear the proud parts of you, to hear the encouraging parts of you. You know, I have friends that I can, I'm a verbal processor.
00:14:59
Speaker
And there are friends where I say, hey, I just need to verbal vomit for a second. Like I just need to get, I don't even know fully what I'm feeling. I just feel trapped in my head right now and I need to get out of my head. And so this is all happening. And you know what? I'm feeling really nervous about this. And a lot of times me just sharing that I feel nervous about something helps dissipate those nerves. Sometimes me feeling that I feel really ashamed of something.
00:15:27
Speaker
It's not an end all, be all, cure all, but sometimes for me as a verbal processor, I need those men that are willing to just be a sounding board for me and I can express what I'm going through and it helps me get clarity. It helps me relieve sometimes a lot of that shame that can come along with some of those darker emotions or doubts. And so having those men be willing to just hear you, to just sit there and listen to you and not judge you,
00:15:56
Speaker
and be willing to encourage you. And obviously anything that I'm saying as far as what you're looking in for men that are in your core, well, it's your responsibility to do the same thing for them, to be that listening ear, to be that encouragement. You know, the guys that I run with, I love to speak identity into them over and over and over again.
00:16:20
Speaker
almost to the point where it feels like it's overdoing it. But if you think about a dog whenever you come home, every single time, at least my dog, is super happy and excited to see me. And that never gets old. I love it every single time.
00:16:37
Speaker
And we're so busy these days that probably what you feel is overdoing it, saying a kind word, saying an encouraging word, reminding those men of who they are and who they're meant to be. What you think is overdoing it is probably not even close to overdoing it. And so be that encouraging word to them. But it's not just listening to you and encouraging you. They also need to challenge you.
00:17:03
Speaker
they need to call you on your bullshit. You need to find men who will love you for where you're at, but love you enough to not let you stay where you are. And so having men in your life that will be that sounding board, but lovingly say, you know what, Josh, I actually think that you shouldn't be doing this or you should be doing that, or
00:17:28
Speaker
What you're saying right now is below who you actually are. The Josh that I know is able to do this and this and capable of this and this. Ultimately, even your closest friends, they're not living your life. Ultimately, you have to decide out of all of the advice that they give to you, what are you going to take?
Applying Advice and Wisdom
00:17:50
Speaker
What are you going to apply? What are you going to implement?
00:17:53
Speaker
And what just is not applicable for you to either work through or to integrate into your life at this time, you have to decide what that is for you. But we're going to get into here in just a second how your pride and your ego can get in the way and you can become defensive. But you also need to be willing to hear them and
00:18:20
Speaker
figure out what resonates with you. Sometimes what resonates with you as far as what you need to work on, you may not like it, but you need to hear it. Because your friends, your core, they're the men who come around you when you're weak. They're the men who challenge you
00:18:41
Speaker
when you feel insecure. They're the men who call out those blind spots that you may have as far as being a good husband or a good father or a good friend. And so you need to have those core group of men in place. And we're going to get into how do you actually build that if you don't have that? Because sometimes that can be the hardest part of it.
00:19:06
Speaker
But you also need to understand sometimes that core, that is not a lifelong contract for death do us part, like a marriage. That core may ebb and flow as you grow and you get older and you grow through life. That's likely going to change. Now, it's not every time you bump into something, you do an inventory and you're like, you know what, I don't like what he said, so he's not a part of my core anymore.
00:19:33
Speaker
This is something that evolves over time. A really super practical one is when I lived out in California, I had a core group of men that I was doing life with that was in my day to day. And when I moved to Texas, that just changed. It morphed because they weren't in my day to day. We still stay connected on the phone and we have, there's an app called Marco Polo that does video messaging. I use that for,
00:20:01
Speaker
My clients as well as my family and my friends but So you can still stay connected But you understand that sometimes that's gonna change and that's gonna evolve and even in my core right now I've got some that are local that like I said, I ran over with a chainsaw to help out and I
00:20:21
Speaker
I still have some men that are out in California and we use technology to stay in touch and to stay connected. But you have to understand that the farther away you are, the harder you have to fight to stay connected as well as to be intentional when you are connecting.
00:20:43
Speaker
And one other thing is you often find men who are at a similar place in your life, but I would encourage you to find also some men who are ahead of where you are in life. And that's not saying that it's different than a mentor-mentee relationship. You can have those and there's value in those and we could do a whole podcast on that.
00:21:04
Speaker
But one of my closest friends, he's about seven years older than me. He was one of my friends that I turned to when I was going through my divorce because he had gone through a divorce before and he had felt the pain that I had felt. Now obviously it was different for him because it was a different relationship and a different life.
00:21:28
Speaker
But he had some really great wisdom because of his hindsight is 2020, right? We all say that. And so looking back, he's like, man, I wish I would have done this different or approach this different or let this go instead of holding onto it or whatever it may be. And so he had wisdom to give me within his advice that helped me navigate that because he was further down the road than I was.
00:21:54
Speaker
Now, like I said, I've got a lot of clients that are asking me, you know, Josh, this sounds great, find your core. But vulnerability is just a thing that I haven't really done. And I don't exactly even know how to begin that process. And so how do I even start to build my core? Well, great question, fair question. I can start by saying that
00:22:23
Speaker
you have to choose that this is something that you want. Because building your core and being vulnerable, neither one of those are comfortable or easy. And that whole thing about us wanting to lean into our comfort zone is why a lot of men, the only thing they can talk about is sports and weather.
00:22:45
Speaker
I enjoy watching sports, I enjoy talking about sports, but if your life is consumed in that and you have no emotional intelligence whatsoever as a byproduct of it, then there's something wrong there. Sports may be one of your coping mechanisms. But identifying that core, identifying that one to five men that you want to build trust with,
00:23:06
Speaker
Well, it starts with literally sitting down sometimes and making a physical, practical list of men that are currently in your life that either fall into one of two categories. One, they're already friends. You already have some history. You have some relational equity already, but you want to go deeper. You don't want to just talk about the sports and the weather anymore.
00:23:31
Speaker
You want to evolve what that relationship looks like and this is where your own leadership is required and needs to come into play because once you identify who those are well let me say the second category.
00:23:46
Speaker
The second category of men is so but let's let's say that you know them that you have relationship with them but you want to go deeper with them you want to actually start to process deeper more intentional things with them okay great. But then there's also these other men that maybe you met them at a party or a gathering or a networking event or whatever.
00:24:09
Speaker
And for whatever reason, you guys just clicked. You had a good conversation. Neither one of you bore your souls or you didn't cry on their shoulder or anything like that. But you really, there's something there. You can't pinpoint what that something is.
00:24:25
Speaker
but there's something there in that relationship that you really admire about that person or that maybe you just gelled and so yes you're starting from scratch in a sense but with either one of these you're leaning into those relationships and beginning to be intentional with them.
00:24:42
Speaker
And I don't know about you. My wife, she goes to a restaurant and walks out knowing the waitress, the manager, the owner, and somehow knows the owner's wife that did something with her five years ago. It's just who she is. It comes very natural.
00:24:58
Speaker
For me, building relationships is not that easy and not that natural. It's something I have to be very intentional with. And so if it's that friend that you already know, well, that means that you need to, surprise, surprise, be vulnerable with them and reach out to them and let them know that you want to go deeper. Begin to bring up topics that are different than what you've been talking about.
00:25:26
Speaker
Begin to ask them how their marriage is doing. Begin to ask them how their heart is feeling. Begin to ask them how they are and then see how they respond. Because it may be that they're not someone that can go deeper with you. But you're not going to find out if they respond. If you don't give them a chance to step up and go deeper, then you may be missing out on a beautiful relationship and an opportunity.
00:25:51
Speaker
If it's that person that you met and you clicked and you want to explore what's there super practically, get off this podcast, hit pause, whatever you need to do, pick up the phone and either call them or text them and ask to meet up, to have their family over for a barbecue, to go out to coffee. You need to be intentional because these relationships won't happen by accident.
00:26:18
Speaker
And with that person that you're just getting to know, you can ask some tougher questions, not right off the bat because you have to build that relational equity. But I'd say that they've been married for 10 years and you can ask good questions like what would you say is one of the main things that.
00:26:38
Speaker
contributes to your marriage being strong right now. I don't know. I just made that one up. But you can begin to ask intentional questions that really begins to dig below the surface, which can feel scary and uncomfortable. But going back to the first point, you're not going to step into your potential of who you can be or learn how to be present if you're not willing to be vulnerable. I can't stress that point enough.
00:27:06
Speaker
And it may be that meeting up for coffee, it's not practical. Well, schedule a time to get on the phone. I mean, if you need to, if both of your calendars are crazy and we're all building our lives, et cetera, well, set up a time. Hey, Friday evening after the kids go to bed, can I give you a call?
00:27:24
Speaker
and just begin to reach out to people and be intentional with the time that you have. What does that look like? Well, that looks like asking those intentional questions. And if you need to, maybe you need to Google what are good questions to ask a married man or what are good questions to ask men in general.
00:27:45
Speaker
Don't be above looking online or looking to other people or sending me an email at contact at CIRBA Consulting to find out what some of those good questions are for laying a foundation for building that trust in that relationship.
00:28:01
Speaker
Now, why do we not do this? Like what gets in the way of building that core or vulnerability? Because if it was that easy, then we would just all do it, right? We would all just open up and be vulnerable and have our core and be locked in. Well, one, like I said before, is it requires intentionality. And most of us are wrapped up in our own lives to not be willing to be inconvenient enough to build deep, meaningful relationships.
00:28:31
Speaker
And two is a lot of times we let fears or insecurities get in the way. You know, we all have our own past trauma or we have our past pain, however you want to categorize that.
Overcoming Fear and Ego for Deeper Connections
00:28:45
Speaker
And what that does is it creates belief systems in our mind
00:28:51
Speaker
that says, you know what, if I reach out, then I'm gonna be embarrassed. If I reach out or if I'm vulnerable, I'm gonna get hurt. And so I'm gonna play it safe. I'm gonna be closed off as a means of self-protecting so that then I don't have to be hurt, right? And basically what you're doing is you're doing preventative pain management. Instead of reacting to pain and processing it, you're trying to prevent it in the first place.
00:29:17
Speaker
But it comes at a heavy cost. It comes at the cost of not being present in your life. Comes at the cost of not finding out what those gifts are to give the world. Comes at the cost of not being as connected to your wife. It comes at the cost of passing on your pain in your own ways to your children. Comes at a heavy cost. And so you have to ask yourself, are you going to let fear and insecurities get in the way of you growing as a man?
00:29:43
Speaker
You know, maybe it's fear of rejection because what happens if I reach out to this guy and he says no, or what happens if I start to be vulnerable and I get shut down from it? Fear of rejection is a very real thing. But again, you have to come back to that question. Are you going to let fear run your life or are you going to have the courage to become vulnerable and begin to open up?
00:30:09
Speaker
And sometimes it's not that big of a deep philosophical question. Sometimes it's just fear of the unknown. Sometimes it's, you know what, I have never done this before. And so it feels really awkward and I'm going to fumble over myself and you know, I just don't want to do that. You know, I don't know about you, but for me, if I've never done something before, it feels far more intimidating than after I've done it at least once.
00:30:36
Speaker
This weekend, I went to paintball, play paintball with my two boys and my oldest. He had a chance to play paintball before, but he was afraid of getting hit by the paintballs. And my youngest, he was like, game on, let me do it. I'm good. I don't care how much it hurts. I just want to do it. And so he dove in and he played for his birthday last year.
00:30:56
Speaker
and there's a paintball place just down the road from our house and so we were there with some friends and my oldest son was like you know what i'm i'm gonna try it and he was super nervous and kind of being cautious as he was playing because he just didn't want to get hit
00:31:12
Speaker
And then lo and behold, after he got hit a few times, he's like, ah, you know, it stings, but man, this is so much fun. And he got over that fear of the unknown and he didn't know whether or not it was going to hurt or how exciting or fun it was. And now they're talking about it all the time and they're wanting to play it more often. Both of them are.
00:31:30
Speaker
And so vulnerability may be like that for you. It may be that fear of the unknown. I have never really opened up, right? And I just feel awkward within that. And so I don't know how to start and so I'm just not gonna start.
00:31:45
Speaker
Well, that's a really great sounding reason to let fear run your life. Because if you are afraid of it or if it feels overwhelming because you've never done it, I have empathy and compassion for that because I feel that for myself in a lot of things that I've done. I felt super uncomfortable when I first launched my podcast, when I first launched Coaching a decade ago now. I felt super uncomfortable and awkward when I did public speaking. I felt uncomfortable doing these things.
00:32:13
Speaker
But if you push past them, you'll find out a lot of times you had a perception of the discomfort that actually isn't reality. Or lo and behold, you actually will fumble. See, I just did it. Fumble all over yourself. But as long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you're going to get better at it, but you're not going to get good at being vulnerable the first time. And you're definitely not going to get good at being vulnerable if you never try.
00:32:42
Speaker
You know, another thing that gets in the way of us men building these intimate relationships is our own ego. So what is ego? Well, I go back to that false self, that sense of false self, where it's the part of you that feels like you need to protect yourself or defend yourself and really guard those wounded parts of who you are internally. And so you build this false persona
00:33:11
Speaker
Internally, right? This is not conscious. This is subconscious. But ego is that false self that you put out to the world and to yourself. Sometimes, you know, we're great at lying to ourselves to feel good in the moment.
00:33:27
Speaker
And letting that ego get in the way is a great way to stop yourself from building those relationships. And it's no secret if you've listened to the podcast recently that I'm a big fan of working with psychedelics because they are, there's more and more science that's coming out now. But one of them is a report was shown where you have this default mode network in your mind. And really it's established at a young age, which is why we,
00:33:55
Speaker
lock into pain or trauma or disappointment or fears etc as a kid and then we build stories around them throughout our lives to justify that that is true and what psychedelics do is they literally in your brain they restrict the blood flow to that default mode network while at the same time firing all kinds of new neurons and so you can literally create new neural pathways that's that's where death of the ego comes in
00:34:23
Speaker
Is you're you're you're literally scientifically in your brain killing those or not killing them but restricting the blood flow to those pathways while you're opening up new possibilities and so you're able to look at things with a different lens as well as look at yourself with a different lens.
00:34:42
Speaker
And, you know, no, no sponsor or anything, but I happen to use a product called the mushroom doctor that that's what I've micro and macro dosed with now for the last couple of years. And it's a veteran group that's out of Denver and they're just doing amazing work out of there so
00:34:59
Speaker
If you're ever curious about that, it's, uh, that's your, their, their URL is it's mushroom doctor.co, not.com, but.co. If you want to check them out, I would highly recommend, um, both micro, like micro dosing, that's sub experiential, right? But you're still working with that default mode network. And for me, micro dosing is how I came off of all of my VA medications for mental health. And the way that I describe it is you still have to do the work, but.
00:35:30
Speaker
opening up those new pathways in your brain. If for the first time for me, let me see that there was another way I can hear that there's a better way to do X, Y, or Z from friends all day long, but sometimes I just can't see it for myself if that makes any sense. And so working with psychedelics opened up the ability for me to begin to explore that.
00:35:53
Speaker
Another thing that gets in the way is just pride. Good old fashioned pride. You have to be willing to take ownership. You have to be willing to take ownership of the ways that you screwed up, the ways that you're falling short of your own expectations or of the areas of your life that you have let others down. It's really hard to do that when you're trying to run by yourself or you're not being vulnerable.
00:36:18
Speaker
See, when you're vulnerable with yourself and with others, you find out the damage that you've done or the junk that you have or the pain that you have and then you need to take ownership.
00:36:30
Speaker
Because you can open yourself up and you can be vulnerable and you can work on yourself, but if you're not willing to take ownership, then all you're doing is you're rinsing and repeating the cycle and staying trapped in this loop that pain or disappointment or fear has given you. Sure, you can be real about it, but if you don't take ownership and move through it, then you're not gonna actually change your life and access that full potential. You're not gonna change your internal paradigm and learn how to be present with yourself or with your loved ones.
00:37:00
Speaker
And so pride blocks that ability for you to take ownership. You know, it's important for you to remain teachable throughout your life. I'm 40 now, almost 41. And it's really easy, you know, the classic phrase, right? You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks that's locked into his ego that has pride, that doesn't have vulnerability and doesn't have a group of men that he runs with. I agree with that a hundred percent.
00:37:29
Speaker
But regardless of where you are in life, if you're willing to be teachable, you're willing to hear new input. You know, I've got a coach right now and he's challenging me around using my calendar more so than I ever have before.
00:37:43
Speaker
And I'll tell you, it's hard. I've been self-employed and working on my own now for coming on 15 years. And in that, I've gotten kind of lazy with my time. I've given myself wiggle room to change my day if I need to.
00:38:01
Speaker
And being an entrepreneur and working for yourself, it does give you that freedom of time. But if it's not regulated at all, then it's really easy, at least it is for me, to kind of fall off my focus and fall off my discipline when it comes to getting things done.
00:38:19
Speaker
And so he's a friend and a coach, he's becoming a friend, and he's challenging me in these areas of sticking with my calendar as much as possible, understanding it's fluid, things happen. My cat had an injury at his paw this weekend, and I had this morning routine planned that was in my calendar, and I was taking my cat to the vet instead. So things happen.
00:38:45
Speaker
But having that calendar has been a challenge for me. And my point in all of that is remain teachable. Be willing to be challenged. You know, I'm a former Marine. I understand deadlines and time and arriving 15 minutes before you need to be somewhere. And like all of that, I was neck deep in that when I was younger, but really over the last 10, 15 years I've fallen off of that. And so I'm working on getting back into that more so than I have been.
00:39:13
Speaker
And that is helping me literally release this podcast in a more timely manner than I would have otherwise. Because the podcast, as much as I love doing it, I can easily justify it away by saying, I've got this I need to take care of, or this fire needs put out, or I started my day with my emails, and now my emails are dictating my day, or whatever it may be. And so having my calendar hold me accountable and him hold me accountable has helped me grow as a person
00:39:41
Speaker
even a good old age 40, which I know, depending on how old you are, that may be young or that may be old, but that's where I'm at. So the question is, do you feel like you're capable of more? I mean, do you want to be a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better business owner, a better employee, more present in your life? If you just want more,
00:40:06
Speaker
then be willing to have the emotional courage and find your core and then be intentional with investing in those relationships. Because doing so, it's going to help you swallow your pride and confront those fears that we all have. And it's going to lead you to accessing more of your potential than you ever knew was possible.