May 1, 2025

#89 Why Most Men Stay Stuck — and How to Break Through with Adam Allred

Are you tired of second-guessing yourself and playing small in life? Self-confidence isn't something you're born with—it's something you build. And in this powerful episode, we’re joined by entrepreneur and mindset coach Adam Allred , who shares the truth about what it really takes to develop unshakable self-confidence— even when everything feels stacked against you .

Whether you’re a parent, business owner, or just trying to level up your personal life, you’ll walk away from this conversation with a blueprint for how to own your worth, silence self-doubt , and take bold, consistent action toward your goals.

Adam opens up about the mindset shifts that helped him rise from setbacks and forge a strong internal identity. We dive into how to face failure without losing momentum, how to break toxic self-talk , and how confidence isn’t arrogance—it’s self-trust in action.

You’ll learn:

Why self confidence is a daily habit, not a destination
How persistence fuels confidence—and how confidence fuels persistence
The role of discipline, clarity, and courage in creating the life you want

If you’ve ever struggled with feeling “not enough,” this episode will help you reframe your story, reclaim your power, and step into the confident version of yourself you were meant to be.

Key Takeaways:

Success is built on resilience and not quitting.
The importance of self-respect in relationships.
Men need to be accountable for their actions.
Suffering can be a catalyst for growth.
Building a strong community is essential for men.
Healthy relationships require both partners to be strong.
Character development is crucial for personal success.
The way we treat ourselves sets the tone for others.
Life happens for you, not to you.
Progress equals fulfillment.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

04:15 The Journey into Door-to-Door Sales

07:08 Transformative Experiences in Sales

10:13 The Importance of Male Community

13:00 The Role of Men in Society

16:14 Personal Growth and Purpose

19:07 Lessons from the First Summer in Sales

26:10 The Power of Persistence

30:10 Building Self-Confidence Through Commitment

33:57 Time and Energy: The True Currencies of Life

38:07 Learning Through Failure

43:09 Creating Lasting Memories with Family

49:32 The Face of God in Humanity

52:19 Lessons from Regret and Accountability

56:03 Navigating Relationships and Personal Growth

01:04:40 The Power of Self-Respect and Leadership

01:11:09 Finding Meaning in Suffering and Adversity

Recourses for Adam:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamallredofficial/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alphamale9

X: https://x.com/allredadam

RESOURCES:

Let me help you in your journey to becoming a more Purpose Driven Leader:

Free course! Adventuring With Your Children
Join Greg’s 90-DAY HEALTH & FITNESS CHALLENGE !
Podcast: The Formidable Family Man Podcast
Check out this podcast for families Extraordinary Family Life Podcast
Free! Greg's ⁠⁠Recommended Reading List for Parents & Youth⁠⁠
Join the Formidable Family Man Masterclass and Tribe ⁠⁠
Join Greg’s 7-Day Challenge
Follow me on Instagram: ⁠@greg.denning⁠
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greghdenning
Learn more about the upcoming ' Asset Training' in Portugal

Gather with us at the ⁠World School Family (Beach & Farm) Resort⁠ in Portugal

See my Reviews

0:00

When men are weak, society is weak.

Where do I go?

0:02

Who do I turn to?

And and he says to me, he's like, I'm empty.

0:05

We don't gather together in tribes like we've done since the dawn of time.

What?

0:08

Are you seeing that makes the difference?

A man's greatest currency is his self esteem.

0:14

In life, the only way to lose is to quit.

Until you can learn to trust yourself, nothing is going to start making sense.

0:20

I will either find a way or I will make one.

Gentlemen, welcome to the Formidable Family Man podcast.

0:26

I'm your host, Greg Denning.

You are going to love today's episode.

0:30

I have an awesome conversation with Adam Allred and he has lots of cool stories that I know we're

going to be super impactful for you like they were for me.

0:38

We talk about business, we talk about marriage and when marriages fail, we talk about failure.

We talk about the the one secret ingredient to really, truly succeeding and how no success really is

0:58

attainable without this this one thing and he tells in such an epic story.

So your love is podcast.

1:04

Dive in, enjoy.

Be the man Adam brother.

1:08

Been looking forward to this for weeks, man.

So excited to have this conversation.

1:12

So why don't you start off just be giving us a background Tell tell the audience about who you are

and and what makes your soul sing.

1:18

Greg, thanks for having me.

Been excited for this as well.

1:20

So I'm just, yeah, a military brat, grew up with a dad in the military, originally from Utah, when I

God, I did, went on an LDS mission, which is kind of the the rite of passage in the Mormon church,

1:31

you know, if you're brought up that way.

So I went on an LDS mission, came back, went to where did you go?

1:36

Did.

You go international.

1:38

No, which was a huge disappointment.

I mean, everybody loves the mission they go to, you know, And I was like, I grew up with with a dad

1:45

in the military, grew up all over the world.

So I assume that when I was getting called to go on a mission, I go somewhere for him because all my

1:50

family did.

Yeah, I went to California.

1:52

And so I was pretty disappointed.

It.

1:56

Is it's a, it's a whole different world, but at the same time, I had a buddy that was going to North

Dakota and I was like, Oh my gosh, dude, California sounds way better than North Dakota.

2:06

So I got to got to have some perspective and some context.

And it turned out obviously to be awesome.

2:11

But when I was in California knocking doors at Riverside area, I started running to these kids who

were knocking doors from Utah for like pest control companies and stuff.

2:21

And these kids are like, man, I'm making 20 grand this summer and I couldn't believe those numbers

were just insane to me.

2:27

You can work three months, 3 1/2 months to make 20 grand.

And this is, you know, 20 something years ago.

2:32

So it was 20 grand stretch a lot further back then than it did now.

So it was a huge sum of money.

2:36

And I got back, went to start going to Weber State in Ogden, UT, where my grandpa was a professor of

English.

2:42

And I had out of state state tuition.

I had to pay.

2:46

I had to, you know, figure out how to get through school.

I had no money.

2:48

I got roped in or recruited into doing this crazy door to door sales world that I'd ran into when I

was on this LDS mission.

2:55

So I started knocking doors in the summertime.

Did you, did you go into that kind of maybe a little bit of desperation?

3:01

You're like, gosh, I, I, I really need this.

Yeah, a little bit of something.

3:06

People are like, sign me up for that, right?

That's how I want to spend my summer.

3:11

Yeah, I, I had, I didn't have a lot of options.

Like I had to pay for my schooling if I was going to get it done.

3:15

And so that seemed like I was waiting tables at the time, you know, at Chili's.

And I was making some OK money for a college kid, but I was starting.

3:25

Like probably the same amount of time.

I was probably living in my truck literally about the same time and just waiting tables like trying

3:31

to survive.

And waiting tables is great.

3:33

I enjoyed it, but it's not going to pay for your schooling.

You know, you're not going to, you're not going to be able to get through without a lot of debt.

3:38

So no, I got recruited out, started knocking doors.

I did 7.

3:42

It took me 7 years to get an English degree because I started making so much money in the summertime

that I just like, I was really starting to check out of like the formal education and going and be

3:50

in a cog of machine and working my life away for somebody else.

And I was like, man, I'm, I'm 25 years old, 24 years old in college and I'm making almost $200,000

4:00

in the summertime, in a single summertime, you're like, this is absolutely insane.

And so when I got done with that and there was a whole process, I mean, it was, it's really hard to

4:09

do summer sales work.

And I, you know, there's a bunch of times I almost quit like you, it's miserable.

4:14

Like you're just going through the hardest day of your life on repeat, like Groundhog's Day.

But when I was getting done with college and we were just jamming on this little bit before the

4:21

show, but I was getting North College, I realized, you know, I had like, you know, kind of two

options.

4:26

I either fit had to figure out something that I was passionate about that I knew what I would just

would love to do every day for the rest of my life, or I had to find something that I can make some

4:34

money at.

Because most of the men that I saw in my life that were further down the road, we're not living like

4:39

their best life at work.

They were going to going to into, into the mill, working their life away so they could pay these

4:46

bills and, and most of them just, you could tell they just, it was soul draining.

They just hated it.

4:51

And so I was like, man, I don't want to be a cog in the machine.

I don't and I'm not throwing any stones.

4:55

There's no ability in going out and taking care of your family and having a, you know, career.

But I was like, I need to find something that that makes me passionate about what I'm doing or gets

5:04

me for financial freedom.

And the only thing I knew how to do was knock doors started up companies.

5:11

I've had a bunch of exits.

That's what I've done for the last 20 something years is just build the.

5:15

Same industry with.

Yeah.

5:17

Yeah, you you start them up and then exit.

Yeah, we start them up.

5:20

We have a lot that we keep, but we exit, we're all self financed.

So we do exits here and there so we can financial finance growth and more strategic location.

5:28

So I've got pest control branches now kind of dotted all over the country, a garbage company out in

Lincoln, all of these built primarily off the door to door cells.

5:36

We've had a bunch of branches that we've sold off.

We do some marketing for different companies as well.

5:40

We hire hundreds of guys every year to go out and knock doors and train them and get them ready to

go.

5:45

And so it's a whole thing, man.

And that's my it's kind of like my bread and butter you, but you're asking kind of early, earlier

5:51

what gets me fired up?

And that has like, I did that to make money, But seeing the transformation of how much this door to

5:59

door sales experience, myself included, starting with myself, how much it transformed me into a much

better person.

6:06

Like it gave me this framework and it gave me the sense of confidence and self sense of self worth.

Like what was I financially worth?

6:11

I could go out and, you know, make this kind of money.

A lot of confidence to see that transformation take place for these guys that we hire now.

6:19

Like that's what I'm passionate about.

I see him and, and we have some girls, but it's mostly young men that come into this space and you

6:25

know, they go through 3 1/2 months of hell in between semesters, you know, during the summer time

and they come out if they don't quit and go home.

6:32

If you know, if they don't just lay down, they come out the other side of that ready to run through

walls.

6:37

I mean, these guys are top notch dudes after a 3 1/2 month stint and door to door cells.

And I personally experienced that.

6:43

So this thing that I was doing to make money for financial freedom has now become something that I'm

intensely passionate about.

6:50

And I'm, I'm going on for a minute on this to try and get this all out.

So it makes sense.

6:56

But when I was in that, you know, the door to our cell space, I saw how valuable this experience was

for guys.

7:00

I also saw as the years have passed, more and more young men come into this place, being recruited

into our company or others like it, and really not having any kind of framework for what it's like

7:13

to go out and do hard things.

How to level up, how to Orient yourself towards suffering, how to like have a purpose and goals and

7:19

drive.

They want to, they eat their hearts, are willing, but nobody's taught them anything.

7:23

And so they show up just completely like unprepared for door to our cells and in so many ways

unprepared for life.

7:30

For life.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

7:32

I see it all the time.

Yeah.

7:33

All the time and it's and it's and it's a pandemic that's growing that I've observed, at least for

my little my anecdotal space.

7:38

I mean, in the door to our cells.

I've just seen, you know, these kids are they're good kids, but they just have not been taught well.

7:44

They haven't been coached well, they don't have the right mindset.

And so this thing that we do do with door to our cells really helps to shape a lot of that.

7:51

But I felt like a need to share this with a broader audience.

I'm like, this has got to be, you know, a huge problem for a lot of guys out there.

8:01

So I got up a camera.

My buddy put my buddy that does my videography for my, my door door sales companies.

8:07

He, he just posted up a camera in our little podcast room and I started filming my musings And I'm

like, man, this feels really pretentious.

8:14

And it feels really like I like, I'm not an expert of anything except being a dude and knowing how

to go out and knock doors and build some companies that way that like that's all I know.

8:21

And here I am sharing my opinions on things that are much broader than that.

And within like my fifth video, I have like 2 million views.

8:30

Like I had no followers or anything, but all of a sudden it was just like flew off the the rails.

And I, I had originally kind of conceived of doing it to write a book.

8:38

I was like, I want to write a book that I can hand to the general audience, not just door to

ourselves guys, but to men anywhere and say, here's a way to like have a better framework than what

8:48

you what you have right now.

Like this stuff actually works.

8:50

These principles, you know, these truths in here, like if you start applying them, your life will

start to make a little bit more sense.

8:55

So I want to write a book and a buddy of mine that was like in the social media space, he was a big

influencers like you got to build up a social media following and then you can market a book to him.

9:03

And so I was like, OK, that makes sense.

I'll start making some reels and see if I can, you know, kind of build up a a little bit of a

9:09

following so I could share this book with people, you know, But within like those first few reels,

like within the first few weeks of doing it, I had guys that were hitting me up on on social media.

9:21

They were like, dude, I didn't think I was going to get through today.

And your message really helped me.

9:25

Just kind of like face up to it.

And, and now I, you know, I got a little bit more like a, a little more fight in me because of what

9:31

you said.

And I would get tons of messages like that.

9:34

And then I would get messages from like single moms or like, Hey, I want my son to talk to you.

Like we don't have anybody in our home that can teach this stuff.

9:41

This seems like it makes sense.

It resonates with me and all these different people from different walks of life saying something

9:49

about how the message meant something to him.

And so immediately, like the book I did just kind of went away and I was like, this is this is

9:55

bigger.

Like I still intend to write a book, but I was like, this is bigger and more important than what I

10:00

realized it was was going to be when I started it.

And so that's kind of the whole I just kind of threw it out all, all out there.

10:07

That's.

Perfect.

10:08

No, because if you, if you strike a chord, if you, if you hit something that matters that people are

are chewing on or struggling with, you can have immediate impact.

10:16

And I love, I love that story where like, hey, you know, I want you want to have big impact, but

man, you can share a message that today helps a guy get through the day right to to face his

10:27

challenges right now.

And I love that.

10:30

It's it's super humbling, man, when you hear that stuff, you're like, I mean, because again, I'm, I,

I, I'm very aware of who I am.

10:37

I'm just some dude.

I don't, I don't think of myself more highly than I am.

10:40

I recognize all my faults and foibles and stuff like that.

And I've had a like everybody hard times in life, but this is something that I think is so lacking

10:50

in society today, right now that I've become more and more aware of on the social media journey is

just how isolated men have become.

10:58

And how we don't gather together in tribes like we've done since the dawn of time to share things at

work.

11:03

Like, Hey, this works.

This is how you treat a woman.

11:05

You know, this is how you you go out into the workforce and you conquer.

Like this is how you like, get yourself in physical shape or emotional shape or spiritual shape or

11:13

whatever.

We don't have those kinds of things for so many men.

11:16

I mean, there was a poll that was done not not too long ago where the men were asked how many close

friends they had in.

11:21

The most common answer was 0.

Like, guys have been isolated.

11:24

They've been conditioned to be like doormats and you know, yes, men checking off boxes of

responsibility that somebody else has handed to him.

11:33

They're absolutely miserable.

They don't, they're, they're not good husbands.

11:36

They're not good fathers.

They're not good men because they're not good men.

11:38

They don't even know what it means to be men because they don't have other good men around them.

And so this whole thing is like, to me, this is like the most important work that can be done right

11:45

now because when men are weak, society is weak.

When men are lost, society is lost.

11:50

And when men are strong, you see everything else kind of start to fall in this into place.

And I think this is fundamentally where it starts as US men owning where we are at, being honest

11:59

about it and then rallying together in groups and tribes and starting to level up and, and starting

to act differently and change, change this world that we're in right now.

12:09

Yeah, we have to.

I had a conversation with a gentleman recently and he's been struggling again, isolation, you know,

12:16

very few friends really can't, you know, good relationship with his dad and whatever, but can't turn

to his dad.

12:20

His dad's not there for that.

And it's like, where do I go?

12:24

Who do I turn to?

And, and he says to me, he's like, I'm empty.

12:28

And he said something I thought was really inside.

He's like, I need my wife to help fill me up.

12:32

And I'm like, whoa, wives aren't for that.

It's the other way around.

12:37

Like men need to be filled so they can really support their wives.

And that's why, again, it's one of the things that you were talking about.

12:43

And it's like we need men to help build each other up, call each other out, fill each other up so we

can be stronger, better, more capable, and our wives can really lean on us when they need it.

12:54

So I, I couldn't agree more with what you're saying.

And I think this is a philosophy that is largely, it's been attacked and stamped out.

13:03

I, I Revere women.

I hold women as sacred.

13:07

My, I had a woman that gave birth to me, you know, that carried me for nine months and raised me

with love like I have a mother that I absolutely adore.

13:15

My wife that I'm married to now is the best human being I know on the planet.

I have two daughters.

13:19

I hope to have more.

I, I love, I absolutely love women, But I, so I say this with that in context, it's not good women

13:27

that make good men.

It's good men that make good men.

13:29

That's how it works.

And, and, and we say that wrong all the time.

13:33

And when you put the purpose on the woman, when a man, and I've seen this so often, we have this

generation, I called the generation of lost boys what we're talking about, where guys are just

13:41

growing up without masculine frameworks and they're getting the worst kind of programming from every

institution in society.

13:48

They're being told the worst messaging, you know, like be weak, be soft, be submissive, be tolerant,

be be basically nice.

13:56

They're raised to be nice guys because most of them are raised by women predominantly.

They roll into this world and they think if I'm just nice, just like when I was nice to my mom or my

14:05

school teachers, world will be nice back to me.

And it's not how they work.

14:08

It's not how it works at all.

It it, it never works that way.

14:12

And so this is like a huge issue where if we want men to be strong again and level up, we have got

to get them around other good men that can teach this stuff and share this stuff.

14:23

And men can call each other out on bullshit so that we are prepared when we come into a relationship

with a woman, not for her to be our purpose.

14:31

She should never be our purpose, ever.

Like she is like the most sacred relationship we have, but she's still not your primary purpose.

14:38

Your purpose is a man.

For every man it's the same.

14:42

It's to be the best version of yourself.

The best, most vibrant, expansive, powerful, kicking ass version of yourself.

14:48

That is every period.

That is every man's primary purpose in life.

14:52

That's what God made you to be, made you to be a man 1st.

And it's not for selfish reasons.

14:56

It's because if you are a good man first, now you can be a good husband.

You're not going to a woman like trying to make her your purpose.

15:03

That's not fair to her.

She's first of all, not going to be attracted to that.

15:06

And then it puts an onus of all of your emotional, you know, needs, all of your spiritual needs, all

of your physical everything on this woman.

15:13

And it completely disrupts a healthy relationship.

When I come home, I don't come to my wife needing things from her.

15:20

I come home and empowered like baby, what do you need?

I'm here for you.

15:23

And yes, she backs me up and she takes care of me, but if I can keep her healthy and safe and

protected and in her feminine energy when I come home, that puts me all back together.

15:35

Like I come home from a hard day at work and my wife is there in the home, smells good and she's

happy and she's at peace and the kids are doing well.

15:42

I'm like, man, all right, dude, everything I went through today all makes sense.

It all makes sense, you know, like I've got this taken care of.

15:50

I'm not going to her because she's my purpose and I need her to fill me up in some way to give me

purpose.

15:55

I've already got that.

I need that feminine energy to complete me now in a way that's like I can't do for myself.

16:01

Perfect.

I, I, I like how you articulated that.

16:03

It's, it's that completing and it brings so much joy and so much bliss.

And she'll gladly, you know, compliment you in, in what you need and fill, you know, fill you in the

16:15

sense that like it's, it's the dream like you, you come over, you're describing, it's like, man, I

come home and like this, this is what I dreamt about.

16:23

And for me personally, that's what I dreamt about when I was homeless on my own, like 1617.

I dreamt about having an amazing marriage house full of kids like this.

16:33

This is what I was living for.

And and your spot on is.

16:37

Really tragic.

Oh, sorry.

16:39

Go keep going.

Sorry.

16:40

Well, just like I think the absolute best thing that any of us can do for God or or for mankind is

to be the very best version of ourselves, to really level up and lean in to, to be the best.

16:55

That's it.

That's that's because everything else will fall into place when you make it.

17:00

You know, it's this whole idea of inputs and outputs.

When you focus on the inputs and you recognize that you are your most important product, your

17:08

character, this avatar that you're controlling in this game called life, it's more important than a

career.

17:13

It's more important.

It's even more important than a family and family is everything.

17:17

So again, I'm not saying this is to dismiss family because there's nothing more.

You know that I love more in this life spending time with in my family.

17:23

But when you realize that your primary purpose is to level up and this is something like a video

game, you know, like we come down here, we face adversity, we have bosses we have to go through.

17:32

That boss can look like a divorce.

That boss can look like a career change.

17:35

That boss can look like we have these huge trials and challenges that we have to go through in life.

When you recognize that your job is to learn from these, that all this thing is all this is

17:43

happening for you, not to you, so that you can level up and you can become better.

When you Orient yourself that way towards life, everything starts to make a lot more sense.

17:51

And then everything that you want externally, all these things that you think are cool, having the

boat, the house, the wife, the high paying career, whatever that is, vacations, whatever it is that

18:01

you think are like, you know, goals that you want to get to.

Those all come naturally because you're focused on what really matters.

18:08

You're focused on the root issue, which is yourself.

When you expand and become more powerful, all of these doors start to open up for all these other,

18:15

you know, things that you want and that you recognize that those aren't even the purpose either.

Those are just like mile markers.

18:22

Like oh cool, I got this house.

Oh cool, I got $1,000,000 in my bank account.

18:25

Oh cool, I got a family.

Like those are things I want, but they're not, they're not even the purpose.

18:30

The purpose is to take take this character that you have and make it the the best thing you could

possibly can make it in this amount of time that we have.

18:37

And all those things you're mentioning are just like results.

Like I would say, like results don't lie, baby.

18:44

Results do not lie.

Exactly.

18:47

Exactly.

Love that.

18:49

OK, so I got a combination question.

It kind of goes back like what made you different when you started knocking doors?

18:56

Because you could have run out the first summer and been like, this sucks I'm out.

But you actually succeeded.

19:01

And then you kept you kept going and what what was it?

What mindset, what habits like what made it different?

19:07

So you kept climbing and, and that's kind of tied into a related question of like where, where can

men start?

19:14

Like what are the things that actually mattered?

Like these subtle differences of because we, we see people succeed and we see people fail all the

19:22

time.

It's everywhere.

19:23

All you got to do is open your eyes.

Ironically, most of us are walking blind.

19:28

But what is it, brother?

What?

19:29

What are you seeing that makes the difference?

Yeah, that's a great question.

19:33

So I'll share just a story.

This was this is probably the most powerful lesson that I probably ever learned in my entire life

19:40

was my first summer of door to door sales, probably the most important lesson I've ever learned.

And I went out, you know, bright eyed and optimistic and I got recruited out of Utah and I wasn't

19:51

unfamiliar for traveling.

I've lived all over the place, but I got recruited to go sell security systems my first summer in

19:57

Detroit.

And I had never been to the hood hood ever in my life.

20:02

Like I've never really seen that accepted movies.

Detroit's the place to go.

20:07

Detroit man.

And we went up to Flint and we went over to some, some pretty rough places knocking doors, you know,

20:12

and they, they had on at the time that the pay scale for the company that I worked for, they said if

you did 100, if you serviced 100 security counts in the summer time, you'd make 40 grand.

20:24

And now I was working roughly 100 days.

So I was like, man, that's one a day.

20:28

I'm pretty confident I can communicate relatively well.

I've got two years of Mormon door knocking under my belt.

20:34

So I know how to knock some doors.

You know, I was like, so I had so it without any context, I had some kind of like optimism that I

20:40

would sell, sell well at this.

I didn't have any money.

20:43

Got in my buddy's car, recruited him to come with me and got in my buddy's car.

We drove out to Detroit.

20:48

They're like 20.

Some other sales reps.

20:50

I didn't know any of them until I got out there and we started doing this crazy thing and knocking

doors and the, and the first day that I went out, I knocked something like 11 hours straight and

20:58

didn't make a sell.

And the the next day I went out second day, same thing, didn't make a sell, didn't even get close.

21:07

And and this isn't unusual, by the way, this is very common, right?

Like you have a learning curve and if there's a price to pay for your education, in the case of door

21:13

to door sells, this is the price.

You work a lot of hours and you don't sell a lot of first for most guys.

21:17

Lots and lots of reps.

Lots and lots of nose, lots and lots of reps.

21:23

But you know, by the end of my third day of not making a sell, I was like, man, I've never worked

harder at anything in my entire life than this for the last three days.

21:32

And I have nothing to show for it.

And so then I, I was reading this book by Collins and Lapierre about Gandhi at the time and in

21:39

Gandhi, how he'd fasted something like 30 days to get the Hindus and the Muslims to stop killing

each other.

21:44

And I was like, man, if, if Gandhi come fast to get them to not stop killing each other, I can fast

to make a sale.

21:51

So I'm going to, I'm going to show God how, how, how much faith I have in him, you know, to help me

be able to do this, this thing that I, I need to make money for school.

22:00

I've got to be, I don't, I don't have a lot of options.

So I have to make this work.

22:03

So I was like, I'm going to fast until I get a sale.

So I go out the 4th day and I go all day and I don't make a sale and I'm not eating or drinking

22:11

anything like I, I believed in not drinking either as I wouldn't do it this way again if I was

taking it over again.

22:16

But I was like no food or water.

This is my faith knocking like hard running door to door.

22:22

You know, by the end of the day I'm completely exhausted.

I, I get up the next morning, I'm like, OK, I'm going to do this again by get the, the van lunch.

22:30

So the van would come pick us up for lunch.

I skipped that and I, I, I just kept knocking and by like 6:00 that next night, I still didn't have

22:40

a cell.

So I was something like 40 hours into this fast with no food or water.

22:45

And it was, it was at the point where I, I couldn't really run anymore.

I was so like fatigued and calorie deficit and then dehydrated and I'm knocking doors and I can't

22:56

get my brain to work, you know, So I'm not even, I'm not even giving it a rational door pitch.

I just sound like a, a weirdo.

23:03

Then people are just like, it's, it's getting worse.

Like I'm not getting closer to a cell.

23:06

I'm getting further and further away from 1.

And so like I was in this really like bad part of town and I was like, man, I'm going to, there's

23:14

this Little Caesars down on the corner that I would been working around and I was like, I have to

get some food.

23:20

I if I'm going to even think about going and continue and I've got to get something to eat.

And so I do this huge walk of shame at like 6:00 at night down to this Little Caesars now where I've

23:30

like didn't, I didn't fast until I made a sell.

Like my, I'm having this kind of faith crisis.

23:35

Like, man, I don't know who I am.

I have this confidence Christ identity crisis and I'm, I go to this Little Caesar's pizza on the

23:43

corner and there's nowhere to sit inside.

So you just kind of slide a credit card to this bulletproof glass thing and then they get you out of

23:48

hot and ready.

In this case, it was a warm 2 liter Sprite because their fridge was broken.

23:52

And, and so I take this and I go sit down on the corner and there's literally there's like broken

glass and you use contraceptives and shell casings and stuff.

24:01

I mean, I'm like, I'm like in the, in a pretty, pretty low spot, you know, like physically,

emotionally, spiritually.

24:09

And I, I think I was really, kind of, I was really contemplating quitting.

Like I was like, I, this isn't working, man.

24:14

I'm 4/4 and 1/2 days into this, no cells.

I'm absolutely miserable.

24:20

I haven't even gotten close and I'm eating this pizza and I'm eating, you know, drinking the Sprite.

And now I'm feeling sick because this is like the worst stuff you can put into an empty tank, you

24:29

know, And I'm just like, man, I'm feeling like I'm gonna throw up now.

And I'm having this, you know, this, this wrestle kind of with me and God where everything was

24:37

stripped away, my confidence, myself esteem, my optimism, everything was I was just sitting.

It was just kind of me.

24:45

And in this, in this crazy part of the world and God kind of talking about what do I do now?

And I, I can't, I don't even remember what all transpired in that moment when I was sitting there

24:58

because I, I was thinking I was going to quit.

I was like, this isn't going to work.

25:01

And I don't know what, what clicked, but something happened there where I was like, you know what?

I'm not, I'm not going to quit.

25:11

That's really the question.

The question is whether I'm a quitter or not.

25:16

Nothing else matters.

Not about paying school for school.

25:18

It's not about making a bunch of sales.

It's not about anything else that I thought this was about.

25:23

This is about what type of character do I want to have for myself?

How do I want to identify?

25:31

And I got 0 down to that because everything else was stripped away.

And I just said, hey, I'm, I'm not going to quit.

25:37

That's what I know I'm I got up out of that sacred little arena that I was in in that moment and I

walked out of that said, man, whatever happens this summer, I'm just not going to quit because to me

25:49

it's more important that that becomes my characteristic than making money or paying for school or

whatever else that is.

25:54

I'm not going to do that.

And so I started knocking doors.

25:59

There's like 7:00 at night by the time I started knocking doors again and I was like, whatever you

if I don't make any money this summer, I'm not going to quit.

26:05

If I come home broke and whatever else and I have to wait table the Chili's forever, I'm not going

to quit.

26:11

And that night I sold two accounts.

And the next day I sold two accounts.

26:15

And the next day I sold two accounts.

The next day I sold three accounts.

26:17

The next day I sold three accounts.

And within two weeks, I was the number one sales Rep in the entire company out of like 300 sales

26:24

reps.

And I was a rookie, had no experience.

26:26

And people were calling me like, dude, what are you doing?

Like to the owner, none of these guys knew who I was.

26:30

I was just some, you know, worker bee out there.

They're like, what are you doing, man?

26:34

You're on the leaderboard.

You're crushing.

26:36

And I'm like, man, I, I don't know.

I, I know, I know what it is now.

26:39

I got to a point where I wasn't going to quit.

And as soon as I knew that I wasn't going to quit, then success was on the other side of that

26:47

awareness.

And it was such a painful place to get to.

26:50

It was really like the hardest point out in my life up to that point in my life where those four and

a half, five days in Detroit where I had to learn that characteristic about myself.

27:00

But it changed complete trajectory for my life.

Like everything changed.

27:04

And I look back on that, that young guy in Detroit, and I get emotional, but I'm like, and I'm so

glad that kid didn't quit, you know?

27:14

Like, I'm so proud of that kid.

And it's like a different person.

27:16

It's not even me.

I feel like I'm talking about somebody else, you know?

27:19

And I'm like, but that kid didn't quit.

And then when there was other hard times and life is full of hard times in these moments where you

27:25

get to these crossroads where you want to quit, life is so hard, you want to quit.

But I didn't quit because I didn't quit that time.

27:30

And so then I didn't quit this time.

And then I didn't quit this time.

27:33

And you just look back on that and you see how all of this has led to a place where you're like,

man, none of this would be real if I'd quit ever once along the way.

27:44

And so that was the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life is that you don't quit

because things are hard.

27:49

You keep going, you don't lay down, you, you work at it.

You, you put in everything you have and things will start to make sense.

27:56

It'll start to work out.

But I, I, I think that's the catalyst for success for anybody out there that I know that I admire

28:02

and want to be more like as they've, they've learned that they don't quit, they keep going, they get

back up.

28:09

That literally is the the difference between winning and losing.

It's just not quitting.

28:15

I figuring like I'm I'm not quit.

I'm not quitting.

28:18

I will not give up as well.

At that point.

28:24

Yeah, you know, it's really cool.

I was, I was like 21 or 22 years old and I pulled over to the side of the road really close to where

28:33

you live right now.

And I just had this aha moment of like in life, the only way to lose is to quit.

28:43

And they wrote down my little notebook.

I pulled over the side, wrote down.

28:46

I'm like this.

That's it.

28:48

That's it.

You don't lose as long as you don't quit.

28:52

So man, I love hearing you say that because that's his framework.

Like, so now I, I found this ancient quote.

28:58

I think it's by Hannibal who marched over the Alps with war elephants.

The guy was crazy.

29:08

And he said, I will either find a way or I will make one.

And I embrace that as my life model.

29:14

I will either find a way or I will make one.

But I got that same kind of gritty.

29:20

No, I'm not quitting.

I'm going to figure out how to make this work.

29:23

And and I think you're right.

I think you nailed that, brother.

29:25

Thanks for sharing that story.

Because that's, that's so often going to give us at least the foundation upon which to build,

29:32

because it, of course, it requires skill.

We, we have to figure out how to do things well.

29:38

Because I, I can grunt, you know this already.

And even we can grind and work all day long and, and not get results because I'm doing the wrong

29:44

thing or doing it in the wrong way.

But the first piece is just absolute commitment to not give up.

29:52

You nail the man and I love that quote.

I'm going to have to internalize that.

29:55

I've got all these mantras.

I have my kids repeat mantras.

29:57

I repeat myself every morning.

You know, you were your final part of that question when we were talking about at the beginning of

30:04

that before I went on that long story.

Sorry.

30:07

You were asking how do how do other men or what can other men do to kind of put themselves in a

place to succeed?

30:12

And I think I think that's that's what you were asking essentially.

And it starts with that.

30:18

Is it a man's greatest currency is his self esteem, his confidence, right?

Like it's, it's having confidence that makes a man successful at the things that he does in life.

30:30

And you have to pay a price for that confidence.

Like there's a lot of work that goes into building up confidence, not something you can just kind of

30:36

imagine, Hey, I'm a confident person.

Confidence comes from from validation that you do things that are hard.

30:43

And what I tell guys like where do you start?

The first thing that you start with as a man, if you want to start organizing your life is you start

30:51

keeping commitments to yourself.

You have, you cannot have self respect if you don't keep commitments to yourself.

30:58

And we, we, we so often don't keep commitments to our self consciously or subconsciously.

And then we, we realize why we're, we're, we're not where we want to be at.

31:08

We're like, we don't have the confidence to do things.

We don't have the self respect to do things.

31:12

We don't like ourselves, like nothing in our life is making sense.

Well, you can't have a relationship with somebody else that doesn't keep commitments to your, to

31:19

you.

If somebody lies to you, they say they're going to do something, they never follow through on it.

31:23

What type of relationship do you have with them?

Well, you just don't trust them.

31:26

And so as a man, until you can learn to trust yourself, nothing is going to start making sense.

And so it starts with making sure that you keep commitments to yourself.

31:36

So if you say you're going to do something, then you have to can do it.

You said it, you have to do it now.

31:43

I don't care whether whether it's go to the gym, wake up 30 minutes earlier, whether it's like, hey,

I promised my wife when I came home, I was going to do this.

31:48

Whatever you said you were going to do, you have to do it now.

That doesn't mean you have to agree to everything if you don't, if you're not going to do it.

31:55

You don't say you're going to do it if you don't think.

You're going to.

31:57

You don't say.

It like just own that you don't have to do everything, but if you say you're going to do it, even if

32:02

you say it internally in your head, especially if you say it internally in your head, man, I've got

to do this tomorrow.

32:07

I'm going to do XY and Z do it.

That's where it starts.

32:11

And be very careful about the commitments that you make to yourself so that you don't set yourself

up to be in a position where you don't trust yourself.

32:17

And then the other thing that I just tell guys this what's up?

And you're constantly lying to yourself.

32:23

Always and you can't build any healthy like framework for your life if you can't trust yourself to

keep commitments to yourself.

32:30

So start small.

Just make sure you don't say in your head you're going to do something unless you plan on doing it.

32:37

And then the other thing that I tell guys, this is much broader is like, look, everybody in life has

the exact same currency.

32:43

It's time and energy.

Like those are the two currencies.

32:45

Now there's other currencies that I'll add on to that you could get gather resources, money,

property, things that you can use to leverage to create more things.

32:54

But really fundamentally, everybody has 24 hours in a day.

Everybody does.

32:58

And that's what everybody starts with.

And the difference between you and somebody who's successful is not about what cards you got dealt

33:08

to start this life off with or whatever else.

It's how do you spend that currency?

33:14

Where are you spending your time?

Because that will make all the difference in the world.

33:18

If you start to learn how to spend your currency, your time and your energy wisely, you will start

to have your life kick ass.

33:27

It's just automatically how it's going to happen.

There's no, it's not like this whole secret sauce.

33:31

Now, of course, there's so many strategies and things to do and how to level up and where to start.

Where do you put your time and energy?

33:36

That stuff will all start to make sense.

You start working towards it.

33:39

But when you recognize like I've got this finite amount of currency every single day, how am I

spending it?

33:43

Well, if you're sitting on your butt watching, watching Netflix, that's not going to get your life

where you want it to be.

33:49

You know, you got to define what is it I'm trying to accomplish.

And now I have something I can spend towards that.

33:54

So if I want to be in business, I want to build a business, OK, I got to start spending time and

currency, you know, my time and energy on this.

34:01

Then you'll start to figure it out.

I start surrounding myself by other guys that have done it, who've spent their time, their currency

34:07

wisely.

I start to pick up some ideas.

34:09

Oh, that's how they're doing that.

That's when they get up in the morning.

34:11

That's what they do first thing in the morning.

OK, They're going to the gym, they're working out, they're keeping themselves in shape.

34:16

OK, now they're putting this much time, you know, calling people, they're on the phone making calls,

calls, calls, calls.

34:21

I do 4 hours a day that OK, that's how they're spending the currency.

Maybe I'll start doing that as well.

34:24

Maybe I'm going to start off with two hours of currency and I'm going to keep the commitments I make

to myself.

34:28

OK, cool.

And, and oh, that didn't really work that well.

34:31

OK, I'm going to pivot.

I'm going to do this strategy now because it's all about falling forward.

34:35

There's no like just perfect trajectory.

Up you go up and down and up and down.

34:38

But those downs are where you really learn.

It's in the moments where you, you, what we would label as as losing or failing, those are the

34:46

moments that you, you learn the most.

And I try to tell guys this all the time, when you win, it's great.

34:51

It feels awesome.

But winning pays you one time.

34:54

It pays you with the sense of success and, and you're out, man, this feels great.

It's, you know, first time I made $1,000,000, I had $1.1 million hit my bank account when I sold my

35:02

first company.

And I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing.

35:06

I never even thought I'd ever be a millionaire.

You know, I'm like, now this, this whole thing is actually happening.

35:11

I got $1.1 million in my bank account.

That money goes so fast.

35:14

It was gone.

Like it was awesome.

35:16

It felt great.

But what that money represented really was all the hits and what we would say, losses or failures,

35:22

the stumble and the trip and the getting back up for a year and a half that my business partner, I

built this company.

35:28

That was the real value because those lessons that were failures where we screwed up, we didn't get

that right.

35:33

We had to change this.

We had to.

35:35

Those lessons pay me forever.

They pay me forever.

35:38

Those are things I've learned from.

They've shaped my character.

35:41

They've made me into a better person.

So we recognize that the winnings are great, but those are not the point.

35:46

Really kind of the point is to fail because that's where you learn.

Like it's not really failing.

35:51

I'm using the word failure so that we can kind of wrap our minds around it like, but it's not

failing.

35:56

When you suck at something, you fall down, you run your head into a wall or whatever, whatever that

looks like.

36:00

That's where you really start to learn and that's where you really start to develop character.

And then when you make some money, that money is important to the only to the extent that it

36:09

reflects what you learned.

Like that's what it's just like a scorecard.

36:12

It's like, man, OK, I learned, you know, enough that I made $1.1 million.

That's freaking awesome, man.

36:20

Now I'm going to go try and learn how to make $10 million and I'm going to try and learn how to make

$100 million, whatever it is.

36:25

I'm going to keep banging my head against the wall and trying to learn some stuff.

You know, somebody inherits a bunch of money or if they win the lottery or something like that, you

36:33

have no respect for that.

As an, as another person, I'm like, cool, good for you.

36:36

That's awesome that you have resources, but it doesn't reflect anything.

It was just handed to you.

36:41

But I've got a buddy of mine.

He was actually, he's from Ogden.

36:43

He was actually homeless on the streets in Seattle about the same time, same age you were, man.

Like he, he went through a really rough upbringing and his life has been really tough in a lot of

36:52

ways.

That guy, he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars now because of how he's executed and how he's

36:58

leveled up.

When that guy talks and I'm listening to that guy, Oh my.

37:03

Because that money represents this, this all of these failures and hits and life lessons and

learning that took place.

37:10

That's what it represents.

So not now when that guy speaks, I'm like this guy is saying some important stuff.

37:17

And so I think that's just really, you know, you get, you got to recognize that when you're as a

man, you, you keep commitments to yourself.

37:24

And then you, you go into this world recognizing that life is happening for you, not to you.

And as long as you don't quit, like you said, you can't lose because the only, the only way you

37:36

really lose is to quit.

It's not to fail.

37:38

Failing is not losing.

Failing is learning.

37:40

That's what failing is.

It's only when you quit that you lose.

37:44

And so you just keep going.

You keep learning.

37:45

You pick up a little bit more here, execute a little bit better here.

And suddenly, dude, all this stuff starts to work and you're like, man, this up kicking ass at life

37:55

guy that you know, you start to be like this is this is all kind of making sense.

I love.

38:00

I love what you're saying is, and as you're telling a story in in this framework, I was thinking

what, what have you really earned?

38:06

Like really truly earned?

The money's fantastic, but what have you earned?

38:10

What it's it's character, character knowledge, it's skills, it's how to solve problems.

It's how to get up when you get knocked down so many times.

38:19

Like that's what you've earned.

And as you were describing that so well, I'm like, that's it.

38:25

You earned the things that are so much more valuable than than the money.

The money's fantastic, but you can lose the money and make it again because you earned the ability

38:32

to do it.

It's always you are the most important product, not the business, not the the relationship, not that

38:40

it's you.

What kind of character are you developing?

38:43

And you know, Alex Ramosi, you listen to him much.

He made this.

38:46

He was, I was listening to him talk on a podcast one time and he said, you know, there's a bunch of

buddies that have a lot of money and he'll have these conversations with them and they're like

38:55

terrified that something could happen in the economy or whatever else and they'll lose all their

money, you know, and he's like, I'm not scared at all.

39:02

And it's he's because I, I know that I know how to make money.

Like I could just go back and do it again.

39:07

I already know I've, I've learned, I've put in the work and I've taken the hits and I've gotten back

up.

39:13

So now like this money is cool, but it, it could come and go.

It doesn't matter because this character that I have developed is what's valuable.

39:21

That's the resource.

That's what matters.

39:24

Everything else is just an appendage or an auxiliary to that or a reinforcement or a consequence or

result of this character that I have developed.

39:33

And so that's why it's all about inputs, guys.

It's not about outputs.

39:37

It's about what are you putting into yourself to develop?

What are you listening to?

39:41

What are you reading?

What kind of programming you're feeding yourself with?

39:44

You know what, what are you doing to go to the gym and get yourself healthy?

What are you doing to Orient yourself in a way spiritually to art, to the creator, to the truth?

39:51

Like what these different things are so many different aspects of masculinity where you start

working on the inputs, little things here and there, little things in here.

39:58

I'm going to change this behavior about myself.

I'm going to get up 30 minutes earlier.

40:02

I'm going to get to the gym at this time.

I'm going to, you know, read my scriptures.

40:05

I'm going to listen to these podcasts.

I'm going to, you know, go to this like level up group or join this community and you start just

40:10

making these inputs and then everything else starts to show up.

It just naturally manifests.

40:17

It just.

Can't not.

40:19

It can't not because it's the consequence of the of of good living.

Exactly, and you just you get up in gritty, whether you feel like it or not, and you do the things

40:29

that bring the good results.

I got to tell a story.

40:32

I know you appreciate this.

My my family and I, we, we wanted to go to the very top of Norway in the middle of winter, right.

40:40

So where, where the sun doesn't rise, right?

Like he literally went a whole week up there.

40:44

You didn't see the sun.

It got the day got lighter, but there was never sunshine.

40:48

We're 225 miles north of the Arctic Circle and we we're doing these polar plunges.

We just love it.

40:55

And these floating saunas.

So you jump in the ocean, then you get in the sauna.

40:58

It's just, it's amazing.

It's paradise like this.

41:01

Everything's frozen.

It's just, it's unreal.

41:04

It's so cool.

So I go down, I go down the sauna.

41:06

I was the first one down there.

My family's coming down after and there's this gigantic Viking of a man standing there butt naked.

41:14

You know, it's like, well, this dude's this dude's for real.

And I was like, OK.

41:19

I was like, hey, man, just just out of curiosity, I'm like, do you jump in the water first or do you

get in sauna and then jump in the water?

41:25

And he's like, I always get in the water first.

Make sure I'm not a little bee.

41:32

I'm like, OK, yes.

And he says, I want to tell you something this that he hit me so powerful.

41:36

I think it's it replies everything you're saying.

And it's so important for all of us.

41:40

He says when you get in the water, he says do not get out because of the panic.

You get out.

41:47

When you decide to get out, it's going to hurt.

Your body will panic, but you don't get out because of the panic.

41:56

You get out when you decide to get out, right?

And it's just, it's that same kind of mindset, like, no, I get up and I do the things that I know

42:03

will create the results.

And if I need to put in more repetitions, I put in more repetition.

42:07

And if I get up and I don't feel like going to gym, I don't care.

No, nobody asked.

42:12

I didn't ask last night.

I said I was going to go to gym.

42:14

So I get up and I go to the gym, right?

And then I don't know, probably the same for you.

42:17

Me, if I don't feel like going to gym after I'm there 5 minutes, I'm like, yeah, I feel good.

I'm in it, I'm going.

42:23

But it's, it's making, it's following through on that commitment you made yourself to, to stay with

it.

42:28

And even little things like the snooze button, I mean, most guys using the snooze button, the very

first action you do of the day is break a commitment to yourself.

42:34

Yeah, man, that's so, so good.

That's so good.

42:37

So hey, let me ask a question.

Let's shift gears a little bit.

42:40

By the way, I love that story.

I got to get out there sometime and do.

42:42

Exactly.

It is one of the coolest places on the planet.

42:45

You go to the very top.

That stuff is right up my alley.

42:49

We, we like, we took the kids out on, on sled dogs and just on these dogs.

It was just running as fast as they can through the snow and it was heaven, absolutely heaven up

42:58

there.

It's amazing.

42:59

I have to do that, man.

You just sold me like, yeah, it.

43:02

Was it was so cool.

And then as a family, we spent the next seven months just backpacking all across Europe and Turkey

43:10

and Egypt like it was.

Oh, you are living the dream and that's exactly like the that I'm very passionate about that idea.

43:19

Take my kids to travel, my family travel and see there's.

There's nothing.

43:22

There's no replacement for taking your kids to go see some of the coolest people and the coolest

things on the planet.

43:28

You do the coolest documentaries, the best books.

We've got nothing.

43:31

Nothing compares to them standing there, smelling it, touching it, feeling it, seeing it with their

own eyes like.

43:43

I, I just got back, I read this book, fantastic book called Strong, Strong Father, Strong Daughters,

and I highly recommend it if you're a father of daughters.

43:51

It's so powerful.

My oldest daughter, I went through a divorce six years ago and it was hardest on my oldest daughter.

43:58

She was the one that was aware of it enough.

And I've seen her kind of really struggle with some things.

44:04

And it's hard to determine whether that came from the divorce or it's just the natural, you know,

coming of of age and becoming a teenager and going to a woman go girl and going through puberty and

44:13

going to school in the complications.

But she's had a really rough, rough, rough time on some things.

44:19

But I took her with me on a trip to Brazil for a couple of weeks last year and we lived in the

Amazon while we were in the Amazon for like a week and we were in Rio and, and it was so cool to see

44:34

how she just blossomed in that space, how much we connected.

But her to be a part of.

44:38

I know she just, she's got this swagger now that she's been to Brazil and she tells her friends and

like, and what she did these hard things and these cool things.

44:47

She's climbing up, you know, in the jungle, climbing up vines and like learn how to survive and

fishing for piranha and doing all these other things that she got to be a part of it.

44:57

So I just an exclamation point on what you're saying and how that's something I'm I'm I'm really

passionate about is creating those types of memories, especially for your kids.

45:06

Exactly.

That's I think, I think that's one of the best things we can do is gather experiences and memories,

45:13

which goes along perfectly.

What you and I've been saying, it's like we're going out and we're gathering this, this human

45:19

capital of character and, and skill and experience and failing and falling down and getting back up.

And as we're raising kids, we, we build this capital of experiences and memories with them.

45:29

So just like your story with your daughter, I, I mean, I can literally see her just like I, I did

that, that was amazing.

45:36

And if we can do that as often as humanly possible with our kids, just give them as many experiences

as we literally possibly can, then by the time they leave our homes, they they have this scaffolding

45:51

to build on now, this framework that gives them such an advantage in life.

And you go, you go live with the Muslim people.

46:02

And we've done that in multiple countries.

You can't, you can't some make some racist prejudice statement to my kids.

46:08

So like, you know, Muslims are like that and they're like, Nope, they're not.

Because we lived among them and we lived among the Hindus and the Buddhists and you know, we've been

46:19

in these countries in those places and among the richest and the poorest and everywhere in between.

And you're like you, you can't pull, you can't pull crap over on my kids.

46:27

And, and you offer them something like that, that's challenging.

They're like, I've done, I've done insanely hard stuff, right?

46:33

And it, it builds that character and grit.

We took them a year ago and we went and climbed mountain Kilimanjaro to see my teenagers come down

46:42

after summiting.

Hardest thing they've ever done in their lives by far.

46:47

They're just like, I can do anything.

Yeah, I can do it.

46:52

It's it's awesome.

My wife and I went to the top at Kilimanjaro couple years ago, three years ago now, four years ago

46:59

with with my company with my door to our sales guys bucket list trip.

And that was the hardest thing she probably ever done physically really kind of a spiritual

47:07

experience.

I went up to the I went up to the top of the mountain.

47:11

They kind of thinking I'd have a spiritual experience, you know, like I wanted to go see the face of

God Moses.

47:15

You know, I was joking around people like, Hey, when I come back down from Kilimanjaro, I might have

tablets whites, I might be bright.

47:21

Like I might have some commandments for you all to follow.

Like I was, you know, I was joking, but I was kind of serious.

47:26

Like I wanted to have a spiritual experience.

It's, it's, it's a really tough climb in that last night when we left at like midnight, you know,

47:33

you're going up in the freezing cold and it's, you know, oxygen.

It's, it's hard to explain how that affects your body when you're at those elevations if you're not

47:41

used to it.

But I went up there with this expectation that I would see the face of God and, and I did.

47:50

And it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

I, we went up there with these guides and I remember it's freezing cold, like your water is frozen,

48:01

like you're just it, it's absolutely, you know, miserable like, and you're going up in the middle of

the night so you can get up to the lookout point to watch the sunrise.

48:09

And then you finish the rest of the trek up to the top of kill to the summit to Kilimanjaro.

We had these guys around us our got, you know, the, the guides, these, these Tanzanian guys and they

48:24

hovered over us like they were angels, man.

They made sure we didn't step too far over here.

48:30

They made sure that like we had, they carried hot tea for us and they carried glucose for us and

they had oxygen tanks for us.

48:37

And I'm bundled up in the best gear I could buy in the US to be warm.

My wife is too.

48:43

And I, there was a guy next to us that walked with me and my wife the entire way who had old church

shoes on with holes in them that he was climbing.

48:51

I had high tech boots on that kept my feet relatively warm and they still got cold.

This guy had a beat up jacket with holes in it and he hovered over us.

49:02

There was no, there was no like I'm trying to get paid or anything.

It was because that was his character.

49:07

And when we got to the top and then we had to make that final stretch, my wife wasn't in a position

to do that on her own anymore.

49:14

She couldn't.

The altitude was too high for and I couldn't do it.

49:18

I couldn't carry her because I could only take 5 steps without having to stop and catch my breath.

Like I've never experienced.

49:23

I mean, I'm in good physical condition.

I've done Iron Man, I've done loaded.

49:27

Like I keep myself in good shape.

I'd never experienced like that without oxygen at that level.

49:34

And these guys, they, they three of them were around my wife and me and they picked her up and

carried her, literally carried her to the summit.

49:45

And I realized that I was seeing the face of God in our porters and in our guides.

Like I was looking at the best humans that I have probably ever come in contact with collectively,

49:59

these guys that were so committed to making sure that we were safe and that we were able to

accomplish what we set out to accomplish.

50:06

And most of them were Muslim.

So to your point, like you just learned this stuff.

50:11

Like it's like you can't tell me Muslims are all this way or whatever.

Those guys, those guys carried my wife to the top.

50:17

Those guys like were such badasses and I still keep in touch with a lot of them.

Man, we it was it was a powerful experience, but the spiritual experience was that I saw the face of

50:28

God in the Tanzanians that were out there that carried us to the top and hovered over us and

protected us and let and saying to us and kept us motivated and like.

50:37

And they're like standing and playing and joking and laughing and, and we're just barely holding on

for dear life.

50:43

Skin of our teeth and these guys were just like there for us the whole way it it was a it was a

really powerful moment for me I.

50:50

Love that.

Thanks for sharing that.

50:52

OK, let's shift gear.

I want to I want to ask a question that I think is insanely important.

50:57

What are over the last 20 years?

What are some things you, you did wrong that you're like, man, wouldn't do that again?

51:06

Although now you, you know, you learn the lessons, but maybe sharing it with other people so that we

can learn from each other.

51:12

What are what are some things that that maybe you, you wish you'd done differently or or you would

do differently had the chance to do it again?

51:19

Oh.

My gosh, there's so many, you know, like and, and that's a good thing.

51:22

You know things you look back on you like man, I yeah, I I don't I don't believe in shame at all

anymore, but I believe that it is good to have a certain degree of regret a little bit people say

51:33

don't live with regrets, but I'm like no regret, at least to me at way I oriented is like I could

have done better and I should have done better.

51:39

Like that's what it means to me.

It's not that I'm dwelling on that.

51:41

I don't believe in shaming myself because you were learning.

I think shame is evil.

51:45

I don't I don't allow any room and shame in my life or my kids life or my wife's life.

We don't do shame on any level.

51:51

But regret is something like physical pain.

It tells you something.

51:54

It's like, oh, I, I shouldn't have done that.

Like I burned my hand on the stove.

51:57

I'm not going to do that next time.

And I kind of feel like that's how regret is.

52:00

And maybe there's a better word for that.

I agree.

52:03

What I like to say is where there's pain, there's power, right?

And so you just, you and I are the same.

52:07

It's like, no, there's a pain point there.

That pain means there's power.

52:10

Good.

Yeah, that's a.

52:11

Good kind of pain.

That's a good kind of pain.

52:13

And so it, it maybe regret's not the right word for other people, but for me, I, I have a lot of

things that I regret.

52:18

There's a lot of things I look back in my life and I'm like, man, I could have done a lot better.

And I don't fault myself because I know I'm learning and I didn't know everything that I needed to

52:25

know.

And, and you have to have grace for yourself.

52:28

I would say the most important thing out of the last 20 years of my life is that I, I wish that I

had been better at, was in my first marriage.

52:39

I wish that I had been better at my first marriage.

And in many respects, I was a really good husband.

52:46

I've always strived to be the best father that I, that being a father is my favorite thing on the

planet.

52:51

Like there's nothing that I, I enjoy more than being with my kids and raising them.

And then they raised me.

52:59

You know, I, we think we raised the kids that the kids raised us.

But in that marriage, she, she came from a pretty rough kind of emotional place in a lot of ways.

53:13

And I didn't know how to deal with that.

I didn't know how to manage that well.

53:17

And so I became really reactive to her, her criticisms and her dissatisfaction with me and, and in a

lot of ways, abuse, like the abuse that she gave, I became really reactive.

53:37

I didn't manage that well and I didn't understand what boundaries were and I didn't know how to

because I, because I've been conditioned by all of society.

53:45

So again, I have grace with myself, but I look back on this, this is a fundamentally something so

important for me to learn.

53:49

I had been conditioned by every aspect of society that I was engaged with to be harmless in a lot of

ways and to be a doormat and to accept abuse and to be an emotional punching bag.

54:05

Because I thought that's what you did as men.

You just kind of took it on the chin and you.

54:09

And, and if I had been able to, if I understood what I knew now, then maybe we would have never got

down that rabbit hole.

54:18

If I'd known how to bring her to the table, if I'd known how to regulate my emotions well, if I'd

known how to hold boundaries and have consequences, because accountability is what saves

54:29

relationships.

It's not warm fuzzy feelings.

54:32

It's having accountability built into your relationship where you're accountable to each other,

you're accountable to yourself.

54:37

It saves marriages, it builds marriages.

And you can't have a healthy marriage relationship without accountability.

54:43

And I didn't know how to do that.

I didn't know how to hold accountability for her.

54:46

I didn't know how to hold accountability for myself in a lot of ways.

And so it's a, it's a lot to get get into and it's hard to package it into just a simple answer.

54:53

But going through the 8 1/2 years of that marriage, which was just absolutely horrific, like that

was, it was never good.

54:59

It was always bad.

It was easy for me to blame her because she was the one that was coming at me all the time with her

55:07

dissatisfaction.

And so for much of the marriage, I was blaming her.

55:11

I'm like, man, she's, you know, she's just treating me so poorly.

But I recognize that I was not managing it well.

55:20

And, and then I had a lot, a lot to learn.

And I try to share that now on some of the, the posts and stuff that I do on social media, some of

55:29

these life lessons.

I got out of that because now I, and, and I don't, I wouldn't change anything.

55:34

I am super grateful for her.

She gave me 3 beautiful kids.

55:37

She gave me so much to learn from.

Like there's, I have, it's a, it's a very complex thing.

55:43

She was also very abusive to me physically and emotionally.

You know, this is this whole thing and like, so it's this whole mixed thing.

55:49

But I got out of that marriage.

She she instigated it, she pushed for it.

55:54

I would have stayed in it probably forever and just kept going through the motions.

And just because that's what you do as a man, she pushed for it.

56:00

At the end, I got on board with it.

And and so I don't, I don't look back and regret like wishing that had that there were different

56:11

results now, but I do wish I'd learned lessons better than and I'd executed better.

And I took those lessons into my marriage.

56:17

Now my the marriage I'm in now and it is night and day difference like you can have healthy

marriages, you can have great vibrant relationships with your spouse.

56:32

They can be your best friend.

They can you, you can want to spend more time with them than you want to spend with anybody else.

56:37

That's a reality that can be the case, but there's a lot that goes into that and there's a lot of

learning and character development.

56:45

If you want to be in a really healthy relationship with a healthy woman, 1, you have to be a really

healthy man because a healthy woman isn't going to be attracted to an unhealthy man.

56:54

And so many of us go around with so little self-awareness, thinking that we're entitled or deserve a

good relationship or this and that, but we really haven't done the soul work on ourselves to say,

57:05

Hey, am I the type of person that somebody else should want to be married to?

You know, like, am I the type of person that is, is worthy of a healthy relationship in the sense

57:16

that I've built my character up and I've learned and I've, I've, you know, peeled back the layers of

self deception and peeled back the layers of bullshit and, and really learned who I am.

57:25

And now I can go into this relationship with somebody else in a position to make it work really,

really well.

57:34

Yes, yeah, that like it's, it's so powerful and and often difficult to articulate.

An extraordinary marriage requires the man and the woman to both be strong and and be the man to be

57:48

fully masculine and the woman to be fully feminine.

And for her to use that beautiful feminine energy to refine him and, and call him out and help him

58:00

rise and for him and in that strength to, to be there for her and, and set the boundaries and have

the accountability.

58:08

And so this, this beautiful dance we have of helping each other rise and, and refine.

And you're receiving some of the, the difficulties, especially with women.

58:21

Women, women are like the ocean right there.

There's storms of emotion, there's waves and wind and sometimes tsunamis and it's like men have to

58:31

be this lighthouse that can handle the, the, the storms and the changes in emotion, but not the

emotional punching bag, right?

58:40

This is this distinction of now you articulated so well.

It's like we have to have that strength, but you're not there to just tolerate it and, and just take

58:48

it endlessly.

There's this, this beautiful place for, for both to, to really rise together.

58:55

And when we figure out how to work with each other, then marriage is.

When you, when you can get to the point where you know yourself enough and you love yourself enough

59:03

that you are more concerned again about your character, you're more concerned about orienting

yourself towards the truth, however painful that is for your ego.

59:11

You know, when you're in that place that that's, that's kind of the, the starting point.

There's a, there's a story that I heard on a, on a podcast years ago where this guy and I've, I've

59:25

shared this before because it's just a cat.

It's just encapsulate so much what we're talking about right now, how important this, this topic is

59:32

and how much I learned that, you know, I listened to this.

It was so like just hit the nail on the head for kind of the what I'd gone through in my first

59:38

marriage.

So there's this couples group and this guy's on the podcast and he's telling about how they were in

59:43

this couple group, his wife and these other couples.

And one of the couples was going through divorce.

59:48

And though everybody in the group of friends knew that this woman was an absolute tyrannical beast

to the like, she criticized and she nagged at him, she rolled her eyes at him.

59:58

She never treated him with respect.

And eventually this marriage was melting down and everybody, everybody knew why.

1:00:05

And it was easy to blame her, right?

It was easy to blame her because X on the external stuff, they could see how toxic her behavior was

1:00:13

to him and he looked like the victim.

And she looked like the aggressor.

1:00:18

So they go, this couple goes through a divorce and then this girl, the woman stays in the friend

group and she ends up getting remarried.

1:00:25

And everybody in this group of friends like, oh man, what's she going to do to this guy?

It's going to be the same thing.

1:00:31

So she gets married, they go on a honeymoon.

And if I remember the story correctly, within like a week of them being home, she starts treating

1:00:39

this guy the same way she treated her previous husband.

They get into this altercation and she starts unloading this criticism and disrespect on them.

1:00:46

And this guy doesn't engage with it.

He's like, OK, he separates and he goes upstairs.

1:00:52

And so she's downstairs pacing.

They've been married for two weeks now.

1:00:56

She's down throughout pacing the tsunami, the storm, whatever else is going on.

And eventually she comes upstairs and this guy is packing his bags.

1:01:05

He's packing up all the stuff.

And she goes, what you doing?

1:01:09

What are you doing?

And he's like, oh, hey, I'm sorry, I, I totally misunderstood this.

1:01:14

I should have had a better grasp of the situation.

This isn't going to work.

1:01:18

I'm not going to be in a relationship with somebody that disrespects me.

I won't do it like I, I have too much self respect to allow somebody else to disrespect me, even

1:01:26

somebody that I'm married to.

So this, I'm sorry, this is my fault.

1:01:28

I'm not going to, I'm, I'm just not going to stay in a relationship like this.

And she's panic.

1:01:32

And this is her second coming into her second divorce after two weeks.

So she's begging him to stay.

1:01:37

Please don't leave.

Like we can work through this.

1:01:39

This was, you know, just a hiccup or whatever.

He eventually in this conversation, he agrees to stay.

1:01:46

He's like, OK, we'll give this one more shot, but if this ever, ever happens again, I'm going to

leave.

1:01:52

And this guy who's on the podcast telling the story, he's like, that couple has been married for 22

years and they're super happy together.

1:02:02

And so you, you, you say, well, accountability sounds like being a parent or sounds like being

controlling or sounds like manipulations or threats.

1:02:11

My question is if did that guy do better by his wife by holding boundaries and accountability?

Or would he have served her better by being an emotional punching bag?

1:02:20

And the answer is obvious.

He held boundaries.

1:02:22

He was a man that required respect and that was better for her.

Now she's in a marriage where she's happy.

1:02:29

They've been married for 22 years.

And that makes sense.

1:02:32

And so you look back and it's like easy to point the finger at the woman initially, like in the

first divorce, like on the surface level, because she was so overt about her disrespect and stuff.

1:02:40

And I'm, I'm not justifying at all, but that man had a responsibility to be a man 1st and he wasn't.

And so that the I would put the onus of the responsibility of that relationship on the men because

1:02:52

as men, we have a sacred duty to lead.

Our women are these nuclear reactors of emotion that funnel so much life and energy into

1:02:59

relationships and kids.

But it has to be managed well.

1:03:03

I kind of feel like it's like, it's like a nuclear reactor.

If you as the, if you're Homer Simpson and they're pressing the wrong buttons and pulling the wrong

1:03:09

levers, you don't want to, you're going to have a, a Chernobyl like experience in your marriage,

right?

1:03:14

And you can blame the woman all day long because it's obvious she's the one melting down, but you're

the one not managing it very well.

1:03:20

You're the one that's not authority and leadership in a relationship and partnership.

And anything comes from competency.

1:03:26

It doesn't come from gender.

It comes from competency.

1:03:29

Authority comes from competency.

And that's why men have to be men first, so that you are competent, so that you can step into a

1:03:35

relationship with a woman and know how to manage that with her.

Because if you don't know how to manage that, women are too powerful, they will destroy you.

1:03:43

They will burn everything down.

And it'll be easy to blame the woman, but it's not the woman's fault.

1:03:47

It's the man's fault initially because he wasn't managing the situation well enough.

And so that's where that's that's the lesson, I guess I would say that I wish that I had known

1:03:56

better in my first marriage.

I was the Homer Simpson in there, pressing the wrong buttons and pulling the wrong levers at the

1:04:01

wrong time.

I didn't know how to manage this.

1:04:05

And because of that, it created a horrific relationship.

And I'm not justifying her behavior.

1:04:10

She shouldn't have done what she should did.

Everybody has to take accountability.

1:04:14

I'm not alleviating women and saying you don't have any responsibility respectful of you, man.

No, you need to control yourself.

1:04:18

Everybody does.

But let's be honest relationships.

1:04:21

If we as men believe that we have the, the, the divine birthright to lead, which I believe that,

then we cannot blame somebody else for anything.

1:04:31

You have to own that.

If you're the leader, the buck stops with you.

1:04:35

And that was just an example from that podcast story that I shared with you where that man knew how

to lead.

1:04:39

He knew who he was.

He knew what respect looked like and you know, what he wanted out of a relationship.

1:04:43

And he was able to implement that without being condemning to her or criticizing or engaging in some

big fight.

1:04:49

He's able to hold boundaries.

He was able to have a communication about that and he was able to set proper expectations for the

1:04:54

relationship, which invited the woman to trust him because he was competent.

So she no longer had to do the Chernobyl meltdowns anymore because she's like, this man is

1:05:02

competent, OK?

I don't have to come at him with disrespect anymore.

1:05:07

I don't have to act like this anymore.

One, there's immediate consequences if I do.

1:05:11

But now I can trust this guy with my emotions, with my future, with my family.

Because a man's competent.

1:05:17

Yes, and I love how you said it's because of his own self respect that he then requires.

Respect the people.

1:05:27

People treat us the way we train them to treat us.

And when we have more self respect, then it's easy to earn respect and, and earn the authority.

1:05:39

I love talking about this is earning authority with our wives and with our kids.

Earning real authority as the king in our kingdoms, right?

1:05:50

Taking full ownership and responsibility for everything that happens in my Kingdom and earning real

authority by being the caliber of man that when when you walk in the room and, and you ask for

1:06:02

something, they, they gladly respond, gladly respond.

You can gently ask your children to do something.

1:06:10

You can even gently correct, because you've earned the authority to do so.

Absolutely.

1:06:17

We don't have to yell anymore.

We don't have to be tyrants.

1:06:19

We don't have to threaten the completely ineffective dad.

Lectures can can be done away forever.

1:06:27

Because like you show up as the man when when you come into your family as the man, like you've been

saying this whole time, everything else falls into place and works well.

1:06:38

And it's it's so contrary to what, again, kind of full circle back to where we started to what most

men are getting in terms of their programming.

1:06:44

They're told the worst kind of advice.

Men believe too many men lost boys, I would say they believe that they can be nice enough to the

1:06:54

world, nice enough to a woman, that they're now entitled to niceness back.

That's what they think, and it doesn't work that way.

1:07:01

The world and women don't give a shit about how nice you are.

It doesn't matter.

1:07:07

It's how competent you are.

How can you execute?

1:07:10

Harry into pieces.

James Allen said this and as a man thinketh, which I highly recommend anybody read and read it over

1:07:16

and over again because it's a short read and you can read it 100 times in a year.

I read the page or two from that book every single day for over 2 years.

1:07:24

So good it was.

My brilliant, brilliant, it's absolutely brilliant.

1:07:28

And one of the things he says and there is that weakness cannot exist in a power evolving universe.

And that's what we're talking about.

1:07:34

You can't, there's no place for you to be weak.

And I think a lot of guys want to get to a place where they can be complacent, sit on the couch and

1:07:40

their kingdoms kind of running itself.

And it's not how it works.

1:07:43

It's like we think we get to these points, these checkpoints in this video game of life where, OK, I

got the wife, now that's good, I don't have to worry about that.

1:07:49

And now I got some kids, I don't have to worry about that.

And I got a job that's paying me now I don't have to worry about that.

1:07:53

It's not how it works.

Complacency is death.

1:07:56

It is about constantly evolving and constantly leveling up, and it's the only way to find

satisfaction and fulfilling film in life.

1:08:03

The happiest people in this world, the only happy people in this world are the people that are

leveling up.

1:08:08

They're the people that are improving.

They're developing.

1:08:10

Progress equals fulfillment, which equals happiness.

That's what it looks like.

1:08:14

Progress.

Then you can only progress if there's adversity.

1:08:18

So everybody will say these things and you hear like atheist, why would God allow suffering in a

world?

1:08:23

It's like because suffering is the is the catalyst for everything.

Like suffering is what makes life make sense.

1:08:28

It's what makes this life have any meaning to it.

It's what creates development and opportunity.

1:08:33

Now the problem with suffering is like in every scenario, there are two truths.

There are a negative truth and there is a positive truth and both of them are equally true.

1:08:43

And this is what everybody has has to understand.

Something horrible happens to you and you say that's terrible.

1:08:49

That set me back, I didn't deserve that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's all true.

1:08:53

You can say that's all true, but it makes you a victim.

That's the outcome of it.

1:08:58

It's going to make you a victim and it's going to make your life worse and it will do nothing to

level you up or make you better.

1:09:03

Or on the other hand, you can say.

Playing the victim.

1:09:06

And, and, and all of us have been there, I think almost every week we've learned this.

Like you, that's but it's true.

1:09:11

So that's the thing people.

And you can't argue with them about their truth because like, no, it is true.

1:09:15

I am a victim da da da, da da, because it's true.

What they're saying is true.

1:09:19

And so that's they can stand on that and they can scream all day long about how wrong they were

because XY and Z happened to him and it's true.

1:09:27

Or you can say this happened for me.

There's something to learn in this, and now this gives me the opportunity to peel off stuff that I

1:09:34

didn't need before and execute better.

And now this thing that was, that was terrible in its inception is now becoming fuel for my progress

1:09:42

and growth.

It's this life lesson that whatever that looks like, no matter how horrific some of the suffering

1:09:48

can be, because you see this, You see people that have gone through the worst things life can throw

at them and come out the other side of it better for it, a lot better for it.

1:09:58

And you see the same thing happened with people that go through the worst in life and they come out

absolutely wrecked and destroyed.

1:10:03

What is the difference there?

And it's what truth you choose to believe.

1:10:08

Both are equally true.

You want to be a victim or do you want to be empowered?

1:10:12

But you can't do both.

And so you have to decide what truth are you listening to?

1:10:15

What truth are you subscribing to?

Which truth are you selling yourself on every single day?

1:10:19

When something happens to you, is it happening to you or is it happening for you?

And if it's happening to you, you're going to have a miserable, unhappy life.

1:10:26

If it's happening for you, then all of this adversity and all this suffering means something.

Another great book to read.

1:10:32

You know, everybody recommends it.

It's one of the most important books I've ever read is Man's Search for Meaning.

1:10:37

And that's exactly what Victor Frankel talks about is like, you find meaning in your suffering and

when you find meaning in your suffering, you can suffer almost anything.

1:10:44

You can suffer anything and you will come out of it better for it.

And, and the power is this is so beautiful because it literally comes down to a choice.

1:10:53

We get to choose and we can take now, right now, like I, I tell people like you can't.

You can't change destinations overnight, but you can change directions overnight.

1:11:01

You can change directions right now.

You can choose to believe that that second truth.

1:11:07

You can choose to give what happened to different meaning.

And I can realize that the worst things that happened to me are the best things that happened for

1:11:16

me.

That's so good.

1:11:18

I love this.

Love it.

1:11:20

OK, anything else where, where can people connect with you and and get what you're offering the

world?

1:11:26

Man, come here, come join the party.

Adam Allred official on on the social media platforms.

1:11:34

And then we have Doughboy, a program we're launching in the next couple weeks.

It's really just designed for guys to come together into a community, into an online virtual tribe

1:11:42

where we do, I host live 2 hour session trainings every single Sunday.

We call them virtual campfires and sit around the fire and we talk it up, cut it up and share this

1:11:51

stuff like what we're talking about right now.

And there's a whole host of other things that we're doing with the programs.

1:11:57

That's that's where I'm at.

Come hang out with us can be part of the part of the whole whole thing.

1:12:03

Beautiful.

Love it, brother.

1:12:04

OK, any last any last message.

We didn't cover that.

1:12:08

You think man I I got to share this something that you want men to hear that just is makes your soul

sing.

1:12:16

Yeah, I mean, I'll just close out with what you were saying at the, I think this is important in

life.

1:12:22

The only thing that you have control over, ultimately you can influence things, but you can't

control anything.

1:12:27

And but the only thing that you have control over is your attitude, your effort and the direction

that you're going.

1:12:33

That's it.

That's all you have control over.

1:12:35

And so when you learn to control your attitude and you learn to control your effort, and you start

being more intentional and strategic about the direction you're moving in, it's what you have

1:12:43

control over.

And so own that.

1:12:46

Own it.

Don't, don't trade that for anything.

1:12:48

And don't, don't give yourself an out.

Don't give yourself an excuse.

1:12:52

Don't be a victim.

Own that.

1:12:53

That's your responsibility.

That's it.

1:12:55

And, and like you said a moment ago, like ultimately, at any, at any moment, especially where, where

most of the men listening are AT and where you and I are at, at this point in, in our lives, we can

1:13:10

either level off or level up.

And nobody ever coasted to the top.

1:13:15

And leveling off will not lead to happiness and the results you want.

Like you've already said so well, it's leveling up.

1:13:22

That's it's like, I'm literally choosing to be happy and successful.

I'm choosing to be the king in my Kingdom and lead my family.

1:13:30

And the only choice is to level up.

The only rational choice to life like when you can, you understand that, that nothing else is going

1:13:38

to be rational or make sense.

You have to just take your hits square on man.

1:13:42

Take your hits.

Have some pride in it.

1:13:44

Don't quit.

Get back up.

1:13:46

Keep going.

That's life.

1:13:48

Stop wishing it was different.

Stop trying to make life conform to your, you know, very limited, very biased perspective.

1:13:56

Just accept that this is what life is and then get to work orienting yourself towards it in the most

constructive way possible.

1:14:05

And that's the only rational approach to life.

Otherwise everything else is.

1:14:10

Everything else is going to be some form of hell.

Exactly.

1:14:13

It's the best approach.

I love it, Adam.

1:14:15

Thank you, brother.

Appreciate you.

1:14:17

Great pleasure man, thanks for having me on, really enjoyed the conversation.