#64 How the things men like can wreck your life and family, and how to prevent it

Gentlemen, welcome to the Be the Man podcast.

I'm your host, Greg Denning.

I'm sitting in this little farmhouse we rented in the French Alps, looking out the window at the Alps.

And I think one of the peaks we can see in the distance is actually Mont Blanc.

We're in this just picturesque valley with the fields and the farms, horses and cattle and forests, mountains all around.

It is absolutely stunning.

And we we love France, our whole man, our whole family loves France.

We love the French food and the French culture.

We love the French language.

Most of us are actually actively learning French and we love being up in the mountains, man.

It's awesome.

So it's just fun, fun to take the family and and go out and have epic adventures and went out running with my kids today and you couldn't you couldn't ask for better views.

We go out with a run with my teenagers and then took a really early this morning took my dogs out across the fields and through the forests and across the streams.

And man, it's just just awesome to be alive and to feel alive.

Especially because the last, I don't know, the last week I've been sick, I got some kind of nasty sickness and and I got an Abscess in one of my teeth.

And so with a toothache and illness, man, it just takes you out and you feel like garbage.

So it's good to start feeling good again.

So today, man, I just want to talk about these these tendencies we have as men, just kind of, you know, the manly things.

And of course there's a variety of for all of us, but there's also some, some common denominators.

And I wanted to talk about this idea that, you know, occasionally they can, they can be good for us, but they could also be detrimental.

They can be a source of recovery and rejuvenation or a source of distraction and they become kind of a way to hold us back.

They become limiters.

So it could be anything, right?

A lot of men love cars and trucks and cool things.

So whether you're in the fast cars or big trucks or over landing rigs you know off roading you know that's that's pretty common and men love that stuff and it can be a really fun outlet a way to bond with other men and and just cool adventures.

I I absolutely love that I'm you know I love the sports cars and the big trucks and off roading especially in overlanding that's kind of my thing.

I love setting up vehicles that just can go anywhere and you're kind of independent and that's so fun.

I love that right.

But it can become an obsession.

It can become no religion.

It can become a form of well in in all these things, this one and and all of them.

It can be actually become a form of adultery.

Where and I know it's a weird kind of analogy metaphor but it's like where you're you're cheating on your wife, so to speak, because you give whatever The thing is more time, attention, devotion, focus, resources, and you spend more money and effort and thought on your cars or your truck than you do with your wife and your children and and that's when it goes too far.

So I guess with everything we're going to talk about today, the invitation is just take a just take a quick look at your life and like what's what is it that does it have a proper place?

That's the question, right?

Does this is this thing serving me and helping me or is it getting in the way?

So something else is like guns or knives or swords.

Obviously not all guys are into guns and knives stores, but a lot of guys are.

I'm I I love swords, I love knives, I love guns.

Same thing.

Does it have a proper place in your life?

Is it you know, do you spend too much time, too much effort, too much energy, too much money with those things?

Do they become and and you can always test yourself, right?

Here's you have to do these little examines, examinations, and like like you go, you go for a physical exam, right?

You're going in to check things out.

Just make sure everything's working properly with with all the things in your life.

Please do that same thing.

Just check yourself.

Say him.

Is this going a little too far?

Am I getting a little too obsessed?

Am I getting out of balance?

Am I distracted?

Am I overly focused?

Am I neglecting other important things because of this, This one of these tendencies, and again, I'm calling them, I'm calling them, you know, manly tendencies because they're they're pretty common for a lot of men.

Not all men, but pretty common for a lot of men.

And I think everything that I'll touch on today at least every man has some kind of interest or or passion with it.

And so we just have to stop and ask ourselves like where where am I?

And so as I go through this just do that with me say hey, where's the balance on that.

And I totally get and actually sometimes teach when I'm coaching and we're talking about in the be the man master class or with my coaching clients.

There are times to temporarily and as briefly as possible to get out of balance, to get obsessed or passionate or driven or really focused on something, to get it set up or to get it going, to give it some momentum or drive or purpose there.

There definitely are times to get out of balance 100% but the key is that it needs to be purposeful designed deliberate and temporary right and and just quick note on balance.

I I've talked about this in other podcast episodes in my coaching, the whole idea of like pure balance is an illusion.

It's not real and balance does not mean everything gets equal time and attention.

I I think the best way we could all define and and pursue balance is that everything has appropriate time and tension.

And for me, appropriate is in order of priority.

Like what are truly, genuinely the most important things in your life, And then live accordingly.

Act accordingly.

Align your schedule and your days and your thoughts and your actions and your habits, your routines, your rituals.

Align those all with the things that are most important.

What's very, very common for most men is the things they say are most important, are not manifest in the things they consistently do.

And their schedule doesn't reflect their priorities.

Their routines and habits do not reflect their priorities, at least not their spoken priorities.

So then then you step back and say, well, gosh, man, it's it's important I think for us to ask ourselves like are what are my real priorities?

Are there the things I say or the things I do?

And I think often that the things we do are revealing, right?

They're revelatory to our true priorities.

So if we say that family's most important, but we spend most of our time and thoughts and resources on other things, then then really, that's that.

Maybe that maybe that's not true.

Maybe the real truth is that the things that that are actually most important to you are proven by your performance.

It's where you spend your time, effort and energy.

That's and your devotion.

Like, that's actually, that's what's most important to you.

And it's it's that's difficult and uncomfortable because you might realize, like, man, I spend way too much time looking at my phone or way too much time watching Netflix, right?

And if if you're spending an exorbitant amount of time or thought or energy, you might be doing other things but thinking about the show or thinking about whatever, or just you, you might even kind of be unaware of how much time you spend on your phone.

And I don't think any of you would say, yeah, my phone is the most important thing in my life, but interestingly it might be getting the most attention and devotion and focus from you.

And so then if your life were a silent film, which that's one of my all time favorite mental exercises, just imagine your life being a silent film.

You can't say anything.

So the only thing that viewers can judge on are your actions.

And so if your life were a silent film and let's say you spend just tons of time on your phone, the viewers will be like, man, this guy really loves his phone.

He he's so devoted, it must be one of his highest priorities.

It must be one of the most important things in his life.

You guys with me on that.

And so we we've gotta, we've gotta assess how how these things, these these manly tendencies are fitting into our life.

So you know vehicles, guns and ammo and knives and swords.

How about tools?

A lot of guys love tools and and tinkering and workshops.

Again, awesome, right?

Very cool.

I I like that too.

I like, I like the tools.

I like fixing things in the garage and I like fixing things in the house.

I like building things.

I like creating things and my and I love doing it with my kids.

So here here's an actually an interesting one as you're thinking through all the things that you do.

Is it.

Is it.

Is there a way that you can include your family in those things that you love to do?

For me personally, that that was kind of my rule.

When when Rachel I got married, I wanted her to be included in some of the things I pursued, but she just didn't like them.

There were certain things that she just, she tried and she's like, yeah, I just don't like it.

And so then I'm like, man, so then if I'm spending time doing that, it's spending time away from her.

And it really just, it was hard for me and I didn't want to do that because I wanted to be with my family.

So then we found things that we love doing together.

But I still had my things and I, you know, they weren't detrimental.

I I was always assessing like, is this adding value to my life?

And I love it makes me feel alive.

I'm gonna keep doing it.

But I really wanted to include my kids.

And so I got to a point where I'm like, you know, I'm really, I'm really not gonna do anything unless I can include my family.

Because truly, genuinely, my family is the most important thing in my life.

And so that is reflected in my life.

And and again, because I've been assessing this for the 23 years we've been married, if if you could see a quick little timeline or time lapse video the last 20-3 years and it was a silent film, you would see that I have prioritized my family.

I spend the vast majority of my time with my family and the things I pursue.

I always take a kid or two or seven with me.

And so that was kind of a rule.

When the kids came along, I was like, hey, I'm gonna the things I love, I'm gonna do with my kids, you know, like snowboarding.

I love snowboarding.

But you know, the kids, when they were really low, they couldn't snowboard.

So I didn't snowboard.

And I was, you know, I missed it, of course.

But I'm like, well, I'm gonna spend time with kids and I do other things with them.

So then you take everything like woodworking and building things or tools, whatever.

Like, can we include the kids?

Absolutely.

You can.

And it becomes, you know, don't force them if if they have no interest.

But you can in in all the things that you love, whether whether or not your kids get interested in it or often by how you approach it.

If you try to force it, or you make it unpleasant or you make it seem unpleasant, then your kids are looking at you and they're like, why would I want to do that with dad?

He looks miserable, like, like working out, right.

A lot of dads work out and they work out hard and then they're like, and they make it look so miserable and so fun, fun that their kids are like, no thanks, count me out.

I don't, I don't wanna do that.

And so I tell my guys, I'm like, look, man, if you want your kids to exercise, then make it appealing, make it attractive.

And it all becomes like how you engage.

So if you want your kids to do meaningful things with you, then make it seem attractive.

Does that make sense?

Right?

Your kids, they're just small.

They're just watching, they're observing and they're drawn towards you know attractive things.

So you know that beautiful word of attract to be drawn towards it so make the things you're doing attractive.

So one of them was, you know, I wanted to do woodworking and I only, you know, I have a couple kids that like it.

But I found over the years, so our oldest is 21 and our youngest is 7.

And over the years I've found I needed to have something, one or two things that was unique to each child.

And of course there was some overlap where a couple of them would like it or three of them would like it over here and this.

And so I ended up learning how to do a lot of things and getting into a lot of things and encouraging them in their interest and pursuing those things with them and encouraging them, inviting them to participate with me in some of the things I like.

And there's always been a few in different things.

So I end up doing a lot of things.

So I have had enjoyed a lot of diversity and a lot of growth and expansion into different aspects of life because of that.

It's been, it's been really, really rewarding, extremely rewarding as a as a man, as a husband, as a father to pursue all things with my wife and kids.

So you know we we, I have one son that just loved the woodworking side.

So I'm like, man, let's let's learn how to make some unbelievable things.

So he and I together built a huge table, just a big old thick wooden family table.

And then we built a an 8 foot tall luxury bookshelf.

And we mean luxury.

We looked up, we just got online.

We're like, what's what's the nicest, most expensive bookshelf out there?

Got some pictures of the one we like.

And then we built it.

It was amazing.

And we did the same thing, built it just an absolutely gorgeous wooden chest for my wife for Christmas and what great lessons, right, going through that.

So.

So my enjoyment of tools and working, you know, brought that to him as well.

And it's for my son especially, who's very tactile, loves, love his hands on stuff.

And to go through and teach him like, oh wow, we, you know, we made that cut and it was just an eighth of an inch off.

And you can't just say, oh, Oh well, that's close enough.

Like, no, this is luxury.

This is we're making this nice.

So gotta start over and we lose that piece of wood and you got to do it just right and you learn about precision.

It's awesome.

So you know, OK, let's let's go to something else like fitness.

A lot of men love fitness and and challenges, marathons and triathlons and adventure races or I mean this is where you get into adventure sports like the the rock climbing or you know, whatever it is.

Just pick your adventure, sport, your other hiking or kayaking, boating, stand up, paddle boarding, just whatever it is, right?

Those any of those ventures again, that can have a very, very good place in your life.

But does it have the right amount of time in your life?

Does it have the space in your life that makes it valuable and good and beneficial and wholesome?

And lifting and edifying?

Is it adding value or is it, does it begin?

There's this point, right?

There's this chart where you see there's tons of benefit.

And then at some point it starts to level off and then at some point it starts to decline.

And even something really good can get to a point where like, OK, we're starting to lose benefit here.

And this for me, I think it's this constant analysis, constantly reviewing and revising, just and examining just like, OK, what do we?

Are we still in the zone of adding tremendous value?

So with a lot of my kids, I love running, I love mountain biking, I love rock climbing, I love repelling, I love tackling big mountains.

So we're gonna we've done the base camp of Everest, we've done Orissaba, I've done Cotopaxi, and we're doing Kilimanjaro.

And I'm taking the four of my teenagers up.

Kilimanjaro, right.

They're engaged and it's going to be so hard.

But they they wanna do it.

They're eager.

They're excited and they're training for it and and that's it's incredible, right?

It's amazing.

And they they come along in this journey of growth and then we have the shared memory together.

This is, this is fantastic.

So again, whatever it is, if it's if it's cycling or rock climbing or kayaking, boating, whatever your thing is, does it have an appropriate place in your life and brother?

Gosh, the hard part here is just to be humble.

Humble enough to really, honestly look at it and be like, OK, yeah, maybe it's a little excessive and that's hard.

That's hard for a lot of men to do because maybe you're passionate about, maybe you love it.

Maybe you have all these great memories or these cool feelings or, you know, who knows, maybe meant a lot to you for you and your dad.

Or, you know, it was brought a lot of peace in your life, or it was during a time that just was really meaningful or really hard.

And we have to have the manly maturity and meekness enough to say, you know, gosh, I love that so much, but I realize it's not, it's not adding the value like it needs to and I'll have to let that go.

I think the perfect example of that was watching sports for me and I know that's another one I would bring up.

It's like watching sports.

A lot of men just absolutely love sports.

We love sports.

We're drawn to sports and sports are these kind of micro and macro hero's journeys, right.

And the problem is that in, you know, with love of sports and actually gets to a point where, well, it can become super addictive and consuming and it can pull you away.

My preference has always been to play sports, to participate in sports and not to watch sports.

Because for me, I found I'm like, wait a minute, I'm trying to live vicariously here through somebody else.

Like I'm being a spectator in somebody else's hero's journey instead of living my own.

And I'm watching.

This was early on, I loved watching sport.

I loved, loved love American football and and and like the NBA and stuff.

And it was just so fascinating, so fun.

But then I realized, man, what am I doing?

I'm sitting here looking at this, this black box and even though, you know, I kept trying to justify, I'm like, well, you know, my my kids are watching it, or at least they're in the same room.

So I'm here with them.

I'm just just watching the game.

But I realized like that's not true.

It's not true.

So you know we watch, we watch a movie sometimes 2A week as as together as a family and and that's that's why I want to Max that out right there, right.

One or two and it's OK you watch it, but it's it's quite passive and we just we we watch you know thought provoking movies and we discuss them.

So that's helpful and there's there's some great movies out there that are worth watching.

But you know if we were watching a movie all the time every night and like oh, this is how we, this is how we connect as a family.

By when when you step back and look at it like, seriously, that's how you're connecting is you're all sitting on a couch, like vegging out, passively looking at some screen.

You're you're, it's like you're training your entire family to be spectators in the game of life.

And for me, I just, I did not want to do that, brother.

I did not want to raise a bunch of spectators.

I want to raise my children to be the heroes of their own story, to participate in life and to win.

I want them to be, you know, action figures in their own lives, in their own stories, and get out and then and live life themselves.

Instead of watching sports or playing sports, instead of watching adventures, they're they're in the adventures.

Instead of only reading or hearing about these great stories, they're actually participating in them.

Instead of watching some show about the world or travel or adventure, like, OK, watch the show because we're going right and and you fit it all in there.

So, like, yeah, we'll, we'll watch this documentary.

It's awesome.

And then we're gonna go, we're gonna experience it ourselves because that's the caliber of life I wanted to live with my children.

I wanna truly live, man, truly live.

I don't wanna merely exist some humdrum existence and then you know, use anesthetics and and numbing substances and pacifiers of like, well, we'll just watch it on the show or you know, like you know the excuse you hear.

I'm too old and out of shape to play sports anymore so let's just watch them.

That's bogus, man.

Age is just a number and if you're if you're out of shape, that's on you, that's on you, brother.

And you have a moral obligation and ethical responsibility to get in shape and stay in shape so you can participate in sports and help your kids get in sports.

But then again, even participating sports can get out of balance, right?

There's families out there that either the the dad or the kids are just become absolutely consumed.

And if your life revolves around sport, it's probably gotten a little out of balance.

And if it's preventing other family activities and other other pursuits, other desires, you're neglecting other things.

Your life's out of balance, and it has been for a while, then you might have to stop.

And this is one of those hard ones where you have to be humble and meek and and honest with yourself and say, yeah, this, you know, love this.

It's awesome, exciting.

But it's it's it's not leading us to who we want to be and where we want to be, right?

It's not leading to the ideals we hold as a family and as a man with a caliber of people We want to be and and it can be tough, man.

I get it like, for me to that commitment I made one day to just stop watching football, it was hard because I love football.

I love watching football.

I loved playing football.

But I thought, you know, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to do it.

I don't.

I don't want my kids growing up watching me watch that little box sitting in a chair or couch, spending hours, you know, screaming and yelling and cheering, dumping down at some little screen on the wall.

When you step back and look at it, if you were like coming from a different era, different planet, different, you know, culture and looking at it like it's so weird.

It's so weird and and so it was hard.

But I was totally honest.

I'm like, you know what?

Me watching sports is not going to help me be the world class husband and father I want to be.

So for me, I cut it out and it was worth it, man.

And then eventually actually, we decided we're like, why are we even doing TV?

So we didn't do TV at all.

In fact, even if we watch Movies Now, we just, we watch it on the computer or something or project it.

So we've never had like a TV subscription or anything like that.

So again, you just evaluate all things.

And I know some of you just love movies or you might even love video games and you think, yeah, this is how we connect as a family, is how we bond into playing games and watching movies.

But I guess I wanna invite you to reconsider that, Like, is it really, truly connecting?

Are we using that as an excuse?

And is it the best way we can connect and is there something more beneficial?

So for me and for our family, like I would say going on an adventure is more beneficial because we get, we get the fitness and the health from it.

We're actively participating in it instead of passively participating in it.

And we, you know, we get the experience and the exposure and the connection and the shared memory, it's really powerful.

And so, yeah, does that require way more work, you know, watching movies or playing games with kids versus, you know, paying for them all to go to Africa?

Yeah, man.

Wow.

Way more work.

But that's what we want, right?

That's the kind of life I want.

So you just keep going through the lessons.

So sports, cars, tools, weapons, what else?

You know, all the things men get into all kinds of, you know, competition.

What kinds of competitions and are they?

We get, you know, super competitive.

It can be a very, very, very good thing.

But at some point it can become detrimental.

It can go too far right.

And and we all again, humbly, honestly look, look at it objectively, step back and be like is this going a little too far or is has it gotten a little too soft?

You let it go like some of you, some of you might have slipped into this kind of the humdrum existence we were talking about, or the passive just letting things happen.

And where you used to have that fitness or that competitive edge, or you used to be into cool things and now he's just like nothing there, right?

Some of you love your creativity and engineering and creating and making things.

And some of you like destroying things and blowing things up and breaking things, whatever it is, right?

You might be into the beach, going to the beach or going to the mountains, you know, surfing or skydiving, you know whatever.

Like there's so many cool things and so many great things to do.

And and we have like kind of these common denominators.

But even even something like weightlifting can can get out of balance, right?

Or even like you might be doing if you do an Iron Man.

Those are phenomenal and they're great to train for.

But gosh, the guys, the guys I talked to, I know that they're doing that.

They can they can spend up to 4 hours or more a day training and and that can get really out of balance. 1 gentleman knew that he was really prioritizing his family.

He's like, man, I just, I had to get up.

I had to get up at like I think it started at 3330 or 4 every mornings and he put his four hours in, right.

That's about 8:00 AM.

So he was there to do, you know breakfast and family devotional with the kids in the morning.

So his sacrifice was, was early in the mornings, right?

So we didn't have to take away from them too much.

And then work.

Of course, men love work, we love working, we love earning lots of money and we love succeeding.

And that's it's all great.

But that often gets so far out of balance and our drive to succeed and our drive to earn more money or drive to thrive in business, even though it's a very good thing, it can get way out of balance.

And you have to stop and ask and say, is this still providing the value I want?

Am I still doing it for the right reasons?

Is it, am I being temperate enough with this?

Is it.

Has it, you know, taken the number one spot over my family and we'll say things like, well, I'm doing it for my family.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

But what does your family want?

And and most families want you more than they want your money.

And then we need money and.

And I hope you guys are super abundant.

All of it, right.

And hope we succeed at things we do.

But let's not let that get out of balance.

Men can get into politics or religion and we get really passionate about things we want to fight for.

Again, all great things.

All great things.

But is it in the proper balance?

Is it in its proper place?

Is it taking its place behind the other things that are more important?

And if you become in any of these things, if you become disengaged or grumpy or unpleasant to be around or stressed or distracted, then you might have to check yourself and either you have to make some changes or maybe it has to go or has to be kept EV everything, every single thing we do at least has to have some pretty strong boundaries.

Excuse me on that, like set up those boundaries, set up those boundaries and maintain them.

Take even the good things you gotta keep them in check because a good thing can get can go too far and it starts to take away from from life as it as it really needs to be right.

So it's so powerful it's so important.

And in the.

In the be the man master class and tribe.

Just a great community of great men love connect with those we meet We meet together every week.

And I just and I look forward to those those times we get together.

I just absolutely love it.

But so in inside the master class really broken down to what I call the triple trifecta.

And I found that that if we keep those in focus then we win.

And that's what a trifecta is.

A trifecta is 3 things.

Three combining things that that lead to a win.

So it's fitness.

It's fitness, family and finances.

Right.

Those are the.

That's the the trifecta.

But each of those has three things inside of it.

Right?

So inside fitness is mind, body and spirit.

And so if you get up every single day.

I was thinking about as well as walking with my dogs.

The forest and the beautiful peaks in the background and frost all across the grass and then the field.

Oh man, that was awesome.

Now, same like if you get up every single morning.

And I have for I've done this consistently for over 25 years, Get up every morning and do something to both nourish and exercise your mind, your body and your spirit.

So you're mentally fit, spiritually fit and physically fit.

And that's where that fitness comes in, that that has to be a priority.

There has to be a place.

And if you're if you're doing something that's that's off that's preventing that, then you gotta make some adjustments.

Or even if you're doing one of those things to the neglect of the others, you gotta make some adjustments.

Then under family, it's your marriage, of course that's your priority.

Then fatherhood with your kids, each of your relationship with your kids and then your family legacy.

Right now, this year, it's this is an exciting year, man.

We're taking some huge, huge leaps, honestly, biting off more than we can chew on purpose so that we learn how to chew more.

We're stretching our capacity but we're we're taking these massive leaps in our family legacy and we're constantly seeking out legacy type stuff and and if we're not careful gentlemen we may end up inadvertently creating the the kind of a underwhelming pathetic little family legacy.

So that's worth that's worth asking yourself right now is like what is your family legacy and and the thought might be well we don't have one right.

Well we're not we're not working on it.

We don't have one but everyone has one every family has one.

So what is it?

Whether it was deliberately created or subconsciously created, you have one.

What is it?

And I think some of you might be horrified to realize, like, man, our family legacy is to watch Netflix all the time.

Or our family legacy is to sit around gossiping about other people.

Or our family legacy is just to be lazy, to take take the easy road and complain about it if it's ever hard.

You with me here, you didn't do it on purpose.

But if you don't do it deliberately, then it happens automatically by default.

You you might have created this legacy of whining and complaining and and living behind fears or convenience or comfort.

You let that sink in.

You might have created a legacy of just doing as little as possible or or any entertaining yourselves to death.

That's that's going to be a a huge shocker for a lot of people when they stop and look back like what's our family legacy was?

Oh it's just seeking entertainment, entertaining ourselves.

And for me, gentlemen, that's just, that's just unacceptable for me and for my family.

Like, I don't.

I don't want that.

I don't want a legacy of entertainment.

And and interestingly, nobody would ever accuse me or my family of not having fun, of not really enjoying life, just squeezing the juice out of life.

We have a blast.

We love life, but we're not just sitting around entertaining ourselves.

So what is your family legacy the way you want it to be?

What's the discrepancy?

And so this that that's actually really solid assessment for, for this conversation today of like what are all these these manly, these manly things, these manly tendencies and how are they fitting into the family legacy?

Because you could, you could set up like, oh, you know, our family legacies, we we just endlessly watch sports all the time.

Or or maybe it's like you watch sports all the time and the kids are just people.

Your wife and kids are just tolerating it and that's the family legacy.

Is that the legacy you want or this absolute fixation on cars or toys, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, skidoos, you know, whatever it is.

And and again, those can have an absolutely fantastic place in the family culture and the family legacy, but they have to have boundaries and they have to stay in their proper place because it can get, it can get too far.

And so then you'll jump ahead in your life.

You jump ahead 10 years, 20 years or to the end of your life and look back.

Will you be satisfied and do this man, really, really do this, get there and think through it and feel it.

Will you be satisfied with the the family legacy that you are currently building or that you've already built?

Because it it you've already built it, right.

You've been married 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, whatever You've already built it.

You've already built the legacy.

Whether you knew you were doing it or not, it's there.

And if you don't, like, make real deliberate effort to improve it or change it, then it's likely just to stay what's there.

And if if you were to get in your life, or if your life were to end soon, would you be content fulfilled with the legacy that you've built?

Man, that's powerful.

That is absolutely powerful.

Think through that and think, I gotta wherever you got to make the changes right?

Wherever things have gotten out of hand, even with some good things, if you've let you've let it go too far.

And I get it.

I want to keep reemphasizing this.

I know how hard it is to stop.

Like, oh man, but I I really like that stuff.

I'm really passionate.

I'm really excited.

I really get into it.

But if it makes you grumpy or unpleasant or distracted or distant or absent, sorry, man.

It either has to go or it has to get put back in its cage or on its leash because it needs to keep its proper place, right?

And so I don't know, some, maybe some of you are in animals, you got dogs or horses or cattle or whatever it is, right?

All these things that men just love, like I love that stuff, right?

Make sure it's in its place.

That's that's kind of my thought today.

And I've and I've been evaluating that for years and years and years.

I started when I was 16.

I left home at 16.

Things weren't working out real well and I was like, I'm going to roll and my parents been divorced for a long time and step dad's come and gone and I was like, I'm out of here.

And then I I got out into life and it was hard and I saw I saw a lot of families in a lot of different situations.

It just it gave me time to reflect on and what are the things that that people do they get they get obsessed about and they get out of balance with and and then they neglect their families.

They neglect their health or their spirit.

They neglect their relationships.

They neglect their their true priorities by by whatever it is And and then you know I've been able to work with thousands and thousands of people across 5 continents.

I get to see this all the time And so it's it's just giving me an opportunity to really it's it's been a great privilege and a wonderful opportunity to really reflect on it and see you know where do things line up.

So brother we would love, love love to have you be a part of the be the man, master class and tribe if you're not a part of it already.

And we talk about this every week and it's inside a master class.

I mean there's enough content in there for you to go through a lesson every single day and it's just these little reminders every single day right.

The daily It's the little daily efforts that make the biggest difference in our lives.

And we get reminded of these things to keep our lives in a proper place.

To be present and powerful, to be living as our best selves instead of some kind of default reactive state and just constantly checking in like where we at, right?

And obviously going through the whole triple trifecta again and again and again in all the different ways that applies in all different aspects and tools and giving you the tactics and the proven systems and strategies.

I mean that's for the most part, if anything's off or failing or struggling in your life, it's almost always because some kind of system or strategy is just not working or absent, right.

So we'd love to have you join us, man.

And so you can operate as your best self, be the the very best husband you can be.

Be an absolute world class dad.

Be a phenomenal businessman and keep all those things in their proper place.

And be a leader and a philanthropist and a disciple.

And a scholar and an adventurer and an athlete.

And all these things, right?

All these things we want to be as men.

And we can.

We totally can.

But it has to be done in an effective, strategic way.

Optimized, right?

This little words I love to use the most is holistic optimization.

Just keep your life optimized, and if you're optimized, then you can do a ton of things.

If you're not optimized, man, you struggle doing a couple things and that's the big take away, big lesson.

So thanks for listening.

Thanks for being here.

If you liked this episode, it's a podcast.

Leave a good review and share it.

Share it with other menu.

You work with.

Friends, family, colleagues, people you know need to hear this.

Love you guys.

Be the man.