The Reality Of What It Takes To Become A Better Man - Jimmy Rex

what does that Marcus aelius quote mean to you you know I think we so many people want to you know say like what is morality what is what is morals what is what is the right thing to do a lot of people look back at their life and think you know did I do good did I was it good at uh did did I do enough things that mattered and things like that and I think ultimately we get so caught up in all these different discussions in the end of the day I say this to the guys that I coach I say hey you know like you know if you're doing good or not like we don't need to talk about it like you know if it's the right thing to do like you already know and so that's kind of to me it's like waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be be one it's just like just do it like you already know what to go do go do it people have this uh requirement to to check how they're getting on right progress you have a progress bar at the bottom of this YouTube video that people will be watching you have a a bank balance account that can tell you how close you are to your saving goal and I think what people are doing a lot of the time is okay what is the plan that I'm supposed to what are the steps what are the guidelines um but yeah ultimately I think it comes down to focusing on action rather than focusing on discos yeah I think when we get caught up too much in checking off a box right or getting too much um into the the details of what we're doing and you know trying to like a perfect morning is not necessarily checking off 10 different things you did right cold plunge I I I took my water as soon as I woke up I made my bed it's like did you wake up and did you have peace did you enjoy it you know I think for me I I try to tell uh you know when I speak about this stuff I I like to think like do you do you enjoy your life do you wake up and you're happy that you get to be you do you wake up and you go you know what I'm excited that I get to go do this again today like I like being me when I wake up and it's like that's ultimately I think the goal is is do you have a happy life like without the details because there's no right way to do life everybody does it a little bit different and I think where we get in trouble is when we think it needs to be a certain way you know there's nothing worse than somebody that says I have the way to make you happy and it's this way or no way I grew up in religion and it's like there's one plan to happiness they literally call it that and it's I think you it causes a lot of expectations which causes a lot of pain I think when you put all that aside and you just ultimately just look at your life and go wait do I enjoy who I get to be around do I enjoy waking up and being me every day are you excited to wake up is one of the best heuristics I think there's a can't remember who it was uh Johnny one of my friends from the UK told me about this Doctor Who said as a man if you wake up with an erection and take a good dump once a day most things are sorted I was like yeah that's not bad but I would add a third one in which is you're excited to get out of bed yeah uh not because you're escaping something but because you're excited to get out of bed yeah what does it mean to be a healthy man in your opinion yeah I think there's a couple main things I think ultimately it starts with there and I think this one there are kind of levels or steps to it a little bit I think ultimately the first step is you can't be a liability to the people around you you know if you're a healthy man uh physically you're able to to do the things that you're able you need to do in a in a day um if your kids need you to step up and you know physically be a certain person for them you're able to do it if you had to carry them because they got injured or whatever else that might be and then I think there's you know financially I think you have an obligation not to be a liability to the people in your life you have to give them enough confidence which gives them faith in their own life and their ability to kind of you know go for it in life because they know they're like you know what I got this guy I got my dad I got my husband whoever that is that allows me to be at peace that allows me to know that life's never going to get too bad cuz I can count on this person and I think to me that's what it means to be a healthy man it's you're not caught up with you know uh these vices or these you know whatever it might be that's holding you back you don't waste your time you have Vision you have a purpose I think with and it's not a purpose like in the sense of like oh I've got to change the world I got to you know all humanity is going to be different because I live no but like the people closest to you the 30 or people that whose lives you can actually infect you show up for them and they know they can count on you and there's a confidence that's built together I think that's what it means to be a healthy man physically financially yeah and then I think those are the two main ones but then I think it's just you know it's having a vision or a mindset where you have a purpose for your life you're You're Building towards something right you have a vision for it you're not just letting whatever comes to you kind of happened to you you're not reacting to the world you're doing it by Design I think that's the best way I can frame it yeah Dr Robert Glover says that uh the three aspects of a healthy man are a man who's comfortable in his own skin knows where he's going and is having fun while he's going there and I think that that's a really lovely breakdown I had a a really interesting conversation with a dude who's a good bit younger than me and you and his community is filled with sort of 13 to 19 year old guys young young dudes they're inter personal development and all the rest of the stuff but so much of the young guy obsess session with how to become a man and what being a man is and and Alpha men sit they don't sit with their legs crossed or you know they they always dress nicely or you know it's all about the jawline and all the rest of it it's like hey dude being comfortable in your own skin is so important like you are just you are there some things like typically that make people more or less competent more or less masculine yeah but like the most competent masculine sexy thing that you can do is just not giving a [ __ ] yeah I'll tell you a funny this is I I wrote about it in the book but it's one of my all-time favorite things that happened to me at my expense that is just hilarious and I'd been studying masculinity I'd been studying how to just be a more masculine man right and I go to this Tony Robbins event his date with Destiny Event and he has I mean there's three 4,000 people there and he has 30 women come on the stage he wanted to show the women dancing and then you kind of cheer for whichever one is the most in their feminine so with women it's very easy to tell when they're dancing you can totally see it you know they're free in their spirit and everything else then he says okay so we all cheer and then pick the two women that you know that win then he says all right now we're going to cheer for the 30 men that are the most masculine come up if you want to try and I go up there because I had studied this so I knew that when you're dancing and your masculine it's not like you're ripping your shirt off and Swinging your hips you're kind of just vibing with the music and going with it so I'm like I think I can win this you know and so I get up there and I'm on the stage how many people you in front of 4,000 dancing in front of 4,000 people yeah yeah with 30 other guys on the stage and there's dudes ripping their shirt off and winging so I'm just vibing with the music and I Chris I think I'm going to win cuz and so they do the vote you know they cheer for each person and I get one of the two or three loudest votes so I'm feeling pretty good about myself and Tony Robins goes okay so you know which of these men is the most masculine he goes none of them because a masculine man would never get on a stage and try to impress a bunch of random strangers I'm like oh my gosh he got me so good I knew it too I was like oh my gosh it was so good I just put my head down in shame I'm just like dude cuz it's so true right like I wouldn't give a [ __ ] if people thought I could do it or not if I was actually in my masculine and so the very Act of getting up there and trying to perform for strangers I lost the whole game before it started it was so good that's an awesome story yeah why do you think it's different for women well I think it's I think we have to really understand the difference between men and women like women are you know men it's about being grounded it's about um not giving a [ __ ] what other people think it's about really just you are so secure in your own self that you don't need to prove anything to anybody whereas for women it's about being free it's about being safe right and I think the problem we have in society right now you know I speak about this in the book a little bit is that women don't feel safe and human beings will do whatever they need to do to feel safe so if a woman's inter masculine God bless her but she had to go there because somewhere in her world she didn't feel safe to be in her feminine and for a woman to be there they have to truly know they're being Hil I compare it to like a river right like a river bank is the masculine and if it's firm and it's strong then the woman can be you know the water and the water wants to FL freely and do its thing and dance wherever it wants to go but it does need to be held so that it has a flow and so that it doesn't spill out everywhere and So at their core women want to have that masculine or feminine women want to have that masculine core to hold them and so when it's not there they either have to become it or it spills out everywhere you see them they're just a mess yeah I uh feeling safe and secure two words that I wouldn't have really used probably up until about six months ago when I started doing therapy and uh it's so the more like once you see it you can't un see it it's like hey the reason that guy or girl I think this is true for for men as well the reason that you don't feel comfortable about opening up about your emotions is that you're terrified about what's going to happen you're fearful about the response that you're going to get if you show an ounce of vulnerability to your partner and the less that you train them to understand what it's like when you're vulnerable the less they're going to be able to accept it which means that eventually if it does burble over spill out of the top you punch a hole in a wall or you break down crying or you do whatever it's such a a harsh change how could you expect this person that's never had any experience with you dealing with you showing emotions and you've gone from zero to a thousand and what you're basically saying is now deal with this but pick up the pieces fix this mess yeah I talked to you know there's this idea of like so I talk a lot about vulnerability and I think vulnerability is a superpower but to your point If You're vulnerable and you don't get back into your masculine afterwards and do something about if you don't hold a frame again then you you you know you kind of lose the attraction of the woman and so what I tell people I say look and what I've learned this as a coach is you can't change anybody like nobody you can't if you're trying to change people good luck all you can do is create a container that's safe whatever that looks like and then you inspire people to feel safe enough to want to be inspired to change themselves and that's really where change happens it's your only job as a coach or a mentor or whatever that might be is to create a container where they truly feel safe to be vulnerable they know they'll be seen they'll be accepted in that state and when people get loved when they've been seen for who they truly are most people have never experienced it and so they've never experienced true love because a lot of my guys will say to me you know they'll say Jimmy I I've never trusted the love I get because I think deep down well if they knew who I really was they wouldn't love me and so we teach them that's why authenticity and vulnerability matters that's why getting into Integrity matters because when you do those things you experience love and they're they're getting it like for better or worse they know who you are and they still love you then all of a sudden you know it's like before that they have a bucket with holes in it but once they truly you know can share that in a safe environment then they feel loved for the first time and fully being seen and all of a sudden they can trust that the problem is if you play a role because you're terrified of opening up and being seen and being authentic warts and all and and and rage and all and all of the things if you don't do that any love that you feel is just going to be Hollow because who are they in love with yeah a character I talking about this with some of my closest Buddies the only people I want to spend time with now is where I can 100% truly be myself without fear of like they're going to judge me for it like there's such a freedom in being completely you how much is that your job and how much is that the job of the people that are around you I think it's your job to create the relationships where that's where you get to show up that way cuz like I have those people in my life where and it's some of them are not my family like some people are not my you know who you would think is my closest friends you're still holding back you're not being truly you but I think true Freedom like that that feeling of like oh my gosh I I don't have to worry about what I'm saying I can be completely myself and they understand it they get me I can even say the wrong thing and they're going to just laugh at me because they already know my heart they know who I am and those to me are the only relationships worth really investing in because that's where you truly get to just feel just be yourself and be at ease and be you know really be vulnerable without worrying that it's going to come back and haunt you later on I came to one of your events I spoke at one of your events about a month ago or so how many people are there 500 maybe 600 5 600 yeah but your community is Thousands thousands and thousands of men and this is not just young guys it's successful CEOs it's blue collar workers it's pastors it's everybody what is unifying those men in terms of their struggles you have guys from very different backgrounds with very different trajectories and very different life situations what are the things that those guys are commonly dealing with yeah so I do two exercises with them when we first get together I'll kind of explain them both because I think it helps explain that so the first one that I do you know I've been to all these masterminds and events and what happens is you get all these people and they're all successful but they kind of start bragging about themselves and they're telling you how cool they are they're talking about their car their job how much money they make their girls whatever it might be and it kind of comes off as you're just like okay dude like whatever it's like ego right but what they're really saying Chris is they're saying hey I promise I'm worthy to get to know please love me like that's look at my Val yeah and but they don't know how to say that so instead they say dude check out this girl I'm dating or look at this car I have you know and so all those kinds of things or start talking about their business portfolio and so what I do the first weekend we get together I have this exercise we do called the badass list and what I do is I make all all the guys they have to make a list of 50 or more things they've done in their life that makes them a badass and then the key to the whole thing is you have to read the list as if you're reading it about somebody else cuz we will give a stranger so much credit but we never give it to ourselves and so when you're reading the list about someone else you're like damn or about yourself but you think it's someone else you're like I'd like to hang out with this guy you know and so we do that but then I had another thing that I experienced or I had a buddy one time and I had look up to this guy for years but he was over at our house one night and he was talking about how he was just down he didn't he didn't feel like he fit in he didn't feel like he belonged with our group I'm like what are you talking about like I've looked up to you dude so we closed the door like eight of us in the room I said dude this is the safest room you're ever going to be in you're just going to brag about how awesome you are tell us all the amazing things and we're going to cheer our asses off for you and so we did it and I just saw this dude like go from an impostor to just lit up and so what we do at our event is I have all the guys read their list and when they're done we all scream and yell like they just won the Super Bowl and so we cheer them on and a lot of these guys say they're like man I I've never like no one usually you know gives me credit for what I do I just go to work all day work my ass off for my family but nobody really appreciates it it felt really good to be cheered you know and so the first time to get together we do that and what they see is like yeah you got this guy that flew in on his jet and he's had a lot of success in business but this guy over here you know stayed with his brother for four years while he was dying of cancer and this dude over here as a single dad has stepped up for his kids and never missed you know one of their events or whatever and so like everybody's worth just like getting to know and so that's the first thing that really puts us all in the same plane um and then the second one that we do it's all in I did a documentary that kind of shares a lot of this because it was really hard to explain why my event was different than the normal Alpha camp and all those things you know but it's it's uh wtvd.com if anyone wants to check it out but and so on that video though um we show this exercise that it's called step in the circle I created this kind of from a different experience I had so I had the opportunity to go to Pelican Bay prison it's one of the most dangerous prisons in America um this where is it uh it's just North of San Francisco how many how many people are in uh thousands but in this particular unit there's this lady named Katherine Hoke and she has this program where she takes these inmates and she has entrepreneurs come and teach them and we did like a shark tank thing where they pitched us and we could have decide to invest in their IDE these are guys on death row like these are dudes that are in there for murder and so this is super super max oh yeah yeah like if you've ever seen Training Day with Denzel Washington there's a scene where he's like I'll send you to Pelican Bay like it's that bad it's like the prison you don't want to go to so we go there and I'm pretty nervous there's about 30 40 entrepreneurs and we walk in and all these inmates there's about a hundred of them and they're free they're not cuffed or anything and they're screaming they're yelling cheering us on and we go in anyway we end up teaching them for about a half a day and then we do this exercise where she put all the inmates on one side about a 100 of them in the 40 entrepreneurs on the other side and she starts asking this series of questions to kind of show a Your Privilege but B that we're all the same and everything else so she'll ask like hey if you had a parent tuck you in at night at least once a week step in the cir or step up to the line and like none of the inmates would but like most the entrepreneurs what and then she's like if you had a family member immediate family member brother or sister die by the time you were 18 years old step to the line half the inmates again none of the entrepreneurs and then she says if you've ever committed a felony step to the line all the inmates like one of the entrepreneurs and all of a sudden she goes I'm sorry I didn't say if you got caught for a felony if you ever committed a felony if you ever been in a fight you could have gotten a felony for that for a lot of these people that's where it starts yeah and so all of a sudden I'm like oh [ __ ] we all step to the line right anyways it changed my life because I just saw like you know these people in a different light forever so I decided to bring this into my own group but I wanted more than obviously everybody's you know entrepreneurs in my group or just normal business people and so I read a series of about 40 questions though and if it you know applies to you I have them step into the circle and it's a way to be seen and a way to like so many people are just they want to share this thing that they're ashamed of like shame festers in the dark again I have a whole chapter in the book about this because I felt that growing up I thought I was the worst human I grew up in a very again religious household and and part of was you know you were I mean we were taught that next to murdering somebody sexual sin was the next worst thing it was that bad it was like there's a lot of Shame around so I didn't even I went into my 30s as a virgin but I had guilt and shame because I want Mormon church yeah because I wanted to you know have sex with girls like and so I knew the mindset of this and so many guys they beat themselves up over so many things that like they just don't need to and so with this game that we played this exercise I'm asking I started out I'm like if if you're afraid you're going to let your kids down one day step in the circle and then you know I go on I'm like you know if you've ever had a a parent die step in the circle if your parents divorce and you're a kid step in the circle and then I started asking some more serious questions I was like if you ever woke up thinking today would be your last day or thought about committing suicide in a serious manner please step in the circle and like half the group steps in all of a sudden it gets real half the people are crying you know and then I can start asking more questions like if you've ever been cheated on step in the circle if you've ever cheated on somebody step in the circle if you need to go home from this event and talk to your spouse to get back into Integrity because of something you've done in the past you've never told her step in the circle 20 guys step in right but we're all balling we're all connected to this moment of like oh my gosh I'm not alone because we think our you know we think our problems are so unique to us it's like we're all deal with the same thing like I'll say if you've ever had a problem with pornography step it's like the whole group right it's like everybody's like that um you know and I and so by the time this is done everybody is on this even playing field like oh my gosh all we need to do is love each other there's no judgment in the room all the people are there to like really support and love each other and I spend the next day and a half prepping them to jump off this giant Cliff that's 400 feet down and they're leaving behind a bad habit negative relationship or limiting belief they have and they you know come back up with a more empowering um you know New Philosophy or whatever belief and it's so powerful man I'll have 10 to 20 guys go home from each event and talk to their girlfriend or their spouse and get back into integrity and because all of a sudden again I had one guy he he uh he was a bouncer he was a former NFL football player he was a bouncer actually for liil NS of all people like and uh and he went to some strip clubs that his wife and him had an agreement that like they were very against doing that kind of stuff and he'd never told her so he goes home from my event and he uh he tells her and he says for four hours she wouldn't talk to him and then she comes up and she loves him and you know she's like thank you for telling me I love you so much and he called me ball and this is a big muscly man he was an NFL lineman and he says man I know for the first time in my whole marriage my wife l me for the first time I know it and uh and so that's kind of the whole reason why I tell these guys like these are the three pillars of everything I'm teaching is vulnerability authenticity and in Integrity because then and only then can you trust the love you get it's not for any other reason than if people truly know like here's who I am here's who you are and they love you in that state for a lot of people they've never felt loved or seen that way and so they'll go to the ends of the Earth for each other and there's just a bond that's formed so fast and I think that's been the secret to my whole program and why you know guys from all walks of life get along so well together talk to me about shame talk to me about how that plays a role how it appears in people's lives that they might not realize yeah you know shame is I'm bad instead of I did something bad that's the you know the first thing I think is very important to recognize you know for me growing up again it was like I just felt like I never could live up and I think religion in general kind of helps make you feel broken so that they you need them you know like you know the Savior or repentance and all these Concepts and to me it's like I get that but like ultimately I believe in a god that is just all loving and understanding and so the very need for like you know needing saved I just don't believe that I think that like when we can wrap our heads around like who God is or what God is or whatever then all of a sudden you're like wait I don't have to beat myself up of course I'm going to fall short like the game is to fail like anybody that's ever gotten good at something had to fail their ass off to get there right your first podcast probably wasn't very good sucked yeah my first one D just to give you an idea uh a buddy of mine I hired his two sons to like help me with the camera and the boom mic I had a boom mic that's hilarious right and uh they were in high school and he came to watch them and I was interviewing this local like rapper dude it was just horrible and I ran out of questions like 12 minutes in and he my buddy starts asking questions to my guest from behind the camera that was my first podcast mine wasn't that bad yeah I mean to give you an idea like but the ultimate the thing is I almost wanted to delete it but it's like I'm 5 70 episodes in now you know I can have on anybody now um I'm interviewing my childhood like celebrity stars you know and people in my life and so but you have to suck to get good and so it's the same thing with life it's like so when you have shame around what you've done you keep thinking to yourself like God like you know if people knew who I was they wouldn't love me or you just don't feel like you're enough you don't feel like you're lovable but when you kind of expose it and you're able to go like hey you know what here's what happened to me here's like my story and we think people will love us less we think think like every guy like that I've ever coached says the same thing like oh man if if people knew who I really was they wouldn't love me and then they tell it and you're like dude what if none of us are worthy what if all of us just are okay because we are you know I think one of the things that's helped me a lot is that I think God laughs at me I think he takes humor in my mistakes and I've just taken this like role of that because I switched my relationship with God where he just appreciates me he appreciates the dumb [ __ ] I do he appreciates the good stuff I do and he's just like he sees me as a character and I think I would think about my kid if I had a kid just always getting in trouble but like trying [ __ ] and screwing it up and all the time just being a jackass but like he's so loving and he's trying his best like how could you not love that person and I think of God like me like thinking of me like that and so for me it really empowers me and so every day I start with a prayer where I go God just lead me to the people that need me and if that leads me to weird things that I do that I shouldn't have done or like just you know being an idiot sometimes then I can laugh about it and just go you know what God appreciates this I'm okay with it and that's the opposite of Shame Shame is where you just feel like you know I'm not worthy of doing this like I can't be the one to do this but like as you've seen the most amazing people are simply people that are willing to take action without knowing it's going to work it's like people that can give themselves Grace when they fall they can you know be okay with you know not having all the answers or not getting it right the first time and so for me shame is what keeps us in this dark place and it festers in the dark and nobody wants to talk about it and so got to find people that are willing to listen to you and not judge you and be able to be curious about why you know anytime you get somebody's story ber Brown talks about this all the time it's like the second you start leaning into somebody you're like oh they're worth loving I've never met somebody that once I leaned in and got their story weren't lovable yeah it's strange to think uh shame is If people could see me they won't love me but by doing that thing people don't connect with you so like the thing that you are fearful of is the thing that you are making happen yes yeah and that's cuz the universe only hears you know like it it the energy of that you're going to repel anybody that's trying to connect and so you're exactly right it's like the thing we want most we avoid giving I always say to people like whatever you want the most of give it away if you want more money give it away if you want more time give away your time if you want more love give away love because what happens is you energetically you let the universe know hey I see this thing in abundance I have so much money I can give it away I have so much time I can donate my time and all of a sudden it becomes this abundant thing in your life as opposed to this thing that you have this scarcity around and this weird energy around yeah I think as well just to kind of really drill home that uh knows where he's going and is comfortable in his skin and having fun while he's going there the like comfortable in your skin thing the the thing that is going to make you I believe the most lovable and the most accepted by people and the most liked uh is going to be your ability to say things that in the wrong hands would make you unlikable like that is the cool thing all of the all of the best friends that I've got we've bonded over I remember what here's one story so Yousef uh been on the show like 50 times who's one of the most common guests one of my best friends in the UK uh he hurt his lower back one time um we both got bulging discs and when you have that it's like your whole back seizes up so the spine the Erectors in in the lower back just lock so that you can't do any more damage to the spine because obviously it's super super important and he just wants to protect you so super painful it's basically impossible to kind of stop happening and he messaged saying that this had gone on and I was like [ __ ] man like I know what you're going through and I was on my way to work I was going to open up one of our events one of our club nights in Newcastle I was like oh okay well I'll tell you what I'll drive to the corner shop that's near his house buy him some malt Loaf and some sort of Gatorade Lucas a things and uh some I believe uh pain like gel stuff that'll help and maybe something else and I texted him and he was like oh don't don't bother coming to see me like I'm laid in bed and I was like I'm coming to see you so like opened the door went upstair and he like could couldn't really walk because it kind of shuts down the way that your body's able to move and uh I think that was the moment that our friendship really really went to another level because I was like look I don't care that you look weak and vulnerable and pathetic and you know you're fragile and broken what I want is to be a friend like I'm here for you I want to do this thing and uh I think about that a lot I think about that gesture from me and he's done similar stuff for me too and uh you go that moment of him being broken was actually the bit where I was like I see Humanity in him I see this part of him that is like that is deserving of love because the person that's completely all just super competent all the time I don't know I I can't really relate with that person well we actually love people that we serve and so a mistake that guys make in dating a lot is they try to do everything for the girl they don't let her do anything for them because we actually love something more when we're invested or we we get to serve them we get to do things for them I tell a story in the book about my best friend Travis and same thing he's like the most goodlook dude he's got the supermodel wife amazing kids seven figure job part owner of a tech company all it just freshing it as a side point every single guy that's a Part of Your Inner Circle that I met has got like 10 out of 10 big titty wives like what is in the water in [ __ ] Utah dude there's some good breeding in Utah it's not bad not bad God Jean Pool what was it that someone taught me that evening Utah's got the hottest single mums in America um you know I've always been grateful for the beautiful women in Utah I will say that like I've been to 106 countries now so I've seen what's out there and I always come home to Utah it's like there's just it really is there are some beautiful women there but you know what's funny about this guy is there was like this little bit of like he's always a little bit too cool right or a little bit too done together not with me but with a lot of people just a little bit intimidated even though he's not that way but dude so one night he comes to us he's about to become a dad he was about a month away and he pulled me and my other two best friends into a room and he says he he starts crying he says hey guys I don't feel worthy of like being a father I'm really worried that I'm not going to be a good dad he said my My love language is words of affirmation can you guys just pour into me a little bit it was so innoc and I was like oh my gosh and yes and we just started telling him how amazing he is and I can get emotional thinking about it because it was like the moment I've never loved him more than in that moment it was like oh this dude does need me like and I need him and you know and like we need each other and it's like oh my gosh like this is such a beautiful thing like he's in his moment of weakness he's asked for support and allowed me to be that for him and that is a different level of friendship there was a I think it was Dr Robert GL again he is on his third marriage now uh and he I think it's like a Mexican lady or some sort of Central American South American lady that uh and maybe he's got enough money for a maid or maybe he's able to take out the garbage there was some sort of normal household chore that he had said to her like no don't bother oh it was ironing the clothes it was ironing the clothes and he was like I'm going to get the ma to iron the clothes and she basically said something to the extent of like I want to iron your clothes like I want to feel like I'm contri to your life and I'm sure that there's uh women listening that are like I [ __ ] don't want know why in his clothes but you know it those active service a lot of the time make you feel like you're contributing to somebody's life yeah well I've I've literally like I've been on dates before where I used to fake like I got a headache one time and I faked like I was fine and it was throbbing and I just tried to power through the date can't let my date know I've got a headache you know and then I kind of learned this concept I was like so the next time I got a headache it was years later but I'm like I'm just going to kind of lean into it I was like Hey I'm so sorry I have the worst headache and she goes here let me rub your head and I'm next thing I know my head's in her lap and she's kind of giv me a massage and she's taking care of me all night and now fell in love like it was no it worked and now you're manifesting headaches when you don't even have one to get yourself into the lap of women but isn't that funny though it's like you know we we think we have to have everything put together but women want to serve like a good woman wants to be contribute she wants to be a nurturer she wants to contribute to your happiness and make you happy and do things for you so this like I've been thinking about competence a lot and how people it's an Allure and an attraction and stuff and I I'm very uh attracted in my friendships and in my relationships to people that are competent people that are able to do stuff and I think that there's too much of a matter around men being competent and women being incompetant I think that it's seen as like that sort of Mastery I need to do a thing thing if you're with a chick that is an unbelievable pickle ball player or he's like a really good driver or something like that like that's [ __ ] sexy that's cool and the same thing goes for a guy where it's like hey this dude crushes in business he's really confident he's in good shape or whatever he can't dance and it's like that's kind of charming like to actually embrace that side of you be like and you know the wife or the girlfriends the that he's out on a date with he's like look I you're going to have to take the lead here like you're the one that can dance I can't and that's cool because your incompetence is polarized against all of the stuff that you crush at and I think that a lot of the time what guys are trying to do is cover up their incompetence with fake competence as opposed to just saying these are the areas in which I am good these are the areas in which I am bad love me for both of them as opposed to like don't see this over here and it's such a it's like a a very fragile tenuous sort of broken view of yourself it's like oh your your [ __ ] selfworth lies on such a knife edge that even the slightest hint of some weakness means that you're now no longer valuable well and it gives women permission to not have to have everything figured out like when you can't do certain things they're kind of like oh I can relax around this guy I can go back to what I said before it's really nice when you can just be yourself right I mean men have to be competent in certain areas like no woman's going to be like oh that's cute if he's incompetent at making money right like inom so cute how you continue to spend a house deposit on gambling right exactly but like when it comes to other things yes it's okay to be like you know one of my favorite things is a woman that's passionately engaged in something she loves it doesn't matter what it is like just if you see a woman and she just loves her thing and she's amazing at it it is beautiful like when a woman can play the piano or you know sings or just yes whatever it is it's just like oh my gosh it's so beautiful to watch and I always say I look for women that are passionate um just like they love to do their things and instead of you know I mean a lot of times we get caught up with the wrong things but like for men there is certain things you want to be confident at but the rest of it the word I like to use is is playful like the most attractive state of man can be in is a playful State because you're you're just it's you're never in a negative emotion when you're being playful taking yourself too seriously you're allowed to just kind of screw [ __ ] up a little bit and kind of have fun with it you know it's in my mission statement for my life is is is to be a playful human because I think it's one of the most important it's like when I was a kid I remember I'd go into my friend's houses and like everyone's had this experience but their parents are miserable and they're just hard to be around you're just trying to stay downstairs cuz the dad just came home from work and I remember thinking even as a kid like man I just want I want to be an adult that's fun I want people to run to me I want people to be excited when I show up oh Jimmy's coming yeah oh that's going to be fun yeah exactly and I believe I've I've accomplished that but that's what I want it's just like where little kids run to you and they're like they know you know I have 200 kids that call me Uncle Jimmy because it's the guys I coach as kids are my best friends kids and I love that I just did an Easter egg hunt for my clients last Saturday for Easter and I have a helicopter come and drop 10,000 eggs on these kids and dude they're full of candy jelly beans and it's so funny I mean kids are getting pelted in the head and but that is like a core memory for a yes but it's like a core memory for a little kid right like the Easter time an egg hit him in the face from a helicopter but I have you know little kids will run up and I had this one lady she came to me during my fireworks show that I do last year and she said my son just said something like say it again and he's like I just want to be like you when I grow up and it's like that's the greatest comp I've ever had like a little kid aspiring to have this F playful life as an adult cuz it's what I always wanted when I was a kid I always wanted to be that and so I've really built a life around doing that you mentioned negativity why are so many people negative as a default there seems to be a culture of cynicism at the moment yeah I think it's hardwired in us like I mean look when you think about humans is their whole purpose is to replicate and survive right and so to survive what are you doing your natural DNA kind of screws you over but it looks for what's going wrong so that it can fix it so it can be aware of it so it can look out for it be danger or whatever it might be and so I think we're hardwired to look for what's wrong it's why we're attracted to the car wreck it's why we're attracted to the news but you have to hijack your own brain and Tony Robbins talks about this all the time but like if you can hijack your brain to look for what's right then you can live in a state of gratitude and he said the way you do that is by being grateful like and so you know one of the my coach my best coach I've ever had she would always just say to me anytime I you know I remember one time this one of my friends had betrayed me and this whole thing and I was so mad and she said where's the gift in this I was like we're not playing this game right now like I get to just pissed for a minute yes she goes no we're not getting off the phone till you come up with 20 gifts I'm like there's not 20 gifts in this but the time I got off the phone with her an hour and a half later I came up with 26 gifts that happen from this moment and so it's like whatever we focus on you we feel we know this but we are naturally wired to look for the negative for look for what's wrong it's just it's it it it's a defense mechanism to keep ourselves alive but but it keeps us from happiness and so it's not just the seeking the negative though that I'm talking about it's also like the promulgation of the negative it's the the downplaying of other people's successes it's the it's the mean comments on the internet where's what's the yeah yeah so that one um I believe so when we see somebody having success so people can look at your podcast they have to say one of two things either wow look what he accomplished he must be amazing or they have to go he must have got lucky and the reason why they say that or they Tred to come at you or they negative is because you have to look your own life and you have to realize okay you either have to change yourself or you got to make everybody else wrong so it's easier to just be like well he must have got lucky or he probably cheated to get there because the opposite of that the the alternative of that is you got to look at your own life and go what do I need to change so I can be successful so I can be rich so I can have a great podcast and people don't want to do that it's easier to try to make the other person wrong and so people naturally default to that person must must have done it you know illegally or that person's not who they say they are they they try to make that person wrong yeah cuz they don't want to change themselves it's more work to you know people don't want to look at themselves and I think really interesting point yeah I think that's why you know Joo will talks about this all the time that extreme ownership is it's the opposite of being a villain like the only thing that's like uh commemorable or like you know that's good about being a victim is is getting over it it's like when you overcome it like that's the only thing that's you know really admirable about being a victim and so people will do anything to fight for that Vic story because it allows them to not have to change themselves if I'm a victim I don't need to change like this is why this thing's happening to me and I can just make everybody else wrong around me like the second you take ownership of your own stuff you got to fix it you got to make changes and that's harder for most people and so they rather just assume everybody else is is wrong you mentioned Tony Robbins bernee Brown you've worked with a ton of coaches you do the stuff yourself can you take me through the most high leverage mantra approaches fundamental Frameworks and philosophies that you've learned from all of the time that you've been doing this coaching is there a few things that you always come back to that are fundamental to your worldview sure yeah you know one of my philosophies and I I kind of talk about the um the formula for transformation in my book there's really five steps to it and kind of goes with this so I'll kind of share that but step number one is you have to take a moral stand you have to decide like you know what's right and what's wrong first off you have to be honest about what you're doing how do you do that um I think we know at our core I think it's just really having self-awareness you know Gary ve talks about that the most important quality a human can have is self-awareness it's just being honest with yourself hey you're not doing the things you need to be doing if you're fat it's not because your genes or because of this or it's because you eat wrong it's because you don't exercise you got to be honest right if like whatever the thing might be so I think that step number one is just being honest and just going okay you know what I I can admit that I'm not doing things I need to be doing or I'm doing things I shouldn't be doing number two is you change your behavior like you have to decide what the alternative to what you're doing is going to we used to live in a world where that was a little bit difficult the skills and the you know the actual information was hard to get it's not now it's very simple there's a million different ways to get it now it's more about executing on what you already know and then the third step is having accountability because it can be very difficult to change on your own and so accountability is you know most of the good coaches dud none of them say anything that's world breaking like I've had people that you know signed up for my program they're like you're not saying anything I don't know I said exactly but I'm holding you accountable to being on the call every week and just the very act of showing up and being here you're going to get inspiration for your own life of what you need to change because you're thinking about what you can do better what you can do differently and so just putting yourself in that environment is creating that change for you or at least that inspiration to know what you need to change um the fourth one is having support that's where my community comes in for me exactly but like everybody like you can't do these things on your own like I tell a story I told at the conference that you spoke at you know we climb out kill Manjaro and one of my buddies that I met on that trip uh this guy kiwi had one leg and he was getting to the top of this Mount and with one leg and I won't tell the full story cuz it take me 20 minutes but long story short there's this former NFL football player Dave vabor that trained him for six seven months leading up to it and the second day we were hiking Dave I was hiking and you know when I talked to the guy with the one leg he said he wanted to you know do it for the other military people that take their lives every day 22 military guys take their life every day he said I wanted to show them they have something to wor you know living for so I'm like damn this is that's a big why this guy's going to get to the top and so I'm talking to Dave the next day and he says look dude it's deeper than that this guy's called me twice his wife has called me twice in the last six months he's had the gun in his mouth and he's like he's he's struggling if he doesn't get to the top of this mountain I think he'll be dead within a couple months I'm like holy [ __ ] she got a lot bigger than climbing a mountain you know and I was like stoked because we were doing it with Jason Kelsey who's kind of become like a hyp stu yeah yeah yeah and like Chris Long these amazing humans that I was excited to meet them but all of a sudden my whole thing was about getting this guy to the top well long story short we get to the sixth day which is when you Summit and the problem with altitude is it doesn't discriminate man you get up there I had we had a defensive back for the Titans that was done he was [ __ ] himself and just all sorts of a mass have other guys that I mean some of the most athletic dudes in the world we had a marine with us that turned back to give you an idea of how difficult this is literally a marine like they don't turn back Vince Young the like one of the alltime college football players the year before he turned back so I mean this is a very difficult hike it's the hardest thing I've ever done so I'm watching Q all night the guy with one leg he's climbing this mountain and he fell hundreds of times keeps getting up keeps getting up we finally we're about 3 four hours behind we get to this false Summit it's about 600 feet from the top and uh if you've ever climbed KY this the hard part is you're now up in the altitude the highest y are and you have to walk for about an hour around the rim basically to get to the actual top and I'm listening to Chris Long who was kind of the guy in charge of our um whole group and this guy named Orca who was in charge of basically all the um Sherpas and stuff and they're like hey man he's done we got to send him down and I'm sitting there and you know I was at the time I was just a realtor I'm like what am I going to say basically you know and so I'm finding I'm looking for my buddy Dave who's like this 65 linebacker just freaking Beast of a man I run up to him I said hey they're they're trying to get Q to go down like you got to do something and this dude comes over and he grabs q and he's like damn it Q you're not done yet we came here to go to the top of the summit we're going to the top of the summit and then he looks at orc he goes he's going to the top he looks at Chris he's going with me we have to carry his ass that's what we're doing we're not stopping 600 ft from the top he goes Q you good he goes yeah I'm good so we end up throwing an arm around this dude and we get him to the top of the summit and it took about two hours and we're all just dying and hurting and it was like I'm balling like watching this you know Dave is there for and I talked about in the book I said who is going to be your Dave Vora like when you're done I mean this guy gave everything it was like he was spent he gave everything he had but somebody in that moment loved him more than he could love himself like somebody said I don't care if you're done we're going to carry your ass from here and got him to the top because he knew what was on the line so that's the whole point of having Mentor so that's step five is find a mentor right having a d Bora having somebody in your world that can help you when you're done that's where your community picks you up and says no we're not done yet dude we're going to make this happen and so that's the formula for transformation that's the whole reason coaching is so valuable and you know the mentorship part the last piece is essentially you want to find somebody that's why I hired Ed mlet to be my 101 coach because you want to find somebody that's where you want to go where you want to be that's been where you are and then you just find a way to create enough value to be in their world and they can compress that time you can skip a lot of the hurdles they had to you know a lot of the grenades they had to fall on for you and you can get where they're going so much quicker and so I just look for people that inspire me for people that are doing things that I want to be doing and then I just figure out how to create enough value to be in their life and that's how I find mentors how I find like people like you man it's like my podcast is like I'm 570 episodes in but I'm like [ __ ] man look at what CRA like I'm so inspired by you're never satisfied you're always pushing you're always doing more you study like the you the way that you articulate things and I'm learning from you I'm like I that's why I reached out to you and I'm like I'm going to get in this dude's world I know how to create enough value for him because I appreciate that he's doing this at the highest level and I want to learn from him I want to be most people become friends with who lives next to him or who you know their kids play ball together and that's their parents I'm like no no who is just killing life who inspires me I'm going to figure out what they're doing because that's going to make my life so much better and so that's where coaching or mentorship and all that stuff comes in I love the idea of being friends with people who believe in you more than you do oh yeah and that's so rare to like okay you want a partner who believes in you more than you do you want friends that believe in you more than you do you want support that is more encouraging than it is pitying MHM it's like look I hold you to a high standard because I know that you can get there I know that you can do this thing and that you can make this work even if you don't that's cool I had a guy come to my I did my launch party for my book last night one of the guys came up to me so three weeks ago we did an event and we did a hike and this dude's out of shape he's the oldest guy in our group he's never he does 3,000 steps a day to give you an idea like that's not very many to the fridge and back a few times and on the way back from the hike we had to carry him like and I pulled him aside I said listen man I said I know how much you love this group but you cannot be a liability we can't ever have to carry you again I said here's the deal 10,000 steps every day if you miss you're out of the group period I love you enough that I'm going to do that to you I will kick you out if you miss you got to text me every day he has not missed a day he came up to me last night at the event gave me a big old hug and he said dude thank you for loving me enough to actually hold me accountable to this it's changing everything like he last night he just literally came up to me last night how cool you mentioned there about um this my Never Satisfied approach I'm really trying to unpack at the moment the difference between holding yourself to a high standard and being grateful for the things that you've done for finding this balance between wanting more and uh demanding high achievement of yourself and yet having the grace and and the the acceptance to um allow yourself a little bit of room if you do fall short or to just know that look no one PRS that work out every single day like that's not the way that it works and that's not the way that life works either have you how have you come to think about this balance between a desire for excellence and Grace when you're falling short yeah I think a lot of it is the energy behind it like where it's coming from so I I tell my guys I say look you're enough and you're capable of much more like I start with that right but so for me and again it's another story from the book but I uh you know when I was a kid my dad really wanted me to get held back in eighth grade to be a star baseball player my brother had been the two time State MVP he's like I'm going to hold you back for a year and then you'll be that much better you'll be able to be a star and I didn't want to I had good friends I you know I was one of the older kids already I was a pretty smart kid So eventually long story short my dad put all this pressure on me to get held back and I told him no and he looked me in the eyes and he said okay well just so you know you're not good enough you'll never play baseball again and all I heard was you're not good enough so I wrote it on my hat brim and I wore that for three years so now as an adult like I know the power of affirmations and words and things I'm like oh my gosh I hadn't seen this hat or thought of it in 17 years but it drove me for 20 years of my life of like not feeling like I was good enough and so I had this NeverEnding ambition just to try to prove that I was worthy that I was enough and it was interesting I was doing a a journey one time with some my friends it was actually my first ever journey and I saw this hat and I had this voice like come to me and it was really beautiful it said this has served you but it no longer does it's time to let it go and I was like oh my gosh like I don't have to prove myself every day I don't have to be the best at everything have to be number one and I did and I kind of just let it go and from that point on it did become much harder at first to find my motivation to do things because you're not running away from something exactly because it was coming from fear of not being loved right so it wasn't until I came up with my new motto which is the name of my company we are the they that I fully like was coming out of doing things out of love so now I work harder than ever and I'm more ambitious than ever but it comes from a different energy for me and so it feels healthy it doesn't feel needy it doesn't feel like I have to do it I just want to do it and I think that's the difference like I don't there's no need to do this it's like I want to give everything I have to this because of what it's doing but it no longer feels like if I don't like if I stopped tomorrow I wouldn't feel like I was a failure I wouldn't feel like I let anyone down it was like that thing was so beautiful while I did it and so I think the energy that you come out something with is a is a big indicator yeah there's sort of two elements there that I think about a lot the first one being lots of people have I did when I was younger are concerned that if if I gave myself too much grace and too much room and didn't castigate myself when I fell short that I wouldn't be driven to go and do great things and I think that that's just a fundamental misunderstanding about how your drive works for the people who want to do great things it's not you couldn't turn that furnace off if I [ __ ] paid you like you so obsessed with that idea correct they they love they all they want to do is become better they want to improve they want to contribute they want to crush it Whatever It Is they're obsessive that you know they they work hard and you think that by allowing yourself to feel a little bit of pleasure or gratitude or to give yourself some Grace if you don't succeed that that's going to dampen that down absolute [ __ ] and then on the second side of that let's say that giving yourself a little bit more room and a bit more grace did reduce down your drive let's say that it did do that what have you gained and what have you lost like you are sacrif iing the thing you want happiness for the thing which is supposed to get it which is Success so if you are able to make yourself happier without chasing success that's a w as well it is like if you're okay so ultimately what we're looking to try and Achieve I think in life is like enjoyable emotional states I think that's broadly what it is you just want to feel sort of peaceful and alive right okay well if that's the case I can get there from a million different routs I can maybe get there by hitting new subscribers numbers on my channel I can get there by having sex with lots of women or I can get there by raising a family or I can get there by succeeding in business or I can get there by racing cars fast or whatever it is whatever the thing is that makes you do that okay but what if there was a quicker route what if there was a shorter route what if you didn't need so much stimulus outside of it what if instead of trying to go faster with the successes you took the breakes off all of the the shame and the guilt and stuff that is sitting around you that's driving you to do that in the first place either of those seem like a win to me but certainly releasing the break before you press harder on the accelerator like that's the smart approach well going back to Marcus early is one of the reasons why I love the stoics and you know and and those Emperors and those people because you know their whole idea was not to need more it was it was being okay with less it was like when you need more stimulus so you need more accomplishment to to feel that way you're in a you're in a little bit of a tough spot right I one of my you know favorite things that I've learn is like there's three things that money can't buy and that's a peaceful mind a healthy body and loving relationships it's why people go nuts because they don't have any of them and it's where they get in all their trouble because they're trying to buy those three things but you have to earn those you have to go out and get those and I think those are ultimately the three things that bring you fulfillment and you know Tony Robbins again but he says success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure and that quote is just driven in me success without fulfillment is that mean to you it means you can win the whole world but if you're not happy about it then you're just that much bigger of a failure like you the key is happiness the key is fulfillment it's not what you can acquire what you accomplish or what you do it's like are you at peace like do you actually enjoy your life do you wake up and you're just happy to be you you know and for some people um you know I used to live in Mexico for two years and I was I was on the board it was a very interesting time because I got to see the contrast of people coming across the border from the US they were always trying to you know consume or get something or come buy something or they were just and they were so miserable and mean and these people in Mexico that literally I mean dirt Floors ouses N kids in a living room sleeping and they were so happy and content and I'm like which one of these people is successful it's not the people from the US coming across the border I can promise you that and so ultimately I think you know if you're not happy with little you're not going to be happy with more just money is going to magnify it and and so like in life success we you say this as good as anybody but like you chase this thing but you give up the things that really make you happy for the success and you're hoping the success will make you happy it's like no no you were there like just sacrificing the thing you want for the thing that's supposed to get it exactly see it so much and I see it in myself as well it's like is there a quicker route to this there's a an interesting cue that one of my friends gave me while we were in the gym so we doing uh like high side plank so when you've got sort of one hand down on the ground one foot on the ground and the other hand's up and it was in the middle of some awful metcon and I'm like 25 minutes in and he's super fit and I'm like I bro I do push P legs now like I'm on the I'm on my bro split era I'm in my rich piano years I'm not I'm not doing this stuff and uh I was like sweating and shaking and like sort of grunting to to myself and you know like really sort of gripping hard and he shouted over and said hey what would this be like if it was easier I was like that's interesting what would this be like if it was easier I was like well I'd smile and I'd like sort of grip less hard because it's not really helping my performance I'm like digging in where I need to but I'm not actually having that much fun and the other day I was playing pickle ball and it was mixed doubles and the chick that I was playing with we we were 22 best of five and the I sort of walking back to the baselines we about begin the fifth game and I'm like so um the her forehand is like a little bit D so like to keep it on her backhand and it doesn't seem like he's driving so when we drive we need to come up to the net together at the same time we need to do the rest she like yeah yeah yeah and also let's not forget to have fun I was like yeah that's too yeah yeah yeah very good very good thank you and it's like the what is it like men will try and win a totally arbitrary pickle ball game rather than go to therapy like that and it's that compulsion and you catch yourself and you go what if this was easier what if this was more fun what if what if it's not about gripping on to things really hard what if it was about kind of just allowing things to happen yeah I think a lot of people they almost feel like real I was in real estate for almost 20 years and so I you know I sold almost 3,000 houses and I would see Realtors do this all the time on the other end of the deal they just try to make problems I don't know if they were trying to justify their commission or they just needed it to be difficult because that's the way they are in life but they would just cause problem after problem and I can't tell how many times I said listen I need you to just do nothing like literally sit on your hands for two days when you pull them back out go grab your check and cash it for $14,000 but you need to stop like you were causing issues that don't exist but they almost needed it to be difficult to try to justify their own purpose or their own existence within it you know yeah I've got a great story about this so they did a a study with TSA agents uh and they I think it was like a a training uh scenario but using the current uh technology so they had pretend passengers come through and over time the passengers had fewer and fewer infractions up to the point where there was none there was zero infractions right the job of the TSA guys is to find people who are not who are contravening the rules and in the beginning sure enough they're finding stuff pulling bags to one side opening them checking them so on and so forth and over time fewer and fewer people broke those rules so you would assume that the TSA agents were allowing more and more people to go through but the ratio stayed the same so as there were fewer problems their scrutiny for problems increased it's like there's this sort of Baseline level of how much work I need to be seen to be doing and they're optimizing to fill that as opposed to the actual thing so the they're using how many people do I pull to one side as a proxy for how secure am I being but that's not necessarily what it is same thing happens if you're on a group Zoom call I hate Zoom calls that have got any more than two people on them because uh any more than three maybe you end a call and everyone's agreed on something a new piece of artwork that you're going to put out for a business or a new email campaign or whatever it is that you're doing and you get to the end of the call and if everyone's just been like do you know what I love that that's really great that's really great that's really great person number seven goes yeah but what about and it's like oh [ __ ] dude it was fine it was fine but there's this sense that if we don't push back against something we're not working it's like this can't be that easy and sometimes you need to continue to push and there are people that push that limit and I'm definitely that guy when it comes to the can design it took like a million different versions but there are other areas where you're like good that's good Let It Go yeah I think we see this with you know police officers a lot of times it's like the good cops are their whole job is to just create community and and to like make sure there's no problems but like when there aren't problems they start to kind of create the problems I've seen this in my life a few times and you're like dude go away like everybody's fine you know like we did this the government did this with you know with the whole Co thing it was just like they just created so many issues and problems and I think it's justify all these people to have purpose you know Joe Rogan talks about this on his podcast about the homeless problem in California and there's so many people they create a bigger homeless problem because they all have to justify their multi6 figureure incomes and so they just they don't want to fix issues and all of a sudden we either create problems that don't exist or we make make you know a problem that exists like harder to solve than it needs to be because we're almost just trying to like create enough value of our own self-worth or our need for us to be there how do you come to think about fear and the role of fear in a man's life I think that fear is one of the biggest things that holds people back um uh you know but I think it's I think fear is it's an emotion of itself it's not good or bad I think it can teach us a lot I think it can help us a lot but ultimately you know I think you have to get a healthy relationship to fear when you understand when you can feel the fear and you go okay I know it's happening I'm feeling afraid like so when I was in college I remember there's this cutest girl in the cafeteria of of where I went to school and I didn't go talk to her and it was beating me up for like two days I was so mad and I was like you know I'm going to make a rule no matter what when I see a cute girl from now on I'm just going to approach I got 3 seconds to go talk to her period And I spent the next four years doing that very thing and I mean you just overcome any fear of doing that thing with my guys in the coaching program again our first weekend together I have them jump off this giant Cliff um you know I'm taking 25 guys to Africa next week we're doing bungee jumping off a bridge into a river the zambesi river we're doing this Gorge rope swing I'm taking them to just do some crazy things we're doing whitewater rafting where there's like crocodiles in the water and stuff because when you get over that initial feeling of like oh no I can't do this like I make them Skydive I make them walk on hot coals all the above Cliff jump all of it because every time you overcome that fear your ability ability to to hear it to feel it and then to overpass it becomes that much easier so I have one guy he had never done anything scary in his life and he had a really crappy relationship with his son but he' never had a real conversation with him he' never actually sat down and so we taught him the skill of like being a little vulnerable first and so instead of being like what's going on with you are you upset being like hey man I remember when I was 14 here's something that was hard in my life I don't know if you're experiencing something similar so all of a sudden he's connecting right but then the kid opens up because the dad like but the dad had this really tough conversation they're starting to heal this relationship because the dad finally leaned into his own fears like if I can get you to jump off a cliff I can get you to talk to your kid if I can get you to swim with tiger sharks then I can probably get you to have a tough conversation with your boss or I can have you you know I got guys that when they start my program they haven't had sex with their wife in over a year and they don't talk about it like how have you not discussed this it hasn't even come they're afraid to even approach it for fear like what are you going to lose like you're already not having sex like you can't go worse than this that was kind of how I approached the whole thing with talking to girls I'm like if I don't go safe something I've already I'm at my worst case scenario right now like my worst case is the thing that you're afraid of happening is already happening yeah it's like if I don't go say anything I've already lost like I didn't connect but anyway and so I think with fear I think the key is putting yourself in in positions where you know and a lot of things have the appearance of fear but they're not actually dangerous you don't want to put yourself in actual dangerous situations right you don't want to go 150 on the freeway you don't want to drink and drive you don't want to you know walk around the wrong place at the wrong time of night but like ultimately if you can put yourself in healthy uh situations like I had a guy today because I was coming here to do this podcast I run my weekly call I called one of the guys he's never hosted a coaching call I said hey man I'm going to have you do the call today and he's retired he's killing life but he's never publicly spoken I had it was all about finance and he text me afterwards on my way over here to the podcast he said that was so empowering thank you like you know he did something was really scary for him but his ability to do that now going forward is going to be so much easier and so every time you lean into the fear it's you get a little bit better and bit better at doing that and everything we want really is on the other side of fear like leaning into the thing that we're afraid of that's where your work needs to get done and so I just I just encourage people to always have the tough conversation share the thing that you think you're you know what makes you the most Unworthy of being loved like that's what people are the most afraid of and that's where my program I get them to do you know I mean guys will talk about stuff like I had one guy get up in front of our group after a breath work session and he said he starts balling he says I've never shared this before but um he said even this week I had a gun to my head he said I've been suicidal for 5 years he said 5 years ago I convinced my girlfriend to get an abortion I didn't think we could handle taking on the kid he said I've never forgiven myself he said it's even worse I gas let her into thinking it was her fault her decision and uh he said it's been hard and he now has three kids with her they've got married since he's like I've never forgiven myself well in the breath work session he talked to the you know unborn child or whatever and said hey it's all good like you know you did what you had to do to feel safe probably and uh anyway so he gets up and shares with us he say I've never shared this outside of my wife no one knows and he shares it with 50 guys in a room in a cabin and instead of being judged everybody just sarms him and loves him and he you know another gave another guy permission he said hey I did the same thing you know I I convinced my girlfriend to get an abortion and all of a sudden this thing that he was carrying so much shame for that he was literally about to take his life for all of a sudden he was like he no longer had to be afraid of people knowing that about him cuz he saw it he felt it and he he felt immediate love and and just empathy for a guy that was you know obviously not the best choice in the moment but did what he felt like he needed to do at the time and so um I think anytime you get people to share I've had probably a dozen guys get up and talk about being molested as kids that they' never shared it and they have they go home and they tell their wives who never knew I had one wife called me she's just balling and she says I'm so sad he had to go through this by himself thank you for creating a space for him to just talk about this she just B she was on the side of the road just crying and she's just like I'm so sad he's just been going through this by himself they're marriage is just a 100 times better than it ever was but it's because the thing we fear the most the thing we're afraid of once you actually share it or lean into it you're just it's okay like and most of the time 99% of the things we worry about or we're afraid of they just never actually have any reality to them so you know it's the old saying like we die a thousand deaths the coward dies a thousand deaths because every time you your body doesn't know the difference between the reality or it happening like when you die it's going to be pretty damn fast like you know it's just but if you are always worried about it or worried about that thing then you experience it as if it happened to you it's why when you watch a scary movie you actually feel the intensity of if you were they're in the room it's the same kind of concept it seems like one of the powerful tools that you're using here as Community but we're hearing a lot about loneliness both for men and women but I think specifically for men uh I think the highest risk group of suicide in the UK it may also be in the US as well is men sort of aged 45 to 55 and I think that's probably a good siiz chunk of of the guys that you work with what have you come to think about the male loneliness problem in the modern world also rolling down to you know Millennials gen Z as well and the their problems with screens yeah it's huge man I mean we saw this during the pandemic you know I uh I believe that the devil divides us and God gets us together like I just think we're always better off being around other humans you know when I launched my program I only wanted to have 50 guys and I didn't know if I'd be to fill it so I launched it November 1 2021 and I gave myself a month to start it so I didn't start till December 3rd because I needed a month to sell it it was like 50 guys it's not the cheapest program so I was like man I hope I can get enough guys you know I knew if I worst case I can sell I'll get on the phone and you know call my friends dude I had 147 people apply for the 50 spots in eight hours I didn't get to do 90% of my marketing I was like oh my gosh I have stumbled across something here and the reason I knew to start this program you know I'd been selling real state for 17 years and it was actually almost 5 years ago I sold the most expensive home ever in Utah it was $32.5 Million like in Utah I sold basically it was a couple mountains with houses on it I it was crazy sale it was the you know it took me seven years of my career to sell my first home over a million in 20 minutes I sold a house for 32 A5 million like I hit the peak of my career and it kind of felt a little bit empty because I knew I could do something more impactful but it was interesting cuz I had no idea what it was going to be I spent about two years working on it trying to figured out what do I want to do how do I want to help people and it came to me like I the reason it came to me is is men kept reaching out because of my podcast and previous book I'd written and they kept saying the same thing they kept saying where do I find a group of friends like you guys have I want to find friends like you they don't exist in my world and I started watching a couple of my nephews and they didn't have close friends like I did like I had eight best friends since high school to this day we're all best friends I'm going to clim uh uh in June and the mountains in in Congo and in Uganda to go look at Gorillas with with a bunch of them like we're best friend the the Windy impenetrable Forest um I think it's called the some no I don't think that's what it's called but I went to Uganda to see gorillas the and P probably is yeah I just know it's Uganda so and uh I think Rwanda too but anyway the place it's the place I'm talking about yeah you stay in Rwanda you go to Uganda for one night yeah it's the same place that I went to cool so to this day though we get a trip once a year like two of them came to my party last night you know like they are my closest friends and I mean we've been together since we were 12 and I look at a lot of the younger generation they don't have that anymore it just doesn't you know the society doesn't really favor them like it did for us there was you know they have so many things that unfortunately distract them so much noise out there but so for me that was how I knew I needed to start a men's group because it was like oh that's who that's who I can help it's like these guys that just don't even know where to find community and I always took for granted how easy it was for me to you know make friends and so I just always had friends but it was like oh damn like I know how to teach this I know how to go deep with my friends I know how to quickly create very unique Bond where we really care about each other we get to know each other we get to see each other and so that was kind of really what gave me cuz I kind of felt like an impostor too before that like what am I going to coach people but once I knew it was that I was like I know exactly how to show people how to make friends and so that became my whole motivation how can people be more decisive I think indecision is something that kind of traps you in a way that can also then cause shame because it's it's just an action right just do do a thing do do do make a decision about this thing and and move yourself toward it and yet people can be caught for years decades in oh yeah thinking about this decision and not doing anything to move it toward their goal yeah I mean indecisive enough is going to indecisive will cause you more problems than almost anything else that you do like it really will because I mean when was the last time you made a big decision and totally regret it it's very rare you do because usually the lesson you got or the outcome you got is it was worth it um you know on their deathbeds they've tested people they've talked to people about this they've done all these surveys and everything and it's people don't regret the decisions they made I mean talk to any girl that got knocked up in high school she doesn't regret it she's got her kid now you know what I mean very rarely I mean if they're just a horrible person but like for the most part nobody regrets the things they did they don't regret the decisions they made they regret when they had an idea or they had a thought or they needed to get out of a job they need to get out of a marriage they needed to get into a marriage whatever the thing and it's you know it's because the universe will very rarely reward you for procrastinating very rarely but it always rewards you for taking action quickly so often like it's you know and again I had Ed milet speak at our conference that that I had you at and he said he said there's a quality of the most successful people where they're just have an ability to take action not needing to know that it's going to work he said they all do the same thing and there's you know it's funny cuz as you've gotten into this world I'm sure you've met plenty of people that are doing very well on stagram or the internet world or whatever else and they're not any different from the people that aren't doing it the thing that they have the quality they have is they're just have this unique ability to go you know what I'm just going to do this and they just continually do it I mean the reason why your podcast is Big the reason why mine got big is because consistency it's just you're six 700 episodes in of course it's people start listening like you but when you were afraid to I think what is people are afraid to suck they're afraid to look dumb they're afraid to you know be bad at something and it's like no if you can embrace the suck and you can look at failure is not trying then all of a sudden you Empower you to do everything like I've tried so many things and I quit after like two weeks or a month or two months like I tried piano lessons and all these other things it's like oh I suck at that and I don't want to I'm not good this fun I thought it was going to f cares right so like when I was a kid it was funny not a kid but like when I was in my 20s I I did a TV show I had a meat company we sold steak and chicken door to door um I had a Christmas light business uh I had just all these crazy jobs and what was funny Chris is all of them like to the outside world they're like did you hear what Jimmy's doing like Jimmy's doing a TV show Jimmy's doing this meat company and I wasn't making money on any of them like they all were a quote unquote Financial failure but I got so much credit from people they were so um like they were just really admired that I was willing to try things and so I learned thankfully in my young 20s that the reward was in trying it and so for me it really empowered me to just go for it with anything because I got rewarded for that even when it failed financially and I think most people they think oh this Fells financially it's like I'm going to and I I like to talk to people I said look one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to go to Rock Bottom because you get down there and you realize it's not that bad like when the real estate market collapsed and all these other things happened in my life I was dead broke I didn't I Not only was I broke I was in debt up to my eyeballs I had two homes that I had to take the loan on that no longer existed I mean I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt I was like 25 and honestly life was pretty good still and it was so empowering because I'm like like if this is my worst case scenario then I'm going to send it and I'm not going to worry about it because when you've been there and you just realize it's not that bad then it can be very empowering to to Really push you past that point because people that's the only reason why people you know they they're playing defense they they're so afraid of losing this life they don't even like uh I'll tell one quick story there's this guy this guy in Tennessee this doctor hit me up he's got six girls six daughters and uh he hit me up and he said I need to come out to you I need to meet you I've been listening to your podcast for two years you're my guy I need to talk to you I all right come out so this guy comes out it's about 3 years ago and we go to lunch he says Jimmy he said you know when I was young I had the love of my life and I went on a Mormon mission for two years and when I got back she we wrote each other every week and we were going to get married but my dad said I was too young to get married so I broke up with her he said I regreted it every day since she was the love of my life but 5 years later I was still single and now I was kind of panicking that I was single so I just got married to get married he said I was never really in love with my wife and then she started getting mad we had a couple girls a couple kids and she got mad at me because um uh we weren't making enough money so she wanted me to be a doctor I never wanted to be a doctor so I goes so I became a doctor he's but I'm a terrible doctor I hate being a doctor he said he's like a foot doctor he said the only um the only people I can work on are the people that are like on hospice because they send me out because no other Hospital would take me because I'm terrible at it and he's like I need I'm just drowning I'm miserable I've never made one decision that's mine my whole life and I said dude well then make a decision I said why are you hanging on to this like I told him he needs toip qu being a doctor first off I said the only reason you're still being a doctor is cuz you there's a part of your ego that likes to tell people you're a doctor I said but you're miserable doctor so what the hell like it's not what's the point you know and he wanted me to help him kind of find a new thing and I said the second you quit and tell both me and the universe that you're serious about change then I will absolutely turn over mountains to help you with what's next but you got to quit first being a doctor because you're hang on to this thing and like people will just hang on to these things that make them miserable and they don't do them any good but they're so afraid of the change they're so afraid of the known it's like I used to work at the Center for Women and Children in crisis and it was a bunch of battered women I think I had 150 women come through and 150 went back to the guy that beat him and what I realized is um that part of us that's just trying to Keep Us Alive it knows so these women knew they could survive the abusive relationship which was a sad sad thing because it wasn't a good thing but they knew they could survive it and that was less scary than the unknown of what would it would be without and so humans again will do whatever they need to feel alive to stay alive so these women even though it's a horrible situation we're not wired to for happiness we're not wired for a good life we're wired to stay alive and if they knew they could survive that most people will stay in that place even though this doctor's miserable these women were getting battered then the unknown of what's next the idea of real failure being not trying is a lovely frame I had a audio book I'm not a Tony Robbin Stan I'm not deep in his work Al I'm starting to get into it more and uh a friend sent me it's a weird version of an audio book it must be like an audio workbook from awaken the giant within it's only about an hour and a half long and I'm pretty sure awaken the giant within is like 10 hours long or something uh and he was like hey just give this a listen for me and and and and let me know what you think uh and he has a framework for making decisions you may you may even be familiar with this already but he basically says look at what the situation that you're in now has cost you in the past look at what the situation that you're in now is costing you right now and look at what it will cost you in the future so frontload as much pain as you can he talks pain Pleasure Principle so you're struggling to make a decision load as much pain onto this particular decision as possible what's it cost you before how much life have you lost how much time have you spent ruminating about it how shameful do you feel about what's it costing you now how much of your day is spent with you thinking about this thing what's it going to cost you in the future how much is it going to hold you back how much is life how much are you going to regret it in the future if you don't make this decision and then he said now turn it up to 11 find go on the internet and find stories so my friend my friend that was doing this wanted to stop biting his nails so he thought about all of the times in the past that girls had sort of like turned away because his hands weren't sort of nice and attractive and he thought about how much shame he found now and about how in the future you know as he's getting his wedding ring put on he's going to have this hand that he doesn't feel very is cool and then he went on the internet to really dial it up to 11 and he found the most awful photos that he could have people that had sort of Bitten their nails down and he really really sort of sat in it and then he did the opposite and he thought about okay and how much pleasure would you get if you overcame this thing it's this Vice that he's had for 20 years and he's thinking right well you know think about how proud I would be and how cool it would be when I hold hands with my girlfriend and like how attracted she's going to be to me when I do all of these things I was like that's a really nice frame to think about front load as much pain and then front load as much pleasure but he Robins just has this really great analogy where he says a decision isn't a decision until you've taken an action to move yourself toward it so a lot of the time people say I've decided I'm going to leave my job like have you what's that mean what does I've decided I'm going to leave my job mean well I'm going to leave my job okay when yeah well in the future okay so what if you decided you've decided nothing like that's it's it's it's literally nothing and maybe if you want it to be like lexically precise you can make a decision like I can decide that from here I'm going to go and get an ice cream after this like in some way it's it's true but functionally it's totally false and I think that optimizing and changing your definition of making a decision to when I make an action that moves me toward it so it's and this can be small because you think okay so what you just want me to quit my job as soon as I feel like I should quit my job that's a lot but something like I'm going to schedule a meeting with my boss anyone can schedule a meeting with their boss it's like okay well that's I've taken a step toward doing it that's me actually moving myself toward doing this thing uh and just that reframe that reframe of there's no such thing as a decision until you taking an action that moves you toward it yeah I tell you know the guys I coach I say anytime you make a new decision or a goal or whatever it is you have to take a actual action in the moment towards it or else it doesn't count so like if you decide you're quitting alcohol you need to go to your house you need to pour all the alcohol you have down the drain like get it out of your house how big of a problem is uh is alcohol for your guys not much to be honest that um most of the guys you know I grew up again and I had my first drink at 34 so I grew up in a very alcohol was like you just didn't do it right like at all and so it interesting when I was 32 is when I kind of left that religion I kind of thought to myself like well I'm not going to start drinking now what kind of loser starts drinking at 32 you know but then a couple years by I'm like wait how do I honestly feel about this is this my own decision or is this just the way I was wired to believe and so I started drinking and you know what I do is take a few months off every year um you know at our events I allow seltzers but not anything else CU I'm like you can only get so drunk on a Seltzer um but it's like definitely not a place to you know drink drink but you know I mean look like alcohol is one of those things that have the weirdest you know relationship with because it is the devil in so many cases and it is not good for you and you will make worse decisions and you're very rarely going to be better off because of it and it also can to be such a beautiful thing to break down barriers and egos and walls and things like that like I've had some of my most amazing nights drinking with friends right where we're just more at ease and so I try not to put anything like that's like a must um there's only been one or two guys that have had a problem with alcohol and we just pull them aside and we love them enough to say hey man we love you we're worried about this let's make a change and do something differently but in my particular Community it hasn't been too big interesting I I certainly feel like we've turned a corner with alcohol use among younger people in the last decade so when I think about when I went to University which is like what 18 years ago uh and it was classic Larry ly British drinking culture right like drinking is our national sport and I think that maybe for older Generations which is why I was interested in in your guys' group because you do have like a good chunk of like men as opposed to young guys and uh I thought I wonder where that's gone and I'm I'm really glad I'm really glad that it seems to be dissipating because as a person that's tried quite a lot of drugs alcohol ranks quite low down in the ones that are enjoyable yeah you know it's interesting here's I have this philosophy that it's kind of new but I'm working on I want to research it some more but I think the alcohol companies screwed up when they started really marketing to the women and girls because over the last 25 years alcohol use amongst women and girls has totally ticked up and it's drastically higher they you know really made it popular to you know drink with the you know the the um the brunches and like all these different wine get togethers for women I think men see women drinking and it's more obvious that drinking is a problem I think when men see men drinking sometimes we just feel it's part of being a man it's just Jimmy he has a be yes but I think where they screwed up and I think is where getting a lot of Kickback now because there is this huge push a lot of the influencers a lot of the people that you know there's a lot of doctors that are like hey you're poisoning yourself like stop it and and so I think there is this new belief and Al it's the rise of other things like you know plant medicines that um you know up your frequency Asos lower shroom all day yes exactly same and uh it's funny in Utah um they just legalized therapy for MDMA and psilocybe and through a couple hospitals W yeah and we were pushing really hard to help that I mean I've this tattoo on my finger was the first time I ever did plant medicine it was the dead I mean my life just like everybody just changed my whole life and so like once you've done that and you realize wow there's another a higher frequency you can be at going to those lower frequencies like alcohol really doesn't hit the same way and so I think that alcohol has a definite problem as far as that they're going to be in trouble with their marketing because people are waking up to like this is a poison this is this is has a lot of is kind of not that cool uh anymore and it's very strange you know if you to think and this might be my bubble you know there might be people may see things differently and I'm sure that in different areas of the country and different friend groups and whatever but I really think that we've turned a corner with it and if you'd said that to me 18 years ago I would have been like are you mad like this is the drug there's a a hypothesis about human culture called the beer before bread hypothesis which is that it was easier to grow grain to make beer than it was to make it to grow bread to to create bread and uh the idea being that his some interesting stuff actually about alcohol so one of the interesting effect that it has it reduces your ability to lie because the PFC prefrontal cortex gets tuned down a little bit so your capacity to keep all of the different plates spinning of your elaborate like construction uh they don't exist so much but interestingly it makes people better lying detectors so you are better at detecting deception when you're drunk than When You're Sober and you are worse at deceiving when you are drunk than when you are sober so it's this perfect exactly exactly correct so people are more hyper tuned to it um and uh I thought wow those that's that's really interesting like that's a function that this thing has and it's evidently been super important to the development of human civilization but you also have a big corner I think that gets turned in the Middle Ages when coffee houses became a thing because during the middle of the day as opposed to going and drinking with your friends and having beer or ale or something you would be able to go and have something that actually enhanced your cognition instead of DED it and yeah I my point being it's been such an important part of human civilization forever for as long as we've had civilized culture and for you to go yeah and that's kind of going to become uncool and pushed back against I would have never predicted well think about when we were kids right smoking was cool it was and smoking became the least cool thing you heard Mark Norman's joke about smoking he's like that basically smoking's been swapped with weed and that if someone saw you down an alleyway smoking a cigarette and they were like what are you doing and you be like uh killing a hooker and he's like it's true though but you know and that happened I smoking when you were a kid every you know like all the old movies from the 60s and 70s they were always you know Marlon Brando whatever it was they always had a cigarette it was just the cool thing to do now it's like you're gross what's wrong with you and so I think the same thing can be happening with alcohol you know the gift of my life was not drinking till I was 34 like I never became dependent on it never became a vice it never became something I needed to mask a emotions I think I kind of accidentally nailed it with alcohol cuz I'll drink it when I celebrate or with homies or whatever but like it's just not a theme very intentional yes I've never had a bad experience drinking like if I'm being honest dead well actually I had one you want to hear yeah sure dude well so my first time I ever drank I was undercover I used to go undercover with a group we'd go help rescue kids being sex trafficked in foreign countries and I'd never drank so we're in this strip club bar in you know Latin America and one of these traffickers brings us a thing of beers me and my buddy and I've never drank so I'm like [ __ ] if I drink this am I going to spill the beans that were undercover like I have no idea how I'm going to think how funny you would you have no idea what the effect of zero and I'm 34 it's embarrassing one beer going to destroy me yes so I take the bear and like nothing happens right I'm like oh [ __ ] and so then I'm like well okay so when we go home from that trip I'm like okay I do want to try drinking now but I was like I don't want to get drunk and not know how to act so funny that your introduction to alcohol was through a sex child trafficking guy czy right I know I know well it's like you can't say no to a bear if you're undercover you know pretending to do that so I end up um I end up deciding I'm gonna get drunk by myself so I know how it feels so I buy one of everything dude I've I've buying rum whiskey you know all of it and I end up taking about five six drinks and I don't really feel anything yet I'm just by myself on my couch so I'm like well try some more I try every dude I probably took 15 drinks and I wake up I'd blacked out I probably almost killed myself literally the first time I actually drank people would have found me and got my alcohol level they' been like he must have been so depressed it was literally an experiment bizarre self experiment yeah I know and I didn't want to drink again for like a really long time because it was just I felt so awful but yeah that was the uh only time I've had a real negative experience drinking but it was bad I was so stupid but yeah I just didn't know you know it's interesting the whole thing with when we would go undercover though um you know the guys I went with the same thing none of them had ever drank either cuz we all kind of like had grown up in the same religion and all that kind of stuff but yeah it was a it was a trip man if if I had only one bad story from drinking alcohol that would be I I would have to get rid of 999 because you know I had a I was in the trenches for a while one of the other things I've been thinking about a lot and I know that you think about this is presence like having your mind rest where your feet are and it seems that that's increasingly hard to achieve we're permanently distracted we're always thinking about the next thing we're in our dopamine versions of ourselves as opposed to the serotonin versions of ourselves how do you advise people to become more present yeah it's funny you said that's my word of the year is presents so you know every year I do a word and try to like really focus on that um so in fact the last time I was at this studio I was with Stefanos sfanos and he was the first one that mentioned this to me but he said you know God speaks to us uh through soless and silence and so we really we live in a world where we're so we really are plugged in and so he would encourage me to spend two hours a week just by myself in nature with no phone and so I started doing it was so hard much harder than I ever thought and last year about the beginning of July I ended up I decided I was going to rent this cabin uh at Sundance Utah it's where they do the Sundance Film Festival and stuff beautiful in the woods River the whole thing and I didn't take my phone for two days I just sat at this cabin and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done dude and I literally it was funny I didn't miss Facebook I didn't miss Sports I didn't miss my friends I missed being connected it felt like I was unplugged from everything and I was like oh my gosh we literally are plugged into this thing that really is like a matrix and so I've really tried to work on this idea of just you know you know it took me almost two years of trying to meditate before I could get to 20 minutes before I could sit there now I can do it every day and I do but I think we just have to be super intentional I go for a walk every morning without my phone I you know I I try not to use apps and things to mark my steps it's like but you want to it's like I want to get this goal but if I don't wear my thing then I won't count it and so but like just being without those things like yesterday I was kind of stressed as I was getting ready for my party and uh I just went for a 20- minute walk without my phone just kind of like Let It kind of just and then I was good you know but we really have so much noise there's so much combustion like you said we live in a dopamine nation and one of the concepts I cover in the book again is I said the goal is not we've made the goal to try to feel better so we're constantly doing things to feel better the goal should be to try to feel more so anytime we're masking those feelings and we do that through a dopamine Spike so it's you know I did a 4-day fast last year and my one takeaway was oh I just do this to feel better I like the feeling I get when I eat it's a dopamine hit and it wasn't about being hungry it was about getting a dopamine hit and so it's like I've tried to stop myself you know guys that I teach that you know if you have like a porn issue it's like hey if you can stop yourself long enough to go wait what's happening why am I seeking this out same thing with bad food the same thing with alcohol anything that's basic video games gambling you name it right like random hookups all these things that we know we shouldn't do that aren't really in our best um you know best thing for us if we can stop long enough to go wait what am I truly feeling because what we're truly doing is we're just masking our feelings and so if we can start thinking about it as hey instead of trying to feel better let me try to feel more let me feel a little sad let me feel a little lonely let me let me feel whatever that might be then we can kind of work through it and then eventually once you let it kind of pass through it it goes away yeah but trying to hide it I don't think does make it go away oh no yeah yeah 100% that's the problem that's the problem with the world we live in that's where people I mean that's where you know we deal with alcoholism and and overweight and and people that just kind of uh get caught up with all these vices and things because yeah it doesn't it's whatever we resist persists so it's going to stick around till we deal with it whatever we resist persists that's interesting yeah so like if you're I mean again like I use the porn sh lock a lot of the guys that come to me that's what you know they want to overcome and it's like all day long they're literally obsessed with not looking at porn so I'm like well what do you think about all day then porn like that's what you're trying not to do all day I said dude you need to get to the underlying thing what are you feeling are you sad are you lonely are you what's really going on and once I can heal that then you're just it quits becoming this big thing you've almost put on a pedestal or this ritual around it and it just goes away just normal people don't think about porn all day like it you might get triggered looking at the freaking Discovery page on Instagram wink one off real quick and go on with your day but you're not going to be thinking about not you haven't created this big story around it exactly it's an interesting one actually so uh I kind of have built a number of stories about some of the things that I did when I was in my 20s so I like partied a lot and you like just young party boy stuff tons of cocaine tons of MDMA and good bit of boozing and at never never one point did I ever feel like I had a problem it was always me that was in control and I did this quite infrequently but I would do it heavily when I did it and that's like classic you know like club promoter meets personal development dude early you know like prototypical or Proto personal development Guy and um I think I've told myself a story about many of the things that I did back then so I still have this slightly antagonistic relationship with alcohol where I see it as kind of like the low vibration thing and it's kind of like dumb and it's like juven and immature and when I think about even MDMA which a drug I've never done sober but is it was developed for Psychotherapy it was developed to help people overcome traumas and open open I've never done it with alcohol Yeah well yeah if we put both of us together we'd have a balanced version of how to use it um and uh cocaine is exactly the same thing and I was thinking about it yesterday I don't know why I was thinking about cocaine maybe I was tied and I thought why have I got this story around this particular drug there certainly are drugs you know a big class of drugs that I think are dangerous and probably should be demonized like the heroin and stuff like that and cocaine's not exactly like mushrooms or or [ __ ] caffeine or something but still I was like what what have I why does this story kind of exist in my mind about what those drugs mean and are and I really started to sort of fact check it and I I think so much of it is just this sense that I want to feel like I've transcended where I was before and I'm associating the things that I used to do previously with the person that I was previously I'm like hey I think that you're being used by those drugs as opposed to you using them I I this is like the maybe the fifth episode or the sixth episode I ever did on this podcast with a guy called Dom McGregor so I did a ton of sobriety uh elective sobriety I called it because I chose to do it as opposed to I needed to do it I just wanted to focus on sleep and and personal development and [ __ ] and um I had a conversation with dom who was a guy that did have a problem with alcohol and he was choosing to go sober because he needed to because he was overcoming a dependency and I came up with this idea and I still think that it's true which is if you are somebody that's had a problem with uh substances or with uh vices of one kind or another you haven't truly transcended them until you can reintegrate them on your terms if you are a person who has been addicted to alcohol and now your thing is I am I'm sober and I've been sober for 15 years and I do all the rest of it I'm like dude that's phenomenal congratulations that is unequivocably the a significantly better position to be in than the one that you were in previously but alcohol still controls your life still has a control over you the absence of alcohol is still in control of your life uh and totally there are certain people with certain constitutions or histories and patterns who will never be able to reintegrate that but I also don't think that you can say you've overcome your problem with alcohol I think that that would be a fiction I think that overcoming your problem with anything would be being able to see porn and not watching it for 10 hours right being able to have a drink and not needing to binge for the remainder of the year and so much of that again as I was reflecting on why I had these judgments around particular substances I think so much of that is the story that we tell ourselves once you get beyond the dependency and the habits the rest of the stuff the destructive spirals like hm what what if there was a different story about what I said about this not that I intend on I haven't had cocaine today but you know like I just I thought that was interesting yeah know it was I kind of it made me think about like so you know I grew up in a religion from the time I was born till I was 32 and I left but it still absolutely plays roles in my life every day and it's like I'll never really lose that I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing it's just part of me right I think it's a little bit similar like an aloh coholic if they can go 15 years sub somebody that was hooked on cocaine or whatever it might have been I think that's just going to be part of them from that point on I think that's one of the dangers of getting into certain things before you know really analyzing what that's going to do long term but I think it's always going to be a part of my story in my life and like it literally creeps into my life somehow every single day and so it's like you know I had a brother that he's very much still in it and he was kind of mad at me because he's like you act like you're not you know uh have any problems with it but I know you you do I said dude I absolutely have problems with it's why I left but I'm trying not to I'm trying not to have any issues I do I have several problems with it I don't want to have problems with it I'd rather it just be a thing just like I don't think about Islam or Catholicism I don't give a [ __ ] it doesn't have any emotion to me this one still does yeah and I always will and I don't there's no way for me to get around that you know it's like I've done a good job of trying to like come to peace with it all but like it of course I still have issues like that's why I left I don't know kind of no I I think it's just strange to consider that even even the absence of things can still be them controlling you yeah right because of the sort of obsession in the absence it's this sort of the vacuum sucks you in and you're you're measuring your progress now up against where it isn't as opposed to where it is and yeah that that's just a yeah if I see anything like any article if I'm on like Yahoo and anything with that church Pops I totally want to read it like it just sucks me right in like you said like a vacuum you know it's like it's part of me talk to me about the role of devotion devotion well um you know I think ultimately we have to make a decision of like where we want to put our attention we can do anything in life but you can't do everything and I think where people we talked about this a little bit earlier but like anything that is worth doing is worth overdoing like for me like I want to go all in on EX cocaine ex except cocaine but like for me you know it's like if if I I want to do things at the highest level I want to experience all that life has at the highest levels and that includes like with you talk about devotion well that's love that's you know if you're going to be in a marriage so I tell the guys that I coached I said if if that person isn't your everything if you can't be completely vulnerable or yourself and fully just be with you're with them then you're missing 98% of the good stuff of being with someone so what's the point like be completely devoted be all in on that thing or don't do the thing and so I don't know if that's a proper answer per se but like I just believe that you know anything you do 9 like you can become a semi-expert of something get 95% of the way there you know in six months but to get this is a tweet that I think I saw you put out but if you're going to get to 98 or 100% it's going to take you 20 30 years but find the things that are worth doing that and the rest of them be okay just like not really having that much attachment to but the things you really care about your family your friends like you know like whatever thing you're passionate about um I think you have to go all in on that's why it's interesting the first step of your fstep transformation thing is decide on your morals like decide what's valuable 100% yep yeah def decide what really matters yeah I think it's the best way to say that because until you've done that how are you going to know what you should and shouldn't go after down the line Yeah you mentioned stoicism earlier on one of the four stoic virtues is wisdom and that's the the most important one because it's the one that chooses what you do with the rest it's like you know Temperance and Justice and stuff like yeah okay but the wisdom thing is that deciding in what direction am I going to use these other skills and tools that I have to serve you know you can be uh obsessive and and hardworking and and doing things incredibly well but if the thing that you're doing is sniffing cocaine like guess what that's not yeah so I thought you know it's like a you uh it has to be a worthwhile goal to be successful right it has to be something like a drug dealer can't be successful because in the very Act of becoming great at it is makes you not successful but and it has to it's it's the it's the pursuit of a worthwhile goal that's what really what you're trying to attempt to do I think that's you know where you want to really be able to again going back to the moral issue of like okay wait is this thing I'm doing matter like you know I think when people are in a job if they know it matters if they I think there's two things are really important about picking where you what you spend your time on does it matter like you know do I have an X Factor do I have a gift that no one else has that because of that I it matters that I'm doing this thing and the second one is is am I using the gifts that I have for what the thing I work on because when you do when you have those two things present Everything feels like passion when you don't it's all feels like stress like anytime you're in a job where you're not using your natural gifts or it doesn't matter to you it's just stress but when it matters and when you're doing things you're already good at that's what I love about my job now it's it's all the stuff I already love doing and so it just every day it's just so fun to go do my thing because it's like it's I don't even know if I'm ever working or not it's it's all one thing you know it's like a cliche like you know if you live what you do you never work a day in your life but it's like it's true like if you love what you're doing I can work 60 70 hours now and I feel like I just had a normal week but like when I was doing that in real estate when you're pounding phones trying to get for sale by owners to call you back you know you're working you know and so I think that's a gift that I think everybody needs to find like really get clear on like what are your gifts and if you don't know an exercise I have my guys do I just have them text Five Guys in the group or five people they know and say hey man what's a unique gift or talent that I have that maybe I don't see in myself and you'll be shocked at the answers you get back from me it's really cool cuz people will see you in a way and when you hear it you go dang oh yeah I get that I I do do that and it's really beautiful exercise to help you feel good hell yeah Jimmy Rex ladies and gentlemen Jimmy I appreciate your work I I think that what you're doing with revitalizing uh groups of men who really really need it is is super impressive uh where should people go they want to keep up to date with everything that you're do yeah I think the main thing that I'm focused on is the weer the day um that's my Co men's coaching group um my Instagram Mr Jimmy Rex um I post a lot of the stuff on there and you know and and I think that's the best place to find everything in those links I did again this documentary if people get a chance to watch it um wtvd.com and you can really see what we're all about um pick up my new book just came out yesterday um super pumped where uh uh Ed myed again did the forward and you know he said he said it's it's very rare a book comes along at the time when the society really needs it that's what he said about my book I was really honored that that he did that but yeah man I just Instagram is the best place to hit me and I appreciate you and everything you're doing man it's inspiring thank you I appreciate you too man if you enjoyed that episode you will love a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last couple of months and it's available right here go on give them a watch