There's arguably few things less attractive to a woman than a man who's in his victim mentality and making it all about him. And so how you navigate with art and skill, your own inner critic, your own inner dialogue, the voice in your head. Is really make or break, or can be make or break in a relationship. Let's start with the most obvious one, the one that most men spend their entire lives focused on physical strength. Now, by physical strength, what I'm referring to is your body's ability to move with power, control, and endurance. It's maintaining the temple that you are given and showing up with greater levels of capability and capacity. Now if I was speaking to a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach, I get it. That is not the classic definition of strength, but bear with me. What I'm doing here is we're zooming out and I'm more referring about into your overall physical capability and capacity. Your capacity to move well, to perform under load, to sustain effort. So we're not specifically talking about absolute strength, relative strength, reactive strength, but more general around your complete physical capacity. So that's the lens we're using today. Now, maybe you're someone who's let yourself go. Maybe you can't keep up with your kids, and if you're like me, one of the sources of stress when my physical strength and capacity was not at the level that I wanted. I mean, for example, over the last five or so years I've been working with on and off knee pain. Now I know how to manage it and I know the exercises I need, but in moments of discomfort when I take my son to the park, there is the thought that comes up. What if something were to happen? He's a toddler. What if he were to run in the street? Would I be able to run after him and do what is required to protect him and protect my family? And so when there has been doubt around that, yeah, it's caused fear. It's caused shame. Or maybe you're someone who's strong, you train, you live, maybe you deadlift 400 pounds, and yet you've got strength in that arena, but you're still snapping at your kids. So physical strength is important, but it is not the entire story, and that's largely what we're gonna be exploring today or continuing to explore. But physical strength is where I started so much of my training and development as a man, where I learned discipline, where I learned to set goals, where I learned to build confidence in myself. The foundation, I believe, is in the physical realm for myself and more than likely you. Now, I was just at my folks house yesterday helping. My dad and mom clean out their addict. And if your mom's anything like mine, she saves everything from when I was a kid, all the awards, the ribbons, everything. And she found something and I brought it home. 'cause I haven't seen this in well over 15 years. And if you're watching this on video show you here, she's got all these, uh. You know, medals around this, this statue, and this was, this was in 2006, so this was the W-A-B-D-L, the World Association of Bench Pressers and deadlifters. This was the World Bench Press and Deadlift Championships, and at that competition in Las Vegas in two, 2006, I won a world championship in my division in both the deadlift and the bench press. And funny side note, the uh, trophy they gave is actually not even of the bench press or the deadlift. It's actually, uh, of an Olympic movement. It's actually the top of the clean. So just a funny side note, but at any level, it's a cool trophy and it brought me back to those memories and I was like, well. Wow. At the time I was 19 years old, I had just gotten back from training at West Side Barbell in Columbus, Ohio. Spent about three and a half weeks over there training under Louis Simmons. And if you know anything about West Side Barbell, it is hands down the strongest gym, not just in the world, but I would say in history. You can look on Netflix. There's a, a pretty intense documentary called West Side Rules the World. If you want to get an insight into how intense and competitive and cutthroat that facility was. So I'd spent time out there. Uh, I'd first learned about them in my basement power lifting team, but the reason why I'm bringing this up is because. On the surface, at that time, I looked like a physical beast. I mean, I was in a smaller weight class, so I wasn't huge, but I was thick, I was strong. I had a neck, I had some traps, I had some quads. And on the outside I looked strong. I looked like, uh, a beast. And at the same time, if you knew me personally, what was happening underneath the hood was a totally different story. So on the platform, I was winning a world championship, and at the same time, I was also suffering from fungal infections, parasite infections, bacteria infections. One specifically called h pylori, which the symptom in the people who have it, not always but is stomach ulcers. So I had stomach ulcers, debilitating stomach pain, and that not to mention how much my emotional state was on a rollercoaster at that time, because if I wasn't winning. I was not only losing, but I was not good enough as a man, as a young man. And so my whole inner dialogue and inner critic, which we're gonna get into later, was just relentless. But again, on the outside, I looked strong, I looked fit. But on the inside it was a completely different story, and this really dispels the miss that a strong body makes a strong man. That's just not true. I do believe it's the foundation, but there is so much more, uh, depth and nuance. If we really do want to show up as the strongest, most potent, powerful man possible, we need to develop the five types of strength that we're diving into today. And so one of the things that I wanted to share with you, not just in this type of strength, physical strength, but as we move through the podcast, is I wanna give you a specific. Action item that you can do, something that you can take home and implement right now, specifically if it's a type of strength that you feel. Weaken or undeveloped, and maybe no one showed you, maybe no one modeled it. Maybe no one carried you through some of these things, like most men have developed one or maybe two of these types of strengths. But that's it. And so this isn't a shame, but this is really to illuminate where are the gaps? Where are the blind spots? And one of the most effective things and helpful things that any man can do is commit. That's a big word. Commit. To a consistent practice or a consistent practice, we're gonna call it a, a, a rising ritual instead of a morning routine, we can call it that. But a morning routine, uh, that's effective too. But rising ritual for me holds a bit more intentionality, a bit more mindfulness, a bit more meaning to it. And so I wanted to give you a very simple one, especially if you're not doing anything. When you wake up, or in the first the morning, or the rising ritual, would I like it to be done or when I'd like it to be done, is anytime in the first two hours upon waking, we're gonna call that the rising period. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to set a clock for 10 minutes. This is gonna be what's called a 10 minute am Wrap as many rounds as possible, but I'm gonna give you some caveats. I'm gonna keep it super simple by design. So what I'd like you to do. It's anywhere in the first two hours of your day. You drink your water, you use the restroom. And then when it comes to the ritual, which for me typically includes some combination of movement, meditation, breath, and reflection, that's really a classic practice or the classic building blocks of, of a rising practice for me. So all I'd like you to do, and you can modify this to fit your level and your fitness level, is 20 body weight squats. Followed by 10 pushups, followed by five very slow, intentional breaths. Okay, that's it. And you're gonna repeat that as many times as you can in 10 minutes. Now, a few caveats here. The pace that I would like you to use is a breathing pace. So I don't want you to bang out as many as you can. This isn't meant to crush you. It's actually meant to be the opposite. This is an energy cultivating workout, an activating workout. So as you descend in the squat, you choose the range. You don't have to go to a full squat if you don't want, you could do a half, you know, stay clear of any. If you've got any limitations, any injuries, be smart. You know, use your discretion, use your discernment, but 20 squats in whatever range you want to do it. Exhale down through the nose. Inhale up at a moderate to slow pace, okay? Then as soon as you complete that, go right to the floor and do 10 pushups. You inhale down and exhale as you push away as you're doing it. If you need to modify the movement because you need to go to your knees because it's too hard, you need to do a reduced range, like a half pushup. That's fine. Again, this isn't to crush you. This is meant to activate and to energize. Then as soon as you do that, I want you to take a seat, either on a chair or on the floor, and I want five slow, deep, intentional breaths. A good rule of thumb is five Second inhale, five second exhale. Okay, you're gonna do that for 10 minutes on repeat, and that's gonna be your morning practice. Now what I'm gonna do in addition for not just this exercise I've just given you, but also again for all the other types of strength at the end, you don't even need to write it down. I'm gonna give you just an easy PDF guide that you can just download it and refer to. So I'll give you that at the end. But just know all these practices you will have. Now, I mentioned physical strength is the foundation. It is. But if you can deadlift 600 pounds and again, still snap at your kids or still get reactive with the people that you love. Physical strength is not where it ends, and most men, at least through my experience and reflecting on my own experience in that regard, 600 pounds on the deadlift. So my best deadlift was six 15. My best squat was 6 0 5, and my best bench was, I always forget, it was either 4 73 or 4 78. I'd have to look at the the kilo conversion chart on that one, but. The greatest level of stress and what has thrown me more off of my center than anything else has not been the weight on the bar. It has been my emotions and my relationship with not knowing how to navigate historically, the emotional intensity that I've felt inside. I've stuffed it down a lot. Maybe that's you too. The way that we're gonna define emotional strength is feeling your emotions without being ruled by 'em. It's your ability to regulate your nervous system and create space between trigger and response, trigger and response. There is a gap in there. I believe it was Viktor Frankl that said Holocaust survivor. That said, between every uh, stimulus and response, there's a gap. And that gap or that space is your ability to choose. And when we have the ability to choose. Then we step out of the victim mentality. So much of the victim mentality that we experience today is because we don't feel like we have options. And so if we can slow things down and learn how to regulate our nervous system, you will develop a superpower that you can apply to all areas of your life. Okay? But most guys are just pressure cookers waiting to explode. And so what I'd like to teach you here is. I want to teach you, uh, one of the most important skills when it comes to emotional regulation, and the first step of that is just simply naming it. For the longest time when I was feeling something, I didn't quite know how to articulate it. I didn't know exactly, you know, what is, what am I feeling, and the feelings that I did pick up on, I had a lot of judgment and shame around it. So I didn't even want to go there. And I'm gonna use anger because that's a really common one for men. Recognize there's a difference between annoyance. Irritation, frustration, anger, and resentment. Those are five different emotions that I would say are all in the same family. Now, if you don't have this, I would highly recommend just type into Google Emotions Wheel, and what you'll get is a wheel you'll, you'll find all different ones, but. For any level, this is to expand your emotional vocabulary so that you can better discern and identify your own emotional map. So whatever one you download, more than likely, what you're gonna see is concentric rings that expand outward. And at the closest center of the circle, the closest nucleus, what you're gonna see is more of the root emotions. Now, for example, the deepest or root negative emotion is fear and shame. Now, depending on what chart you look at, one of the deepest, uh, positive emotion is courage. But then as soon as you go a layer out, then you get into the realm of secondary emotions. So that could be, for example, anger, sadness, guilt, those are all versions of secondary emotions. There's usually like five to seven that you might find there. And then if you expand outward, then you're gonna see more superficial layers, and you're gonna see a ton of emotions in that. You're gonna see tertiary emotions. And so you being more precise and accurate with your own emotional experience and being able to label that is gonna give you so much more empowerment and so much more emotional strength that you can apply to, to him near anything. And so the first thing is to name it. And when you're in that place. I want to give you an invitation on this and feel into this right now. Just say to yourself, I'm angry. Just notice how that feels, and now try on, I'm noticing anger arising, or I'm noticing anger inside. Just notice how that feels. Now, there might have been no difference, but I do want you to pay attention even to the most subtle change in how you're experiencing that. Because for me, I mean, both of those are really empowering and you're honoring your emotional experience. But usually when we say the word notice or when we, we use that word, what we're doing is we're taking a, we're taking a step back. We're stepping out of being so merged with the experience, and now we're becoming an observer or more of an observer. And when we can do that, usually the emotional intensity goes down a bit. We learn to relate to it in a different way. So at any level, I wanted to give you that piece of nuance. But as I was reflecting on this, you know, a story came up and I remember this one time, this was probably like a year ago. Maybe more than that, maybe a year and a half ago. Uh, my son was super young. He's still super young, but he was around one, yeah, one-ish years year old. He was just starting to walk and I remember I was on the kitchen, I was on my phone. And that's truthfully, to full disclosure, that's an area that I've worked on a lot. And also I've judged myself a lot. And maybe you're like me, especially if you got kids. Like I know the currency of not just parenting, but fatherhood is presence. That is how my son or your daughter, your son experiences love is when we're present with him. And I remember I didn't realize because I was on my phone that my son was trying to get my attention. My wife saw that and it brought something up for her, but she called me out on it. She goes, Hey Mike, Luke is trying to get your attention. Totally fair, totally valid. I was on my phone. However, in that moment. What I made it mean. The story I created in my head was that she was calling me a bad father, and I remember now that wasn't true and we had a whole conversation around that afterwards, but what I recall it brought up is I went down this downward spiral for at least a day to two days. Of just immense judgment, passive aggressive of myself, of her for saying that of again, the story I created of me being a bad father and I completely lost my regulation. I went right into trigger to reaction. Now, had I taken time during that, uh, if I stopped, slowed down and didn't just go right back into my workday and stuff it down. I could have been able to work with it in a different way, and maybe I wouldn't have been in that place for that long because I've just noticed within my own life I can get lost in the sauce. And so when you get triggered, when these things happen, which are inevitable in life, whether it's a trigger at work, a trigger with your partner, a trigger with your kids, notice how long you get stuck in that. Maybe you get stuck for an hour. Maybe it's you hold that resentment for a week. Maybe you've even held that resentment for years. Not fully owned it and felt into it and processed it. Maybe you're stuck just like me in that example, in dwelling in it. But what I'd like to invite in here again, what to do about this is first, get accurate with what you're feeling like, name it. Then take some space if you can from the situation or even in the moment, that's fine too, but take some space and I want you to breathe with it. A lot of the skill that you can develop when it comes to emotional strength is learning, not always per se, to express it, nor repress repress it. But how can you learn to be with it and not need to fix it or to change it? That is a huge thing. So what you can do is name it, I'm noticing, part of me is angry, and then what I'd like you to do for at least five times. But just do this for as long as it takes. I want you to inhale through your nose for four seconds. Hold the breath at the top for four seconds and exhale for a minimum of six seconds. The longer that you exhale, the exhale is the release. The exhale is the key to the downregulation because in that moment of trigger, you're going right into flight or fight mode. You're going right into reptilian brain. So the more that you can slow things down and the breath is the quickest thing to start regulating your nervous system. You will start breathing with its space, will open up. Options, will open up. You'll start creating a deeper level of safety around it. So that is your exercise. Name it. Breathe with it and sit with it. All emotions do not stay at their peak forever. It will have a crest and it will lower down. It will like the cress, savo will come down if you breathe with it, if you give it the time that it truly deserves. So emotional strength can help you certainly regulate yourself, but you can be totally emotionally regulated and still be completely disconnected from the people who matter most. That's why we also need to develop relational strength. So for the context, context of today, I'm defining relational strength as building deep, trusting connections through vulnerability and repair. It's staying open when it's easier to shut down when every party wants to collapse, and it's letting people see the real you. Now, oftentimes, oh man, I certainly wasn't effectively modeled emotional vulnerability. What could that look like and how could that look in a productive way in a relationship? And if you've got the story. As a man, that vulnerability is weakness. I'm gonna challenge you. I'm gonna call you forward because in one thing I've witnessed within myself and countless men is that vulnerability is equivalent to courage, right? We're so focused as men in getting the job done, doing it, setting our emotions aside, kicking ass, and thinking that emotions are like speed bumps. But recognize when it comes to the relational world, and that is, I mean, if you're in a committed relationship, there is no deeper spiritual work than that. You've got your work cut out for you. I've got my work cut out for me. But there is so much growth that can happen when it comes to being in a committed relationship, getting that mirror back on, the things you can't see from that person. You supporting each other in your healing and truly creating a connected, loving life. Without vulnerability, none of that's gonna happen. And I was mentioned earlier, like I was never modeled this for sure, and I remember one of my patterns was when I would get into arguments in my current relationship and also my past relationship, the way that I would cope with that. Would be to, this would really show up when we would be laying in bed, let's say there was a disagreement, an argument, and I would just fold my arms over and just, if I was wearing a beanie, I'd close it over my head. There was no opening, no opening here. I was shut down, not open for discussion, and I would bite down and I would use sleep as a way to escape. As a way to, uh, distract, avoid the conversations that needed to be had. And it came up in that last relationship, and it's certainly come up with my wife Lauren and my wife Lauren is a strong, powerful woman. And she would tell me like she couldn't go to sleep because she was holding so much. She said, how could you, how could you do that? Like she felt abandoned in that moment. How could you not? Uh, talk with me about what's going on, and truthfully, the story that was in my head is that I was so afraid to get it wrong. So afraid that I would be judged so afraid that love would be taken away if I said what I was actually feeling, and I didn't even know how to really articulate it. So there was such a fear response. Whether it's not being able or not being willing to express your emotion because your fear of doing it wrong, or you're afraid that they, um, may withhold love or might abandon you. I'm also here to challenge you. I'm also here to give you hopefully some things that you can explore to develop greater skill and proficiency with that. And so what I realized is so much of connection, yes, can come through vulnerability, but it also comes through repair. The depth of closeness with my wife, yes, happens when times are good, but it's really in the art and the skill of repair. How do we come back together? Because if you've been in an argument before. There's been things that have been left unsaid or unhealed or unresolved that will come back to bite you in the ass. That's why so many times when guys come home and the, the classic story is the guy made a million dollars and he comes home and he's super excited, and then he comes home and his wife is upset because he forgot the milk. And he goes, honey, how could you be upset right now? I could buy 500 cartons of milk and yet you're nitpicking because I forgot the milk. Well recognize it's not about the milk. It's not about the milk, it's really about the patterns of not stepping into leadership that she needs and, and her having to step into that. And maybe you said you would get it and you didn't. You didn't honor your word. So how can she trust you? It's not about the milk, it's about so much more than that. So here's what I wanna suggest. If you're someone who wants to practice, practice is a key word because what does Paul check say? Repetition is the mother of all skill. Provided there is skill in the repetition. Now bring this back into the strength and conditioning world. It takes approximately 300 reps to ingrain a new motor pattern or movement pattern to do things right. Okay. Takes approximately 3000 repetitions to unlearn a faulty movement pattern. So practice is important, but how you practice is just as important. If you were in the bench press and doing poor technique reps that. I mean, that's just a recipe for injury, so we wanna practice more mindfully. This is also why one of the best things you could do is get involved in a men's group or just find a, a, a true, trusted friend that you can confide in. But in a men's group, you can practice these things before it comes to the World Series with your wife or your partner. You can practice this. You can get reflections back like, Hey. Am I missing anything? Am I, what part of this is mine that I can't see? You can be sharpened, you can be, uh, held in those moments so that your wife or your partner does not need to be everything for you. That's a big mistake that I've made in many men make, and maybe you're making it right now, is dumping everything onto your partner. I personally do not believe that our wives and our partners need to be everything to us. I think that's unfair. When you have a men's group, a true counsel that you can bring your stuff to, to share, to be seen, to be sharpened, it can really fill a deep layer of nourishment that you're missing. I didn't realize I was missing until I got into it. And so one way that you can practice this to set yourself up for success is when you come home, let's just say you had a tough day at work and you need to vent. Set your wife up or your partner off for success and first ask permission like, Hey sweetheart, is it okay if I share something with you and be mindful of the time I made this mistake on so many occasions that while Lauren was cooking or, uh, trying to change Luca's diaper, I'd go right into depth, right into vulnerability, and she'd be like, almost jarred like, uh, can we talk about this later? So just be mindful of the timing of it, and then ask. Hey, sweetheart. Is is, there's something, there's something I'd like to share. Are you open to hearing it and then get the yes. And if it is a yes, then go on. And what I would do is practice this, share what you've been feeling, articulate it, label it, own it. I've been feeling overwhelmed because I think work is crushing me. I don't need you to fix it. I just wanted to share and I just need to vent for five minutes. Can you listen? So what you're doing in this moment, one, you're asking per, well, one, you're being mindful of, uh, is it the right time to bring this? Two, you're asking permission. Three, you're setting up a container, whether it's five minutes or 10 minutes, because in that moment you are stepping out of the masculine energy, the masculine essence, which holds, which is structure, which is integrity. And in that moment. She's now stepping into the masculine to hold your expression, which is your feminine, which is synonymous with feeling, sensing, uh, emoting thinking. Anything associated with movement is gonna be the feminine, not gender specific. Your feminine. You have a feminine, you have a masculine, so do I. And so you're setting her up for success because you're creating a container for it. So now she can step into the masculine. You're owning how you're feeling. You can give her some context. You know, because I've been, I think I've been getting crushed at work, and you're, you're asking for what you need. You're asking, Hey, I just need to vent. I want you to know, I just need to vent. I don't need you to do anything. I don't need you to fix anything. And now she can just listen. And if you want advice, if you want feedback, ask for it. Ask for what you need in the relationship and in that moment. So many challenges in relations happen because we don't know how to communicate what we're feeling and what we're needing, and so you're really not only giving yourself a gift, but you're also giving her a gift in this moment. So try that out. Make it your own. Use some of the building blocks right there that I shared, but I promise you, if you get reps or if you practice with a men's group, it will serve you so well. Now relational strength, yes, that connects to your relationship with others, but there's also another type of strength that helps keep you clear when everything around you is in chaos. Now that's mental strength. So mental strength as we're gonna go into it today is mental strength, is managing your mental chatter. It's organizing your thoughts and making decisions from a place of clarity and decisiveness instead of chaos. Choosing your response instead of being ruled by your circumstances, I mentioned earlier the victim mentality. There's arguably few things less attractive to a woman than a man who's in his victim mentality and making it all about him. And so how you navigate with art and skill, your own inner critic, your own inner dialogue, the voice in your head. Is really make or break, or can be make or break in a relationship. Now, I mentioned earlier a lot of the challenges that I've had in my work with this is, you know, the belief that, man, I'm so afraid of making mistakes. What if I make a mistake? Are they gonna think something's wrong with me? Or if I, if I'm not who they expect me to be or want me to be, are they gonna love me? You know, am I adequate? These are all limiting beliefs that circulate have circulated in my head, and maybe they've circulated in your head as well. I'm never enough that thought loop time and time again. Worst case scenarios happening on repeat. I was just talking to a client who goes right into pessimism, worry, doubt, uh, always finding the negatives and things and how things could go wrong. Head on a swivel, and that's a really tough place to be. That's why there's two things I wanna share with you, and this is why one of them is one of the most important skills a man can develop when it comes to mental strength is a practice of mindfulness. Now, meditation is usually the primary tool that I would suggest here, but in meditation, at least the specific framework that I teach in the men's groups in my grounded King men's group at the retreats and one-on-one coaching, et cetera, is to develop three major qualities or traits. Concentration. So the ability to focus more on what you want, clarity, so how you can pick up more details in the experience, and then balance or equanimity, right, which really just means being less pulled and pushed into things, or treating more things in life, even keel. So being open and welcoming, both the pleasant things, the unpleasant things, and the neutral things, and not being completely thrown off our rocker. When life challenges us, and so meditation is the quintessential masculine practice. It is a practice of stillness, center point focus. Stillness is, uh, the masculine. When you show up as that still grounded, steady, you will be experienced by not just your partner, but also other people in your life as more masculine. Remember I said masculine, feminine, not gender specific, but you'll be experienced as more masculine. And so being more skillful to manage and navigate your own thoughts will immediately help you develop a higher level of mental strength. And the second thing really has to do with language. Now, there's a lot I can say on this one. Um, two things that tend to keep people stuck. One, it's the unresolved stories of the past that are replaying today, whether they're conscious or unconscious on loop. And the second thing is the repetitive unconsciously use of our language. Most people's language is not working for them. It's working against them. Most people are not architects of their language and their life. They're in con, direct conflict with it. My mentor, Mark England, I believe has the simplest definition when it comes to our mindset. And our mindset is simply the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world. Now, if you think about the building block of any story, it's our words. And our words can affect how our imagination works. It can affect our emotions, it can affect our breathing, and it affects our posture, affects those four major things. So it is important to really be more intentional with how we're using our words and the stories that are making up our perception or our experience of reality. Now, I remember. No matter if it was in, when I was growing up, competing in power lifting in kettlebell sport and Olympic weight lifting, no matter if I won a world championship or no matter how much, uh, how well I did, what number I got on the platform, it was never good enough. No matter what I did, or even in recent years, the largest sale I made doesn't matter as soon as I would do it. Close a huge deal. Win a tournament, win a competition immediately. It was onto the next and onto the next, and I found some way, shape, or form to tear myself down. And if you can resonate with that, because you are moving at a fast pace, you got a racing mind, you're kicking ass. But at the same time as you're executing, as you're succeeding, it's right onto the next thing and right onto the next thing because your mind is always running. That is exhausting. And the question I would ask you is what could happen. If you slowed things down, you know, and what's really driving that insatiable thirst to achieve and also not really enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with going after success. Nothing wrong, like celebrate it. Hell yeah. But that's the key invitation to celebrate this stuff. You know, something that, uh, I gotta give credit to my wife Lauren. One of the things that we would do, because she knew how difficult of a time I've had in actually acknowledging the wins, and it's so much easier, uh, for me to focus on the negative historically than it has been to really acknowledge wins. And if you focus, you're gonna get with where you focus. If you just focus on all the mistakes, that's really all your experience is gonna be filled with. But one of the things that we do is. We take, uh, uh, just a, a marker on a whiteboard, and we write down every single sale that comes in the date, where it came from, how much, and we celebrate it not just in that day, but for the whole month. So on the whiteboard downstairs, she knows every time I make a sale, every time I enroll a guy in the group or get someone in the retreat, and we celebrate it, we acknowledge it, and the fact we just got this, uh, gold or brass, copper, whatever it is, bell. We hit the bell and we'll have Luca hit the bell every time we get a win, every time we make a sale. And it's been so interesting to view my own relationship with celebrating myself and honoring the good stuff in life because you could have everything that you want. Maybe you do right now. Maybe you got a bank account that's full. Maybe you got the boat, maybe you got the cars, maybe you got everything that you want, and yet, why are you still unhappy? Why do you still feel unfulfilled? And that's why I'm inviting you to look at this and see how you can create micro practices of celebration and acknowledging the win and really seeing what's either out of alignment, maybe you're gonna work or a job that you hate. Maybe what you, there's a boss that you can't stand, but you're still staying in the same job because it's safe or comfortable, and you're not taking that step forward decisively with clarity. That is mental strength. Clarity for every man that I've talked to is a superpower. If we can be clear on what it is that we want and the path that we're going, we can really put our energy behind it. And so here's an activity that you can do. I would suggest you do this either at the end of the workday or uh, at the end of the night. But what I would invite you to do is take out a sheet of paper or a journal, and the way I'd like you to do this, put a five minute clock down and you're setting yourself up for a container. If you wanna put 10 minutes, go for it, but five minutes down is the minimum, and I want you to write. And I'm gonna give you three building blocks of this, and you make it your own. The first is you simply writing. Do not take the pen off the pad, just write what is taking up the majority of your heart space and your mind space, really. Where are you focused on right now? What are you worried about? What are you concerned about? What are you stoked about? What are you happy about? But I just want you to write. And get whatever it is that's on your, in your head and in your heart onto that sheet of paper, as opposed to letting it stay in your head. Get it out. Start learning how to express it in this way, right? Because when we start writing it out, things slow down, right? Things slow down. We can start processing it differently. Once it's out of your head and onto that paper, that's another layer of separation of un merging, especially from the heavy stuff. So write out what's going on inside. Then what's the one thing that you need to execute the next day? Not the 10 things, not the three things, but what's the one thing that if you did tomorrow, would make it a real win? And then the third thing, I always love finishing with this, but some degree of gratitude. Like truly, what are you grateful for? The relationships in your life that you, you've got, uh, a marriage, that you got a kid, that man, you got foodie when other people in the world don't have foodie, that you got a comfortable bed to sleep in, that you got a safe home. Choose something to focus on the good and express that piece of gratitude. So make that your own. Pick any one of those three. Pick all three of 'em, but set the timer and write. And I promise you over time, if you do it consistently, you'll feel like a more clear man, a more decisive man, a more directed man. Now, mental strength, yes, it helps you stay clear or get clear, but even with all the four strengths that we've talked to or talked about up to this point, there's definitely still something missing. And this is the one that most men ignore until it's too late, and that is spiritual strength. The way we'll define spiritual strength is spiritual strength is knowing your why and living aligned with your unique values. It's measuring your life by who you are and who you're becoming, not what you're achieving. Now, again, there's nothing wrong with achieving, but if you're someone who's achieved a lot and you still feel hollow and empty inside. It's likely because there's some misalignment somewhere in your values. Your core values are the rudder on your ship that lets you know if something is in alignment with your current and higher good, usually your higher good, the direction that you really want to go in your life. And when it's not, is when it feels empty or when it feels stressful or triggering. And so when it comes to defining your core values, which is a whole. I mean there's in the The Grounded King, I teach a month on this multiple different layers to really get clarity because for the longest time I didn't realize this, and maybe you don't realize this either, but our values and largely who we think we are, who we're supposed to be, is built up. On who we needed to be growing up or who we learned to be growing up to get love approval, recognition, respect in our family. So oftentimes our values, we think that they're ours, but they're actually a regurgitation of our parents' values. That's one of the first things that I would invite you to question is, you know, what's really yours? Like, is this really yours? Like, do you really value integrity? Uh, and one where did you learn that? Is that truly yours? And is your life demonstrating that? Because if you say you value integrity, but your actions aren't aligned and your bank account isn't aligned with it, it's really, uh, uh, it's not true. What do, what do they say The three things. Look at my bank account, look at my actions, and look at my bookshelf. And you really see the values of a man. Um, if you say you value organic food. And you value, let's say your physical health, but you're driving a badass car and you're still going to McDonald's. There's a disconnect there and what I would say is when you are in front of someone, and it might just be something subtle, but when you are in front of someone, if you are living out of alignment, it will be felt even at a subtle level, it will, it will show up as less trustability. If you can live in alignment with your values, have the clarity of where you're going, know what type of legacy you're leaving behind, and I'm talking way beyond financial. That's how you become a more trustable man in your relationship with the people around you. But usually most men, not most men, but they're hunting. Maybe you are one of these guys who's hunting external success, looking outside of yourself for that validation. That recognition as opposed to resourcing it inside. I mean, by and large. Yeah. Early on I wanted to compete to win, but I also wanted to compete to show everyone that I had value show everyone. Uh, I wanted to gain respect from those around me. And that's, there's nothing wrong with that. However, if that becomes, you know, maybe it's 80 20 or 90 10, if we're looking outside of ourselves for love, for value, for respect, for recognition, and we're only learning how to validate, or we're only validating ourselves 10% of time, that is not really a great recipe for success. But if we flip it, if we do 90% or 80%, I know who I am because I've got my values. And what matters most to me, what I would lay my life down, what truly brings me joy if I know those parts of me 80% of the time. And then, yeah, sure, it does feel good to get recognized, to get respect, to be a leader amongst my peers or your peers. But if I don't get it, it doesn't mean that I'm any less of a man. You're not any less of a man because your bank account doesn't say a certain number. You're not any less of a man because you don't have a six pack. Doesn't work like that. And recently I was assisting my mentor Ted Ryder in his men's group. This was last week. We meet in person once a month for three hours, and he's been such a great teacher for me. And he shared such a profound practice that night, and it was, the whole evening was focused around grief and your death and how you can die before you actually die. And what I mean by that and what he's referring to that is he guided the guys through a very deep meditation, and it was a process of envisioning your death. Who are the people there? What's the room like? Um, uh, what are people gonna be feeling? And it was this beautiful, it was probably a 35 minute meditation guys were all laying down. And in that process, you went through the experience of envisioning your death. Then he took them out into the cosmos and envisioning them in the stars and before, before he guided them back into their bodies or back into the room, he let 'em know, you have a chance. You have a chance right now. Is there anything you would change If you are about to die and now, or you died and now you got the choice to come back, you had the opportunity to come back, who would you apologize to? What's the conversation you would have? Who would you tell you love them? Who would you express gratitude for? What would you do differently if you were given another chance? And it was profound. A good handful of guys got emotional with that, and when they came back, you better believe that a lot of guys got some clarity on, man, what am I gonna do differently? Or what's been the cost? Me avoiding some of these things, living out of alignment, not honoring my word. And then the second half of the night was something that I had never heard of and it was something, uh, that he guided around an ethical will. Usually when we think about will, we think about what are the assets, the finances, et cetera, that were passing down to our family. And he had shared this tradition. Or this exercise in tradition that's gone back thousands of years. He was saying, uh, it's in aspects of, I believe the Bible maybe not worded in this way, but what we're looking at is not just the finances that you're passing down, but an ethical will. And there was multiple parts of this, but I'm just gonna share a high level to give you a taste of it, is thinking about what are the lessons. You want to pass down. And when you write the ethical will, you're actually writing it to a specific person, and the intention is actually to give it to them before you die, but you write down the lessons that you want to pass along to them. What do you stand for? What have you learned in your life? What were the biggest memories that shaped who you are? What are the aspects of your history that you wanna communicate to them? Is there anything that you wanna share with them? Maybe you see greatness for them. That they're playing small. Maybe you wanna point that out, like, I, I really see, you know, you stepping into something great and, and this passion that you've had, uh, with writing could really turn into something. I want you to, to lean into that and, and spend time on that and nourish that. It's really how you get to distill and share what you represent, who you are with that person. I mean, what a gift. What a gift. Because on your deathbed. Most people are not gonna remember how much money you made, the assets that you had, the cars you had, but they will remember how you love them, how you felt, how they felt around you, or in your presence. That's what they're gonna remember when they tell the stories about you. So to actually die before you've actually died. It's such a powerful exercise to really do an honest inventory of the legacy that you're leaving and how you want to be remembered, and does your life reflect that. And so I want to give you an exercise, a simple exercise to in a, in a, uh, in a few minutes you can get a lot of clarity to gain better insight into your own values. Now, this was taught to me by John Weinland, and what you'll do is you'll get out a sheet of paper. And I want you to write or draw three columns on the leftmost column. You're gonna write the word hell Yes. In the middle column maybe. And then in the top right column, you're gonna write the word hell no. Now what I'd like you to do is reflect on all aspects of your life. I'll give you four just for some guidance. Your health, your relationship to yourself, your profession. And your relationships, and I want you to feel into those and look at which things are hell yeses like full yeses in your life. Not 99%, but full yeses. I'll give you an example. In my health, going to sleep at 10:30 PM is a hell yes. Doesn't always happen, but that's a hell yes. For me. Drinking two bottles of water, uh, or two liters of water minimum is a hell yes for me. A hell no for me would be getting shit face in drinking, just no judgment there. And it's zero interest to me, not in alignment with when I feel good, when I feel at my best, the type of life I wanna live. So for me, that's a hell no. So if I was, for example, going out into the dating world or when I was dating, if I went out with a girl who literally partied not only every week but was going to happy hour, and that was a big part of her life, I just knew right away, this ain't gonna work. Just a misalignment of values. So that would be a hell no. But if there's something that's a maybe, here's where it gets, uh, interesting. So let's just say there's a relationship that you're uncertain about, a friend, a coworker, whatever, and maybe they're toxic. They're just not good. They're constantly negative. You're trying to surround yourself with more positive people. You've, they've been in your life for years and they just drag you down, but you keep doing it because of the relationship and the history, maybe your childhood friends. So that would be a, maybe the question to ask yourself is, what would need to happen to move that maybe to a hell yes. And then the second piece of that is, are you actually willing to do it? So for example, in that, uh, relationship, maybe it's having a conversation like, hey, or maybe they're verbally abusive to you and maybe you need to hold a boundary of, Hey, I really don't appreciate the language that you're using. When we're together, I need you to check that because I don't feel good and it's not the way I talk to you, and it's not how I wanna bring my kids up around when I'm with you. So I'm asking you to. Not say F-bombs around my kids. And so if you cross that line or maybe give 'em a warning, we can't hang out, or I can't bring my kids around you, that would be you owning your boundaries, representing yourself, knowing what a hell yes is, and a hell no. And then if they crossed that boundary, then I mean, my mentor Ted would say, a boundary's not a boundary. If there's no consequence to it. If there's no consequence to it, then it's just a preference. So if they keep saying it and you keep reminding 'em, but there's no consequence, like you stop bringing your kids over, if you stop hanging out, then they're just gonna keep doing it. So here's where you get to clarify what's your hell yes. What's your hell? Nos in all those aspects of life, your relationship, um. Your profession, uh, your relationship to yourself, and also your health. And then you get to see where are you living half in, half out, and what do you need to bring that into alignment. And if you can do this, this is how you live in more alignment with your values, the type of man you want, your deeper why for being here, which is connected oftentimes to something greater, right? That is your spiritual strength. To recap today, we went through five types of strength, and I'll touch on each one so you have a reference. First, we went over physical strength, and that's your body's ability to move with strength, with power, uh, with endurance, with capacity and capability. Emotional strength is how do you learn and how do you, uh, act out feeling your emotions. By not necessarily being ruled by them, your ability to regulate your nervous system. Number three is relational strength. This is where you develop a new relationship with vulnerability and deeper connection and repair in relationship, and all that's gonna develop deeper trust. We talked about mental strength and mental strength is how do you make decisions? How do you move through life from a place of clarity? What is your level of skill and artfulness with how you manage the dialogue in your head, the mental chatter and the disorganization inside your head? And then finally, we close with spiritual strength. This is knowing your why, the legacy that you're living, the values, if when lived, move you closer to the man that you truly are and who you want to become. So those are the five types of strength. What I've done for you, if you've been listening to this podcast until now. Right on. You're one of the rare breeds who's gone through all of this. Awesome. Now what I want you to do is in the show notes, I'm gonna put a link of the actual practices. I'll give you the definition of each type of strength, and then a very concise outline as a one page guide on the each exercise or activity that you can use to bring up whatever strength that you're lacking in, you feel weak, weakened, unconfident in. There's no judgment here, but this is about taking action and responsibility and owning. The type of life that you want to create for yourself. So I'll give you that one page guides totally free. Just look in the show notes of today's podcast, download it, put it up, and identify in each of these five types of strength, just rate yourself on a scale of one to 10, 10 being high, meaning, man, I got this thing locked down. I feel confident. I know exactly what I'm doing here and this is truly a strength for me. And then one being, oh my gosh, I have never learned this. I continually fumble with this. When I feel not only a lack of clarity, confusion, I don't really feel embodied in this strength and identify that, and then I want you just to focus on one, pick one and take whatever exercise or activity I gave and make it a consistent practice for 30 days. That's how you're gonna start creating a new pattern around these things and really start elevating it. If you want to go deeper, this is exactly the work that we do in The Grounded King, my weekly men's group. I'll put a link in the show notes where you can learn more. But this is truly a brotherhood where guys get to come together to express themselves, to be heard, to be sharpened, uh, to be called forward in life. And I utilize all different modalities I've learned over the years, and there's five major ones in this work that we use in the Grounded King, and that is story work. Which is using our words and our language and being more artful with the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves in the world. So story work, meditation, movement, breath work and nature practices, grounding practices. If you want to learn more information, I'll put a link in the show notes at the ground. King would love to have a conversation with you. Have a great day and I'd love to hear if you've employed any of the practices or anything I shared today, I would love to hear about it. Have a great day.