The Men's Roundtable Series Podcast - "Business and Busyness - Pt 2 - (How Men Handle Avoiding Excuses)"

A full calendar can feel like success, but it can also be a mask. We sit down as men and get blunt about the provider trap: the belief that working 60 to 80 hours and bringing home money is the whole job. It isn’t. When “providing” becomes our only language of love, we can end up with a house that runs fine on paper while our marriage grows distant and our kids grow up without us.

We share personal stories of hustle culture, near-divorce wake-up calls, career pivots, and what it looks like to rebuild trust through consistent presence. We talk coaching tools that cut through excuses fast: audit the calendar, rank what’s on it, then face the question that stings the most, why are the people you say matter most missing from your schedule? We also dig into the screen-time gut punch, emotional capacity after a draining workday, and why so many men tie self-worth to a job title.

If you want practical work-life balance strategies for husbands and fathers, plus honest conversation about masculine identity, purpose, and being emotionally available at home, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a brother who needs the reminder, and leave a review with the biggest boundary you’re ready to set this week.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Last Week’s Takeaways

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Welcome back to the Men's Roundtable Series Podcast. We have some cool guys in the box today, man, as you can see. I'm Mr. U. Thanks again for joining us. If you're watching us and listening for the very, very first time, thanks for making us part of your week. We are live on YouTube and Facebook. And of course, the listening platforms are have this show available, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iPhone Radio. However, you listen to your podcast, you have it about an hour and a half after the show wraps. So thanks again for jumping in, fellas. How are you guys doing tonight? All's well? All's well. Rory Roll. Rory is just too cool for school, man. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I don't want to tell you, man. I'm called to a higher purpose, brother.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Too high for the rest of the spleen. But it's all good though. Well, last week we kind of started another series, and as expected, it exceeded my expectations. We talked about business versus busyness. And it really began to expose some of the things that I think we'd be talking about for the remainder of the month in regards to the things that we put out there that we call business, but it's just really busyness in disguise. After y'all, I mean, if you guys haven't watched, you guys were watching and listening. If you haven't heard heard the episode yet, please go back and check it out because it's going to give you better context for what we're going to be talking about tonight as well. Uh, it's available on YouTube right now, Facebook, I believe also, Instagram and LinkedIn have uh full versions of it as well, I believe it. Or Instagram does not, LinkedIn does, and of course on your listening platform. But we were talking about that. Did you guys have any takeaways after that? Because last week we like we really we got all the meat off of the bone on that one topic regarding identity versus activity and everything. So you guys have any thoughts about that? Anything that kind of jumped out as leading to today's episode, or be shy, go ahead and share.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

I'll I'll start. I'm the new guy, right? So I'll come on and jump right in. So the last last week's episode really did hit me in a way that made me re-evaluate a lot of the stuff that I was doing. And a lot of the stuff that instead of being busy and thought it was business, I was just being busy, busy to avoid the business. And if you guys understand what I'm saying, it's I was making myself so busy that I wasn't focused on how to do what I'm doing. So that talk you guys did last week was one of the ones that uh made me do that more now, and that's what I'm focused on now. You know, the busy, I'm a part of the business now, instead of the busyness. So I'm flipping it a little bit there for you. So instead of being busy, so just a little bit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

I love it. Thanks, Javi. All right, we'll be watching.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah, that's awesome, man. I want to I want to uh welcome Javier to show too, man. Um and honestly, brother, you just mentioned that about the busy and busyness thing. He's been uh I got I gotta give you a shout out. You took all your busy this week and and turned it all into business, like stuff you weren't even thinking about, and all of a sudden you just look pounding it out. And he's he's killing it. By the way, if any of you guys need graphic art done, this guy. I mean, right over here, just absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

He's gonna be absolutely sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

But uh, you know, I I loved it, man. I really did. I think it's a conversation we had that we we had to have. I think everybody has to have that because we all fall for it. Every one of us in in one way, shape, or form has fallen for that over over time. Where because we're really busy and because we're really packed, we feel like we're doing something that that is meaningful, and most of the time, and I think that's the kick, is we're really just we're avoiding what we really need to be doing. So I think it's huge. I think it was huge.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

I love it. BD, how about you, Greg?

SPEAKER_04 4:13

This this whole session, this whole series is really near and dear to my heart right now because I'm in the middle of a major pivot with my business, and so I'm having to really like every decision, everything I'm doing. I have almost all of my shows on hold right now. Like I've been doing you know, five shows, or if you count this one, six that I'm a part of, right? But I got five other shows, I'm only doing one of them right now. Like I actually just sacked one of them completely, like I just wiped it off the board, it's gone. The dad has shenanigans podcast is over. And my podcast I've been doing for you know, I started back in 2020 when I first started podcasting, has been on hold along with all my other shows, and I'm probably sandbagging one of the other ones entirely because it's just not serving as I make this big pivot, and so I'm I'm reevaluating you know, time spent, every decision I make. And so this one is just like you, you you told us we were gonna start this series. So I was like, dude, I feel so called out right now, not in a bad way, but it's like it's really honestly is like really helping me pair into this season of change. Because I mean, all businesses go through seasons of change where you may have to change the way you offer things, or even you know, the business model, right? And middle of this big pivot going on right now for me, it's like okay, I have to reevaluate things I've been doing for years now. And questions like, am I am I is this actually doing something for my business, or am I just this is busy work that I make myself feel better with? Yeah, and so it's really put my feet to the coals this time around.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

So I love that, I love that. And this is what I mean. Every time we get the opportunity, the the privilege to do what we're doing, we hear from different people in our world and our circles of influence. We it usually gets back to me in some way, shape, or form. And we just uh we come on this show and we cover on ourselves for the most fun. That's kind of what's just happening. I mean, we just come out here and we lay it all out, and honestly, you guys have exceeded my expectations in degrees I can't even explain or quantify. So I don't mean the people, the guys that are all some of our panelists that come through. I'm talking about the people in the chat, the people who are watching and listening from a safe distance, because they're not ready to jump into this pool yet and get their feet wet yet. I didn't think it would happen this quick. I thought it'd be years before we guys start, you know, showing some of the layers and say, you know what? I'm a man, but I still got emotions and feelings, and I still got value, and I'm still important in all this stuff. It happened quick. And I'm like, that's a testament to you guys willing to grow and to embrace change, man. So I'm excited about it, man. Last week we were just talking about identity and ownership, because sometimes, you know, I feel as though I'm a I was a former victim of it myself. You know, a lot of my businesses define who I was supposed to be, you know. People say, you know, who are you? The first thing that comes out of my mouth is, you know, what we do, what what position we hold, you know, what our office or title is. And you know, the who are you question goes so much deeper than that. It does feed the purpose, it goes a lot deeper than that. So I want to kind of cut through some of the identity issue that we have with business versus busyness. You know, the guy in the garage is gonna be the it's ever gonna be the analogy I'm gonna use for the entire month because I can't think of a better one. If you can, we'll use that. But that's what I see, even see my mind. You know, the guy in the garage, he knows there's some things that need to be addressing. It could be where his kids are acting, it could be the tension between him and the missus, it could be people in his life that he knows he probably should create some distance between him and them, but he doesn't do it, you know. Or that neighborhood just getting on his nerves and he won't say anything, he just festering and boiling beneath the surface, you know, and those are the folks that explode at some point in time. A number of scenarios can fit in that category, but he's in the garage, tinkering away, not doing any real work, just kind of just hiding behind the wrenching twos and playing sounds, not really doing what you know needs to be done and confronting those things. I had an old mentor that will always say, You can't conquer what you won't confront, you know, and it just rings true in so many ways. So let's go ahead and try to jump into the thing. You remember I think it was late last year, we talked about what I call the provider trap. You guys remember that? Where men typically will put in those 60, 80 hour work weeks and say, you know what, I'm providing, so it would be kind of their badge of honor, even though the wife ain't trying to talk to you right now. You're probably better off on the couch than in the bed. You know, the kids don't really know who you are because while you're providing and they got cool Christmas gifts, when they need daddy to show up, you know, they

The Provider Trap And What It Costs

SPEAKER_03 9:25

may have to find it elsewhere. They may have to find it in mom's friend or uncle so-and-so. They can't find it in you because you ain't available. You're working 60 to 80 hours a week and you're providing, but there's some areas that are more important than that. And honestly, the while let you guys jump in. I want you to jump in and share your stories and your thoughts about the issue. But for a little while, that was me. I thought that you know, because I was again, you guys know the story, I didn't have a father, so I didn't know how to do father and husband and parenting things. So I said, you know what? I'm bringing home the bacon, I'm bringing some money into this house and some good money. I'm doing my job. I don't see anything else I need to be doing. It was so dumb and misguided, but I didn't know. You know what I'm saying? So I learned that those big lessons early on in our marriage, almost 30 years now this year. So I learned a whole bunch of stuff now. I'm I'm I'm a total different, I'm in the garden, I'm washing dishes, I'm doing clothes, I'm tinking around in the garage, but doing basically doing something that you know I don't have to do a whole lot in that regard, to be real, but I'm doing what I can do. So if you guys jump in on that provider trap and what that looks like, and what you guys think about it, and what you've even seen in your own lives. Go for it.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

I'll jump in first again. I lived through that for a while. I had my own medical billing consulting company. So you have to go all around the state and the city trying to get the business. I opened up doctors' offices, I set them up with whatever they needed in order to open up their business. Because there's two things I know that are great doctors who are horrible businessmen, and they're horrible businessmen but are great doctors. So there's always that person that needs that. So for four years, I did not see my family because I was out there hustling, working, hustling. And I grew up in that hustle mentality. My dad was out there hustling, my sister does. So we grew up

When Hustle Breaks The Home

SPEAKER_02 11:20

like that. So that was that's what we were supposed to do. We're supposed to be the hustlers and the providers and bringing back the money and then whatever, but we weren't taught to the emotional part behind that, so that's where the danger was. I didn't know my kids for four years. I they when I turned around, they were gone, they were grown. I turned around, I was like, whoa, you know, and the wife was you know, not in we weren't in a good place, obviously. But you know, you realize that at the time you thought that you were providing that that was the right thing to do. You weren't taught, you're not there to be. You were I was raised that emotions are separate than what your responsibility is. My responsibility was to raise, give money to my family, feed them, and that it the emotional part doesn't mix with that. So I didn't see it that I thought I was doing something right, you know. I didn't notice that until one day my good my children state that was daddy's bad time because they don't know, they didn't know. I didn't see them. I saw them once a week sometimes. So yeah, I I I can relate to that really, really well.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

So what happened that made you go from performing to providing? Was it a single incident that kind of said, you know what? I gotta turn this ship around going down with it.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Well, I'm I'm pretty transparent in my stuff. So me and my wife were were at the verge of divorce based on that. Okay, so it was it wasn't ugly, but it was getting to that point where I was gonna move out and and everything. And my wife had a seizure in the the night before I was moving out. She had a seizure, and uh they realized that she had uh a tumor in her brain that had been growing since she was a kid, and it just put pressure on her brain. Thank god it wasn't cancerous, but it was it was scary. That put me into realization like wait a minute, she dies. Who's gonna take care of the kids? Like, oh man, I have not stepped up like that. What have I done? My wife needs me now. So to heck with the business. I I totally dropped it. I lost a lot of money, but I I two things I realized. My faith told me you're responsible, but you're providing the way that you need to provide right now, which is your your heart and your soul and your energy. Money comes later, and that's what made me realize her almost dying on me, realizing, you know, God, this wasn't it wasn't that serious, that important, you know.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

So yeah. Thanks for being transparent, bro. That's that's no worries. It's awesome to hear that so we can learn from that. All right, B D Rory, one of you guys want to jump in.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

I'll hop in on this one and follow what Xavier was talking about, right? Because that's what he knew. That was the only thing he knew. And I think we have to be to we all know I'm I am not a politically correct person on this show, but we have to be really careful in this conversation because the right thing often when it comes to something like relationship and parenting styles has to do with a date more than an actual style. There are a lot of men who this is all they know, and you can't say it's

What Men Learned From Their Fathers

SPEAKER_04 14:55

wrong if it's the only thing they've ever known they were supposed to do, and they're doing it to the best of their ability. Right? I'll give you an example. My father-in-law, I love the man to death. If your dad, if you see this, I the utmost respect from the bottom of my heart, man. He was on his own at the age of 14 because his dad was a piece of crap. He raised himself, finished his own education, worked his butt off every day of his life. Now, he worked, and he is one of those 70, 80, 100-hour week guys because he will work all week, five days a week or longer if they got overtime. And he is out of the house at 4 a.m. He is not back till 7 o'clock. He has dinner, he has a bowl of ice cream, he watches some news and goes to bed. And he's up and gone again. And on the weekend, he's working side jobs all day, every weekend. Why? Because his children never went a day without food in their stomach, without clothes on their backs, without the essential needs they needed to survive and to be loved. My mother-in-law did her best to love them. My father-in-law absolutely loves his children to the best of his ability. There's no question in my mind, especially as my wife is the oldest of four, there's no question in my mind that his children know he loves them and he has loved them their entire lives. And he has done everything he can, right? Because he parented the way he knew how, and the way he was raised was he provided. Now you go to my dad. My dad is a very different example. My dad was a minister for 40 years. My father was very vulnerable, my father was very emotional. He was also six foot five and 350 pounds. And I watched him body check a guy who played was playing floor hockey and hit me too hard when I was a kid. You know, he was dad. He couldn't fix a car to save his life, but he'd run and play sports with us and do all kinds of stuff with us, right? He was much more vulnerable and much more performing and being the very present, very active, very emotionally connected father than my father-in-law was. Both of them great men, both of them excellent fathers. But we have to be really careful on the topic because if all you've ever known was this is how you do it, then you're not wrong. Right and wrong in parenting has been defined by age ranges for a long time. Gen X parents are parents for Gen Xers, very different than parents for boomers, but they raise their kids just fine for where they were at the time, in the centuries they were raised in, in the decades they were raised in, because that's how you raised kids then. And all of them turned out fine. All of them blaming our parents for all the screwed up things in our heads. That's all us, dude. I had nothing to do with your parents. Stop blaming other people. We mucked ourselves up by lying to ourselves and believing that they owed us more than they did, or they were supposed to do something they didn't, which is a very new age thought, and that's dangerous. That's why we have so many kids who are unhappy right now, and so many 20-some odds who are unhappy because we put this idea of well, daddy should have been more present and more vulnerable with you and been more compassionate. He should have said, I love you more. And we're they're like, Oh my god, my daddy was this crappy dad. Your dad wasn't crappy dad. Your dad did what he knew how to do it, he took care of you. He didn't know you were supposed to do all those things. It's the argument of modern relationships versus older relationships. Men didn't know we were supposed to be vulnerable in front of women. We knew we were supposed to go to work and take care of our families and be menly men, right? So we have to be really careful with this conversation because we got a lot of brothers out there that we can alienate who are doing the very best they know how by what they were taught. And they don't know that they're supposed to be vulnerable and neat and present with their kids. That's not what they were taught. We haven't changed the script on what we're changing men. And we're trying to do that here, but we have to be really careful in that conversation not to alienate men who are just doing what they're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Good one, man. All right, I'll jump in. I uh first I gotta take these off. I put these on to try and get a smile out of you, Seth, man. But no, I can't read the chat because I'm too old. So I gotta I gotta put these back on.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Put on the uh the readers.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

All right, I can actually read now. I can see all you guys. This is beautiful. I want to take a different tact. I uh I agree with what both of you guys said, and honestly, thanks both of you guys for sharing like that. But there's you know, there's another aspect, and that's kind of how men who are willing to do whatever they have to do to improve their situations, guys like that, the guys that I coach, uh the guys that are in my groups, they're willing to take on a lot more. They're willing to say, hey, you know, I understand that I'm expected for this, but you know, what else can I do first before I blame anybody else in the family? There's a lot of guys who are taking responsibility

You Get No Credit For Basics

SPEAKER_00 19:55

for this kind of stuff. And while they may not want to be vulnerable, I think something that we talk about a lot, it's called the first 48. You don't get any credit for the first 48. And that's just a fact. That's not something we're mad about in our groups. That's something that we understand. You see, when we go off and we put in the first 48 hours of work or 40 hours of work and, you know, an hour plus at home every night doing stuff. That's just what's expected. You know, that's like you know, getting a first down in football, you know, and then you get up and you start hooting and hollering and cheering. That's your job. That's what's expected of you. You know, when you're a man, you got to do more than that. You can't just do your part and then come home and go, Hey, I'm a hero. No, you did your part, come home and great. Thanks for not letting everybody starve, right? Because that's where we all got to do.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

So I think that the guys you know that I talk to that understanding the idea behind you get no credit for the first 48. That's what I got to put in just to get into the game. And after that, I gotta go above and beyond. I gotta contribute, I gotta be there, I gotta be present. And when you go into it with that attitude, you stop keeping score and you stop doing that whole, well, you know, my wife did this, and so, you know, hey, I did more than she did. So I should be able to just sit in front of Netflix and drink a beer and go to bed. It doesn't work that way. You know, we have to do what we have to do. It's our job to provide, but we don't get a party for it. It's it's the price of admission to being a father and being a husband. It's what you do after that that that earns you your keep and and gives you your your self-worth at that point.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Love it. Love it. I love both parts. One thing I'll say in regards to Brent's comment is I feel like we do a good job providing perspective on this show. So I you know, we have each other to be accountable to in regards to that. If we think we're going to a place where we are alienate anybody. So I'm not really worried about that. I think my initial point was pretty clear when we started to show off. Even last week, no, I just feel like there are people. I again I use myself as an example at the start of this episode. There are people who think that that that is all that's required. And we gotta challenge some of that stuff, man, because if you're using a value system from the 1800s, it can't work in 2026. It just can't. The situation was different. They were on horse and buddies. You in here driving Teslas. It's different. So we can't use that. So we gotta figure out, okay, so while we're here in this place called the future, what do we do? How do we do it? What's productive and what's not? I mean, that mindset, I had to shake it real quick because I was seeing some challenges with my marriage, with my relationship with my uh three little princesses at the time. I had to figure some stuff out quick, because I was working hard. And you know, the performer, you know, which is kind of our counterbalance, they'll say yes to every little side host or anything to keep bringing in more, as if it helps validate who we're supposed to be as men. But when when YP walks out, because you ain't up, because you ain't even uh willing to invest a little time in something that you say you care about, and your daughters, they they don't want a uh a husband that's like you, they get something that's totally different than what you may have wanted for them. It's kind of hard to not look in the mirror and say, maybe I couldn't have prevented everything, but I had a chance here to make more of an investment than just the one that comes in the form of the paycheck or direct deposit. So that's kind of what we're talking about right here. Our boy DL's in the house, he is the host of the low life show. He's talking about preaching. I don't know who's preaching, I guess it's all of y'all that's preaching over there. But good to see you, brother. Thank you for chiming in out there. We appreciate you, you know. I I know you guys think I know me and Warrior have those conversations all the time about people who have full calendars, and it's just like that thing. Like, oh, my calendar's full, and it kind of had this little good, warm feeling over here in the left side of their chest. Oh, yeah, I got a full calendar, you know, I'm doing this thing. Tell me, Warby, how how do you how do you coach somebody? And I'm if you haven't met them, I'm sure you will at some point. They become a client. How do you coach somebody who has that mindset? You know why I got this full calendar? That's that's all I need to be focusing on, that's who I am, that's it. And I mean, I know how much you intentionally love your wife and kids. We can see it on social and we hear about it when we talk to you. How would you coach somebody who comes to you with that kind of mindset? And you guys can chime in after uh Warri Duncan. I'm sure you have convos with people like that as well. But go ahead, Rory.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Great question. I love that, man. You know, there's there's two things about that. The first one is uh kind of a little bit of a mirror exercise. You kind of go through the calendar. Okay, so what's your five o'clock, for instance? Okay, who are you meeting with? What's the purpose? What are you getting out of that? How does that help your family? At the end of every single thing, you stop and go, how does it help your family? Right. And if when you get through a few of those things and there is no thing that's helping their family, it's just helping them, you know, things like that, or maybe it's busy work, you really start to drive that point home. Then you go and you go, All right, look at all of these people that are sitting here on this calendar, and I want you to rank them in order of importance. Okay, if you lost this guy, is that gonna hurt you a lot more than if you lose this guy at two o'clock? Okay, I got it. So he ranks everybody in importance. And then you go, all right, I want you to rank one

Coaching The Full Calendar Mindset

SPEAKER_00 25:35

more thing. Your wife and your kids, where are they? No guy is gonna say they're below this guy or below that guy or below the other one. And you go, then how come they have no time on this calendar? If you can't get through to somebody with just one of those two simple exercises, then they have serious, serious problems and there's a serious disconnect at home. Then the conversation changes. It's no longer about scheduling, it's about priorities and it's about desire. And there's there's some guys who are basically giving up on it and are like, look, I don't want to put time in the home because I feel like there's no way to fix it. Well, you get to that and then you can start fixing it. Then you can start actually getting to what's behind that, you know, and that kind of thing. But you got to break down the barriers because there's always a simple answer, there's always a calendar answer, there's always a timing answer, there's always I'm too busy. You got to break those down, you got to start like in the calendar, knocking it apart.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Yeah. Before you guys jump in, I want to just drop a thought real quick, man, because I don't know if you guys think I'm smart or not, but I'm there's some things about this that I'm figuring out in like the past nine months or so. Because I'm the kind of person, and it could go back to my childhood and how I came up. It could be issues with validation that I had to battle with, it could be any of those things, or maybe none of those things. But there are times where I would say yes so much. Since I've been in the podcast space, since I since I in 2020, since I started then, I will say yes so much that I'm like, wow, I didn't realize that I was I was just in my wife out of my calendar. I started in 2020. I had at that time I had they called me Mr. You the flagship show, that's how I started. And then I added four more shows, I think. Yeah, three or four more shows at that point. Then I would go on to other people's shows. It was all it was about a big sports network, and I would be basically co-hosting or being on a panel of 10 different shows in a week. So my week from Sunday to Sunday was 14 or 15 shows, including my own. And I kept saying yes to guest spots, yes to come in and talk about the package, yes to come in and talk about the draft, yes to come in and talk about baseball or whatever it is. And I was like, so where do I fit in? And that's the gut punch of a lifetime. Because especially when it's just you and her, you empty nested, it's like dude, vacation, go for a ride together, go get some ice cream, and you know, and just take enjoy the cool breed, go for a walk. I mean, those little things we we neglect them because we think it's like, oh, I'm not doing anything, I'm not functioning like people around me, the environment, says I should be functioning. And I didn't realize that I was so I'm I'm just putting myself out here and just being honest about it. It's not it's not hard to fall into that trap. We gotta ask ourselves why are we saying yes to all these other things? It's the question we need to be asking ourselves. Maybe we can touch on it throughout the course of the episode today, but I want to let uh Brent and uh and Hobby uh kind of chime into the point that Rory made about you know when you run into somebody who feels like their calendar being full is the end game. It's the it's the goal. How you how you guys feeling about that? Have you met or talked to folks or counsel folks who had that same kind of mindset? What'd you what'd you share with them?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

How can I say I I haven't met anyone specifically like that, but I have spoken to people who uh in the podcast world, they just are so excited that they want to do uh 20 podcasts and they want to do 20 logos and 20 things and and all that now. I'm guilty of that. And Rory can tell you I'm very guilty of that. I'm the famous squirrel and I move. That's just me. Oh, yeah, exactly. So but I I and I hope to be that busy one day where I look at the counters and say, yeah, but not busy enough where, like Rory said, that would that the family isn't there, that there's not part for that. One of the things I worked with that was I put my wife as a reviewer of when I do a podcast or when I create something, I ask her opinion. And I'll ask her, Well, if you work from the outside, what do you think? So it sort of keeps her involved, but not you know, she doesn't want to be part, but it's involved, so that keeps me together with her in that way, instead of me doing a hundred things and she's in the other side of the house, you know. So yeah, I not met anyone like that, but I I can see that mentality that way.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Okay, thank you, brother. I appreciate it. BD go.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

Oh, this is this is a go-to for me because I've I've had this conversation in so many formats, right? I fall back on the old quote of if it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an excuse. Right. And this this was a principle I shared with clients when I was training people in the gym as a personal trainer. This is something that I've shared with people my whole life, with friends and and with people I coach in various positions, right? And it and it can apply to relationships, it can apply to your work, it can apply to any situation, but it all comes down to prioritization. My go-to is always when I get busy, I go to my calendar,

Define Busy With Calendar And Phone

SPEAKER_04 31:00

I live off my calendar, but you'll find blocks of time with my children to make sure I don't overschedule myself where I'm not spending time with them and times with my wife. So you'll make sure I'm spending time with her each week, right? Because there are days we pass in the night, you know. I'm not gonna lie, there are days I barely saw her yesterday, and I don't think I'm gonna see her hardly at all Saturday. But when people tell me they don't have the time, the first thing I want to sit down and do and ask and talk to them about is like I want them to pull out the timer on their phone. You guys know you can grab your phone, right? And and look at actually how many hours you're spending on everything on your phone, like it's built into your phone. And if you want a hard wake-up call, honest to goodness, you pull that up and look at where you're spending your time and how many hours you spend on your phone total and on which apps, dude. You are in for a gut punch. Like all of us do it, it is so easy, it's designed to be addictive. All of us are guilty of doing it. And so, you know, that's that's a quick answer for me for most people. And it's exactly that. Every time someone goes, I'm busy, I'm like, I well, what were you what are you doing today? Let's let's walk through your schedule day. What exactly does busy look like for you? Because my race, I I run 17-hour days. Am I busy the whole time? No. Do I have things on and off through that whole time? Yes, right. But if I can still find time, everybody else can still find time. Yeah, that's that's reasonable. So that's the first we just pull out that calendar. It's like, all right, let's define busy. What are you doing today? How much time did you spend five minutes with your wife today?

unknown 32:39

Right?

SPEAKER_04 32:40

My wife and I started out this morning. I finished my first show. I get up at 3 45 and I record at 4.05 in the morning. I have to have it out by 5 30. And then I get it published out and I go out and I help my wife get ready for work. And you know, we had 15 minutes. She was still getting for work, but getting ready for work. But I sat with her, I talked to her, we talked about our day, we talked about what's going on, and for 15 minutes, it was just me and her, right? But that was 15 minutes where we were present with each other while we were doing things we don't have to think about. If we can squeeze that in, anybody can squeeze that in. So it's just about poking holes in people's misbelief and the fact that they're busy because most people aren't near as busy as they think they are. Not when you start knocking out scrolling time, playing WordScape or whatever you're playing on your phone, you know, flame pigs or whatever they play these days on phones. I don't know, I haven't gamed on a phone in a long time. Uh-huh. But when you start taking all that crap out, it's amazing. Like you got a whole lot of time in your schedule, and people just don't actually analyze that and like go hour by hour.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

That makes sense, man. Yeah, misalignment just hides behind movement a lot of the time. Maybe sometimes it's more we should try that. There's uh it's a side that we can uh do openly and and and be good with that, get our phones out and show how much time we spent for the whole week leading up to that third episode. Wow, that would be really, really gussy for us to do that. Let's talk about let's talk about it offline. But Dion has a great comment. I love it, but I love his heart with this. He says the giving of attention is the first most pivotal act of love. Crazy to think one could be so busy doing stuff that loved ones are neglected. Yeah, that that that's that says a lot. I love that comment from a brand new husband, a brand new spouse. I love that he's uh thinking like this already, because you know, a lot of a lot of uh husbands kind of put that on the back burner. I mean, you know, for me, I I felt like, and I know that some of you may already be doing this, you may all be doing this. I feel like I had to create a system because I felt like even after I that story I just told you about when I was doing all those podcasts, I had to cut that junk out and cut out a network of 23,000 people and say, you know what, I can't do this stuff anymore. Now I'm bringing the calling me to you back, so I'll be talking sports on there again. But the point is that I needed to cut that stuff out at the time. It was not, I didn't have the capacity to handle the kind of workload I was putting out. I was doing like five or six shows a day, seriously. A guest spot on my own stuff, seriously. And it was like seven days a week, including Sundays. And I was like, yo, I can't keep doing it. Why could like

Building Systems And Protected Time

SPEAKER_03 35:30

it was it was not it was not a fun situation? But I have a system now where even though I have four shows, these all happen live or record three days out of the week. That's it. Connection calls, networking calls within those three days. Them other four days reserved. You ain't getting them. If it's Monday, if it's from Friday to Monday, you can't have it. And I gotta do that. That hurts feeling that people you know are messed up because one day I record is Friday. I can't have you. I can't come on your show then. Friday through Monday, those days are locked in. I gotta do that. So we have an understanding, and I have a better household as a result. My wife knows that on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I'm gonna be busy. Don't even stress about it. I'm gonna be up early, and I'm probably gonna be up a little bit later than I would normally be wanting to be up doing stuff regarding regarding these four shows or connection calls or anything in the business marketing realm. Outside of that, that's it. I feel like I'm not a poster child for this, I'm figuring out how this works, it's going well so far. Once I make sure I don't compromise and change my mind unless somebody gets a little Friday here and there, as long as I don't do that kind of stuff, I'm okay. But how do you guys feel? Do you guys feel like the system is the answer? What if you say I'm gonna still keep doing what I'm doing? So don't worry about that part. But in regards to a system, do you feel like that that plays a part in being able to handle some of these, uh some of this workload and and make sure make sure you uh devote time and schedule time for the important things in life? You feel like creating a system is important? Have you done that? Did that make sense to you guys personally?

SPEAKER_04 37:16

I think there's a season for everything, right? Like right now, I I already said I'm in the big big middle of a big transition with my business. Oh, yeah. And so my wife and my kids both know I'm working a lot longer days, and I'm working. It's like my free time is very limited. I have one night a week that is still blocked off exclusively for my children. Nothing from 4 p.m. till they go to bed happens that afternoon except for them. That's it. Nothing. I don't clean, I don't cook, I don't do anything. That's it, right? That's their time. It's on my calendar, and it is as sacred as anything that makes me money, if not a lot more. And then I have one time usually with my wife, but a lot of times it's you know, five minutes in the morning, five minutes before we go to bed or something. But they know right now that is not normal. That's this big transition. Like I said, there's a there's a phase when you're in the middle of a big change. Sometimes you have to make some personal sacrifices to make that happen because this change needs to happen for my family as well, right? Now, on a normal, no, I I I have a crucible on my calendar, man. It's like here are the time blocks. This belongs to my wife, this belongs to my children, this belongs to this friend. Like, there is a strict, it's this time I'm done, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:39

That was my that was that was my next question I'm gonna ask you. So, what was it like before the big project?

SPEAKER_04 38:42

Okay, yeah, there's definitely a cutoff, and I started doing that when I launched my business, or right after I launched my business, because I was not willing to sacrifice my family for a business, and I knew with like I I have such a obsessive personality when it comes to work when it once I start grinding, and we'll be smiling.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

I'm smiling joke, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

And so I I knew I had to put guardrails in to make sure it didn't drift into the negative.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

I'm gonna throw a little bit a little craziness at that. Me and my wife a little bit of craziness, okay. Yeah, just it's it's I understand you know the times that everybody wants to spend with their with their significant other. Me and my wife we if we're in the same uh area, we're we're come we're not we're comfortable with that. You know what I mean? We don't have to always have be having conversations or all this. As long as I'm physically there and she's physically right here, that's almost enough for me all day. When she's not around or I'm not, it it really, you know, it does. So I understand we all have our times, and we all of course those are beautiful. I I do it all the time, but just the presence of the person to me means more than just having a whole conversation or time, which I appreciate everyone doing. Men should do that a lot more often than we do, but you know, that's my thought on it.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Fair enough. I ain't gonna attack you, man. I I I would I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be in a room with her for hours and not hear her voice, not hear her heart about a situation, not hear her her laugh. So that's just me.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

And I no, I want to make that clear. It's not about the silence. It's I I when I hear her, because she watches her soap opera, so I hear her yelling at it or having an issue with something, and or she'll come and the rest of the destroying marriage. I'm just saying, yeah, but you know what I mean. It's it's just the if she she cries, if she laughs, I know she's okay, you know, she's there.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Copy that, copy that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Well, we'd like something to say about that.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Once again, man, I I love what both you guys had to say, man. I really do. You know, I I've been there, man. That's why I'm kind of smirking because I made the mistake. I was building the real estate company out of nothing, and that was everything to me. And you know, my wife was doing a fantastic job of taking care of the kids, you know, raising them. Uh she was a stay-at-home mom, everything. You know, she was doing everything. And so I was like, look, she's doing that, I'm doing this. And I really thought that was okay for a while. And it was a long time ago, but I thought it was okay. And then when all of that was gone, when we lost it all, you know, crash and then you know, bad decisions and yada yada, but when it was all gone and you're sitting there and you're like, man, all that work I put into that,

Guardrails Marriage First And Hard Lessons

SPEAKER_00 41:55

and there it is, just gone. And then I'm looking at my family going, if I could have just put all that work into that, where would I be? And you don't get to go back and do that. You don't get to go back and say, well, you know, I'll just do this differently, because once the die is cast, the die is cast. It's over. When the time's lost, the time's lost. So very often we have to learn the hard way. I think that one of the reasons why God took all that away from me was because it had become, you know, an idol for me and it had become more important than him, it had become more important than my family and the whole nine yards. And so everything I've done since then has been for them. And even now, you know, I don't work on Sundays, man. Not, you know, I give that time to God and my wife. And, you know, if my kids will have me, then I then to them too. But then there's uh other times during the week where I'll say, hey, during these times, I'm not working because I need to be with my wife during these times. And it's important to take her out to her favorite coffee place, you know, on some morning. So, you know what? For two blocks, I'm not putting anything in here on this Thursday. That's just that, right? Because they're for her. And if she doesn't want to go do that, that's fine, but it's still for her. And you have to learn that. And unfortunately, most of us learn it the hard way. So if anybody's willing to listen to it, do it now before you know you're sitting here, and I'd rather have you learn from my scars than from yours. So pay attention.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

I don't think anybody wants to try to come back.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

That that part. Brett, do you have something you want to say about that? You you're smiling. You okay?

SPEAKER_04 43:44

Oh no, I I I'm seeing it from all angles, man. This is this is my brand. Um I I I understand where Xavier's coming from because there's a lot of times Sarah and I approach, we're almost our 25th anniversary.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Oh, let's go. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

Yeah, we're I think two two weeks away. It's the 21st. So there are a lot of times where, like personally, I need proximity to my wife. I after 20 almost 25 years, dude, I still can't be close to her and not touch her. Like if I'm standing anywhere within range, if I'm sitting by her, I've got a hand on her lap, on her back. Like I can't okay. We've had friends of ours mock us about this. They're like, it's so cute. You guys just can't. I was like, yeah, you wish, right? And so I understand sometimes it's just the proximity, right? You you gotta have that closeness, but that's a a holding pattern until you have some real time with them. But you have to make sure you're having that real time as well because it is so easy, right? We we actually have rules about our kids. My wife sits by me most of the time at church, my wife sits next to me, my children sit on the outside. Most time on the couch, my wife sits next to me, our children sit on the outside. Why? And I've told my daughters point blank, I said, when y'all are gone, it's still me and her. It was me and your mom before you, it's gonna be me and my mom, your mom after you, and so she's my number one priority. Like, this is this is it, this is where everything starts and ends, right here. And I've made that very, you know, I've got two daughters, I'm I'm very clear with them on that. It's like, nope, your mom is my priority. The biggest sin my kids can commit in my house is trying to play us against each other. Like, as soon as they were old enough to understand that concept, I was like, You can do a lot of things bad. If you try and play your mom against me, I will end you. Like it's we don't even play, dude. You can lie to me because they can go kill a car, I will be less angry than if they try and play their mom against me, like just straight up. I won't care as much. And I and I'm with you. I'm with Rory, like you have to so many of us get sidetracked, right? And that's why I said I had to put guardrails in mine because I knew Rory, like that is I'm I'm so prone to that that tunnel vision. I get on a project and I'm in it and I live it and I breathe it, and everything else in the world disappears. And so I had to, when I started a business for myself, I had to establish guardrails because I knew I would screw up my relationship with the way I am, and so yeah, for a lot of guys, it's so we don't see it because we're so obsessed with this idea we talked about earlier of the provider mentality, right? As long as I'm providing a paycheck, that's my way of saying I love you. And most guys don't understand how to say I love you otherwise. I I would wager there's a lot of guys listening who could not tell you what their love languages are or what their wife's love languages are.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

That's a really good book, by the way. It helped explain a lot of things. It's good, it's it's it's helpful. Oh my goodness. Love languages. I don't know when we're gonna ever talk about that one. That that's gonna make a note that at some point we're gonna discuss love languages.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

That please don't give me certain love languages.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

I you now you now now I'm gonna give you guys a little bit of freedom because you understand that we're gonna be talking about this excluding next week for the next five weeks. Well, for five weeks total, yeah. Five weeks total. So if you got a comment about love languages, I ain't gonna prohibit you, man. Spit it out. We good. Oh, oh he's done with it. He turns his camera off. Right, I'm out. I guess I guess the whole love language idea is something that he doesn't want to talk about, which is fine. It's okay. That's funny though. I'll ask you something. You guys, this is kind of hope it's not a tangent. I feel like I feel like we're still in the same place. What would you say to a guy who you're talking to, uh, and it feels from Kidd's estimation, he's kind of searching for his assignment and he doesn't see the value in himself? I don't think that's a question that's outside of this conversation. I don't think it is. If it is, well, answer it anyhow. But you know, how would how would you guys uh encourage and direct somebody who's in that space? I feel what I hear from from men, and you guys are all doing some level of culture and interaction, connection,

Finding Purpose Beyond The Job Title

SPEAKER_03 48:55

community, etc. A lot of a lot of guys, and they won't always openly admit it. I was in a conversation recently, I guess we call it a discovery call recently. And the person was, you know, when I first met them, they were giving me a lot of highlights, you know, about their life. And we start getting to the coaching box, you know what I'm saying? This is this is this is this is where I live. This is this is my this is my cage. You ain't getting over on me in that cage. I I I want that square. I know what's happening. And I'm asking questions, and now we're getting down to the real. And we're meeting guys sometimes that are searching for their assignment and they don't see the value in who they actually are. Can I say that? What do you guys say to somebody who you meet who's in that peculiar situation? What do you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

I think that happens to a lot of us, and I think that happens to a lot of guys. We we talked about this from a couple different angles, maybe not quite head-on like this, but so many of us get our our value, we get our self-worth from our job. Uh, we've we talked about that before. But then we that's the only place we get it, you know. And very often it's because we have convinced ourselves that you know, our wives don't respect what we're doing, or our wives don't give us that credit, you know, for the for the job. The fact of the matter is, is that we haven't given ourselves credit for anything outside of the job. You know, we look at it and go, hey, I'm not really needed here. My wife has that covered. Where am I needed? I'm needed at my job. That's why I get paid. You have to, when you're dealing with a guy who doesn't have that kind of value system, that's deep-rooted. That's very deep rooted. And that's the type of thing that that requires a very, very, very tough conversation. But but you gotta you gotta confront that head on. And you gotta say, look, if you get fired from your job tomorrow, and it can happen easily. Who are you? Where are you? What's your next move? When people have to start answering questions about, like, hey, if I didn't have the job, then what do I do when I wake up? Then you can try to find it, you can find a try and find a track to what's important, you know, what's important past that, you know what I mean? So it's I'm being serious. You're throwing up love language stuff in my face, man. Get out of here, man. I'm giving I'm giving you gold over here, you you know.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

I think it's a legit question.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

No, but that that that's good. I mean, anyway, I'm sure you're I'm sure you see those folks because there's more of us than I think we think that are in that spot. Yeah, I mean, I honestly I I find myself a little bit further along than that now. But all the things that I was doing with my life since I moved down to the south from New York, I had to scrap a whole bunch of stuff I thought was the thing. And when you're at a certain age, I I'm sorry, they can people can lie to you and say it doesn't matter, or you just find yourself, but there's some scrutiny that comes your way when you're a man of a certain age and you scrap everything and you're starting over. People are out here killing people like that, man. Your family's even digging in on you. My mom was the thing she was saying, I'm like, I'm trying to get this thing right. I've been building this thing wrong. When I do teachers and talk, I always kind of go to that discussion about the surf side condominium disaster in Miami. I always talk about it because y'all built this big condo, luxury condo, and you knew it was a foundational issue, and you knew. And you spent weeks and months arguing about it, or people were living in there in peril, and they didn't even know it. So when I realized that my foundation thing wasn't good, I had to scrap that thing and start all over. I had to go ahead and find out what do I should, what should I be doing? What's the right thing for me? Not what everybody wants me to do. Where should I be? I found it, I know where I am. I'm in my groove, I'm in my sweet spot, so to speak. But look how late it was. And it was scrutiny that came with that. So the guys you're talking about, Rory, there's a lot of guys like that, man. I'm sure Brent and Hardy may have some uh examples. I love to hear those. But you know, there's a lot of guys like that, man. They're trying to figure out what their assignment or assignment purpose, fill in the blank. You know what you want to use. But that's what's happening, and they're and they're afraid. Some of them are in their 50s, and they retire from a place and like, man, I retired from this job, and it doesn't mean anything in the big picture. I did that bid 30, 35 years, whatever retirement is, whatever it is, and it it nothing. Now I'm not now here just hanging out, trying to figure out what's next. Because purpose was never established. It was just the the performance or the providing track that we were talking about earlier. But go ahead, Brent Hobby. You guys, if you don't want to jump in, we can we can move on. It's okay, but I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts though.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

I I'll give you an example. I for myself, I became disabled about five years ago. So I hear that, brother. In a wheelchair, and I do have to do stuff like that. So I I realized later, after all that, like you said, people didn't know their purpose. I had I didn't know my purpose till I'm almost 56 years old. I'm 58 now. So I didn't know my purpose till after I recovered. And I saw that this was what God wanted me to do, this is what I was led to do. All these other things that happened led to this, and this is where it's I'm focusing. And now I see the fruits of that, and I see the fruit, the labor of that. So I came into the the game very late, but but to me it's it's never too late to realize what your purpose is. You know, that God sometimes doesn't tell you what your purpose is until it could be the end of your life, and he'll then he'll know your purpose. Oh, you may never know your purpose, but it's the way God does things in his in your life and how you move, and so that's the way I see it. God took me from a really dark place and said, I'm gonna make all this stuff happen, and it's been happening, and it's almost scary in a way, but you know, I got a big God behind me, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Thank you, brother. BD, what'd you think?

SPEAKER_04 55:51

I got a friend who's living this right now, man. One of my best friends just lost his job after years of working for the same company. Uh, and he is, let's see, I'm 46, so he's hitting 50 this year. And he's been in the same industry for decades, but he's been in the same company in various capacities, going on 18 years almost. And he literally just lost his job last week. And I love him to death, he's a brother to me, and he has always struggled with finding value in himself. This has always been a big, big, deep-seated issue for him. And I think there are a lot of men, I think there are a lot more men who would ever than admit that, who really have self-esteem issues. I think that's why men so easily identify themselves by their professions, because that's where we get our praise. That's where we get our, oh, you do this well. Oh, okay, well, I'm this, right? And we've all introduced ourselves. I I laughed. The first time I introduced myself as a podcaster instead of an IT guy, like mind blown, because it was like this moment of identity. I was like, oh my god, I just called myself a podcaster, right? You did it, you did it. It was a huge mental transition for me because it wasn't like on the phone, like I was face to face with a person at encounter. But so many of us pull our identity, and I think it's because so many men struggle with self-esteem. And there are people who struggle with self-esteem from some really, really deep issues. Oh, yeah, like professional help level, way more than I could ever help somebody. And there are some people who it's a more surface level that I can maybe walk through that with some. But my friend has always struggled with that self-esteem issue, and his biggest his identifier is I'm this, and he's great at his job, but that has always been where he sources value, that and his work with young people in youth ministry. And so to have this hit at 50 years old, like he is forlorn right now, he is almost incontrollable. I'm on the phone with him all the time. Wow, sorry to hit his man. Because it's the only way a lot of men know how to measure their own value, right? There's I don't know who said I've seen it quoted so many times now. It's only women, babies, and dogs are valued just for existing, right? In reference to the fact that men are not. Once you pass a certain age, a man has no value to the world unless he is providing something. That is that is a cold hard fact, and I know some people will argue that, but seriously, only women, dogs, and children. That's it. And so, because of that, men are taught their whole lives, from the time we're young, that our only value comes from us providing something. So that's so many of us build that identity based on what we provide, right? And this is a hard issue, and depending on where it sources from, like I said, it ranges from professional help to trying to get somebody to see themselves through your eyes, which is not a short-term conversation. You can't, yeah, like I my my best my friend, we've been friends for 20 years almost, and we have been working on this for 20 years because it is the core of his identity. He's a believer, he knows God's love, he knows God's love him, that God loves him. He's worked in the church, he knows God loves him, and he still can't love himself the way he should, because he was told he was a piece of worthless crap his whole life. And so, like, I this I think this is one of the great uphill battles men are facing right now that we need to figure out how to get a handle on. As men, as a society, this is something we we desperately need to get our hands around because this is why the self-harm rates are so high among men.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

Yeah, I want to ask this question. I want to end the show with this if we can. I want to get you guys back to your lives and everything. I don't know where the data comes from, but it's something that I think the researchers call psychological absence. I I haven't heard of this, but I guess the point of it is that they're saying the research is saying that work-related stress, can I love what you kept up in the same brain? That's why made me think about this. That work-related stress leads to fathers being physically absent at home. But emotionally unavailable. I it it doesn't explain how that happened. I didn't

Work Stress And Emotional Absence Debate

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

do enough digging to even find out whether that's so, but just as a short answer as possible. Do you guys believe that that's possible, true, or just bogus? Those are the only three options you get. Possible, absolutely true, or hard wash.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:57

What do you guys think? Absolutely true.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

I agree. Absolutely true.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

Absolutely could be true, but more than likely bogus.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

Can y'all give quick explanation? I'm I'm doing this for you guys' sake. It's not for me. I got time. We can hang a little bit, but I'm trying to just respect you guys' time. Give me some explanations on for each of your answers.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:24

Go ahead, Rory. You're the counter one on this one. Lay it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Yeah, I think that that we're always physically exhausted. I think we're always completely stressed. I think we are that way from the moment we enter this world. You know, there's expectation on us from the moment we're born. Don't cry, don't be weak, don't let anything happen, don't misbehave, don't get distracted, or you have ADHD. You know, I mean, everything under the sun happens to us. So we are constantly under a microscope. Uh, if we're too tough, we're toxic. If we're not tough enough, then we're wimps. It doesn't make any difference. You know, we can't win no matter what we do. As young men, as old men, we fall into the same traps. And so basically, what we've learned from this same society that has condemned us all this time, what we've learned is that this is our excuse to get out. I'm overwhelmed. I hate that word. I do not use that word. I'm overwhelmed as a state we're always in. And so to me, I don't really believe that it's the cause of the stuff. I think it's it's a great excuse for us to finally get a break just to be able to say, I'm overwhelmed, because what's somebody anybody gonna say? You know, oh, you can't be overwhelmed, right? You're not allowed to say that. Fact of the matter is, is we're not too tired, we're not overwhelmed, and we're not we're not weak, we're not failing. We are lacking purpose. And if we have the purpose we need to have and we are dialed in on that purpose, then we aren't tired anymore. Then we're not overwhelmed anymore. We're not lacking anything anymore. We have drive, we have Vim, we have vigor, and we have purpose. And I think that's the biggest issue.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

Thank you, sir. I'm gonna who's who's next, but I'll let you go, D.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

I'll let you go and take this one.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

All right. So I think it's a semantical argument, right? Because we're talking about men being overwhelmed by work to where they don't show up well at home. And I don't think the word overwhelm is the correct word. I think it's emotional capacity or our our EQ, whatever you want to call it, right? It's a matter of every I used to use the example in the gym all the time, right? If I take a gallon jug in the gym and I poke a hole in it, eventually the water's gonna run out, right? So you want the most juice to get through the bad stuff, the heavy stuff, and so you put that at the top, right? Well, it's well documented in psychology that your ability to make good decisions works the same way. You only have so many good decisions in you through the day, and the longer you go, the worse your decisions get. Same thing, I believe, is true of emotional capacity, right? At the beginning of our day, we're at our peak. We wake up, we have our coffee, we're fresh, we're good. We are at our best that we're gonna be all day, like that. Is the absolute best version of us all day. But then we go to work.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

So that's the scary competition. That's that's their best.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

I know, right? It's rough. But we go to work and all of a sudden we start piling on. You didn't do this right. Oh my god, you got this line, right? And we start piling all this stuff on, and because it's part of our identity, because in the back of our minds, we're terrified of failing to provide for our family, and so much is writing on us, doing well at this job that we spend all of our emotional concurrency at work. It's not a matter of overwhelm, it's by the time we get home, we don't have the healthy emotional cycles capacity to deal with our family in the best possible light, right? I know my daughter deserves the best version of me, and if I can't give that, I am likely to kind of push her away and shield her because I know she doesn't want leftover daddy. Leftover daddy is kind of an asshole and can be really difficult and grumbled. Oh, sorry, my bad yeah. That's only one. You have to hit three words before you hit an E. At least according to the rating system. I did look this up. Three words. But I know that she is not going to get the best version of me, so I'm more likely to push her or my wife away when I'm already diminished to that extent, especially if I've had a rough day. So I don't think. It's overwhelming is the right word. It's we actually tend to isolate ourselves because we know that the version of us that our family is going to get is going to be less than they deserved, and we know we're likely to react more inappropriately, we're not likely to hear it or bear it or deal with it in the frame of mind we should. And so to protect them in our own minds, we justify it and go, I'm protecting them by keeping them at a distance right now. Now, I it's not right, it's not the alternate ultimate solution, but I think that's what happens with a lot of men.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

All right, hobby. Coming from that that whole thing, I worked in an industry where all I did all day is argue. That's all I did all day. I worked in healthcare. All I did was argue rules, regulations, I everyone. So I understand by the time I got home, I didn't want to say boo. Don't tell me, don't answer a phone, don't let a phone ring, don't nothing. Because you were so emotionally, like you said, Devi into what you were doing that you have nothing left because you took it all that. And it took me to lose it to realize all that energy was wasted in those things when taking it home, it wasn't necessary to take it home. But I can understand where you get so frustrated, you just you need a time to just chill. I don't want to hear nothing right now, you know. So that's my thought on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

That's good, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Let me let me just throw one little counterpoint out here, only because you know I I started it, so I think it's only fair I get to respond one last time. Uh and I'll I'll be very quick. I'll be very, very quick. All right, and for those of you who are Star Trek fans, let's just throw out one of the best quotes in the entire world, and that is long and prosper. Well, that's beautiful too. But uh I don't it's the Kobayashi Maru, man. The Kobeashi muru. I don't believe in the no-win scenario. When I came home from work and I was exhausted, I I was not near anywhere near where I could be, but I gave him whatever I had. You know, I laid on the floor and played with Spider-Man figures, even if I had to be on my back playing with this figure over my head because I couldn't move anymore. You know what I mean? So I think that there is a point where all of us, you know, give every last drop. You know, we all want to be better, but but I think all everybody here gives everything we got. I just tend to think that we have a lot more than we think we do. I think we accept a limitation long before we actually hit it. And we may say, hey, I got no emotional bandwidth left, but you know what? That's if you can say it, then you haven't given everything you got yet. You know what I mean? If it's written on my tombstone, then you know what? I give everything I had. And I just I think the guys here believe that. I really do. But I also think that very often we kind of give we give ourselves and we give other people that excuse. You know, there's always more men, there's always more in the well, and I think that's one of the things that that makes us just incredible and and gives us that power that we all have as fathers and husbands.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:06

I love it, man. We're gonna end we're gonna end the show on that. No, this has been good. I think just we gotta rent incoming that we need to uh allow you to have room for, or you want to save it for next week when we got the next out?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:23

Nah, it's entirely easy, guys. I I live by this in the military. It's something that actually trained us in the military. Your brain. I actually trained my daughters with this thought, and it's 20%. Your brain, your primitive brain will shut you down at 20% usage of your physical capacity. It is a hard documented biological imperative. Your brain saves all this extra energy from our more primitive days when we might have to run to save our lives. It is actually a skill you have to train yourself to move

The 20% Rule And Final Challenge

SPEAKER_04 1:10:05

past 20%. So when you think you got nothing left physically, right, you're at 20%. Your brain's just trying to shut you down to protect you, so you got something left in case you got to run. This is well documented. The best, the best lifters in the world, like the guys in the world's strongest men, record-holding power lifters, they get to about 16. That's it, or about sorry, about six percent past that. So they get to about 26. It's it's the tiny, it's a fractional amount. Your body always has a lot more, and and Rory's right, your brain has a lot more, your emotions have a lot more, but it is a skill set you have to develop to be able to tap into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

Copy that. Thank you guys for being so transparent tonight and sharing these gems. You guys that are watching and listening. I hope you got something out of it. A lot of folks are doing the spring break thing and making that an excuse to not be on this show. We'll talk about that later. But but for now, this has been a fantastic series so far. I'm excited about the rest of it. And I think I I end the show by saying this because you guys, I'm gonna keep on doing this. I'm just giving you a heads up in advance. I believe, and even though I don't fully always see it in myself as a man, just to be honest about it. Husband, father, brother, son. Sometimes I'm still trying to find the diamond in the midst of all of this mud. I I really believe in you guys like that. So I'm gonna keep pulling. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna accept that this is the best we got, this is all we can do. It's never gonna happen. On your other podcast, you can do that there without me, no problem. You get no contest from me. But on this show, on the work that I'm doing, I'm never gonna allow it to be the thing. It's never gonna happen. I don't mean Warby, you laugh. I don't mean your podcast. I'm talking about when you go on somebody else's show and they talk about this kind of stuff. I don't mean your show. I am not. I'm saying I'm saying the people outside of our sphere of info, the other the other folks who be as informed as you guys are. I'm not accepting that here. I believe there's always more. I think Wobby and Brent, I think you guys agree on that particular point that we have more in us than what we've been allowing to come to the surface. So thank you guys for being transparent and making this thing a real situation. And yeah, spring break is still going on because kids run outside my house making a whole bunch of noise, and it should be at school. So, yeah, spring break is still happening. So, uh yeah. Look at that. That's the queen, ladies and gentlemen. The love of my life. Well, we love you guys. Thank you guys for watching and listening. We'll have the audio version of the show up before 10 o'clock this evening on all your listening platforms. We're on YouTube right now. Drop some love in the comments. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Let us know you love us. Facebook is live, LinkedIn is live. We get to Instagram later. Love you guys. Have a fantastic rest of the day. Thanks for making us part of your week. The men's round table series out. See you on the 23rd.