Episode #909
Do your past experiences shape your current patterns?
In this episode, Doug is joined by Chris for a raw conversation about how trauma and ingrained behaviors impact our relationships, especially in marriage. Together, they explore why men often struggle to let go of past pain, the cultural pressures to suppress emotions, and how these unresolved issues can resurface in harmful ways.
You’ll learn practical steps to identify patterns that no longer serve you, the importance of solitude for self-awareness, and why surrounding yourself with the right people can accelerate your growth. They also discuss tools to approach difficult conversations and the generational ripple effect of addressing (or ignoring) trauma.
This isn’t about quick fixes—it’s about real work for lasting change. Tune in and take the first step toward breaking free.
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Transcription
Chris 0:00
The key, again, is to recognize: is it a pattern? . Is it serving me to my highest level? Because if it is, right—you have a pattern that I detected from you in our conversations—it’s working out. Even on your way here to The Ranch, you stopped off to work out. So that’s your pattern. You go, “Okay, am I on a pattern? Yes. Is it serving me to my highest level? Yes. Do more of it.” Yep, right? Other patterns: “Is this serving me to my highest level? No? Okay, let’s find something different. Let’s course-correct.”
Doug Holt 0:39
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The TPM Show. If you see the smile on my face, it’s because we’re laughing and having a good time here at The TPM Ranch. And once again, we’ve got Coach Chris back with us. Chris, thanks for being here, brother.
Chris
Doug, thanks for having me back again. I thought I was gonna get fired after the first one. It’s been great, and I’m sure a lot of guys can tell we have fun. I mean, I think I’ve emphasized this a lot on these last few episodes, but it’s just real men getting together, and that really resonated with me when we did the Alpha Rising event here just a couple of weeks ago. It’s just great guys. I always say with TPM, we don’t attract assholes because, like, really good guys don’t invest money and time in bettering themselves and their relationships. They don’t. They go do something else; they spend their money elsewhere and their time elsewhere. So I appreciate the time we get to share with you and drop some knowledge. And once again, we were talking about something off-camera, and we thought, hey, let’s just share this with the men.
Chris 1:36
, , absolutely. I think, you know, we were talking about the storms we go through in life and the trauma that we can collect with that—and that, really, as men, we tend to stuff it. Because we were told to do that since we were small children: “Don’t cry, be tough,” right? And then, next thing you know, we have all this stuff built inside of us. We’re in these intimate relationships, and all of a sudden, we’re not showing up the best way we can because we can only mask that stuff for so long. And we get triggered, and it kind of comes out in an ugly way.
I saw that personally for myself. I deal with that a lot. I grew up pretty uniquely when it came to not having a father around. My father was absent; he wasn’t there. My mother was married four or five times, and so I built a lot of resentment from abandonment and all these things. And I brought all of that crap with me into my relationships. The work I did with you guys really opened me up to how I wasn’t showing up. But there’s also work I needed to do to unfold, to kind of pull that out and release it—to not hold on to those old childhood feelings and things.
Doug Holt
I’m with you 100%. And one thing I always like to do when this comes up—and I think it’s my own issue—but define what “trauma” means. Because it’s become such a buzzword, right? Kind of like “being triggered” has. What does trauma mean to you?
Chris
It’s some fear that I’ve felt and am holding onto. It’s fear. It’s always fear-based at some level, right? And it may not be a fear you’re exposed to right now, but you’re still holding on to it. It still lives inside of you. If you were abandoned or didn’t have that love and emotional support you needed, you still fear that. And even if the current relationship doesn’t show that, it’s still a part of you. So you can spend that time and energy diving into that, releasing it, and understanding: “That’s who I was, but that’s not who this person is,” right?
Doug Holt 3:36
, okay, so I’m with you 100%. Sometimes I joke with the guys, like, when they come to The Ranch, I go, “Hey, bring this, bring that, but leave your baggage behind,” right? You don’t need to bring all your baggage in here. But we do. We bring all of our baggage into a relationship, and then when we go from one relationship to the next, we bring that same baggage to the new relationship if we haven’t dealt with it.
That’s why you will find—or at least for me, when I look back at the relationships I had before I got married—what was the constant in why those relationships didn’t work? Oh, it’s me. I look back at the women, and hindsight is 20/20, of course. I’m like, “Oh, she was amazing. She was amazing. She was amazing.” All of these things. But it didn’t work out for whatever reason. Now, I left every one of those relationships, but I left because of my trauma, right? “Oh, I don’t want them to get too close” or, “Oh, sabotage myself,” ? So I would bail: “I’ll leave before you leave me,” that kind of thing.
Chris 4:40
A little layer of protection there for Doug.
Doug Holt 4:42
100%, and I brought it into my marriage, right? Like I was the one that left, right? So, for my story—and the guys that have heard my story before—I left for a month and went down to San Diego. And, you know, we don’t have to go into the details of that. But until you deal with those things, they’re going to come up time and time again. And a lot of times, most of us—certainly me, I was one of them—we’re not aware of it when we’re in it.
Chris 5:12
No, I mean, a great example: in my first 10 years of marriage, I was so emotionally disconnected because I built this wall of protection—this armor on me—because in my childhood, I had to do that to protect myself. But I didn’t recognize that I was carrying, or wearing, this armor that wasn’t serving me anymore, right? It was really causing huge friction because she needed a much deeper emotional connection. And I would be giving her breadcrumbs—just enough, but not enough to let her in—because I was protecting my heart due to what I dealt with.
Doug Holt 5:51
At TPM, we talk about the stick man, the “I Am,” and different things, which get a little bit into shadow work and the advanced concepts we teach some of the men. And there are layers to that game, right? As guys go into The Brotherhood inner circle, the game gets raised and elevated to what we go into. But unless we’ve been introduced to that level—and I’m going to guess most of our listeners have no idea what we’re talking about here—what it is, is the way we show up when we’re not the best version of ourselves, right? That trauma triggers a response mechanism inside of us that says, “Okay, this is what I need to do to deal with this.” For me, it was exiting the relationship. For you, it was putting up the shield, right?
And I have that shield too. Like, all of us have all kinds of defenses. We’re like the most amazing Iron Man forts in the world—defenses coming up everywhere. Some guys use their wit, their intelligence; some guys sleep around—all kinds of things to protect their identity.
Chris 6:46
, that’s it. And then, you know, with this mental health awareness, right? We weren’t—at least, I was never—raised to be like, “Oh, you might be dealing with something. You should go talk to somebody.” , right? No, no. Boys were never told that. You just deal with it. Like, “Don’t cry,” you know, “stiff upper lip.”
Doug Holt
Stiff upper lip, right?
Chris
, I think that needs to change, right? I have two girls, and it’s different with them, but they’re going to be aware. They’re going to have that mental awareness of just going out, making sure they’re talking—having them in counseling, having these open conversations. And knowing that this is stuff we need to deal with when we’re younger and carry that through our lives. It’s just like going to the doctor to get your checkup; our brains need the same thing.
Doug Holt 7:36
I think it is changing to a degree. Maybe it’s just the circles I hang out in, you know? I mean, I’ve sent my kids to private schools, like a Waldorf, deliberately. My son’s very—well, I don’t want to throw my son under the bus—but my son’s a much more emotional kid than my daughter, who’s younger. She’s a little Viking; if you meet her, she just likes to tear stuff up.
But I think it is changing a little bit in our society. That doesn’t help us men in our 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond with how we deal with things. I think it could have been socially acceptable to go talk to someone, but there’s a stigma behind that, right? If you go talk to someone, or you join a group like The Powerful Man, or you do something like that, people think there’s something wrong with you. And that’s seen as a character issue, which is a hard thing to get over. When someone says, “There’s a difference between ‘I have a problem’ and ‘I am the problem,’” right?
Chris 8:31
, I think for a long time, we try to avoid thinking that we’re the problem. Those layers of protection and those stories are just part of keeping us from really identifying it. We probably all know we need to do the work, but it’s hard to step into that space and recognize, “Okay, it’s time.” And let’s be honest—shadow work is the hardest work we do.
Doug Holt 8:53
, it reminds me—I tore my rotator cuff again, so I can’t work out. I was just getting back into working out. And of course, I went to Prague, and I used that as an excuse to drink more than I should, eat more than I should—eating more pizza. I’m eating the kids’ chicken dinosaur nuggets, doing all the things, and I’m gaining weight.
I go to my physical therapist—I hadn’t seen her in like three weeks—and she’s like, “How’s your shoulder?” We’re going through it, and I’m like, “, I got a little bit of range of motion back.” Then I go, “The issue is my thyroid. You know, I keep gaining weight. It’s not the pizza and beer; it’s just—it’s gotta be my thyroid.”
She had the same reaction. She knows me now—knows me well enough to know I’m very cynical, sarcastic, and joking around. But it’s like we blame our problems on something external. “I’m not the problem; it’s my thyroid gland. That has to be why I’m gaining weight. It’s not the beer and pizza Doug’s eating as an excuse—that couldn’t make me gain weight. It’s the thyroid issue. It’s beyond my control.”
Chris 9:46
It’s not that I’m not emotionally responsive; it’s because they’re too needy.
Doug Holt 9:49
Yes, exactly, exactly. That’s the issue. “I better get out of this relationship. , she’s not good enough for me. I’m moving on so she won’t hurt me when I realize I do want to be in this relationship.” So, we’ve got to figure out: what is the trauma? How do we figure out what’s going on in this situation?
Chris 10:08
Well, this is something in the programs we do so well. First, you need to have time alone. You’ve got to turn off the noise of this world. And we don’t do that because, anytime we’re alone, we have our headphones on, we’re on our phones, we’re on our computers. We may not be at work, but we’re still at work. When do we have time to sit in quiet and just feel what’s going on in our bodies, in our minds? And when it comes up, let’s not be afraid to dive into it. Let’s not turn it off. When the emotions come, we need to cry. As men, we need to release.
One thing I realized is that crying—as I was raised—was seen as a weakness. What I’ve realized is that when those tears come up, you let them flow because that’s a release of something you need to deal with. So, you have to be in a space where there’s quiet, where you can hear yourself.
Doug Holt 11:07
, that’s a good one. I’m going to throw out an alternative. From my perspective, when I’m working with men, I ask very simple questions. I’m sure I’ve talked to you about this, but someone complains. “If you have a complaint, yes or no?” “, here’s my complaint. My wife’s doing X, Y, Z.” “Okay, cool. Is this a pattern?” “Yes.” “Is it serving you at the highest level?” “No.” “Okay, there’s something in here that’s causing this pattern to repeat. And of course, it’s your wife’s fault. Of course, she’s crazy. Of course, if she only got better and realized how amazing you were.”
But besides that, where are you contributing to this pattern? Right? Where’s that coming from, or what happens inside of you? How do you react when this happens? And what’s that? That’s how you can identify that triggering moment. If it’s a similar thing, then that actual trauma—that pattern—is inside you. Maybe it’s inside your wife too because we tend to marry someone who’s really good at playing with our triggers and is a good teacher. But is that pattern inside you? If it’s happened more and more, that’s when you know there’s a deep-seated trauma. I use that term because, for some reason, I don’t like that word, but there’s a deep-seated trauma that needs to be investigated so it can be released.
Chris 12:19
, and I also think it’s really difficult to sometimes identify it by yourself. Oh, . Even if you have the quiet time and you’re doing that, it’s still hard. Sometimes it takes another person to help identify that—whether it’s a professional or starting to listen to what other people or loved ones are saying around you.
Doug Holt 12:41
Which is sometimes hard.
Chris
, well, it’s often hard.
Doug Holt
, right. Because, “Are they judging me? Or is it true? Are they attacking me?” If that’s your trauma experience from a young age or whenever it happened, it just further stacks the evidence that this is reality, right? When it doesn’t have to be.
Chris 12:56
, and don’t fall back into fight, flight, or freeze because that’s what we naturally do, right? Those layers of protection are going to put us there. We have to be able to be conscious of that to understand what is actually being said at that moment.
Doug Holt 13:11
You know, that’s interesting. What just came up—I was thinking about my patterns and my natural reactions—fight. But when it’s with women, I can’t fight, so I flee. I run—or at least I had in the past. It’s very interesting. So, okay, guys are thinking, “I’m going to do the solitude thing. I’m going to give some time to myself.” And I’ve got to ask these guys here—and you know this answer, Chris—but when’s the last time you didn’t have your cell phone for three days?
Chris 13:40
You guys took it away in the UK.
Doug Holt 13:48
So, when’s the last time? Some guys, they go hunting and they’re out of range or what have you, but they’re usually not by themselves. When’s the last time you were by yourself—no cell phone, no books, just you by yourself—for three days? That’s what alone time is. You know, you gotta imagine, throughout history, we were alone a lot, right? A lot of thinking time happened, but we don’t do that now. Now we’re distracted. If you’re not on TikTok, you’re on Instagram or Facebook or some other social media platform.
I can’t tell you how many times a guy goes, “Well, I haven’t had TV for three years,” and they’re proud, like, “, wow, dude, you haven’t had TV for three years.” And the next thing they’re telling me about Netflix, and I’m like, “Dude, that’s the same thing. Just because you don’t have ABC or you’re not paying for cable, if you’re binging Netflix, bro, it’s the same deal.” They’re distractions, and they’re not bad, per se; it’s just about what we use those distractions for.
Chris 14:40
, and there are more distractions now than ever before. Oh, and they’re so much more accessible. That’s the other part—having the discipline to avoid them is really challenging.
Doug Holt 14:51
When you’re connected… We were just inside the main house a second ago, and I was on my phone messaging people through an app, you know, getting stuff done. In between a pee break, you know? Like, we are that connected—or have the ability to be that connected—which is great in a lot of ways. But if we’re trying to identify trauma or sticking points in our lives and our relationships, it could also be used as a distraction.
Chris 15:15
Absolutely. , we use it all the time just to avoid having to do the work, , and as an excuse for being bored. I think it’s difficult because we all need to do it, but a lot of times, we don’t do it until shit hits the fan in our lives, and then we’re forced into that space.
Doug Holt 15:34
Hey guys, I wanted to interrupt this episode because it’s dawned on me that many of you aren’t aware that we actually have a book on How to Save Your Marriage Without Talking About It. Now, thousands of men have read it, and they’ve reviewed it. I want to give you the opportunity to do the same. If you’re interested in grabbing it, it’s a short read, but it’s helped a lot of men just like you.
Maybe you’re not ready for The Activation Method yet, but this is a small entry point that can really turn things around for you. Go over to Amazon. We have it priced as cheap as Amazon will let us, so you have a resource that you can use right now to start getting results in your marriage. Now, let’s get back to the episode.
Chris 16:10
We need to be more conscious of working through it before we burn the whole house down.
Doug Holt
Yep, exactly.
Chris
It’s like asking for directions before you’re lost.
Doug Holt 16:22
And it’s an interesting thing. In my experience, when you surround yourself with men who are on this journey, you start to enjoy peeling back the layers because you know what’s on the other side of it. It’s kind of like working out. After a while, you start to chase the soreness, right? You start to like it.
You start working out, and you kind of want to get sore. You kind of like the pain. It becomes this sadistic thing, but you actually enjoy the pain of the workout because you know what’s on the other side of it—the endorphins, feeling better, looking better, being stronger, being more fit. That becomes the enjoyment of the workout. Whereas, if you’re just working out for the first time, all you have is the soreness to go on—and that’s not fun. But you know you need to get through that sore period.
Chris 17:16
And you realize that when you start this work and pull back a layer, all of a sudden, you feel a little lighter. You feel a little better, . So, you pull back the next layer and feel a little better, a little lighter.
I think I’ve told you my analogy of the buffalo energy, right? Like the buffalo—when they see that storm on the horizon, they literally look at it and walk straight into it because they know they’re going to get out of that storm quicker versus trying to walk around it or away from it. Because it’s always going to catch up to you at some point.
Doug Holt 17:46
, and it’s going to be on you. Like a storm coming through—if you’re going away from the storm, eventually the storm catches you. And if you keep going in that direction, you’re in the storm much, much longer. And that’s what most people do.
Chris 17:57
And when we get past that storm, that lightness comes—that happiness—because we dealt with what we needed to deal with.
Doug Holt 18:03
I love that analogy. In fact, you have a buffalo necklace on.
Chris 18:06
I actually just got a tattoo of it too because I truly, from my past, would run from those storms. I would hide from those, and it’s just an amazing reminder that this is a lesson I need right now. Let’s deal with this, go into this, because on the other side of that, I’m gonna fucking feel good.
Doug Holt 18:25
It’s always about having that conversation, taking that action, doing it first. That applies to everything in life—business, relationships, right? It always is: do the thing that comes up for you that you’re a little bit scared to do. As one of my clients said, “It makes my butt cheeks pucker a little bit.” Great! If that’s what it is, then find those things that make your butt cheeks pucker, and that’s what you’re doing first. Get those over with, because you realize that usually, it’s the story we create around the thing, around the conversation, that’s 100 times worse than actually doing the thing.
Chris 19:00
Always, always. And the more time we wait, the bigger we make that story, and it just makes it more difficult to step into it.
Doug Holt 19:07
It is. There’s a guy—I’m not going to give his name away—but we did The Alpha Reset in Florida around 2020. I did it with Mr. Peach, who we were talking about earlier, and a couple of other guys. The guys just arrived, and one of the guys sitting around the table made a big mistake. He was telling stories. He was telling us about an issue he was having with a business partner, and he said, “I gotta have this conversation with him.” He’s like, “I gotta talk to this guy and just get this resolved.” And so you know where this is going. I’m like, “Where’s your phone?” He goes, “Oh, it’s right here.” I’m like, “Cool, go outside, make the call, don’t come back in till it’s done.” He’s like, “What?” It’s the first time we met. He’s like, “Who is this guy?” He came back glowing, ear to ear, because he called the guy and said, “Hey, look, I gotta talk to you about something.” And the guy goes, “Thank God, I’ve been waiting for this conversation for like a year. Thank you so much.”
It ended up being a difficult conversation. One guy was like, “Hey, I’m doing more work,” and it was all these things that were going on. But they both knew the conversation needed to happen, and both were scared. He took the leadership of doing it. The guy had the conversation with a friend, and the friend said, “Thank you so much for doing this,” because it was weighing on him too. So we get to do those things. The trauma we’re carrying within us—we get to release that. Not only for ourselves, first and foremost, but as a ripple effect on our partners. And what gets me motivated to do it, Chris, when I don’t want to do that extra little work, is realizing that if I don’t, I’m just gonna pass it down to my kids. My kids—the trauma that’s in me—is my trauma from my parents. Another podcast right there. Oh, it’s like a podcast.
Chris 20:49
That’s a big one. I think what I’ve recognized for myself is that when I get triggered, let’s say you say something that pisses me off, but I don’t address it. If it comes back in my mind two, three, or four times, and I don’t stop it, I’m going to spend a tremendous amount of energy festering on that, right? So, if it’s hit me three times, I need to have that conversation and say, “Doug, you’re being an ass.” Sometimes we get into these loops of negativity and cycles, and it’s usually caused by the trauma of a certain situation, right? It could be something small, but we spend so much time and energy in that negative space that we just need to make the call.
Doug Holt 21:34
You know, speaking about communication or trauma or whatever it is, Tim and I have an agreement we call “mud on the glass.” We use the analogy that in a relationship—let’s say it’s you and me—there’s a pane of glass between us. Every little resentment is like a flick of mud on that glass. Sometimes, when we want to brush it off or just laugh it off, it’s like wiping it with your hand—it just smears more. This happens in marriages. There’s a little flick on the glass, and eventually, those little flicks pile up. Over time, you can’t see each other anymore, and now you’re in a relationship with someone you can’t actually see. It all starts with just a flick of mud. You really need to completely clean that glass. The nice thing is, you have 100% control over cleaning that glass. It doesn’t matter if they flick the mud or you did.
Chris 22:25
And I think that’s hard, because you know the conversation is going to be difficult, right? A lot of times, for me, the “Mr. Nice Guy” in me didn’t want to say something that might make my spouse feel bad. You generally try to protect their emotions, right? But then you realize how much damage you’re doing by not having that conversation—especially a month, two months, six months, or a year down the road.
Doug Holt 22:51
We can all tell when we’re around somebody who resents us or doesn’t want to be with us, right? And then we create a story about that. That’s even worse. We’re not protecting them; we’re protecting ourselves—absolutely, 100%. We want to look good, feel good, avoid rejection, avoid backlash, or avoid making them angry with us. But I’ll tell you, when I have those conversations, nine times out of ten—90% of the time, if not more—it’s not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. People approach me, too, saying, “Hey, Doug, I need to talk to you about something.” For instance, staff or others will say, “This thing you said bothered me.” I’m like, “Dude, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m a smart-ass. I joke around all the time, and when I’m stressed, my jokes can sound curt. But I’m still trying to keep it light.”
And they’ll go, “Oh, I didn’t know. I made it mean this.” Then I’ll say, “No, dude, it meant something totally different.” Usually, we walk away closer than before. Sometimes there are tears, but most of the time, we walk away better.
Chris 23:52
I agree. Anytime I’ve had those conversations, it’s always been easier than I expected. The whole reason I didn’t want to have it was usually some trauma or hurt I was holding onto that often had nothing to do with the situation. It was just layers of protection.
Doug Holt 24:07
I’m sure you don’t do this, but I tend to make up stories around these things. Invisible fights, right? Totally. And like you said, when our traumas come up, that’s a big thing. I have a story of abandonment. My parents separated when I was four, divorced when I was five, and I was constantly between houses. Sometimes I was allowed in one house, sometimes not—it was a weird situation. I carried that with me. Before Sprinter vans became a big deal, I had one with all my stuff in it. I had a place to live, but I wanted all my stuff with me because I was always “in between.” As a kid, I often missed having a stuffed animal or toy at the ready. So, when my wife and I traveled, she’d ask, “Why do you bring all this stuff?” I’d say, “That’s my trauma. I need all this stuff with me.”
Chris 24:55
I mean, that’s the truth. No matter how we are raised, nobody comes out of it without something. No doubt about it. No matter how good life was, there’s always something you’re going to have to handle and deal with. It’s just part of our development and growth. My parents were too good, right? Or whatever it is.
Doug Holt 25:14
They treated me too nicely. My mom was so great to me—how could my wife ever live up to her? Yep, or whatever else it may be. The key, again, is to recognize: is it a pattern? Is it serving me to my highest level? For example, a pattern I’ve noticed in you from our conversations is working out. Even on your way here to The Ranch, you stopped to work out. That’s your pattern. So you ask yourself: “Am I in a pattern?” Yes. “Is it serving me at the highest level?” Yes. Then do more of it, right? If it’s not serving you at the highest level, then it’s time to find something different—time to course correct.
Chris 25:50
That’s so funny. I recently found out I have ADHD, and it made so much sense of these patterns in my life, right? With that comes a constant need for dopamine, and I’ve had to course correct. I found that you have to identify those things that serve you, because it’s so easy in those circumstances to find things that don’t serve you. If you’re addicted to something that serves you and helps you—and you’re not overdoing it—then it’s a beautiful thing. But it can easily go the other way.
Doug Holt 26:22
Oh, for sure. It’s funny, too, because I’ve got to imagine 80% of the people I hang out with or know would be diagnosed with ADHD—especially business owners. That’s why we have multiple businesses, right? Because having just one isn’t enough—we need six of them!
Chris 26:39
We all have to have at least six LLCs.
Doug Holt 26:43
Oh man, that’s another podcast in itself. So let’s give these guys something actionable. We’ve talked about being alone—filling your cup. Looking at it: “Is this a pattern or not?” Surrounding yourself with like-minded men. You also mentioned getting professional help because you can’t see the forest for the trees. Is there anything else a guy could do when he recognizes what we’re talking about and thinks, “Hey, this is an issue in my marriage or my life, and I want to address it”?
Chris 27:09
What you just said are huge steps. If you do those, you’ll start making some massive changes. I can’t think of anything offhand, but those four or five steps you mentioned are pretty solid. It’s just like sports—baseball, basketball—stick to the basics. You’ve got to do the basics first, right? You don’t have to do a 360 Tomahawk dunk if you can’t dribble the basketball. You don’t have to go to Brazil and do Ayahuasca to start—it can begin way before that.
Doug Holt 27:39
Exactly. It should start way before that, with someone who’s been there, done that. You can have all those experiences without Ayahuasca, but it requires you to do the work first. I’ve done Ayahuasca a number of times, and part of the allure for some people I’ve done it with is they want Ayahuasca to do it for them. They’re not looking at it as an adjunct to their own exploration, which I think is a mistake. You’ve got to do the fundamental work and deal with your trauma before trying something like that.
Chris 28:11
It’s the same as seeing a counselor—you can’t expect the counselor to fix it for you.
Doug Holt 28:15
Exactly. When you think about trauma, think about hitting singles in baseball—do the basics first. Don’t try to jump ahead. I was always the guy who thought, “I’ll learn the system and then make it better,” before even implementing the system. That’s why, when we talk about becoming an Activated Man—which is really our term for a Powerful Man—it’s about being an Activated Man. That’s why we have The Activation Method. It’s a methodology to get you there. The same applies to trauma—there’s a methodology you can follow to help you deal with it. And we just gave the guys four—not easy, but actionable—steps they can take.
Chris 28:54
Go do it. Don’t be afraid of it. Try it. Just do the work. It’s the most important work we do.
Doug Holt 29:00
100%. And if you need motivation, don’t just do it for yourself—look into your kids’ eyes. That’s when you’ll really get it. You’ll realize that a lot of the trauma you’re carrying around is probably the same trauma your dad or your mom carried. The thing I always tell the guys is, the difference is, you don’t have the excuse. You know now—your parents probably didn’t. So, who’s going to do the work to stop passing that trauma on to your kids?
Chris 29:22
That’s definitely a podcast we should do—generational trauma.
Doug Holt 29:26
Let’s make it happen. Brother, thanks for being here. Always great talking to you.
Chris 29:30
Thanks, man.
Doug Holt 29:30
Gentlemen, as we always say: in the moment of insight, take massive action. The reason I say that is because I’ve been there—going from one podcast or one YouTube show to another, to another. Maybe you’re out running, maybe you’re doing yard work, maybe you’re just driving in your car. But take some time—pause this episode. Save it, come back to it. Listen to the tools Chris has given you. Firsthand, it’s from his experience. He’s in the trenches, and he’s still doing the work, just like I am, and just like you are.
But he’s one step ahead. So take that information and apply it to your life. Take action. Do something. Do yourself a favor. I know, from the statistics on how many people watch or listen to this show, that probably only one or two percent of you will actually take massive action. I get the feedback. Be in that top one or two percent because you deserve more than average, and I want that for you. We’ll see you next time on The Powerful Man Show.
