Episode #1076
You know your core values at work. You’ve built a team culture, held people accountable, and led with purpose. But at home? Things feel off. Maybe you're clear and confident at work but second-guess yourself with your family. You say your family comes first, but your calendar tells a different story.
In this episode, Tim and Bruce talk about a pattern they’ve seen in successful men: strong leadership at work, but little direction at home. They unpack why many guys never define values for their family life, and how that lack of clarity leads to drifting, disconnect, and frustration. You’ll hear simple ways to bring intentional leadership into your home, starting with a 15-minute exercise that helps you define how you want to show up with your partner and kids.
If you’ve ever felt like you're failing at home without knowing exactly why, this conversation will hit home. It’s honest, practical, and focused on helping you get aligned with the man you want to be, especially when you walk through the front door. You’ll also learn how misaligned values can quietly create tension in your marriage. And why setting even three simple core values at home can shift the energy with your wife and kids. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up with more intention and less confusion. If you’re leading everywhere except at home, this is the episode to tune into.
If you feel like something’s missing at home but you don’t know how to fix it, get access to the free training here: https://fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales. It’s a simple way to start making real changes that matter.
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Head over to our BONUS page for special access to some of the deeper tactics and techniques we’ve developed at The Powerful Man.
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Tim Matthews 0:00
Self-sabotage what’s your experience with it?
Bruce 0:04
Been there, done that.
Tim Matthews 0:06
Sabotage things when things are going well because things are too calm.
Bruce 0:11
If I really messed up, I felt good.
Tim Matthews 0:15
And they get their significance from being able to swoop in and save the situation.
Bruce 0:20
I wasn’t aware of it, but I felt a buzz if I could mess things up.
Tim Matthews 0:24
You’ll find ways to create drama and/or chaos as you move through life.
Bruce 0:29
You don’t have to stay trapped in that self-sabotage.
Tim Matthews 0:43
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The TPM Show. My name is Tim Matthews, I am your host, and I’m joined by the incredible Mr. Bruce Greater.
Bruce 0:53
Good to be here, Tim.
Tim Matthews 0:55
It is, it is. So self-sabotage. What’s your experience with it?
Bruce 1:03
Been there, done that. More so years ago, when I was perhaps less aware of who I was or who I wanted to be. In a way, I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, but there was a thrill an adrenaline rush I used to get by sabotaging myself. I felt alive. If I really messed things up how’s the irony, how’s the weirdness in this? if I really messed up, I felt good.
Tim Matthews 1:39
Rush. It’s so multifaceted, isn’t it? Because when I think of self-sabotage, there are different pieces to it.
There’s a self-worth piece to it, right? Somebody might not feel worthy of what they’re experiencing. And it could be a level of success professionally, or relationally in the relationship, even with their health. So there’s this idea of an internal thermostat you can rise above it, but then you’ll find ways to bring yourself back down.
So there’s that to it. But then there’s also this idea about the savior complex. There are a lot of guys we’ve worked with who will sabotage things when they’re going well because things are too calm. And they get their significance from being able to swoop in and save the situation and that’s what they become known for. They get all the plaudits in that moment. People look at them and say, “They’re the man,” and everything.
So what they’ll do is they’ll find ways, personally and professionally, to create chaos so they can swoop in.
Then you’ve also got the idea of the nervous system, right? Because if you get so used to operating in a certain way well, if we take it right back there are a lot of studies that have come out that talk about how a baby’s brain learns to fire and wire. Not just babies, but toddlers as well.
If you grew up in a chaotic environment, your brain can literally get used to firing and your nervous system too in ways that mirror the chaos. And therefore what you’ll do, because that’s your habitual norm, is you’ll find ways to create drama and/or chaos as you move through life.
Let’s say things are going really well professionally you’ll probably find you’ll create some chaos personally. Likewise, if things are going well personally, you’ll probably create some chaos in your health or at work.
It’s this idea of drama needing the excitement of drama different from the identity of being the rescuer or the savior that swoops in and gains significance. Also different from self-worth as well. But it’s a fascinating subject, because I see a lot of the guys that come to us myself included have really struggled with this.
Bruce 4:14
I can relate, absolutely, Tim so in kind of two spheres: one around health and then professionally. I guess I have a sort of healthy mission in life, to create some peace and tranquility around my life and others, but the sort of unhealthy mission I had unconscious at the time was to create some chaos and mayhem and even destruction in my life.
I wasn’t aware of it, but I felt a buzz if I could mess things up. I felt alive. And why was I messing things up? Because my life was too boring when it was going well. I wasn’t happy when things were going well. So how did I start to feel alive? Mess things up spectacularly make bad business decisions, do stupid things and then I’d have to fight. Fight for survival, fight for recovery.
And that gave me a rush and a buzz. So then I’d have to really knuckle down and work hard and recover from this deep hole I’d thrown myself into. The cycle of the up and down was when things were going well give me a day where I’m on the edge of the cliff, fighting for survival, because then I could feel alive.
But the longer-term consequences of that were, I don’t know adrenaline burnout, or a lapse into a state of mental health that wasn’t what it could have been. So certainly I did that professionally how do I feel alive in this work environment? By messing up.
And it showed up also in my personal life by not looking after my health. You know, if I was running and eating well and sleeping well, life was a bit boring. But if I ate too much or didn’t get enough sleep, I’d have to fight through the day of tiredness. And there was a sense of purpose I had to push myself, and I felt like I was achieving more by doing that.
And how’s the irony in that? Setting myself up to make things difficult. So self-sabotage I’m very familiar with it. And why was I doing all that behavior? Because I had no sense of self-worth. I didn’t particularly like myself. I didn’t think I was making a difference in the world. And so how did I feel alive? By creating chaos.
Tim Matthews 6:47
I think the two that stand out for me the most are the self-worth piece, but also, for me, I had a pattern and it can still show up at times; I need to be very aware of it of creating situations where my back would be against the wall, where, to your point, I had to fight out of it.
And that could be as simple as procrastinating on things. That could be as simple as taking on too much. It could be as simple as well, I think procrastination is probably the biggest one I’ve seen show up. Just leaving things unnecessarily.
I would still deliver them on time, but I’d know that these things needed to get done, and because I had so much time to get them done, I wouldn’t bother doing it. And I get the whole thing of I think it’s Parkinson’s Law: work will fill the space that’s allotted. But this wasn’t that. This was a case of an easy thing needing to get done, and I didn’t do it until I was really up against it and a few things were stacked, and I could really feel the rush and the buzz to your point.
But it was incredibly stressful, unsustainable. Ultimately, I’d always create situations where I would feel as though I didn’t have capacity, because I was stretched too thin. And I would drop the ball at times as well.
So just kind of thinking out loud a little bit as I talk this through, I do wonder whether part of that was also a nervous system piece just being used to fight or flight, that kind of intensity. And when it wasn’t there, I think you kind of used the term “alive.” So if it wasn’t there because there was space I would then find those ways to create it.
So that’s the one for me. And then the other one is the self-worth piece. I can think of times within my health where I’d be on a good path, and I’d just stop. I would literally think to myself, “Oh, I’m making progress. I’ve lost some weight, so now I’ve got some scope to eat X, Y, Z, or drink,” or whatever it may be.
I used to watch this pattern play out, and it’s the strangest thing I could see it. I could see it. It was like a reward: “I’m going to reward my progress by sabotaging it.”
When I traced that one back, that one came more down to being bullied as a kid for being skinny, and I think the fear I had around really becoming lean I think I equated feelings of, I don’t know if it’s vulnerability or probably weakness, feelings of weakness to losing weight.
So slightly different from self-worth was that one. It was more of an unconscious commitment and an identity piece.
But speaking to the self-worth piece, there’s definitely been times when I have gone above my internal thermostat and I’ve just felt so uncomfortable that the drive has fallen away and other things have stopped.
But in reality, looking back, it was a self-worth thing. I only felt worthy of that level that I’d just passed, so I was going to keep myself there. And I’ve seen that play out in relationships and at work.
And the fascinating thing about the relationships piece and I’m rambling on here but the fascinating thing about the relationships piece is I noticed a pattern that I had with Amelia. Amelia is such an incredible woman. Now, we’ve been together for 12, I think 13 years, and she’s when we met, she was so emotionally available, so much confidence and vibrancy and just incredible.
Doug Holt 11:29
Hey guys, I just want to share something with you. I’m sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what’s broken. And not only do you need to know what’s broken, but you need a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That’s the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you’re just going to be toiling with things.
That’s why I created a free training a training that not only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have but also how you get it back. How do you retain that, where your wife’s looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, “I do”?
You know, I don’t know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like I’m her man, I feel like I can conquer the world and I want that for you. Simply go over to thepowerfulman.com/scales. That’s thepowerfulman.com/scales, and I have a free video training for you. You can just click play and see if this resonates for you.
Now, back to the podcast.
Tim Matthews 12:31
And there came a point in our relationship that, unconsciously, I created a situation very slowly over time that made her emotionally withdrawn. That was the environment I grew up in as a kid. I felt there was a lot of emotional unavailability when I was young, and unconsciously, that’s what I then went to create because it just felt comfortable. It didn’t serve me, I didn’t want it, but it felt more comfortable than me giving what was required of me to continue to be engaged with Amelia in an emotionally available way as the relationship continued to move on.
Bruce 13:20
So for me, growing up was a little bit different. I grew up in a very calm, kind of tranquil environment, and I suppose as I moved into adulthood, I wanted a bit more excitement in my life so I created it for myself by creating drama and kind of messing up.
And looking back on it, there was definitely a cycle of not feeling good about myself that whole self-worth piece you were talking about. So how did I prove it subconsciously to myself? By messing up. Every time I messed up that whole procrastination thing you spoke about, or kind of not doing stuff when you should I could create some drama. And then, you know, “Exactly, it’s true. I’m a basket case, lazy guy, not up to this.”
So I could create it was almost self-fulfilling that kind of lack of self-worth I needed to prove to myself, and I’d get that buzz in the process. But for me, it was very much that I couldn’t see it, even though I was in that loop.
Tim Matthews 14:39
No way. No one can tell you, right, when you’re doing it. No one can tell you until you’ve done the work until you’ve become aware of your patterns and then you can see them cropping up again, because there’s way too much defensiveness before you’ve even done any work on it.
And it’s a bitter pill to swallow the idea that that is actually how you are unconsciously. Like you said, I think you said it so well: there’s something you’re proving to yourself about yourself. Consciously, that’s not how you see yourself though, right? I think that contrast is what creates a lot of the struggle. “Oh, I’ve done it again,” because, like I said, consciously you think you’re somebody different.
So true. I’m curious let’s say a guy’s listening to this and he’s resonating. I know there’s Mr. Palmer in the community and a few of the men who commented on the post when I shared with them that we were doing this in the TPM app they’re struggling to break some of this. They want to understand why it happens, which we’ve just been speaking to a bit. But what advice would you give a guy that’s listening to this and thinking, “Okay, I’m doing that”? How would you recommend that he actually breaks the cycle?
Bruce 16:01
So for me, I almost couldn’t do it on my own. I needed the support of other people who could say to me, “Bruce, you’re doing this again.” So whether that’s a coach or a mentor or a support group of other men that’s what I found worked for me.
I knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t break out of it myself. So I needed the support structure of other people. Not to create the awareness, because I was already aware, but to create a way of showing up differently accountability.
Accountability, absolutely. “Bruce, you’ve done that again. You know you’ve done it. Why do you keep doing this?” So some exploration of that shadow behavior, those negative self-beliefs about myself shining some light, as we’ve spoken about in a different episode shining some light on that.
Those negative self-beliefs there’s a different way I can show up through raising some awareness, raising my consciousness but I needed the support of other people. I realized I couldn’t do it on my own.
Sure, I knew I was procrastinating. Sure, I knew that if I waited until four o’clock on a Friday to deliver something due at 5 p.m., I got a buzz. I knew all that. But changing the behavior I needed greater awareness, and that came to me by working with other people.
Tim Matthews 17:35
What was the most I don’t know if you could put it into one but I was going to say, what was the most impactful exercise that you did to help break this?
Bruce 17:48
Difficult question to answer, Tim. Probably some awareness of those negative beliefs I had about myself the self-worth stuff. So some awareness of what those beliefs were, by exploring with other people what the beliefs were: “I’m not worthy, I deserve to fail, I don’t deserve success.” All those beliefs that were causing me to trip myself up. And through shining some light on that stuff becoming aware that was probably the biggest one.
You know, I would say to myself, “Okay, I’m gonna eat better this week, I’m gonna run three times this week, I’m gonna have eight hours of sleep.” Come Tuesday, it’d all fall apart. Why? Because I knew what I needed to do, I knew what was tripping me up, but I needed something in addition to just willpower. Willpower wasn’t enough.
Tim Matthews 18:46
No, never works, right? Exactly. Identity is always going to trump willpower. Exactly. And the issue with self-sabotage is there’s an unconscious identity at play, right? And the mind is always going to find evidence for what we believe. So unconsciously, if we are telling ourselves a story of being “not worthy,” or whatever it may be, the mind will either create situations or find situations to prove to you that the story is correct.
So the key is to be able to consciously create your identity, because ultimately, identity is the strongest force in our psychology the need for us to stay consistent with who we think we are. Hence my prior point. But the question is, well, who are you?
To consciously craft your identity is such an important piece. I guess if I would have heard that years ago, I think that would have sounded like such a huge idea but it’s not actually as huge or as daunting as it sounds. I think, to your point, becoming aware of what the beliefs are is one of the first exercises we take the men through in both the Ascension Blueprint and The Activation Method.
It’s the shadow stickman, and that can be a very illuminating exercise for a lot of the men, because they become aware of, “Well, how is their shadow showing up?” So that piece of them that ultimately was created unconsciously when they were four, five, six, seven years old, in response to the question: “What do I need to do to stay safe, loved, and protected?”
Exactly, because during that time, you literally had attachment figures primary caregivers in your life that you were dependent upon for your survival. So maintaining a secure attachment to them was key. So what we then do as kids is modulate and modify our behavior in response to that question so that we can maintain the secure attachment.
And if we get told, “You’re being too much,” “Don’t cry,” “Shut up,” “Be quiet,” whatever it may be, we’re going to do those things, and we come up with these survival strategies. Some of mine were to kind of fly under the radar, be quiet, and not speak up and those were great. They worked. They got us through that period of life when we couldn’t fend for ourselves.
The issue is, as we then get into adulthood and into relationships and business and such, oftentimes we can look at our environment through that same lens that we had when we were five, six, seven years old, and very much perceive or see the emotional intensity we’re met with through the lens of the seven-year-old.
And thus those survival strategies can then play out again. When we see them play out by falling into DEER mode: defend, excuse, explain, react or avoiding, people-pleasing, whatever it may be it frustrates us. We don’t want to do that, but we do. And all of these can form ways in which we self-sabotage.
So becoming aware of it is key. I just wanted to share that, because I know it was a long monologue, but I wanted to kind of break down this idea of the identity piece, because I do think if I would have heard it, it would have been a really daunting concept.
Once you’ve got an awareness of it, it then becomes the processing piece. Obviously, you did the Mankind Project and other things over a period of time. We’ve got The Alpha Reset and other things. The processing piece is really important. There’ll be emotions and energy in your body that have been trapped and stored from that time in your life that will feel heavy and cause some of the triggers.
It’s really important to process some of that. And on the other side of that, there’s a lightness there’s a blank slate from which you can consciously create who you want to be. That’s when the accountability, to your point, becomes really important, right? Because you’re saying, “Okay, these are the habits that I’m going to live by, because they reflect who I am and my value system.”
And it’s going to require me to get uncomfortable at times. So I want and need some accountability and to be surrounded by men that you trust, that you know have your best interests at heart, that are really in your corner, who you respect and are going to listen to is crucial at that point.
Bruce 23:29
So my experience of The Alpha Reset was it gave me some clarity around how I wanted to live my life, as opposed to this kind of reactive confusion, perhaps, that I was in for a long, long time. And with the support of other men, there’s some clarity now.
So all that lack of decision-making, indecisiveness, all that stuff that would weigh me down 20 years ago I don’t have that anymore, because it’s easier to make decisions now. It’s easier to show up being the authentic me, because I now know who that is.
Tim Matthews 24:10
I love that. And this is what we dive into in the Ascension Blueprint. That program very much focuses on this particular piece the self-sabotage, really about how to get unstuck and get clear so the men can move forward.
We dive into, like I said, all the shadow pieces, and the Alpha Reset’s included and such. I know you know this, but I just want to let the guys listening know.
So if you were to give them one piece of advice walking away from this one thing that they were going to really run with what would it be?
Bruce 24:50
You don’t have to stay trapped in that self-sabotage. You can move forward.
Tim Matthews 24:57
I love it. Guys, thank you for joining us for another episode of The TPM Show. We’ll see you next time. And if any of this resonated with you, book in and speak to one of the advisors. The Ascension Blueprint dives right into this stuff.
If you don’t want to do that, just do something. I don’t care whether it’s with us or somebody else just do something. The worst place to be is on the fence. You deserve the best of you. Your family deserves the best of you. Your business deserves the best of you.
So I’ll see you next time on The TPM Show.