From Struggle to Legacy: Finding Motivation in Pleasure

Episode #1150

What happens when success no longer feels fulfilling?

In this episode of The TPM Show, Tim Matthews sits down with Lawrence Davis to explore the difference between being driven by fear and being pulled forward by purpose. Lawrence shares his journey from operating in survival mode, carrying years of stress and self-doubt, to building a business and life focused on legacy, family, and long-term impact.

Together, they unpack why so many high-achieving men stay stuck chasing more success while still feeling restless, overwhelmed, or never quite good enough. They discuss the hidden cost of fear-based motivation, how it affects leadership, business growth, relationships, and personal fulfillment, and what changes when you finally give yourself permission to pursue what you truly want.

You'll hear practical insights on:

• The difference between being pushed by pain and pulled by purpose
• Why achievement alone doesn't create fulfillment
• How fear quietly shapes decisions in business and relationships
• The leadership shifts that create more freedom and better results
• What it takes to move from survival mode into a life of meaning and impact
• Simple ways to reconnect with what genuinely motivates you

If you've built success but still feel like something is missing, this conversation will help you understand why and show you a different path forward.

If your relationship feels disconnected and you're not sure what's causing it, we've put together a free training that breaks down exactly what's happening and what you can do to turn it around. You'll learn why the love, respect, connection, and intimacy may have faded and the practical steps you can take to rebuild them.

Get instant access to the free training here:https://thepowerfulman.com/scales

Transcription

Lawrence 0:00So there was a drive to produce something really outstanding.

Tim Matthews 0:03Push by pain versus pull by pleasure.

Lawrence 0:05To leave a mark.

Tim Matthews 0:06Never happens. Never works.

Lawrence 0:08I'm not worthy to have any more than this. This is all I can hope for.

Tim Matthews 0:11He has given himself permission to go after what he truly wants.

Lawrence 0:16That moment was like dropping the bag, dropping the sandbag.

Tim Matthews 0:20Pull motivation burns way cleaner than push motivation.

Lawrence 0:24That energy in a relationship is gold.

Tim Matthews 0:28Sounds cliché, but if you're in your head, you're dead.

Tim Matthews 0:34Welcome to another episode of The TPM Show. I am your host, Tim Matthews, with an incredible guest.

Lawrence 0:49Thank you, Tim.

Tim Matthews 0:49Lawrence Davis.

Lawrence 0:52A pleasure to be here.

Tim Matthews 0:53Crowd goes wild! Yay! So, how long have you been in business?

Lawrence 1:05I left the army on the day they hit the Twin Towers. Actually, I handed my ID card in on the day they hit the Twin Towers, and I was called back up again on reserve service after that because of everything that happened.

I'd done the first Gulf War in 1991, and then I was called back up for the second one after I'd already left the army. After that, I went to work for a property developer, then a consultancy for a while, and eventually set up my own business in about 2003.

The first business lasted until the credit crunch. We lost some big contracts, decided to close that business, and expanded a separate business we already had. That's the business I'm running now.

So in total, I've been in business since about 2003, he said in a very long-winded way.

Tim Matthews 2:02Okay. Have you noticed any difference between where your drive comes from now versus where it came from maybe ten years ago?

Lawrence 2:18Night and day. Absolutely. Entirely. There's been a real evolution in terms of drive, goals, and what my purpose is. It's been huge, especially over the last four years.

Initially, I really wanted to do something on my own. I'd seen how things were done in a corporate environment, and I wanted to do it better. So there was a drive to produce something really outstanding, and I think that part is still there.

More recently, though, a lot of it was about protection and fear. Leading up to the last four years, I was very much in protection mode. I just wanted to provide for my family, batten down the hatches, and survive. Have a good wage, live a good life, and not really aspire to much more than that.

Then when I joined TPM, I had a bit of a revelation about what I'd been doing, how I'd been protecting myself, and what was really motivating me to be in business. I started thinking about building a legacy. Building something that would stand the test of time and be there to pass on to my children.

Within a year or so of being in the movement and picking up some of this language and these ways of thinking, I actually onboarded my son, who is now our Operations Director. He has absolutely blown it out of the park. He's revolutionized the business. He's a fantastic guy, just a genuinely nice person.

I have to say that because he's my son, but it's also true. It's a real blessing for me to be able to work with him. He's done some incredible things and continues to do incredible things. So now I'm building the business with the intention of handing it over to him so it can continue for future generations. And he's just had a baby, so I'm a grandfather now.

Tim Matthews 4:36Congratulations.

Lawrence 4:38Thank you very much. Yes, it happened during Alpha Rising last year when I was at the ranch in the States. My son and his wife had a little baby girl called Eden, and then about six weeks later, my daughter had a baby boy called Warren.

That was a really amazing time, and it continues to be. In terms of drive for the business, it's now about providing excellence for our clients and creating a great place for people to work. All of our team members work remotely from home, and we try to build a strong sense of teamwork and culture, which can be difficult when people are spread all over the country.

But it's incredibly rewarding. I believe we're a good company, we provide a good service, and for me it's about building something that means somethingnot just for me, but for my son, my granddaughter, and my grandson.

Maybe it's about leaving a mark. Our whole business revolves around risk management. It's about stopping people from getting ill, injured, dying, or even reaching the point of suicide. We deal with health, safety, and mental health in high-risk industries like shipyards and construction.

When I first left the army, I wanted to become a firefighter. There was something comforting about moving into another uniformed service and another large organization. Then I realized it might be more useful to stop fires from starting in the first place rather than running around putting them out afterward.

That was my thinking, anyway. So we try to make life better for the people who work with us and the people we work for. There's been a huge evolution, and now it's culminating in legacy. I want to leave something behind. We don't build physical products, but the company is something we can build.

Tim Matthews 6:43Okay. So what I'm hearing is that since joining TPM, you've experienced a shift. Ultimately, that shift sounds like it's centered around legacy. There's been a change in what you're trying to create.

Before that, it sounds like there was much more fear involved. You used phrases like "batten down the hatches." When you think about those two periods of your life, how do they feel different?

How would you describe the fear phase compared to this legacy phase?

Lawrence 7:33Have you ever experienced low-level stress? Not the kind where you think something is wrong. Everything might actually be fine on the surface. But there's this constant heaviness sitting in your chest or the pit of your stomach.

That's how it felt. The original business did well for a while, then the credit crunch happened, and things changed dramatically. We made the decision to pivot and move in a different direction, but it affected me far more than I realized.

For nearly ten years after that, I lived with this constant feeling of needing to survive. I just needed to make enough money to live comfortably, keep the family going, scrape by, and make sure there was enough.

That was the goal. Survival. Then I started doing work on myself.

Initially, I began because I wanted to improve my relationship, but working on myself opened my mind to entirely different ways of thinking about every area of my life, including business. It's almost like carrying a heavy backpack while walking uphill.

You get so used to carrying it that you forget it's there. The moment I understood what I'd been doing to myself, and the story I'd been telling myself"I'm not worthy of more than this. This is all I can hope for"that moment was like dropping the backpack.

Dropping the sandbag. Suddenly, it felt like I could run downhill. The brakes came off. The weight wasn't there anymore.

Tim Matthews 9:56Perfect. I'm really glad you shared that because this is exactly what I wanted to talk about. Push by pain versus pull by pleasure. I think a lot of men come into the movement exactly like you did. They're being pushed by pain. Ultimately, it's the pain of survival.

Even if they're successful by external standards, it doesn't feel that way because they're operating from fear. They're constantly trying to move away from something. And no matter how far they move, it always feels like it's right behind them.

It's exhausting.

It's constant.

And it's heavy.

In my experience, most men are trying to move away from a feeling of inadequacy. Deep down, they're hoping that if they make enough money, build a big enough house, achieve enough success, then finally that voice inside them will disappear. They believe they'll finally be free. They believe they'll finally be happy.

Lawrence 11:35They have to be, right?

Tim Matthews 11:36But it never happens. It never works. What I see instead is that there comes a point in a man's journeylike joining TPM was for youwhere he transitions from push motivation to pull motivation.

Instead of being pushed by pain, he becomes pulled by something meaningful. He's given himself permission to pursue what he genuinely wants. He's let go of the inadequacy and started realizing that he deserves to play at a certain level. He deserves a certain quality of life. He deserves to experience certain things.

For you, that word is legacy. And when you talk about legacy, everything changes. Your face lights up. Your breathing changes. Your entire energy shifts. It's completely different from when you describe the survival phase.

I was talking about this exact topic with some of the Inner Circle guys yesterday. One of the misconceptions people have about being pulled by pleasure is that they think they'll lose their drive. They think it sounds soft or lazy. Like, "If I only do what I want to do, how will I get anything done?"

But that's not what this is about at all. It's about discovering something inside yourself that pulls you forward so powerfully that you can't help but move toward it.

You wake up energized. Excited. Inspired.

It becomes harder to resist than it is to take action. Whether that's your family, your business, your legacy, or something else entirely. Pull motivation burns way cleaner than push motivation. And it lasts a hell of a lot longer.

In my opinion, the shift from being pushed by pain to being pulled by pleasure is one of the most meaningful transformations a man can make.

Lawrence 15:00And I think this is the same in relationships, right? If you're in a difficult situation in a relationship, maybe you've been married a long time, you've lost yourself a little bit, and you're starting to get back on track, a lot of the motivation to do the right thing, to be the good boy, the nice guy, is driven by pain. It's driven by, "I just want to avoid the pain of this." And that burns dirty, like you say.

We talked earlier in a different episode about how women can pick up on those energies. Our women are very, very intuitive. If you're being pushed by pain, you could be doing all the same things, but you're going to give off that energy of, "I just need to avoid conflict. I just need to keep things okay." It's the whole "happy wife, happy life" nonsense.

Instead, what do you really want out of this relationship? What do you desire? Okay, so you have arguments, but what are you both aiming toward? Maybe you have a shared goal, a shared vision. Maybe you're passionate about something and you're moving toward it together. It could be each other, it could be a specific goal, but that energy in a relationship is gold. You feel more drawn forward. It's the same in business, but I think it's really obvious when that switch happens in a relationship.

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Lawrence 16:38Women can pick up on those energies. Our women are incredibly intuitive. If you're being pushed by pain, you might be doing all the right things, but the energy behind it is completely different. It's all about avoiding discomfort instead of moving toward something meaningful.

Rather than thinking, "How do I keep the peace?" it's asking, "What do we really want together?" Maybe you have a vision for your relationship. Maybe you're building something together. That shared direction creates a completely different feeling and a completely different dynamic.

Tim Matthews 17:37I think one of the markers of being pulled by pleasure is inspiration. You just feel inspired. It's those times when life seems to be working with you. There's an alignment. Little coincidences happen. Synchronicities appear. The journey feels lighter.

The challenges are still there, but the way you approach them is completely different because you're far less attached to outcomes. You're more relaxed. More easygoing. There's more flow and ease because you're not relying on success to prove something about yourself.

When you're pushed by pain, you're usually trying to move away from inadequacy. You're hoping that when the success arrives, you'll finally feel better. But that's never the case. The issue isn't external. The issue is internal.

That's why everything feels heavier. More stressful. You're more reactive. You're checking emails constantly. Working longer hours. Doing busy work that isn't really moving the needle. You've got a busy mind and an underactive spirit.

When you're pulled by pleasure, the opposite happens. The mind calms down and the spirit comes alive. There's an inspiration that takes over, and you can feel on fire in the best possible way.

Lawrence 19:53One hundred percent. How do you get there? How do you make that switch?

Tim Matthews 20:01It's a journey.

Lawrence 20:04It's the journey that...

Tim Matthews 20:06And often, you don't realize you've made the shift until you look back and notice how different things feel. You suddenly realize that for quite some time you've felt good. Things have felt easier, yet your results are still there. You've taken more time for yourself, and life just feels different.

I don't want to say it happens by accident because there are very intentional things we take men through. The Alpha Reset, Alpha Rising, specific exercises, programs, and processes are designed to clear out the junk and help men change where their drive is coming from. They stop feeling like they constantly need to prove themselves.

But the realization itself often sneaks up on you. You start doing things that feel aligned. You stop self-sacrificing. You stop playing the victim. You take a stand for who you are and what you want. You stop getting dragged into things in your business that you shouldn't be doing.

Your leadership changes. It levels up. How you delegate changes. How you create accountability changes. Your expectations rise. The way you communicate changes. The way you hold people accountable changes. All of that spills over into your personal life and changes how you see yourself.

As you keep doing those things, you naturally start making different choices. You take more vacations. I've heard so many men say that for the first time in years they went on vacation and actually turned their phone off for a week. No notifications. No work interruptions. Completely disconnected.

Then they do it again. And again. And eventually they realize something powerful: nothing burned down. Everything was okay. The business survived. And that's when a new belief starts to form.

Maybe I'm not as indispensable as I thought I was.

Lawrence 22:31Have you been listening to my phone conversation, a conversation I had with my son earlier? And then they started to take Fridays off, and then they might take a Tuesday off, so then they're down to a three-day workweek, and the business is still growing. They may then start to work on other projects that light them up a little bit more. As I said, it's a process. It's not like Tom Hanks in the movie Big, where one night he goes to bed in one scenario and the following morning he wakes up in another scenario. It's a journey.

My image of the sort of dropping the bag... I'd like to amend that because it isn't like all of a sudden you feel light and you're skipping and dancing through the meadows. That's not it. When you realize it, when you look back and go, "For the last few months, I haven't had that feeling in the pit of my stomach, and actually I'm making better decisions now."

I would say when I started TPM, it wasn't that you guys came in and went through the books and revolutionized things or made decisions for me. That's not how the business grew. What changed was my leadership. My leadership model was radically different after that. It was like, "Okay, well, we're just going to trust people to be able to do things, and we're going to allow this here, and we're going to allow that there," and just letting go of things bit by bit.

Like you said, I've been away three times this year, and each time I've not been contactable by the company, and it hasn't burned down. Everything's fine. I'm taking Fridays off, and it hasn't burned down. Everything's fine. In fact, they're doing better without me.

Tim Matthews 24:09I've heard that so many times, right? Because you create space. There's the law of the mirror, right? Oftentimes, the complaints that we have in a relationship can be a reflection of the ways in which we aren't showing up.

"She needs to be more intimate. She needs..." Well, what about you? Are you bringing the intimacy? Well, no.

The same is true in business. The business being chaotic can often be a reflection of the energy the leaders bring into the company, the team, and so on. So if you're showing up to the business being pushed by pain, feeling reactive, constantly in fight-or-flight mode, waking up and checking your phone immediately in the morning, not sleeping great, probably having had quite a bit of alcohol the night before, comparing yourself to everybody else on social media, not working out, saying yes to everything, taking on way too much, and taking on things you don't even want to take on, people-pleasing, self-sacrificing, feeling always behind, always on edgethat is not a recipe for success.

Lawrence 25:45If you bring that into a company, everyone in that company is going to feel that.

Tim Matthews 25:49Do you know what? I'll take back what I just said. It's not a recipe for success. You can still create good business success like that. However, it's going to come at a huge cost, and at that point, that's where you can end up in that place we discussed on the last episode of success without fulfillment.

This is actually the journey I mentioned on the last episodethe guy who sold his company for $57 million. That's the way he was operating the company: sheer white-knuckling brute force, 16- to 17-hour days. He missed the first several years of his kids' lives, and he massively regrets it now. Obviously, as they're 17 and 18 and starting to have their own lives, whether or not they want to spend time with him is really tough for him to take.

Lawrence 26:52Is he in good health?

Tim Matthews 26:53He is now. He wasn't. He actually said yesterday that he's in the best shape he's ever been in.

Lawrence 27:00Amazing.

Tim Matthews 27:00Which is great.

Lawrence 27:02Because he turned it around, right?

Tim Matthews 27:03He's turned it around, and he's now gotten out of a different business. He's in the process of selling that company, actually. One of the things I had to help him with about 18 months ago was resetting the culture in the company because the culture was very toxic.

He admits it was a reflection of how he was leading and the energy he was bringing inessentially a tyrannical style of leadership, if you will. Now that he's going through the sale process and another company is acquiring his business, one of the things they really like, and one of the things that's added to the sale value, is the culture.

He's turned it around, and he's working differently. He's working smarter. Again, it doesn't happen overnight. It's not like one day you're on the push-by-pain path of force, and then you wake up on the pull-by-pleasure path of power. There's a journey you have to go through, and it takes time.

But with the right support, I always say there are three types of men every guy should have in his life. Someone beside you who can share in the struggles and the wins. Someone who has gone before you, who can turn around and give you pointers and say, "Hey, avoid that pitfall. Do this. Try this." And someone beneath you, who you can turn around and extend an arm to and help step up.

That's what you get in the Brotherhood. You get those three kinds of men. For this particular gentleman who's turning things around, he's been able to work with people who have gone through similar things.

Look, as unique as every situation is, there are also tons of patterns. In many ways, they're not unique at all. What we do isn't rocket science. It's incredible work, but it's not like sending a spaceship into outer space and catching it with chopsticks when it comes back down. It's not that level of engineering.

But it is incredible, and I love it. I'm deeply fulfilled by what we do. This is why we're able to help men, because we have a proven process that has been rinsed, repeated, tested, and refined for more than a decade.

Lawrence 29:37You know, I was amazed when I first came into the Brotherhood and started talking to the guys about how similar their journeys were. The patterns, all of those patternsthere are lots of differences and changes in contextbut the patterns are almost all the same all the way through.

These guys come in with their masks on. We see them on The Alpha Reset when I help out there. They come in looking together. They're good, successful, strong businessmen. But when you finally get downor get down quite quickly, because it happens quite quickly at the Alpha Resetto what's really inside, it's very, very similar.

There's a lot of guys out there who are really struggling. I think what we're talking about here is aligning yourself with the universe. I'm going to say it. It may sound a bit out there, but I think energy is a real thing.

I think if you align your energy with good things, positive things, gratitude, and those kinds of practices, they bleed into everything you do. Things start to come toward you. You become magnetic. I think we're going to Valencia and talk about magnetic personalities and things like that, and I think it's really, really important.

Tim Matthews 31:02I think you're spot on. So, three takeawaysthree practical things that somebody can do to make the transition from being pushed by pain to being pulled by pleasure.

Lawrence 31:19Go on, you go first.

Tim Matthews 31:24You've got to get out of your head and into your body. It sounds cliché, but if you're in your head, you're dead. That's so true. So many guys come into the movement where they've been pushed by pain, and they're just stuck in their heads. It's not their fault; it's simply what they've learned to operate from.

Oftentimes, it's too uncomfortable for them to be in their body because that means feeling the things they've been trying to avoid. But if they stay in their head, the anxiety, the depression, the comparisonit just creates this terrible cycle of shame, sabotage, and sedation.

So the first thing I would say is get out of your head and into your body. Obviously, the way we do that with the guys is through the Alpha Reset. By no means do listeners have to go to the Reset. Obviously, I know it works very well, and it's a great system. But whatever you do, go through something that gets you out of your head, gets to the root of things, and gets you into your body, because your body really does keep the score, and it really is a gateway.

Lawrence 32:31That's really good. I think the other thing is that if you're so attached to that pain, it can become something you cling to. When you don't have a clear path forward into your pleasure, your desire, what it is you actually want, it can feel like you're letting go and reaching into the mist without knowing what's going to replace it.

You think, "I'm driven by this. This is what gives me my purpose. If I let go of that, what's left? What is there to look forward to? What can I grab onto?" In somatic practices and sexual mastery, there are body-mapping exercises where you experience different types of touch, either by yourself or with a partner, and discover what you enjoy.

Whether it's a more passionate, gripping touch or something lighter, like an air touch brushing across the skin, the point is discovering what feels good in your body. That's a really important part of sexual mastery, which is one aspect of what we cover in The Brotherhood. But I think the same principle applies to everyday life.

Try things. Go experience things. Spend time around people who are doing things you might enjoy and see what resonates with you. Maybe you'll discover a passion you never knew you had. Maybe if you create more space in your life, you'll want to start a charity, build an organization, or pursue something completely different.

Maybe you want to raise llamas on a farm. I don't know. You won't know until you start exploring. I've probably mixed my metaphors there, but you get the idea. Find out what you're passionate about, and then let yourself be pulled by that.

Tim Matthews 34:41Well said. So thank you for tuning in again, guys and girls. If you want to find out more about what we do here at TPM, just reach out to us. There are tons of ways you can do that.

But until next time, we'll see you again on the TPM Show.