Episode #1053
In this episode, Drew shares his raw, honest story of what it took to hit rock bottom and why that moment became the turning point that changed everything. You’ll hear how he went from nearly losing his marriage to discovering a version of himself he didn’t know existed. This isn’t about fixing everything overnight. It’s about learning the tools to stop pretending, take responsibility, and show up fully, first for yourself, then for the people who matter most.
Whether you’re feeling stuck, distant in your relationship, or just tired of carrying the weight alone, this conversation offers something different: clarity, connection, and a real way forward. No fluff. No clichés. Just the truth from a man who’s been through it.
We talk about the gap between knowing and feeling, why “leading with love” isn’t soft, and how freedom often comes after facing what you’ve been avoiding. If you're ready to step into a new version of yourself, this one’s worth your time.
Want to learn the tools Drew used to get started?
Get the free training at https://fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales. It’s built to help men reconnect with their power and start leading again, without begging, blaming, or talking it to death.
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Drew 0:00
Tried to save my marriage, and I ended up saving myself. The longest distance a man ever has to travel is between his head and his heart. I think the description that The Powerful Man uses as a transformational experience is an absolute understatement. I transformed. I became a different being. This only works if we all go all in. This only works if we're all on this journey. I can't wait to go home for the first time. I didn't reach the summit. I just learned the tools to start.
Doug Holt 0:44
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The TPM Show. This episode is going to be different, so you're definitely gonna want to stick around. I have a very, very special guest for you fresh off of our four-day transformational event, The Alpha Reset. Drew, thanks for being here, man.
Drew 1:00
Morning, Doug. Thank you.
Doug Holt 1:01
Yeah, so we were just talking I mean, I think we had a great conversation off camera. Before we get into all of that, imagine myself sitting at home or on the treadmill or in the car listening to this. Who is Drew? Give me a little bit of a background on you and your journey.
Drew 1:18
Yeah, I'll describe you two different Drews, okay? The Drew that woke up this morning, we'll describe later, but I'll describe to you the Drew before I found TPM. I cook for a living, so I'm a chef don’t really say chef, I'm an ingredient facilitator, right? So my job is basically to find the best out there and not screw it up before you eat it, okay? So I'm just facilitating ingredients. I live in Baja, Mexico northern Baja, near Ensenada, Guadalupe Valley. Been there 20 years. Just really cool. Recently opened a restaurant in San Diego. My whole life, I really struggled with trying to find solutions on the outside just more. When is it enough, right? One more store. No. Let's do this. Let's do some consulting. Oh, you still got 15 minutes here? Let's add something else, and let's add something else.
And it caused a real rift in my life my relationship with myself, my relationship with Paulina, who's my wife, with my children definitely with my older children. I started again, so I have a 27-year-old, 25-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a seven-year-old. And I made some incredible mistakes the first time around, and I love those two boys dearly and respect them as men. And I found out over the last couple of days that I could have shown up differently, and now there's a different Drew sitting in front of you. It started with The Activation Method. I don't know what kind of algorithms or who you're paying to listen in on my phone.
Doug Holt 3:09
We get accused of that a lot with cameras in the living room.
Drew 3:13
Unbelievable, man. Literally, Paulina and I had a discussion about divorce the first time we used the word and it was like, okay, we're done. We slept in different places that night. It was real. Obviously, it didn’t feel very good. Woke up the next morning, and all my social feeds Instagram it’s just going, “The Powerful Man, The Powerful Man, The Powerful Man.” I’m going, “What? And how did how do they know?” And I studied philosophy, and I have a degree in philosophy, and I’m a big fan of the idea that when the student’s ready, the teacher will appear.
Doug Holt 4:00
I am too.
Drew 4:01
And I was ready, and the teacher appeared like, screaming, neon jumpsuit, right? “Let’s go.” And I did it. I made I did the onboarding call, and here I am sitting with you.
Doug Holt 4:18
Yeah. How was The Activation Method for you?
Drew 4:21
I’m a very skeptical person in general, and I’ve done a lot of therapy in my life, and therapy is always concentrated on the past. Yeah, it’s always and you’re always just muddling, just in the muck. “Oh, you know you suck, right? And how could you have done this, and when, what, you know?” And for me, The Activation Method was so concentrated on that break the cycle, clean the slate, and actuate tomorrow and today. Because all we can control the past is gone. The past is gone.
And it was so user-friendly and so much more, I guess, palatable for me as a person and my personality. TPM just nailed it for me. The Activation Method was a real game changer for me. You know, how many times do you hear on these wonderful podcasts the brother saying, “I tried to save my marriage, and I ended up saving myself”? Yep. And when I realized that you put your oxygen mask on first on the airplane and then help the others around you it changed everything.
Doug Holt 5:56
Help a lot more people. Yeah, really amazing. Well, we were talking off camera, but you mentioned desert racing yeah, right? Baja racing yeah. And, you know, therapy, I had the same experience with marital counseling. My wife and I tried two different therapists, and it’s like racing, but then you’re looking in the rearview mirror the whole time, right? Like, you’re gonna crash, you’re gonna hit stuff, and
Drew 6:17
When you’re driving, yeah, you take that mirror most race cars have a mirror and you take it and you either turn it up so you can’t see in it, or you turn it so the navigator can see. There you go. And so maybe the navigator is your coach in The Activation Method or in The Reset. Let somebody else navigate, and you drive. Yeah?
Doug Holt 6:41
Forward thinking, yeah. Right. I mean, it’s how a restaurateur you can’t just look at the past mistakes or the past things. You have to look at what’s going on in your business at that moment and where you want it to go so you can get it there.
Drew 6:53
Yeah, imagine that in my line of work, you know, something I try to instill in my colleagues the people that are on our team every day is game day. Every day is game day. And you’ve got to show up to the stadium every day ready to go. And if you’re concentrated on what’s happened in the past, it’s going to prevent you from being your best self on game day, yeah. However, we have to acknowledge what happened in the last game, or the game before, or the game two years ago yeah, learn from it. Because if we don’t acknowledge and learn from it, we’re going to repeat it 100%, yeah, and that fish is going to come out wrong every single time, yeah. But you go, “Wait, if you just did it like this,” it’s like, “Wow, that was easy. Holy shit. Yeah, there we go.”
Doug Holt 7:49
Yeah, and it’s such an interesting thing. Like The Hidden Motives Technique is one of the things we teach in The Activation Method. As you know, for a lot of guys, that’s stumbling at first or trying something new.
Drew 8:02
It was daunting you start getting these tools thrown at you, and it’s like, “Am I doing it right?” And you concentrate. I found myself concentrating too much on the letter of the law as opposed to the law, yes, yeah. And once I learned that, it made things so much easier.
Doug Holt 8:22
It’s like anything learning any new skill, right? If you were trying to keep teaching me to cook, you know, I’m learning a new skill. I’m gonna fumble at first. It’s gonna feel awkward, right? It’s not gonna feel natural, perhaps. And then if I let go and just take the basics, it starts to feel more and more natural over time, right?
Drew 8:41
You’re not walking in the kitchen and going, “Here, Doug, here’s the soufflé recipe.” Yeah, you’re going, “Hey, Doug, peel the potato.” Yeah, right. And now we have a potato. Now what do we do with the potato, and where do we go from there?
Doug Holt 8:53
And it’s a good analogy. I like that. Well, then you alluded to the man that you were, and then the man that sits here today right across from me who’s that guy?
Drew 9:09
You say a phrase that I just absolutely love, that became so much more real over the last 96 hours of my life that the longest distance a man ever has to travel is between his head and his heart. Yes. And I have, in the past, led with my head, led with force. Everything was outward, and I was trying to control, micromanage, if you will. And when I realized that the power is here and then when you realize that it’s always been there it was brought up in several conversations in The Alpha Reset when we were sort of debriefing, we’d go out into nature, and we’re doing our thing.
And the brothers would say, “Yeah, and then I heard Drew laughing like a lunatic.” And it was just this realization of how so freaking simple it is when you see it yes and you just feel it, as opposed to trying to think it, yep. And when I found that energy and that power in me, I transformed. I became a different being somebody that I love, somebody that is self-aware.
And to be able to lead with love I know that it’s always been in there, but to be able to put my hands on it, to feel it, to embrace it, to cover myself in it you’ve given me and the other brothers gifts that there are no words to show great, grateful gratitude for.
Doug Holt 11:52
You’re doing the work. This is just a journey I was on for a long time, trying to figure out myself. And luckily, myself and great coaches Tim Matthews, you have Neil Mark Smith here with you, and many other people along the journey put this all together. And the 96 hours is a much better time period than five years, yeah, or ten years, yeah. For me, maybe 30-some years figuring it out.
Drew 12:18
Well, the interesting thing for me is when I acknowledged, I realized that, wait I didn’t reach the summit. I just reached ground zero. I just learned the tools to start.
Doug Holt 12:33
Yes, it’s like The Matrix. The most common analogy that men give for The Alpha Reset experience have you seen The Matrix movies at all?
Drew
Sure, probably been a while.
Doug Holt
But the common thing is when Neo gets unplugged and everybody’s like, “Oh, wow, now I can see the world as it is,” or “See myself as I really am,” without all the masks, without all the shadows, without all the BS that society has been putting upon me, the stories I’ve been telling myself. And you actually at least I do, and I hear this a lot from men you feel free.
Drew 13:14
Freedom. That is a phenomenal word. Yeah. Freedom just a lightness, a release. The brothers commented to me last night, they said, “You may not notice it, but you’re taller.” Yeah, like, “What? You’re taller?” Wow. I was carrying so much burden and so much weight that I was just hunched over and in this ball, and then the ability to open and put your heart first and lead with that man, wow.
Doug Holt 13:58
It’s a game changer.
Drew 13:59
Game changer.
Doug Holt 14:01
Give something away. We don’t market this, but it’s one of the reasons we take before and after photos or before photos, sure, right? Because most people don’t realize you probably didn’t realize you were carrying all that weight. Because you’ve been doing it for so long, it’s just what is. And I’m sure you’ve seen this from the other men that attended like some guys, all of a sudden, go from pale and almost dead inside, you could see that. And all of a sudden, there’s light yeah, there’s light in their brain. One of them, one of our brothers in the group
Drew 14:29
Ten years younger, yeah, I mean, ten years younger. Wrinkles were gone from around his eyes. His face relaxed. Another guy had these, like, TMJ like serious jaw issues and would grind his teeth, and he looked like a chipmunk when he came in. Yeah, he left here this morning his face was slender, open, his jaw was relaxed, and he’s just like, “I feel great.” It’s like, yeah man, yeah, I get it. Everybody’s crazy eyes like, yeah, power.
Doug Holt 15:03
Well, that’s the thing, right? You tap into the natural energy. You have power within your heart. One of the gentlemen that attended your Reset, I talked to him on Thursday I did a group call into our private community and he was saying, “Oh, I just, I remember having a real hard time figuring out kind of my purpose, my vision, my next step.” Sure. I said, “Just wait. Trust the process. Trust the pro. Wait till day three of your Reset.” For me, it was coming here. I think you’re gonna have a better idea of where you want to go after this. Sure. Yeah, different energy.
Drew 15:33
Yeah, absolutely. And you could feel it. I could feel it change throughout the Reset, and the idea that you have to go down in order to go up you know, looking back on the process, it all makes a lot of sense. “Oh sure, of course that’s what we’re gonna do,” yeah. But as I was going through the process, each time I hit what I thought was a pinnacle, “Oh, this must be it. This is why I’m here.” And then there’d be more. And then I’d say, “Oh, this must be why I’m here.” And then there’d be more. I was like, “No, wait, this must be why I’m here.” And that was all before lunch on day one, right? And it was I think the description that The Powerful Man uses as a transformational experience is an absolute understatement.
Doug Holt 16:41
It’s a hard program to market, as somebody who does marketing. You know, the interesting thing, Drew and I like this is we never ask any guys to keep what we do a secret. The men over these last eight years have chosen to. “No, we’re not going to tell the next group of men coming through.” And you use a term you call them brothers. Do you feel let me just ask you this question; this is all rhetorical, of course do you think or feel that these men that are walking out the door with you from this experience, do you feel like you’re closer to them than most people in your life?
Drew 17:24
Absolutely, yeah. And to walk into a room when I walked into a room with eleven strangers and to walk out calling those men my brothers, and to mean it more than any sentence I’ve ever said in my life
Doug Holt 17:41
I want to buy you a gift. Look, if your marriage is struggling and let’s be real, every marriage struggles at some point but yours is struggling where you’ve lost that love, admiration, respect, I want to help you. I want to buy you a copy of the book that I wrote, A Man’s Guide on How to Save Your Marriage Without Talking About It.
In here, I’ve distilled over eight years of programs that we’ve developed at TPM to help men just like you save their marriages without talking about it. There’s no fluff, no BS. It’s an action plan that you can start using today to actually save your marriage and bring that love and respect back into your family, back into your house. You deserve it.
Look, all I ask is you pay the postage you pay the shipping. I’ll buy the book for you. That way, you can take massive action today. Click the link or find it in the bio and get your copy now.
Drew 18:34
There’s power there, Doug, that I was unaware of inside myself. And to find that and to touch that, and to taste that, smell that wow.
Doug Holt 18:50
Yeah, these men will have your back the rest of your life and you too, without a doubt. The bonds that are formed during this event are just incredible. It’s my favorite thing to do it’s the hardest thing for me.
Drew, do you know I live about a ten-minute drive from here? Not like jumping, like, “I’ll always be here.” Yeah, I want to be here every single one just let other kids play, let the other coaches play. But it’s great. It’s because of amazing men like you, and seeing that transformation.
It takes a tremendous amount of courage, first of all, joining The Activation Method, right? If you look at the number of men that inquire versus the number of men that get on a call versus the number of men that do it over these eight years it’s the whole analogy, right? Guys don’t ask for directions because we don’t need help, or we don’t want another person to know that, you know, we might be failing or maybe not being as successful as we’d like to be in one particular area of our life.
So to do that, then take the next jump into The Brotherhood, or into doing The Alpha Reset, and walking into a room full of like you said eleven strangers, a few coaches maybe you know or don’t know that are there to facilitate for you, and another guy who just left his family or his work to volunteer his time, just out of pure love and respect for the men going through the process
Drew 20:18
And to have that sort of varying levels of skepticism or doubt or angst or whatever that person is feeling and I was able, and we were able, in a very short amount of time, to create a bond of trustworthiness. Yes, a bond of “this only works if we all go all in.” This only works if we’re all on this journey one for all, all for one. There are no, you know, “Okay, no, we’re twelve, so if we get eight out of twelve votes no.” It was, if we were going to do something as a group, it was all twelve, or we weren’t doing it.
And it gelled so fast, and the brothers started to look at each other differently. Maybe the first dinner everybody’s kind of like, you know, kicking sand and just kind of avoiding. And then all of a sudden, it just was like laser. Yeah, and discussions, any kind of conversation, any true deep “doing the work,” stepping-to-the-line work, was so laser-focused and so concentrated.
And just I mean, you could, like, the energy rays coming out of these other men were you could, like, do pull-ups on them, they were so strong. Right? It was unbelievable.
Doug Holt 21:54
I love that analogy. The visual is awesome. Yeah, you mentioned skepticism. And I would have said I call it Doug 1.0 now, as I told you earlier I would have said I was the biggest skeptic in the world, sure, right? So if I was listening to you right now, I’d be like, “Yeah, sure. Okay, what are they feeding those guys over there, right? What kind of mushrooms are they putting in the stew?”
Because I was a skeptic. But could you have imagined yourself being in the state of clarity you’re probably in right now, six months ago?
Drew 22:29
No, I believe that there are certain processes and certain things that happen in life that happen when they should, and the power that I'm going to walk out of here with today starting with my own life and the other lives that I'm going to affect and change I don't know that me as a person six months ago would have been able to even conceive of this. But in the same breath, man, I wish I would have done this earlier. Man, I wish I would have met you when I was 25. Yeah. Man, right. It's like, it's only 30 years, you know? Hopefully, I've got 30 more.
Doug Holt 23:33
Yeah, and the ripple effect that, you know, men like you get to go out there. I mean, you’d mentioned your wife, you mentioned your kids. Who do they get when you go home?
Drew 23:43
I was talking to one of the coaches this morning, and as today’s the last day so the formal activities are done a couple of the brothers and myself, we decided last night that we're still gonna get up, still gonna do our Alpha Rise and Shine, still gonna enjoy the beautiful TPM Ranch. And we did and got up on time, chose to do our walk, and my best friend ended up just jumping in front of me when I came back in my journal.
And I walked out to the same place that I've been spending some time over the last couple of days out in nature, and I had this sort of revelation that I'm going home for the first time. Doug man, that's powerful. Yes, I'm going home for the first time in the way I get to show up when I get there, and the love that I get to express without regret, without shame, without fear. Magic, man. It is. I can't wait to go home for the first time.
Doug Holt 25:25
It's beautiful. Yeah? My guess is, Drew, they've been dying for you. Yeah? And you no doubt. Isn't it crazy when we realize that the other people can see us and we've just been hiding from ourselves for so long? It's nuts. We think we’re fooling everybody. Everybody thinks they’re fooling everybody or not. At the end of the day, the true essence of you the love that is you that the other people in your life that are close to you can see and want so desperately, and sometimes that's what causes the rift, right? Because they’re like, “When is this guy gonna come out? I can see him.” They just don’t know how to express it or we don’t know how to hear it.
Drew 26:13
Or we can’t get out of the way of our shadow.
Doug Holt 26:14
Yes, it’s a big one, yeah.
Drew 26:17
And when I was able to identify that shadow in me and knowing that where there’s light, there’s shadow, always it is a given. However, we can either focus and direct our power toward the light, or we can turn our back on the light and sort of wallow in the shadowness. And my shadows are very dark, and to be able to see that light it’s a gift to myself, but I also know it’s a gift to Paulina, and to Jack, and to Matilda, and to Sam, and to Philip, my children.
In order to go up the stairs, you have to take the first step. You can’t take the last step. You’ve got to take the first step. And it’s just such a beautiful, wondrous place to be to have my feet on those stairs, maybe for the first time ever.
Doug Holt 27:43
Yeah, the analogy I love that, Drew and the analogy I use is, I feel as if most men have been in the mud, right? And they're afraid to take a step on those stairs because they don't want to muddy the stairs. They don't want to dirty them. Yeah, that’s their memory. But they don’t realize, you know, that you can always wash the stairs, right? Clean them, right? Yeah, you’ve got to take a step just dirt, man. Yeah.
And men like you the brighter that you get to go out and shine you get to cast light on other people's darkness. And, you know, not playing small but playing full out, being the man that you are, and the greatness you know, and the man that you saw on the end of Day Two, and the man that woke up on Day Three and I can go on and on, right but more people in the world get to see men like you.
We call it The Powerful Man, which is a very polarizing name, right? Right, right? I understand it now. It’s the power within, yeah, yeah.
Drew 28:42
Yeah. I was like, “That’s a weird name.” Yes. And now I’m like, there’s no better name that could possibly be for what we do, yeah and who we are.
Doug Holt 28:53
100%. We get to rewrite that whole thing about toxic masculinity. Now we get to show the world what real powerful men can do. And it’s leading, it’s loving, it’s being nurturing.
Drew 29:05
Being the benevolent alpha, yes.
Doug Holt 29:09
100%. Yeah. And the world needs more of that more than ever, it seems.
Drew 29:14
So what I'm really looking forward to is I’m guessing the person next to me on the airplane probably won’t have to charge their devices for, like, the next month, right? Just by having it next to me. There’s just gonna be, “Why is my phone increasing in battery charge on the plane? This is the best fuel economy we’ve ever gotten.” There’s so much energy here, yeah. So it’s like, I think I can fly the plane. I think I mean, it’s just I know I can, yes. And it’s just, it’s so liberating. There is so much freedom.
Doug Holt 29:43
Yeah, I talk about this a lot when I lead The Alpha Reset, but I use this energy when I’m checking out at the grocery store, yeah, to the person that’s there. Like, you know, nobody tends to pay attention to the person checking their groceries, right? They just want to get out, hurry, and go. Just apply that energy, and people can feel it absolutely. And all of us have been in rooms where somebody’s just got that thing. You just don’t yeah, you want it, but you don’t know how to get it.
Drew 30:11
Wow, right?
Doug Holt 30:12
You have it, right? That’s that heart-centered we call it grounded masculinity, benevolent king. There are a lot of ways to describe it benevolent alpha, to think about it but really, what’s just true. Yeah, not just true it is true. Just true. It is true. And who’s always been there? Yes. Isn’t that crazy?
Drew 30:32
Yeah, it’s not it’s who we are, yeah? And to be able to find that it takes work. Oh, yeah. A lot of work, yeah. And when you find it and find a way to maintain it
Doug Holt 30:53
It’s rocket fuel. It is. And iron sharpens iron, right? No truer than this yeah being with the men that you went through this with, men in your Activation Method, your coaches, myself we’re just men. Yeah, we’re just men. You know, just like would you call yourself a food
Drew 31:11
Ingredient facilitator.
Doug Holt 31:12
Ingredient facilitator, right. You’re way ahead on the trail, the journey of being an ingredient facilitator, than I am, right? So I could learn a lot from you, right? And that mark I just happened to fall on my ass a lot earlier and have to find a way to get out sure, a little bit earlier. You mentioned something else on a personal level, and this is just something I’m curious about is your documentary?
Drew 31:38
Yeah, so it’s called Ingrediente México. It’s on Amazon Prime it’s included in Prime, okay? And it was really exciting. I became a Mexican citizen I’ve been living in Mexico for 20 years. Became a Mexican citizen in 2018, and, you know, I thought, “Oh, yeah, I’m Mexican.”
This show and filming this show going to these places that we went to and trying to sort of tell the story of the conquista through Mesoamerican eyes, as opposed to the story that’s always told from the European standpoint, right? And then just talking about the diaspora of ingredients and Afro-descendant influence in Mexico, and sort of the plight of the artisan farmer and the fisherman and the rancher, took me to places and allowed me to be Mexican at heart and not only on paper, right?
And so I think its success episodes went to seven different Mexican states and got nominated for an Emmy, which was pretty amazing.
Doug Holt
Congratulations.
Drew
And we will remain Emmy-nominated, because those awards have already passed. Someone else took that one home, and I’m okay with that. But it was really, really eye-opening to have these experiences, because it was unscripted. We had sort of a general guide or agenda that we wanted to follow, but the reality was, we just walked into places and started talking to people just like you and I are talking but we’re in their fields, or we’re on their fishing boats, or we’re at their ranch. And it was pretty amazing what we ended up with.
Doug Holt
Cool. Well, I’ll definitely be catching those episodes.
Drew
Yeah? Insomnia cure.
Doug Holt
No, I find that hard to believe.
Drew
Yeah, it was really great, and we’re actually filming Season Two right now. And it’s just it’s not about me, it’s about celebrating the people who are producing our food, really.
Doug Holt 33:41
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I know you’re excited to get home.
Drew 33:51
I can already see it and feel it and taste it. It’s already happened, and I’m just like
Doug Holt 33:55
I appreciate you spending time with me time with us. Really an honor. What’s next for what’s next for Drew?
Drew 34:04
I’m going home. Yeah, going home for the first time. I love that. I attained a lot of clarity in things in my life that were not very clear before I got here. And it’s time to actuate. Yes, time to take massive action. Doug, I think that’s a good line. Yeah. Heard somebody say that before, yeah. Because I had many unbelievable moments of insight, and my massive action point has arrived. Now I love that for you. I love that for the world. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Doug Holt 34:46
Yeah, gentlemen, you heard Drew such a fantastic story, and a man that did take massive action. Whatever it is for you to do and I say this a lot, like, you know, obviously I’m biased. I think TPM we have great programs. We always try to do the best we can.
And at the same time, if it’s not for you, do something. Go out there and do something that resonates with you, that calls you forward, so you can have the insights, the clarity, the energy, the vitality that Drew has that he’s reclaimed for himself. I didn’t do it. Our coaches didn’t do it. He did the work.
And that starts with taking action putting your first foot on that staircase, whatever that might be. If it happens to be at TPM, reach out. We’re not hard to find. Be happy to have one of our program advisors talk to you. If it’s something else, do that as well. But do take massive action in the moment of insight it is the best time.
And like Drew said and the same thing I would say and the same thing thousands of other men have told me: “I wish I would have done it sooner.” Heed this man’s advice, and do it now.
We’ll see you next time on The TPM Show.