Episode #1214
Every few weeks a small group of men leave their businesses, their wives and their kids, fly to the Lake District, Wales, New Hampshire or the TPM Ranch in Oregon, and hand over their phones to a room full of strangers. They do not know the agenda. They have been told nothing about what happens. Most of them arrive at the lowest point of their lives, wearing the same armour they wear everywhere else.
In this episode of The Powerful Man Show, Tim Matthews brings back the alpha recap, a format the show used to run years ago, with Lawrence Davis and Stephen Fleming. Both men went through the Alpha Reset themselves and have since returned as volunteers, which means they can speak to it from both sides: the man arriving in pain and the man holding space for the next one. The reset they are recapping finished six days before this conversation was recorded, so the updates on the men who attended are live, not retrospective.
The discussion covers:
If this one is landing, two other conversations sit next to it. From "I'm Fine" to Honesty: Creating Safe Spaces in Marriage covers the safety piece that makes a man able to hold what his wife hands him, and Living with Urgency: What If Today Was Your Last Day? is the direct answer to the man telling himself he will do it in six months.
00:00 - Cold open: what the Alpha Reset is, in their words
00:39 - Welcome, and meet Lawrence Davis and Stephen Fleming
01:47 - Stephen: one of the most transformative experiences of my life
03:04 - Why the reset is kept private
03:44 - Lawrence: taking the armour off and refinding yourself
05:27 - A wife in tears of joy a year on
06:24 - A word from Doug Holt
07:26 - Three to four years of therapy in four days
08:36 - Bringing back the alpha recap
09:40 - Day zero: the masks men arrive in
11:13 - Why business is the last thing that comes up
12:48 - I did everything right, so why do I feel like this?
14:21 - Coach Franco and the demand for an answer
16:16 - Day one: an exercise in giving up control
17:31 - Handing over the phones
18:07 - Day one, and the theme is truth
19:57 - Being challenged by men who have your best interests at heart
21:04 - The 2am conversation every man thinks he is having alone
24:11 - Realising there are men you can actually talk to
25:14 - Day two: release and reclaim
27:38 - Lawrence: scarier than a war zone
31:24 - Stephen: apologising for existing
32:51 - Day three: breath work and vision
35:15 - Reintegration calls and why the real work starts here
36:50 - The inventory: Five Territories, pluses and minuses
39:15 - Turning the inventory into six to twelve months of change
40:19 - Hell no lists, and buying the motorbike back
43:52 - Advice for the man still on the fence
44:41 - Crabs in a bucket: why life fights your change
46:42 - Seven days later: two different trajectories
47:42 - Wives opening the door again
50:53 - Get off the fence
What is the Alpha Reset?
The Alpha Reset is The Powerful Man's in-person immersion experience for men who have been through the coaching programme. In this episode Tim Matthews describes it as a multi-day process that starts at 5pm on day zero and runs through three further days, each with its own theme: truth on day one, release and reclaim on day two, and vision on day three. Stephen Fleming calls it one of the most transformative experiences of his life. Lawrence Davis says transformation is the only word he can find for it. What none of them will do is describe what actually happens in the room, because the men who have been through it protect the experience for the men coming next.
Why do you not tell men what happens at the reset?
Because knowing the agenda would let a man manage the experience instead of going through it. Tim's words in this episode: it is an exercise in giving up control. Men arrive not knowing the schedule, not knowing most of the other men, and on the evening of day zero they are invited to hand over their phones so they are completely immersed in their own experience. Tim says he has never had a man get to day three and tell him he cannot wait to get his phone back.
What happens on day two of the Alpha Reset?
Day two is a series of processes designed to guide a man through what Tim calls his pit of despair, so that he can come face to face with it, release it, and reclaim who he has always been underneath it. Lawrence, who served in the army and has been in a war zone, says day two was more frightening to him than going to war, because the work was emotional and he had been taught from school, family and the army that emotions were weakness. He describes standing in front of a mirror at the end of it and, for the first time in a long time, not feeling weak or unworthy.
Does the change actually last after the reset?
Both men in this episode say the reset is the beginning, not the end. The day three work exists to give men tools and a vision to take home, and TPM now runs reintegration calls after every reset so men are not left to hold a transformation on their own. Tim describes the Five Territories inventory, where each man scans self, health, relationships, wealth and business and sorts what he has been doing into pluses and minuses. The six to twelve months that follow are about acting on that list, which is where he says the change takes root.
I want to go, but something always comes up. Is that normal?
Tim says that before virtually every reset, at least one man, and often more, gets hit with a genuine crisis out of left field in the days before he is due to travel. Lawrence calls it crabs in a bucket: when your emotional set point is low, everything you do to climb out of it feels like enormous effort, and life seems to arrange reasons for you to stay where you are. Their advice is not to wait for a perfect window, because there is not one. Stephen's version: trust it, throw yourself at it, because what is on the other side is priceless.
How do I find out more about the Alpha Reset?
Tim's instruction at the end of the episode is to find The Powerful Man on Instagram, @thepowerfulman, and send a DM with the word RESET. Someone from the team will reach out with more information so you can decide whether it is right for you. His closing line is the real ask: get off the fence. If it is not the reset, find something else, but do something.
Curious about the Alpha Reset? Find The Powerful Man on Instagram at @thepowerfulman and send a DM with the word RESET. One of the team will reach out with more information so you can see whether it is for you. And whatever you decide, get off the fence. The worst place to be is the middle.
If your marriage has lost the love, respect and admiration it used to have, Doug's free video training walks you through how you got here and the step by step way back. Watch it at thepowerfulman.com/scales.
Also listen on:
Tim Matthews 0:00
How would you guys describe what The Alpha Reset is for those people that don't know?
Stephen 0:03
It was one of the most transformative experiences of my life.
Lawrence 0:07
Transformation is the only word I can think of, really.
Tim Matthews 0:10
And turn towards it instead of turning away from it.
Lawrence 0:13
The emotions are negative or bad or weakness.
Stephen 0:16
You kind of rediscover your power.
Tim Matthews 0:19
Basically, three to four years' worth of therapy in four days.
Lawrence 0:23
It's like re-finding yourself again.
Stephen 0:26
Because what's on the other side is priceless.
Tim Matthews 0:39
In this episode, you're about to hear the experience that five men from around the world had at The Alpha Reset last week. We're going to dive into where they were, what they went through, and what life is like now on the other side. Stay tuned. We'll see you in the episode.
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the TPM Show. My name is Tim Matthews. I am your host, and I am joined by two distinctly average... Are we kidding? Incredible men, Mr. Lawrence Davis.
Lawrence 1:14
Thank you very much.
Tim Matthews 1:15
And Mr. Stephen Fleming, King of Cheese.
This time last week, it was day three of the Alpha Reset. Where did you do your reset, Stephen?
Stephen 1:32
In Wales. It was the first one post-COVID.
Tim Matthews 1:36
It was.
For those of you that don't know the Alpha Reset, in fact, instead of me describing what The Alpha Reset is, how would you guys describe what The Alpha Reset is for those people that don't know?
Stephen 1:47
I would say, for me, it was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. The three or four days away from everything, an opportunity to question everything in my life and to take a real good look at everything without the distraction of the outside world.
I think I said to you at the end of mine, "Thank you for helping me to find myself." I think I realized I'd been hidden away.
Tim Matthews 2:20
To be honest, the end of it was a blur for me. You put on an incredible cheese spread. Ian did some incredible wine tasting. That was just an incredible ending.
Stephen 2:31
It was good fun. It was awesome. It was great.
Driving down, I was thinking to myself, "This is strange. I've just told my wife I'm going away for three or four days to a place in Wales that I didn't know, never been to, with a bunch of guys that I'd only ever spoken to on Zoom. What's the worst that could happen?"
Tim Matthews 2:53
Just make sure you get your will checked, that it's updated. Life insurance is valid, in place, covers kidnapping, obviously.
Stephen 3:04
I'm conscious I don't want to give anything away about it because part of the thing around it is that it's kept very private, isn't it? You don't disclose what goes on.
There's a feeling of going and thinking, "There's no agenda for this. I don't know what's going to be happening."
But it was utterly transformative for me. Having been back and then helped with leading one a few years later, to see it from the other side of the fence was almost just as rewarding, and more so in some ways.
I got so much out of it. It's quite hard to put into a few words.
Tim Matthews 3:37
I appreciate that. What about you, Lawrence?
Lawrence 3:39
You've got to remember the context of coming into it is that you're coming into it in a bad way. You're coming into it because you're coming to find something.
When you arrive in the Lake District, or in your case in Wales...
Tim Matthews 3:56
Or The Ranch.
Lawrence 3:57
Or The Ranch over in Oregon. It's an amazing place. I did my Rising there.
You turn up, and as you say, it is quite a scary experience because you're putting yourself out there. You don't know what to expect and what's going to go on. There's no indication.
It isn't terrifying, but it is a three-day process where you go from nervousness and wanting to put on your best appearance to being completely undone as a human and rebuilt back up into who you... I suppose not rebuilt, but taking the scales off all the things that I'd learned over the years of being me and building this armor around me, and having that removed in a safe way.
It sounds very ethereal, but that's what it's like. It's like re-finding yourself again.
There's a process that starts with words, and it's moved into a somatic experience, workshops and things that help you to really embody the person that you've lost.
You come out of there, and transformation is the only word I can think of, really. Driving home from that with a whole new perception and outlook on life.
Stephen 5:18
I remember I almost floated home driving back. It was a long ride, but it was the shortest thing ever. I just felt amazing at the end of it. I really did.
Tim Matthews 5:27
I had the pleasure about a month ago now of taking one of the incredible men from the movement, Q. I think that's vague enough that people who don't know him wouldn't know.
Taking Q and his wife around the Oaks. Now, Q came to the Lake District two years ago for his reset. He'd been in therapy prior to coming to TPM and stayed in therapy during TPM.
A month ago, when I was sat down for dinner with him and his wife, his wife was just in absolute tears of joy for the man that was now in the marriage. Gratitude for the work that he had done, but also the platform that we provided him to do the work.
They were telling me that...
Doug Holt 6:24
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 need to know what's broken, but a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That's the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you're 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 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."
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 7:26
When Q went back and told his therapist what he had done during the reset, her words, not mine, and since then apparently she's become a big source of referrals to TPM, but her words were, "You've just done basically three to four years' worth of therapy in four days."
That's a big statement coming from a therapist to her client, right?
She didn't just say this reactively. She said this after seeing his transformation and change persist over the subsequent weeks, not just him riding some kind of high.
She's apparently a very sought-after therapist over in the U.S., so she's worth her salt. I can't imagine she would make throwaway comments like that when she'll know if he's riding high or not.
Last week we were delivering a reset, and something Doug and I used to do on the podcast a lot years ago, when we were doing fewer resets, in fairness, we'd always do an Alpha Recap.
Stephen 8:33
On a podcast. I remember listening to those.
Tim Matthews 8:36
I want this to be an Alpha Recap from that particular reset. Obviously now, because of the volume of them that we do, it's one every three weeks or so, we just don't do that anymore. But I want to dust that off and do it.
How would you, Lawrence, because you're a volunteer there, and you did a phenomenal job again. Kudos, well done.
Stephen, I would love for you to have been there. Obviously, you've done it before.
How would you describe, generally, both of you two, because you've been a volunteer, Stephen, even though you weren't there last week, how would you describe the position that the men generally are in when they come to the reset and they arrive on that day zero?
Lawrence, I want you to speak to it from last week. What position were the men in? Stephen, I want you to speak to it from the position the men were in when you volunteered.
Stephen 9:39
Of course.
Tim Matthews 9:40
My gut tells me there's not going to be a great deal of difference, even though these resets are years apart. The men generally come in a particular space of pain, confusion, really at the lowest point in their life for the most part.
Lawrence?
Lawrence 9:59
Imagine this. You've traveled. Some of them traveled halfway across the world from Canada and America to be there.
There's clearly something in their lives that they feel they need to shift on, something that they get to shift on.
But of course, then you've got the nerves of them arriving. They walk through the front door and they're like, "Hi," and we give them a hug, and they're like, "Oh, I'm not used to being hugged."
It's like, "It's okay, it's fine. You can just relax and be yourself."
We put them at ease. We take a before-and-after photo, which we'll talk about maybe, how different those are.
But the guys come in all wearing certain types of masks. As you would do in any situation, you come in and you want to put your best foot forward, be seen to be...
This week there wasn't, I don't suppose there is, I've done about four or five of these now as a volunteer, and people don't immediately do what they do anywhere else, which is straight away, "What do you do for a living?" and start talking about your work and stuff like that.
Tim Matthews 11:04
It's very much talking about the relationship, aren't they? Because they come into TPM usually through The Activation Method, which is all about how to fix your marriage without talking about it.
Lawrence 11:12
Yeah.
Tim Matthews 11:13
By the time they come to the reset, they're usually talking about the TPM journey. Business is usually the last thing that gets brought up, even though these guys generally are very driven, very successful professionally.
Whether they're a partner in a firm, a successful entrepreneur, whatever it may be, they are successful professionally.
Yet that doesn't come up.
It's like one of the guys said to me. It's what they love about the movement and the men within it. It isn't like some of these other business groups where you have guys constantly trying to either get something from you or asking you, "What's your revenue and what's the profit?" They're trying to establish some kind of pack order.
There's none of that. There's no ego. It's just, "Hey, we're all, at the end of the day, men who are struggling, who are here for one another to get through this together so we can be the best versions of ourselves."
Lawrence 12:14
These guys come with a lot of hurt, like you say.
There may have been infidelity in the marriage. There may have been substance addiction. All of these things that may have been going on with themselves, third parties, and other people being involved in their relationships.
A huge array of things that they're struggling with and trying to keep a lid on.
Or they come often with this kind of, "Look at what the world's done to me. This is how bad it is. Everyone..." That kind of victim...
Tim Matthews 12:48
They've done everything right, though. This is the confusion for them.
They're like, "Hey, I was told, or I watched my dad do X, Y, Z. Go out, work hard, make money. I've seen everything in the movies and on TV that that's what I'm supposed to do as a man. Ultimately, that's the way in which I provide for my family."
"I've now done that to a very high level. So why don't I have the respect, admiration, and appreciation that I think I should have from my wife? Why do I still feel like crap? I have everything that I thought was going to be the answer, yet I feel worse than I've ever felt."
"It doesn't make sense. I've done everything right."
Lawrence 13:36
You just told my story. That's right.
Stephen 13:39
As you say, that's the pull that draws people to travel thousands of miles to come to a reset.
Although business isn't spoken about really much, everyone's done that well, and they're kind of like, "Why? I've done everything I'm supposed to do, or that society's supposed to do."
I find when people come on day one that there's the armor, there's the masks, there's a bit of bravado going into an unknown situation.
But underneath that, I noticed there's a thirst for an answer. We all like to just be told what the answer is, don't we?
There's a feeling of hopefully we're going to find out what...
Tim Matthews 14:21
"Fix me here."
Franco's reset, this was in New Hampshire. Franco is Coach Franco. He's one of the coaches within The Activation Method and The Brotherhood.
He first came through the program. The program had such an impact on him, he decided to leave his business and essentially come and join the coaching team.
Day one of his reset, and you know what day zero is like, and then we get into day one.
Day zero is day zero because it starts at 5 p.m. The guys arrive at 5 p.m. There are some exercises we go through that evening after people have got to know one another.
Then we get into day one, and the theme of day one is truth.
As we are going through, I'm pretty sure as we're going through day one, it might have been day two, but to your point, Stephen, what you said a minute ago was exactly what Franco said to me.
He looked at me. He was so angry. It's like, "Just tell me the answer. You tell me then. If I don't know, you do. Tell me, what is it? What should I be doing?"
He was livid. He was livid.
Obviously, we left him in it because it was useful. It was leverage. We wanted him in that place.
Stephen 15:42
But that's it, isn't it? That's a man who's tried everything, or thought he's tried everything, and none of it's worked. That frustration, I think we can all relate to that.
Tim Matthews 15:51
Oh, for sure.
Stephen 15:52
Obviously, it came out for him.
I know on the reset I volunteered, but my own reset, one of the other guys on there, the postman, at the end of day one was ready to walk because he was like, "I want the structure. I want to see the agenda. I want to know the answer," but in a slightly different way.
He was not wanting to just trust the process and let it unfold.
Tim Matthews 16:16
It's an exercise in giving up control, isn't it?
Stephen 16:19
Totally.
Tim Matthews 16:19
Because we don't tell you guys what the agenda is, so you don't know what you're going through.
There's a saying that it's like Fight Club. The men that have been through won't tell anybody else what happens there because they don't want to ruin the experience for them.
You have guys, to your point, Stephen, that have either only met online or not met one another online, because you have guys arriving that don't know one another, even though they may have seen one of them post in the movement or whatever. They've never connected.
You're going somewhere that you don't really know much about. You are flying out of the country, leaving the U.S. to go to the U.K., or maybe leaving the U.K. to go to the U.S., or flying from the East Coast to the West Coast, whatever it may be.
You're leaving home base to go somewhere that you don't know, with people that you have either never met or only met online, to do something that you don't have a clue what's about to unfold.
You don't know the agenda. You don't know what's going to be included.
All that you know is there's going to be an exercise where you are asked to hand in your phones.
The evening of day zero, we ask, we invite the men, and the men do it so that they can be completely immersed in their own experience.
I have never had a guy, when he gets to day three, say to me, "I can't wait to get my phone back."
Every single guy has comments about how peaceful it is without his phone and how much he's actually been able to focus on himself and really dive deep into his own experience.
And create the leverage that he has to create on day zero and day one in order to really make the strides on day two, which the theme of day two is release and reclaim.
The theme of day two is necessary to bring about the change in his life that is needed for him, for his kids, for his wife, for his staff, for his family, be it his mum, his father, his siblings.
These guys are the leaders, and when they change, the world around them changes as well.
Lawrence 18:48
I think you put a post out today, didn't you, about exactly that? This is not just six lives changed. This is their children, their family, and all that.
I love what you do on day one because it's a combination of group things to do together, and things to do separately and on your own, and journaling.
It doesn't sound like a long time to dig down to the truth of where you're at, but actually it feels like a lifetime sitting there.
"How did I get here? Where am I now? What is the truth?"
Really doing that work, and that goes on through the night. You're still... It's a whole process just on day one. Challenged as well.
Tim Matthews 19:34
Exactly. Challenged by other men.
Other men who have your best interests at heart, who are going to call BS with some of the stories you're telling yourself, who are going to reflect back to you blind spots that you may not know you have.
As you continue to peel the layers back and go deeper and deeper and deeper and really get to the root of things, you have to change.
Stephen 19:59
The depth that I noticed when I volunteered, the depth that you get to on day one with the men, because as well as the challenging and the pushback and the support, the people being there and the other men who are going through it holding space for everybody else.
Some of the things that came up, there were people telling us, sharing with the group and with the coaches, things they had never told another human being in maybe 10, 20, 30 years or so.
The safety that's created, but also back to what you're saying about that feels like not much time, but a lot of time to reflect on that.
I think the fact that it's totally distraction-free, you can't just go, "I'm going to write about this," and just pull my phone out and start looking at Instagram or whatever.
You have no other distraction with your own thoughts, and that can be quite a scary and painful place. But also, that's where the truth lies.
Tim Matthews 20:53
But you also realize you're not alone in that moment because you're not doing it by yourself. You have a room full of other men who are not only going through it with you, but are also sharing similar things.
We often talk about that 2 a.m. conversation. That time when you wake up in the morning, you can't sleep, you're doomscrolling, and you just feel lost, maybe even a bit hopeless, like there's no way out.
That's the point at which most guys reach out to us.
The conversation that is usually going on in a man's head at that point is, "Nobody understands. I'm in this alone. I'm on my own. I'm on my own."
Then to be at this reset and not only have to share that 2 a.m. conversation, that thing that you don't want anybody else knowing, that thing that you've carried with you your entire life.
We don't force anyone to share any of that stuff, right?
To your point, Stephen, I think the camaraderie that's built between the men, the safety that's created between the coaches and the men, and just the emotion and the energy that begins to build and flow on day zero and day one just lends itself to things coming out.
I've had guys who have got to the morning of day two and say, "Hey, there's something I need to share with the group. I wasn't fully honest yesterday. I wasn't fully truthful."
They chose to sleep on it and woke up, and it still hadn't gone away.
They realized that, "Hey, this is my shot. This is my chance. I'm here. I'm going to be going home in two days. Am I going to leave it all here?"
Because they make that commitment to themselves that they are, they're going to leave it all on the floor in that room with all the men, with the coaches.
Kudos to these men.
Then they wake up on day two. "Hey, I've got something to share." Even on day three, it's gone right until day three when people have done the same.
But it's that 2 a.m. conversation, right? That one where we all feel so lonely.
To not only dig into that and turn towards it instead of turning away from it, because for years the men have been trying to bury that 2 a.m. conversation through alcohol, work, money, porn, addiction, whatever it may be.
But it doesn't go away. It's still there. It's kind of like this nagging thing that's just tapping you on your shoulder.
"Hey, I'm still here. Hey, I'm not going away."
It just becomes exhausting.
To not only turn towards it and become real, hence the truth, and share it, that in itself is huge.
But to hear other men sharing something similar, the relief of, "Holy, I'm actually not on my own. These guys get it."
It immediately begins to dissolve some of the shame that the men are often struggling with pre-reset.
Because, "I'm supposed to be this certain guy. People think I'm this particular person who shows up in this particular way. Who am I to have these problems? These problems are nowhere near as bad as the people in Africa who are starving."
There are all these avoidance tactics.
Stephen 24:11
Some of it's about a realization that I had going through it. For me, it was that there are other men I can have these conversations with.
Tim Matthews 24:20
What did that feel like?
Stephen 24:21
It just felt like such a wave of relief, of freedom. It's like, "I can talk about this stuff."
I think in the past I'd known that I wanted to talk about things, but my friends in the pub or whatever, guys just didn't talk about this stuff.
If I were to try and even venture down that road of a conversation, it would have been shut down, or I'd have had my leg pulled about it. Everyone's just more comfortable, aren't they?
But the reality is, one of the best things I got out of the reset and TPM in general is knowing other men I can have those 2 a.m. conversations with at 9 a.m. or at 3 p.m.
It's just there, and no one's going to judge.
Tim Matthews 25:02
Let's jump to day two because what I don't want somebody listening to this to think is, "Oh, it's a bunch of guys getting in a room, journaling, and talking."
Lawrence 25:12
Sure. You want to talk about day two?
Tim Matthews 25:14
In a particular way. I don't want to tell them. I don't want to tell anyone what we do.
However, day two isn't about journaling. It's not even about talking.
Day two is about a series of processes, exercises that have been designed specifically to guide a man through essentially his pit of despair so that he can not only come face to face with it, but release it.
So that on the other side of that, he can reclaim who he knows he's always been.
Day two is supposed to reveal something to the man about himself that he's always known to be true, but he's just lost touch with.
He's just lost touch with it, but he's always known it's there.
The confidence, the... I want to use the word empowerment, but it just sounds so fluffy.
But it's just this place of him really, "This is me. No mask, no hiding. This is me."
And him accepting himself and really seeing his own innate goodness.
Which I think probably undersells it.
However, for somebody in that position, for you two, you two went to the reset.
Let me ask you, pre-reset, being in the position that you two guys were in, if you would have heard me say, "Oh, it helps him to feel more confident and see his innate goodness," how would that have landed?
Lawrence 27:06
I'd have been like, "Okay, whatever."
Stephen 27:10
Sounds too fluffy, and also not really...
Tim Matthews 27:14
Not what you want. Because you don't know that's what you need.
Lawrence 27:17
That's right.
Tim Matthews 27:18
You think it's something else that you need.
Lawrence 27:21
What's a better way of saying it then?
Tim Matthews 27:22
I don't have one right now.
But the question is, how would you describe it? How would you describe the position that you were in at the end of day two?
Lawrence 27:36
Okay, at the end of day two.
Tim Matthews 27:37
End of day two.
Lawrence 27:38
We're just thinking about this. We had a guy on day zero, within 20 minutes, admitting something he'd never spoken to anyone else about. Anyone else.
I did a similar sort of thing on day one.
I think I came into the reset in a really bad way in my mind, wanting to fix my marriage. It was only when I found TPM that I realized I had to fix myself.
Coming into day two, I was convinced at the start of day two that I knew exactly what was going to happen because I'd been through the mill in my mind, turning myself inside out about the stories I'd been telling myself all of day one and through the night of day one.
I kept getting up and journaling a bit more, and, "Oh God."
I was convinced that I knew what was going to happen on day two. Day two was just going to be more of the same.
It was going to be more journaling, more fluffy talk, more scary, "Where are you now? You've got to sort yourself out."
Which was working. It was. I don't want to... It was working on me.
It was making me feel like, "Oh my God, I really do need to do something, and it's got to happen now. If it doesn't happen now, in 10 years' time, I am going to be broken, so I need to fix it."
It was working, but I was convinced that day two was just going to be more talking, more sitting in a group doing group stories and talking to each other and all of that sort of stuff.
I could have come by that whole kind of, "Oh, this is great, and I'm sure I'll get something out of it, and I'll go home and I'll feel a bit better about myself."
Tim Matthews 29:03
You wish day two was like that.
Lawrence 29:06
I said at the end of day two, I said to the guys, "Look, I'm an ex-soldier. I've been to war. I've fought in a war zone, and what I did through day two was more scary for me than going to war."
Because it was emotional work.
I was always brought up to be... I was told, not told, but I picked up myself that emotions are negative or bad or weakness.
It wasn't through... I had a wonderful childhood and my family were great, but I had picked that up through a variety of things, school, family life, the early days in the army.
Going into day two and actually embodying what it meant to who I actually was and how much of myself I'd let go, how much of my innate funness, is that a word? Innate happiness, my joy, my ability to think clearly, to plan, every aspect of me mentally, physically, emotionally, that I'd let myself go.
Being able to find that younger guy again inside me, in my body and in my head, was incredible.
To stand there at the end of day two and look at myself in a mirror and not feel weak or less than or unworthy, but to stand there and go, "I'm actually all right."
There's a nickname that went along with it, which quickly got squashed, but I'm not going to go into that.
It was a real huge realization, and I came out of day two really feeling like I'd turned a corner.
That would be the feeling at the end of day two. It was like, "If I can do that, if I can confront my emotions, if I can confront the hard, hard, hard work..."
If this is what it means to do the work, people used to say, "Oh, you've got to do the work on yourself."
If this is what it means, then I can do this. I can do anything now because I've confronted the stuff that is so scary to me, and has now become part of my life.
Stephen 31:24
I really resonate with an awful lot of that.
I think going in, I had a mixture of always feeling that I never quite fitted in with other people in the world and with groups, and also that I had minimized myself to fit in.
I lost all sense of being able to stand up and say, "This is me. This is what I stand for. This is what I like and don't like, and I'm okay with that."
And kind of not care what anybody else thinks.
On day two, just the freedom. I'm just thinking about it now, and I just feel this sense of freedom.
It's like, "Oh my God, this is me. I can stand up in front of everybody else," like I said, look myself in the mirror and go, "This is me, and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of me. I'm not going to apologize."
Because I had some therapy many years ago, and after my first session, a half-hour session, at the end, my therapist said to me, "I just wanted to say, you said sorry about 30 times in the last half hour."
I was apologizing for everything. I was apologizing for existing.
At the end of day two, just the complete opposite of that. To unapologetically say, "This is who I am."
Tim Matthews 32:44
Incredible.
Stephen 32:44
Amazing.
Tim Matthews 32:45
Incredible! Kudos to you guys for doing the work.
Day three.
Lawrence 32:50
Day three.
Tim Matthews 32:51
Day three. The work continues.
The guys, as you just said, are riding a high at the end of day two. We go into day three, and for some men, the breakthrough is on day three.
I think on a reintegration call last night with the guys that finished the reset last... Today is Thursday. They finished the reset last Friday, so the first reintegration call last night, a few days after.
One of the guys said on that call that the breathwork was the biggest piece for him.
I don't want to go into what we do in the breathwork, and it's not just your ordinary breathwork. It's not something you can just go get on YouTube and do.
There's a very particular methodology that we do, and it's placed in a very particular part of the process in the reset.
It's designed to have a particular impact and facilitate a particular shift. It's very intentional and purposeful.
But the point is, at the end of day two, it continues. The work continues into day three.
How would you describe... What are you laughing at?
Lawrence 34:09
Nothing. You're a breathwork ninja, aren't you?
I was just laughing at the fact that it's very intentional and it's placed together. I would say that's the same for the whole process.
The whole process is intentional. It's designed to create a transformation, a change.
I think on this particular reset that we did, day three really...
When I did mine, it didn't feel as impactful as doing it again as a... I mean, it was very impactful, but this time I just felt like everything that we did, it's vision.
It's about vision, isn't it? It's day three, and it's all about creating the right energy, creating the right frame of being, embodying it a little bit more, and looking forward to the future.
I think it's absolutely key because if you just did day two and went, "Okay, thanks very much. Bye-bye..."
Stephen 35:13
Job done.
Lawrence 35:15
You'd be lost in the world, and you'd sink back into the depths pretty damn quickly.
Whereas day three, what day three does, it tends to set it a little bit more, give you that little bit more presence, give you that little bit more time to percolate these things that you've learned through yourself and through your body, and give you some tools to take away.
Again, what I love, and it's developed, I think, over the years, is we now do these integration calls and things, so people aren't just...
I think that's one of the big things about everything in The Brotherhood. You don't just go and do something like the reset and then you're off and you've got to deal with it on your own.
The real work starts at the end of this.
This is maybe a transformation, a huge transformation, but at the end of the day, the real work of embodying that and what that actually means in real life, you can fall off the end and into that.
We don't allow them to do that.
It's reintegration calls, it's checking in on them, it's keeping together in a, not in a pack, but in a group, keeping the communication going, supporting each other.
That's what we're seeing at the moment in the app, these guys reaching out to each other and talking about their experience and where they are as they've got home.
Day three is a launchpad for that.
Tim Matthews 36:31
Exactly. We always say it's the beginning, not the end.
Stephen 36:34
I kind of feel like on day two you rediscover your power, and day three we're being given the tools to harness and focus it and channel it and actually direct it.
As you say, if you just, after day two...
Tim Matthews 36:48
It's a lot more tactical, isn't it, on day three?
One of the things we do, I'm not going to reveal everything we do, but I really like the inventory because essentially part of what we get the men to do is scan their life, the five territories of self, health, relationships, wealth, and business.
Reflect on what it is that they have been doing in those territories over the past several weeks, months, or even longer, and essentially assign them into two columns, a plus and a minus.
The plus is the thing that you are doing that charges you up, it fills you up, ultimately, or the thing drains you.
For a lot of guys, they have a lot of things. I would say probably a rough percentage, 70/30 drains to charges. I'd say that's how they've typically... That's the trap they've fallen into in life.
Saying yes to things that are really a no. Getting involved in projects at work, working with clients, whatever it may be, that they don't enjoy working with or they don't want to do.
Doing roles within the company they don't want to do. Habits that they have that don't serve them. Being on the phone until late, grabbing the phone first thing in the morning, not taking care of their health, avoiding particular conversations, lying to themselves, being around people they don't want to be around.
It could be people at work. It could be friends. Being in conversations they don't want to be in.
There's all sorts.
Lending money to people, feeling obliged to keep their family, if you will, or have their family on the payroll, paying for their mother, their sister, their brother, lending money to friends, not paying themselves enough.
The take-home pay can sometimes be a drain. All sorts of things.
The sex life is often a drain.
Lawrence 38:53
A couple of things that came up this time were wardrobe and environment, where they're living, their house, their bedroom, all of that. All of that just draining them.
Tim Matthews 39:06
Exactly. Everything's reflecting back to them the person they don't want to be versus reflecting back to them who they're committed to being.
That's very revealing because post-reset, as a coach, and for you guys as volunteers, that information is like gold dust because that's the stuff post-reset that we then help them to action.
Some of it can be done quickly. Some of those drains can either be cut out and deleted.
"I don't need to do that thing anymore. I'm just going to stop."
Some of them take a little bit longer. It could be a work project or a client or whatever it may be. It could be how many hours they work.
But regardless of what it is, it's really cool to see these guys over a six-to-twelve-month period post-reset take action on this inventory list.
Because as they take action on it, that's the change that they've experienced at the reset really beginning to flower and take root.
Their life slowly but surely begins to reflect back to them exactly who they are and where they're going.
It's just slow and steady, inch by inch, but consistently over months. Six months down the line, living a completely different life.
Lawrence 40:19
It sort of leans into the other stuff.
I must have gone through during my time in TPM maybe five or six times, people have talked or I've watched masterclasses on yes and your hell no lists.
Get the stuff that's in the maybes column out of there. If it's hell no, then delete it. If it's yes, then lean into that.
That kind of is an extension of the inventory from the reset. You just continue to reevaluate.
"Actually, this used to be a yes. I used to love this, but actually, it's in my hell no now. This, I'm not so sure about it."
A lot of the guys on this reset, they were like, "Actually, I used to motorbike," or, "I used to have a group of friends that I've lost touch with. They used to be my... Where are they? Let's go back and find them again."
Let's re-find the stuff that was filling me up.
Because over time, becoming codependent or just leaning into trying to fix the marriage, and all your energy goes into that, or tiredness from overwork, all that sort of takes out some of those things that used to give you the joy.
Seeing these guys realize, "I've got some stuff here. I've got the stuff in the negative column, which is a big wake-up call. I need to get rid of some of that."
"But also, there's not a lot in my positive column right now. But I've got stuff in my life that I could lean back into, or maybe go and find it."
"Maybe I used to play a sport and I'm a bit older now. Maybe I can look at supporting a team or doing a different sport or something that's more me now."
What does it feel like to be me?
Because they're better in touch with what it feels like to be me.
I came away and went and bought a huge motorbike, a huge adventure motorbike, because I was like, "I used to ride bikes and I used to love riding bikes."
For 20 years, I hadn't ridden a bike, and I came back and went, "I'm going to buy that bike."
I couldn't ride it. It was too big for me. I was wobbling all over the road.
But I'm a master of it now, and I'm going off to Ireland next weekend to go and tour around the coast of Ireland on it because it fills me up and brings me joy.
That's the kind of thing, seeing these guys realize that they've got a life that they could live.
Stephen 42:40
It's not all serious, is it?
I think for the longest time I took life far too seriously, everything far too seriously, and it's okay.
Doing the fun stuff actually fills you up and makes you feel good.
I think there's the intensity of the reset, and you come home feeling really energized and full and, "Right, change the world."
But it is that ongoing, as you said, Tim, that gradual adoption of more of those pluses and losing the negatives and the drains that embeds that longer-term change.
Which proves to you, but also to the people around you, that something's changed.
It's very easy to come back from a weekend like a reset and go, "Right, that's me. I'm fixed."
It's the ongoing progression from there using the tools that you've learned, which does take time.
Tim Matthews 43:30
Well said, well said.
What advice would you give to a guy that's listening to this who is considering going to the reset?
He's thinking about it. He's concerned. He is telling himself he's too busy. He doesn't have the time. He'll wait. He'll do it in six months.
Stephen 43:55
They're all stories. Everything, every possible...
I had so many reasons in my head why I wasn't going to go, because it was time away from the business, time away from my wife and kids.
These random guys I've met on the internet. What could go wrong?
Lawrence 44:12
It's not a dating site. No, it's not a dating site.
Stephen 44:15
But just to trust the process.
There's never going to be a perfect time to take that time away from your life because what it is, it's those three days. It's away from your life, but it's what gives you your life, I think.
Just trust it and throw yourself at it and go all in with it, because what's on the other side is priceless.
Lawrence 44:41
I would say what you're doing up until now hasn't worked.
If you're looking into this, then what you've been doing up until now isn't working for you.
This is an opportunity to do something that has the potential, if you step into it and embrace it, to make a real change.
We have people that sign up to it, and two days before, they don't turn up.
They ring up and say, "Travel arrangements have been difficult," or, "The wife has been... My mum's in hospital, and she's got to go here, and she's got to go there."
Some genuine barriers seem to come up.
I don't know, call it spiritual warfare if you're religious. Call it whatever.
But there does seem to be something that I would call... It's like crabs in a bucket.
There's a lot of stuff around you that's trying to pull you back down to your set point.
If your set point is fairly depressed, trying to get on with life, trying as hard as you can, and not really feeling any kind of intimacy and emotion in your relationship, but being there in the business and all of that, if that's where your emotional set point is, if that's where you are, anything you do to try and get out of that is going to seem like a huge amount of work.
It's going to seem like a real effort, traveling to go somewhere, being there on time, turning up and being nervous about it.
All of that is going to seem like a huge effort.
But anything that's worth doing is worth putting the work in for, and this, I would say, is probably the most worthy thing.
Tim Matthews 46:19
We see it with every reset.
A few days before, for at least one person in the group, if not more, some crazy challenge comes out of left field that they didn't expect.
It happens. I'd probably say it happens for about 50% of the guys. It's a high, high percentage.
What's really sad is for the guys that step away from the line and say, "Hey, I just can't make it. Travel or work," or whatever it may be.
I often think about times like now. We are seven days, six days post the reset.
The men that attended are living a very different life right now than the men that stepped away from the line.
Last week, those seven days, they came and went in a blink of an eye.
Came and went so quickly.
The men that decided to stay committed to attending the reset then spent those seven days doing a particular thing.
The men that chose to step away from the line and fall victim to their circumstance chose to spend those seven days doing the same old thing.
Now the trajectory of those two groups of people, the trajectory of their lives is completely different.
The group that chose to step away from the line is still doing the same old thing.
The reality is, things don't stay the same. They get better or they get worse.
The likelihood is, unfortunately for those men, life has gotten worse over the past now 14 days since they didn't show up.
The men that chose to stay committed and step to the line, life is getting way better.
We've got a guy who has been separated from his wife since Easter, and the separation occurred in a very, how to say this, violent way.
He didn't hit his wife. He wasn't physical with her or anything like that. However, people came to the house and it was confrontational. It was very confrontational.
There was a period where he couldn't even speak to his wife unless it was via email.
Last night... Well, I'll back up.
Twice since his return from the reset, she's invited him into the house where she is living to come in and sit down and have a cup of coffee or tea with her.
That's a huge, huge difference for a woman that was essentially scared of being around him and wouldn't be around him.
Again, he wasn't violent, didn't hit her. He never had a history of that. It was just a confrontational moment. I'm not saying I condone any of that stuff.
As of yesterday, his wife then spent 30 minutes just emptying barrels, just speaking to him and keeping going and going and going.
The door is opening for them to reconcile in a big way.
Another guy returns from the reset, wakes up a couple of mornings ago. His wife has slept in, no problem.
Gets the kids up, gets them ready for school, hangs out in the kitchen with them, puts some music on, makes breakfast, and just has a great time with them.
The wife gets up, and instead of what he would have usually done, and this is his words, in the past I would have gone in that room and said, "What are you doing? Stop being lazy. Get up. The kids have got to be ready in 20 minutes. What are you doing?"
Instead of doing that, he just took that action with the kids.
When she did get up, he just said, "Hey, no problem. Need to leave now."
Lives are different. Families are changing, all because these men chose to stay committed to the path.
Lawrence 50:23
The difference there is that he didn't just say, "Oh, it's fine, it's fine," and still hold resentment.
No, he's changed inside, his view, his outlook, and his view.
His energy is, "It is okay, actually, and it's fine. They're my kids. I get to have a great time."
It's a fantastic change in doing it for him as well.
Stephen 50:42
Not doing it with resentment, but also not doing it for brownie points from the wife.
He's doing it because he chose to do that.
Tim Matthews 50:53
Exactly.
One of the other men on the call yesterday, the reintegration call, said to him, "You look 10 years younger."
He was visually a different person. We've had it so many times with the men.
If you are curious about the Alpha Reset, then find us on Instagram at The Powerful Man and just shoot us a DM with the word RESET.
One of the team will reach out to you, give you more information. You can see if it's for you. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
One thing I would implore you to do is just get off the fence.
If this is resonating with you, then just get off the fence. Do something.
Even if it's not the reset, then find something else. Just do something.
The worst place to be is in the middle. The worst place to be is on the fence.
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time on the TPM Show.