Unmasking Truths: Overcoming Self-Deprecation

>

Episode #1098

Hungry for more?

Head over to our BONUS page for special access to some of the deeper tactics and techniques we’ve developed at The Powerful Man.

Also listen on:

iTunes
Spotify

Transcription

Stephen 0:00
I was having a lot of difficulty with my marriage, my business, and just my life in general. I think I'd lost my way.

Tim Matthews 0:06
A lot of guys struggle with very much owning their greatness.

Lawrence 0:10
If I'm doing it because I'm making myself small, then, you know, it's kind of a self-protection thing.

Tim Matthews 0:16
Self-deprecation.

Stephen 0:17
There was a culture of taking the mickey out of each other, which at the time felt harmless and funny, and a lot of sarcastic humor. What I've realized in the past few years is how damaging that's been to my self-confidence.

Tim Matthews 0:42
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the TPM Show. I am joined today by two incredible guests, Mr. Lawrence Davis and the king of cheese, Mr. Stephen Fleming. How are you doing?

Lawrence 0:55
I'm good, Tim. Good to be here. Fantastic to be here.

Tim Matthews 0:59
So before we dive in, thank you, Stephen, for the topic, which we'll get to in a minute. Just give the guys who may not be familiar with you two a quick 30-second high-level overview of who you are, a little bit of background, what brought you to TPM, how long you've been in the movement, and then we'll get going with the topic.

Stephen 1:22
Okay, well, I'm Stephen Fleming, the king of cheese. I've been in TPM just about six years now. In fact, I first got in touch with TPM about a two-minute walk from this studio, I discovered this morning. So, you know, the universe has brought me back here at the right time for this.

What brought me to TPM? I was having a lot of difficulty with my marriage, my business, and just my life in general. I think I'd lost my way. Certainly, I've been able to rediscover that with the help of you, the other TPM coaches, and the other men. So I'm in a much better place than I was six years ago.

Tim Matthews 2:00
Nice. Awesome.

Lawrence 2:00
I'm Lawrence. Lawrence Davis. I earned the nickname of Wildcard on a recent retreat. I have been in the movement about four years. I am recently divorced, and that's a whole other story, which is related to the entire journey.

But I came to TPM when I was married and the marriage was in real difficulty. I'd started some self-work, and I found the movement on Facebook, I think, through a Facebook ad. I had a call, and the journey accelerated from there. It totally and utterly changed my life around. It changed me around.

I was completely lost as a person. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know any of that at the time. I thought I was coping and running my business, hiding it with fantastic masks. I had some great masks. They were so good, I believed them.

As I started to grow and change as a result of doing crazy things in the movement, like going halfway across the world to meet 40 strangers in a hotel, what could possibly go wrong? The whole progression has led me to a much, much better place now. So, awesome. And that's thanks to you and all the coaches, man.

Tim Matthews 3:35
It's a pleasure. Of course. Love the tattoo, by the way.

Lawrence 3:41
It's great, isn't it? The lighthouse.

Tim Matthews 3:43
Hey, there we go. In the same forearm.

Lawrence 3:44
I thought I was unique.

Tim Matthews 3:54
So you mentioned masks. We're going to dive into that. Before we started, Stephen, with his wonderful sense of humor, said, "Oh, trying to smell nice for the cameras." I said, "Well, there's two incredible men here that I'm trying to impress," to which Stephen says, "Well, when are they going to arrive?"

Oh, the self-deprecation.

Stephen 4:21
Six years of work, and I'm still bad.

Tim Matthews 4:25
So I want to speak to this because I think it's a way that men will armor themselves. Now, this idea of dimming the light I think a lot of guys struggle with owning their greatness. As a result, they'll dim their light for whatever reason. We can dive into some of that.

One of the ways they dim their light is through this self-deprecation, right? Also, sometimes one of the reasons why they do it is to try and bond with other guys, right? But ultimately, depending on the underlying energy, it can either be helpful or unhelpful.

Self-deprecation in its own right isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you believe to any degree the deprecation that you're saying about yourself, then obviously it's not great to just pronounce it to the world.

So let's dive into it a little bit. Tell us more, Stephen, about this self-deprecation.

Stephen 5:34
I have to say, I think I know, because it's something I've dug into quite a lot. It was a major pattern in my family growing up. There was a culture of taking the mickey out of each other, which at the time felt harmless and funny, and a lot of sarcastic humor, a lot of self-deprecation, not really standing up and saying how good anyone was at anything. Any successes were joked about. Humor was made light of things.

What I've realized in the past few years is how damaging that's been to my self-confidence, my ability to stand up and say, "This is me. This is who I am. I'm proud of what I've done, and I deserve what I have." So it definitely came from a place.

Also, as a teenager, as a young man with my mates, the whole pub humor culture, no one was really standing up and going, "I'm great." If you did, you got pulled down pretty quickly. So I feel it was kind of a lifelong habit of that. And you're right, sometimes it can be okay, it can be fun, but it can be quite harmful.

One thing I noticed with my wife Jane was that that's really not her thing at all. Early on in our relationship, I was bringing some of that into it, and it really landed badly, very badly. At first, I was like, "Well, what's wrong? I'm just having a joke. Haven't you got a sense of humor?" That type of response, because I didn't understand what was going on.

So that's kind of the core of it, really. It's taken me a lot, and you've helped me with this an awful lot, to be able to go, "This is me, and this is what I've achieved." I didn't get, and I still don't get, any positive affirmation from my dad in particular about what I've achieved and what I do. It's just little bits of words he throws into conversations, like, "How's your little business going?" and stuff like that. It's not descending, but it doesn't really fill me with confidence to push on, to do more, to be more. Not that I need his blessing, but that's 50-odd years of programming, and it's still there.

I see it now for what it is, and I can navigate that better with him in particular, but it still pops up from time to time.

Tim Matthews 8:02
What about you, Lawrence?

Lawrence 8:03
I'm definitely guilty of that as well. In the past, I've been quite consciously aware of not doing it now and making sure I don't. I used to do it because I'd get in there first before someone else did, or before I thought they would. Because I had low self-esteem, I would make sure I got it out there. It would be in my control. I'm controlling the situation by saying it myself.

And I think you're right. In terms of relationships, it lands very badly because it comes across as very childish energy. Like you're making a joke, sometimes to break the tension or something like that. When you self-deprecate, it does two things. It comes across as boy energy, which is not very pleasant for your partner. And I think you're using humor as an icebreaker, and it just doesn't make you feel good. It doesn't make her feel good.

But it's one of those things that's never spoken about. It doesn't get raised. It's not a big issue. It's just a little thing that's in her mind, in the back of her mind: "Oh, he's a child again. I'll test him on that."

So I think what's helped me with that is slowing down. Slowing down everything my thoughts, my responses, everything that I do. I try to do more slowly, even walking more slowly, because that helps me. I'm not very good at checking myself if I'm in the middle of a flow of a conversation. It just slips out.

Then you do what you did earlier, which is like, "Ah, hang on a minute. That's interesting." But by then it can be too late. So I think just taking the pace back and trying to do everything more slowly helps me to go, "All right, okay, it's on the tip of my tongue. I'm not going to say it. I don't need to say it." And just leaving more gaps in my conversation.

Tim Matthews 10:10
I think you make a really good point, right? This idea of, "Let me say it before you do. Therefore it's within my control." I think control is definitely a piece of it. I think underlying beliefs about ourselves fears, inadequacy, whatever it is that also plays into it too.

I think dimming the light as well. I've seen that so often, which sounds kind of weird because obviously you guys are successful entrepreneurs. You've both done a really good job in building something from scratch. You weren't raised, to my knowledge, by entrepreneurs. You've gone out there, you've learned the skill yourself, you've taken the risks. You've developed the mindset and the skill set.

So in theory, you have every right to shine your light, right? And you have every right to shine it as brightly as you can in service of others. Because for you guys, it doesn't come from a place of ego, where it's, "Look at me. I'm better than you, so I'm going to shine my light, but you have to dim yours because my light's more important than yours." It doesn't come from that place.

So the idea of dimming your light seems so strange because, like I said, from where you've come from and the motive behind it, why would you dim it?

Stephen 11:39
But it's so ingrained, isn't it? As you were saying that about building businesses, in my head there's this little bit of me going to chip in with, "Oh, still a work in progress," that kind of thing. It just pops up.

But I think, as Lawrence said, being more aware of that and slowing down helps to not jump in with that response.

Lawrence 11:59
But it's a really important mindset shift that you just came up with there, which is if I'm doing it because I'm making myself small, then it's kind of a self-protection thing. But if I've got that mindset of, "I'm doing this for others," not as an ego trip, but so that others can see what's possible

You've seen that image of the two candles. One lights the other when the other one goes out. It gets used all over Instagram as a twin flame thing and all that, but that's the kind of thing. They shine the light in order to rekindle the light in others.

And if you've got that mindset, then you'd want to shine your light even brighter.

Tim Matthews 12:40
I love that. The permission you give yourself to shine brightly, therefore, turns into permission that others also get as well. Sometimes we have to borrow belief, right? Sometimes we don't believe in ourselves enough. We need to borrow belief from people a little bit further ahead.

But I'll speak to you two. If you two guys, and the listeners, are choosing to dim your light, right, how does that impact the people around you? What opportunity are you taking from them to borrow belief from you? Because if you only shine your light in private, when you're journaling and celebrating your wins, or whether you're in some solitude and self-reflecting, but then when you go in public, "I don't want to be too bright," right?

By you giving yourself permission, you become a permission slip to other people as well, especially when it's coming from a place of, "I'm not shining mine so you have to dim yours. We can both shine together."

I think a lot of men that we work with, and you've probably seen this with guys in the movement, they're terrified of looking arrogant. They don't want to look arrogant, and that's one of the big fears. "Well, if I shine my light, I'm going to be arrogant. I'm going to be self-absorbed. I'm going to be all these negative connotations." And I think that does come from society, which is like a bipolar society, right?

Everywhere we have these marketing messages in adverts, billboards, social media, whatever it may be, with all these role models of what we should aspire to be. But you can't shine bright and you can't talk about it, because then you're arrogant.

Stephen 14:20
Know your place, almost. You stay there.

Lawrence 14:24
I think in the UK it's more pronounced. It feels to me like we're not given that freedom. You go to the States, and the guys I meet when we go to the States not much more, but there is a definite sense of just going to speak loudly and just going to be myself and all of that.

And I think even journaling was hard, actually, right? You said writing down and celebrating my wins in the journey would be the hardest part.

Tim Matthews 14:49
So many of the guys struggle to see them. One of the first exercises we take the guys through in the program is the Stick Man exercise. You guys remember.

So the Stick Man is a shadow, right? Everything that lurks in the darkness, which we'll get to in another episode. And the other side of that is your "I Am," right? Which exists because where there's dark, there's also light.

The men typically have no issue creating the Stick Man, which is essentially everything that comes out when you feel inadequate, insecure. What are the thoughts, the beliefs, the actions, the language? They can nail that thing. You have to stop them from writing. "Hey, it's been three minutes. No need to continue. Change direction."

But then when you go to that "I Am," they're scratching their head. "Come on, Lawrence. Remind me of a time when life just felt like it was going your way. It was effortless. You were just on cloud nine."

"Well, there was this time once back in 1990…"

Because they've just learned to see themselves through this lens where they've got to dim, they've got to play small. Yet at the same time, they have these huge aspirations. And it does come out in these slight ways, like self-deprecation.

Now, you've done a lot of work on yourself, Stephen, so I get that. You say it, you can see it. You also don't buy into it. It exists, and that's okay, because we all have thoughts that come up. It's whether or not they unconsciously control you, right? And then you buy into them and they influence your behavior, which isn't the case for you, which is great.

But for a lot of guys who are listening that might use self-deprecation to either dim the light because they don't want to stand out too much some of that can come from them not feeling worthy of the success, feeling like an imposter, right, waiting for the rug to be pulled from beneath them so they don't want to own it.

Some of it can come from guys wanting to bond with other guys, you know, through banter or whatever. Some of it can come from bringing that energy into the relationship, which we'll talk about in a minute, which does not go well, to your guys' point.

But underneath all of this, if there's an undercurrent that you actually believe what you're saying, and to your point, Lawrence, you're wanting to get it out there before somebody else does, in a way where you can control it so, in theory, it's less hurtful, then it needs to be looked at.

Doug Holt 17:19
Hey, guys, I just want to share something with you. I'm sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what's broken. And not only do you need to know what's broken, but you need a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That's the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you're going to be toiling with things.

That's why I created a free training, a training that not only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have, but also how you get it back. How do you retain that, where your wife's looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, "I do"?

You know, I don't know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like I'm her man, that feels like I can conquer the world, and I want that for you.

Simply go over to https://fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales. That's https://fixmarriage.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.

Lawrence 18:21
Because that's something you believe. If you're doing that, then there must be a kernel of truth in it, or at least you believe there's a kernel of truth in it for you. And that's why.

If it wasn't anything that you believed, you know, if you were confident enough in yourself, if I was confident enough in myself to own it and accept myself, it wouldn't hurt. And if somebody else did think it or say it, it wouldn't bother me because I'm okay. That's a them issue, not a me issue.

But if it's something that I feel inside, like I'm a bad parent or I'm a terrible husband or whatever, and that's out there, then it becomes kind of a well, you're not very good in business, or you've made the wrong decision and I can feel it in me. I know that, you know, oh, quick, protect.

Stephen 19:05
Yeah. So there's something about a bit of anxiety, isn't there? If in a moment someone is giving you some praise, say, and your reaction is self-deprecation, then maybe there's a bit of anxiety about what might happen in the future, what might happen next.

If you say, "I am great," and then someone shoots you down, there's a bit of self-preservation there. Rather than just being in the moment and going, "Right now, I'm just going to receive whatever I've been given," or stand up and shout about how great I am or what I've done, and not worry about what people are going to think a minute, an hour, or a day from now.

Tim Matthews 19:38
It's crazy, isn't it, to think that we want to achieve these things in our lives, but we won't accept how good we are?

Stephen 19:49
You get what you're it's weird.

Tim Matthews 19:51
I work with this. I understand it. I get it. I know why this happens. But just on a surface-level logic, it makes no sense.

Lawrence 20:00
It's like all the work that I've done in TPM is so counterintuitive. We do a lot of work on building yourself up. In the movement, there's a lot of understanding who you are as a person, that you're worthy, that I'm acceptable to myself, and working through all of the things that have told you in your past that you're not whether it's your parents or whatever.

And when you learn that, you look back and you think, "Oh my God, what was I doing to myself?" You know, I was turning myself in circles, never feeling good enough, never feeling like that. Imposter syndrome. Always feeling like I was too big for my boots.

It only takes sometimes one remark from a partner or a parent just to say, "Who do you think you are?" I had that once in a barracks room. I was breaking up a fight, and the guy turned around he was raging and he looked at me dead in the eye and just went, "Who do you think you are?"

And I shrunk. I shrunk in there, and I was like, okay. Because he was much more senior to me. I was a new boy in the troop. And it just stuck with me for years and years. Like, "Who do you think you are?"

Tim Matthews 21:08
Real fall-in-line kind of thing?

Lawrence 21:11
Yeah, get back in your place. He might as well have said that.

Tim Matthews 21:17
Interesting.

So let's talk about self-deprecation in the relationship. I know Doug has mentioned this on previous podcasts not for a while, actually but just how he grew up with two elder brothers. They're both older than him. And their household was one whereby there was a lot of competition because they were very competitive with sport, very boisterous three boys, right?

And humor, wit, self-deprecation that's what those three just really jived on. It's fun. When I'm around them, it's fun. It is funny. So for Doug, it was something that was very natural, normal.

So to your point, Stephen, when he then brought that over to his relationship with Erin, she was like, "Hey, I'm not your brother. I'm not one of the boys. Stop treating me like I'm one of the boys."

This was a long time ago, and that's when he realized, oh. Because obviously, as lads, if you will, we can tend to have a little bit of a thicker skin, or whatever it may be. And we'll say things that can be a little bit cutting. At least me and my friends growing up in Leeds, things were a little bit cutting, and you wouldn't hold back. It was fun. I mean, I enjoyed it at the time.

But bringing some of that into the energy in your relationship, into the romantic space, it just doesn't work. I know it sounds obvious, but there'll be certain guys listening to this that I can guarantee will be doing this right now, and they won't realize the impact it's having.

Because to them, they'll just do it all the time anyway at work, or with themselves, or with the boys. They'll do it with the wife. And like I said, even if the wife is responding, it doesn't mean it's a good thing.

So I think let's just speak to that for a second.

Here is your corrected transcription:

• Speaker names bolded
  
  
• Punctuation corrected
  
  
• Capitalization corrected
  
  
• Repetition and stutters lightly cleaned up
  
  
• No meaning changed
  
  

Stephen 23:15
I think the thing you just said there about when you're doing it with your mates, it's fun. And so you naturally think, well, it's a fun thing to do, therefore why wouldn't it be a fun thing to do with my wife? Because it's fun. But it's understanding that people see things differently. And the dynamic you have with your mates in the pub is very different to the dynamic you're trying to have with your partner. You're not having sex with your mates in the pub.

Tim Matthews 23:41
Amelia said it to me before as well about the self-deprecation piece. She hasn't said it as directly and called it out in a very clear manner, but her response to it, I’m like, oh, I’m doing that thing. And I rein it back.

Stephen 24:15
I think Jane did call it out in me directly, but not at first. And maybe that's because in the initial stages of a relationship, you're still trying to find out who the other person is and what makes them tick.

But when she got to it, it was like we'd had a few fallings-out where that was the root of the argument. And she'd actually sit down and say, right, this is a problem, and this is not the way I like to connect with somebody.

Lawrence 24:44
But that's good, right? It’s great, because you had that conversation. If she didn't voice that, you would go on.

Stephen 24:50
I would still be carrying on, more than likely. Because unless you get resistance to anything, you're going to keep doing it, aren't you, I suppose.

But just to understand it, it then got me thinking slightly wider about her family and the way they all interact. And they sort of say, well, that's not part of their thing. That's not what they do as a group of people.

But it's difficult because, as you said, you're doing something that you feel is fun, and you want to be a fun person apart from anything else.

Tim Matthews 25:18
It doesn't want the lad energy, though, right? That's not what she wants. Safety doesn't create connection.

Stephen 25:26
And there are other ways to have fun and humor and joke in a relationship that do connect. So that's just something like, okay, that's a little bit of the laddish version of me from the past, which doesn't serve me anymore generally. So park it.

Tim Matthews 25:43
I think for some guys, if they feel as though they're not getting the intimacy be it physical, emotional, sexual, whatever category it falls into there can be resentment that builds up. And they can use the self-deprecation, I think, as a way to lash out. And they want to disguise it in humor. It can be a passive aggressiveness that goes on for some of them. But you were going to say something.

Lawrence 26:10
No, I just I come from a military background, so banter was the thing. You were always trying to out-funny somebody. But it doesn't work.

I mean, I don't want us to come across as being like you shouldn't have any humor in a relationship. That's far from it. I think the issue is when you self-deprecate or bring that same energy that you're with your mates into your partner.

You're fortunate that your partner comes around and says, this is not a good thing. Mine didn't. And it just kind of built up that something's not quite right. Or like you say, the sexual energy trying to break the ice, trying to make things feel a little bit smoother. But of course, the way I'm trying to do it isn't translating to her, because it is very childish energy, or that's how it comes across.

Tim Matthews 27:07
I think you make a good point. So we kind of slipped from self-deprecation to the relationship piece. In my mind, the link that I think I need to make here is when it kind of bleeds out into sarcasm.

Because I think the energy behind self-deprecation, if you bring it into a relationship and try to be fun and all that stuff, typically sarcasm can be the bridge when it starts to go toward the other person. And that's the bit that at least Amelia and Erin and other people have spoken about. That's the bit the wives really don't like.

Self-deprecation obviously isn't great either, because in terms of confidence and presence and self-assuredness and all that stuff, there's a big difference in a relationship between vulnerability and self-deprecation.

So it's not about trying to be perfect in the relationship. But if you're going to self-deprecate in the relationship and also then make fun or poke fun at your wife through a similar lens through sarcasm or deprecating her then it's definitely not going to go down well.

Stephen 28:19
Well, no. Sarcasm is a real killer. It really is the lowest form of humor.

But the self-deprecation thing around, you know, in a way, I could self-deprecate a bit and say what I'm about to say may not come out right. But that gives me a kind of opening to say I'm not going to get this right, or I might not get this right, but I want to say something. Rather than keeping something in and holding it back.

So in that way, I think it can be beneficial, but it's not quite the same as saying I'm not great. It's more like saying, I'm not sure I've got the right words for this, but here's what I'm feeling. That's more open communication.

Here is your corrected transcription:

• Speaker names bolded
  
  
• Punctuation corrected
  
  
• Capitalization corrected
  
  
• Repetition and stutters lightly cleaned up
  
  
• No meaning changed
  
  

Tim Matthews 29:02
So the guys that are listening that resonate with this, realizing that, you know what, I do self-deprecate at times, and I do believe some of what I say what advice would you give them? Give them three tactical things that they could do in order to help them overcome this. I'll go with you, Lawrence.

Lawrence 29:29
All three? Or just if I can do all three?

Tim Matthews 29:33
Give one, then we’ll go on each.

Lawrence 29:35
Okay. I would say I wouldn't tackle it head-on. I would look at how I feel about myself. I would do some journaling. Think about how good I am, you know, all my wins and my accomplishments and things like that.

I would find my keystone habit. I would do the things to build me up so that I didn't feel that internally. Because you overflow what's inside you. So working on the core of you and finding your purpose and what drives you will naturally shift what overflows. Then it will be light rather than darkness. And I think that's key.

And then the other thing I would say is just slow down. Slow down. Slow your roll. Slow your responses to things and try not to react in the moment as a form of protection.

Stephen 30:32
Yes, I was thinking along the same lines about taking a breath. If someone says something and you're about to just drop in with that self-deprecating response or that sarcastic comment, just take a split second. Take a breath.

The other person isn't going to notice that you haven't responded instantly. And just give yourself a chance to ground. Like, okay, what am I feeling here? What am I going to say?

And the energy you know, in terms of stopping yourself from self-deprecating and believing in yourself more remind yourself of the wins and the good things. And as you say, sometimes they're hard to see. For some people, they don't realize where the wins are, no matter how small.

And that can put you in a much better energy, which, as you say, just projects out. And then everything gets better. Everyone else rises with that as well. So you're not shining to dim the lights of others.

Tim Matthews 31:27
I'm curious. I'll come to my own in a minute. I'm just reflecting as you guys are talking.

So collectively, I think you guys have got ten years between you in the movement. That’s crazy.

I'm just thinking this topic what do you think has been the one thing you might have to think about this for a moment but the one thing that has made the biggest difference to you overcoming or changing your self-deprecation?

And it could be going through something. It could be a piece of the program. It could be a realization. It could be a tool. It could be whatever it may be. It could be nothing to do with TPM. I'm just curious.

Lawrence 32:12
You're right, it is a thinker. I thought you were going to ask us what’s the one thing that's changed overall. I wouldn't be able to pin down one thing overall.

In terms of the self-deprecation thing, I think for me, it's been the Brotherhood events. When I first went to a Brotherhood event, I had a mask on. I was nervous about meeting all the guys. I didn't know what to expect.

And the second time, I just went as me. There had been some intervening time and growth. And to show up and be accepted by being around other men and being accepted for who you are.

Those events are incredible because you sit down with people, and within five minutes you're talking about the deepest issues. You're pouring out your heart about whatever's going on, and they just hold space for you.

And that, I think, is powerful. That, for me, was like, well, if I can do it in front of a load of guys, I can do it anywhere.

Tim Matthews 33:09
And I love that.

A lot of these guys in the room are used to being in business groups Vistage, all sorts. And the one thing they tell me again and again and again is this is just different. It’s just different.

In those other business groups, everyone’s talking about the money they're making and the moves they're making and the profit, and everything’s about this external scorecard.

We come to these Brotherhood events, and you've got some serious people in the room, but you’d never know because that's not what people care about. They're just there to be the best man they can be, and business is just an extension of that.

And there’s zero competition and zero ego either. So you've got guys in the room that are very well-versed in business and wanting to help other people, and vice versa. The guys that, let’s say, are less experienced still have something to offer the guys who are more experienced. And the guys listen.

It's just an incredible space. So you make a really good point.

Stephen 34:17
I think there's something about one of the first things I noticed when I started with TPM was that business wasn't really mentioned. Even down to day one, initial introductions.

I was expecting, okay, who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do for a living? The “what do you do for a living” thing just wasn’t there.

And for me, part of that is being around that really powerful group of other people. You realize that without that thing about, oh, they’re a multimillionaire international business owner, whatever who am I?

The thing is, people have the same challenges in life, the same issues, the same problems. And you can help them. Everyone helps everybody else. You can offer a point of view, and that’s listened to and accepted.

And every single time, someone else in the room will resonate with a problem or an issue I've got. It’s just wonderful to be able to have that.

Tim Matthews 35:11
I love that.

I think for me, the number one thing that has made the difference in my life with this whole concept of self-deprecation has been getting to the root of why I've been telling myself those stories and going through exercises and processes to release it.

Because for me, talking about it while it's good I believe the whole idea that the body keeps the score. And there are certain things that, if you've been through certain experiences in life, certain emotions have gotten stored and built up because of certain beliefs and stories you've been telling yourself, or because of certain experiences you've had that you've never processed.

You've got to get to the root of those.

And I know it sounds kind of big, me saying this. I'm just imagining a listener who may be completely new to personal development and hearing me say words like “get to the root of it,” “process it,” and so on and so forth. But in its simplest sense, putting yourself in an environment and it doesn't have to be with TPM I think about the Alpha Reset, right? I think that's one of the most transformational things that we do, and one of the most transformational things I've ever seen with hundreds of guys.

The result is pretty predictable, obviously within its own uniqueness. You've both volunteered, so you know what it's like on both sides going through it and going through nine of them when you're helping lead it.

But I think that combined with the men and the community those two things are just so key.

And the good news is we've dusted off so pre-COVID, you guys may or may not know this pre-COVID we used to have a program that was essentially the Alpha Reset. The guys would go through some work prior to the Reset, go to the Reset, and then do work afterward.

COVID hit. We had to stop. We had to pivot. And that's when we released The Activation Method.

But we've now dusted off that program after getting a lot of requests. We've updated it, kept the Reset, so now guys can go through the Reset and that program straight from the street. Because obviously, for the past five or six years, you could only get to the Reset through The Brotherhood.

So if guys are listening and they're wondering, well, what does “process” mean? And how can I do that? It sounds too daunting. There is an option there for them. They can go through the Ascension Blueprint, which includes the Alpha Reset.

And if you don't do it with TPM, that's fine. Just do something. Just don't be in a position where you continue to tell lies to yourself about yourself and believe them, and thus dim your light. Because you weren't put on this planet to be average.

You know, guys, thank you. This has been a wonderful conversation.

So guys, like Doug always likes to say, at the moment of insight, take massive action. We'll see you next time on the TPM Show.