Episode #585
Is your marriage going so well that you’re not putting much focus on it?
Do you struggle to keep up your routine?
If you stop doing the basics when everything is good, something bad might happen. Keep moving forward, and don’t lose momentum in bettering yourself and your marriage.
In this episode, we’ll talk about why it is easy yet dangerous to take your eye off the ball and how to be consistent in doing what’s best for your family.
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Transcription
Doug Holt: You and I have coaches that we meet with at a regular rhythm, even when things are good. In fact, when things are good, that’s when you double down on guidance, and double down on your systems. It’s when you double down on your routines. When things are bad, you’re going to need a lot of course-correcting and adjustments. And to your point, it requires so much more effort and so much more fuel. Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode of The Powerful Man show. Tim, how are you doing, brother?
Tim Matthews: I am doing very well. Very well indeed.
Doug Holt: You know, honestly, I’m happy to be here. My two year old crawled into bed just before 2am. So anybody’s got a two-year-old, you know that I was not sleeping. And as you can tell, I think I picked up the kids’ cold. Both kids are sick. And yeah, I just decided three o’clock just to get up, make some coffee, 3am. And I was laying on the couch before that. So I’m good. I’m glad to be here. I’m glad we have the Alpha Reset today in Bend, Oregon. So I’m excited to see those guys coming through. So by the time this is being released, those guys will be in the mix of everything, if not just coming out. So I’m excited to be with them.
Tim Matthews: Fantastic. So the early rise will explain the boxes.
Doug Holt: Yeah. Lots of messages going back and forth. It’s fun to see people’s reactions when you’re sending a message at 2:30 in the morning. They’re like, are you going to bed now? Or are you waking up? What’s going on?
Tim Matthews: What’s day one of the Alpha Reset? Is Friday day one?
Doug Holt: Friday is day one officially. So, for those that have been to an Alpha Reset, for some reason we call the day the guys arrive day zero, because we don’t actually dive into a ton of the coaching. We do some coaching then, but then it’s actually the next day, which will be Friday, that will actually be day one. I got Coach Mark Smith. Coach Lee Jack couldn’t be with us. We have two amazing guys. IMG and the Tin Man will be volunteering. So, both Alpha Reset grads from the exact same location we’ll be doing it in. We’re doing it from this palatial place. Snow on the ground here. It snowed last night. So that river is going to be a little cold.
Tim Matthews: Nice. Yeah, that’s going to be incredible. I’m excited to hear the stories that come out of the back of that. And obviously we’ve got another one two weeks later.
Doug Holt: Just after Thanksgiving in the US.
Tim Matthews: And the UK. Yeah, nice.
Doug Holt: You guys celebrate Thanksgiving?
Tim Matthews: No, the Alpha Reset in the UK as well.
Doug Holt: I know it’s gonna be in the UK. I just said it’s after Thanksgiving, and you were like, oh, yeah, in the UK too.
Tim Matthews: Oh, I’m misunderstanding. I thought you said just after Thanksgiving in the US. I’m like, oh, yeah, but… I want to bring something to the table today that I think is common. Because I hear a lot of guys talk about it. I know I’ve struggled with it at times. You have… And it’s the idea that you get something working, and just like anything, you know, things that often take the most energy when you want to get them off the ground And then oftentimes, when it’s off the ground, it’s so easy to then stop doing the things that got it off the ground, and got into the position of momentum, essentially.
It takes a lot of energy, you get it going, and then it’s up. Kind of like a plane. The most amount of energy is required to take off, and then it hits cruising altitude. But if those pilots were to stop doing the basics in flight, to make sure it still navigates while in cruising altitude, the likelihood is, that plane wouldn’t make it to its destination. I get it. It’s got internal GPS and course-correct, and it still needs to be flown at the same time. Yeah, something that we see a lot of guys experience is this idea that they’ve got it off the ground, and now I can leave it, and I can stop doing the basics that got it into this position.
And usually what happens, the plane lands? No, it kind of grounds for fuel much earlier than anticipated. And then you realize, oh, crap, I’ve got to get it off the ground again. At which point, you turn your attention, keep going and apply a lot more effort. And the trouble with this- Let’s say it’s in your business, let’s say it’s within your sales team, for example, like some of the guys have struggled with. Morale takes a hit too, naturally. Because you’ve got it up, getting momentum, and then the plane lands earlier at a destination that you didn’t plan it landing. And then you can’t get it going again.
And whether it’s your sales team, or whether it’s your kids, whoever it may be, you’ve then got to rebuild the inspiration, and the trust, and the excitement to go on the journey again, whereas it would have been so much easier to just continue doing the basics, to apply the final tweaks to keep the plan in the air so it actually lands at the final destination that you intended on in the first place.
Doug Holt: Yeah, we see this in so many areas of life. Just before we got on this call, I got a message from a guy that I used to work with on a very personal basis through The Powerful Man. And things are going so well for him. He was in the pit of darkness with his marriage, his business, everything. A lot of guys who come to us are just feeling stuck. And he’s crushing all areas. He’s like, ‘Doug, I’m good. I’m gonna pause things for now.’ And so I hadn’t talked to him in a month, And he’s just sent me this message that ‘oh, man, everything’s falling apart.’
You know, this is happening, this is happening. Can we please get onto a call? And I love this guy. I just don’t have the bandwidth now to do so, as you know, Tim. And I feel for him. And this happens so often to us men, especially guys that are high achievers in our business. Business can be going great. So leads are coming in, qualified leads, sales is doing well. Your marketing is on point. Operations, fulfillment, legal – everything is going so well. The guys decide to take their foot off the gas.
In fact, they take their foot off cruise control even, and they just sit back, relax, and bask in their greatness, and they stop tuning into the basics. They stop doing the fundamentals, they stop course-calibrating. It’s you and I have coaches that we meet with at a regular rhythm, even when things are good. In fact, when things are good, that’s when you double down on guidance, and double down on your systems. It’s when you double down on your routines.
When things are bad, you’re going to need a lot of course correcting and adjustments. And to your point, it requires so much more effort and so much more fuel. All too often, when things are good, you think, I got this, I got this from here, no worries, no problem. I’m gonna kick back, relax. For me, I call it bask in my glory, because it’s my ego kicking in, and how great this thing I did was, reveling in all the effort I put into it. And slowly but surely, it starts to crumble.
And in fact, a lot of guys listening to this are probably seeing this in their marriage. They thought things were good, or at least okay, and they come to find out, their wife wasn’t. They’ve put it on cruise control, hoped it would get better. And they’ve stopped. They’ve taken their eye off the ball, and they’ve stopped doing the things that they used to do when they dated their wife. They probably haven’t been on a true date night in a long time. You guys, if you’re listening to me, just shake your head yes virtually if that’s the case, if you stopped dating your wife.
Because I guarantee you dated her before you got married. Did you stop leaving the notes, the text messages? we stopped doing those little basic things because we think we got it, it’s okay, that’s going to remain in that state perpetually. We just think it’s going to keep going in that direction. And that’s not the way it works. It’s not the way forward momentum works, especially not in the life of a high achiever.
Tim Matthews: This is one of the reasons why we say the journey is the destination. Because it really is. And the moment you think that you’re done, it’s a very risky place to be. It’s a dangerous place, to think that you’ve figured out the game, and that’s it. Growth is done, no need to continue learning and growing, and so on. Look, it’s hard to maintain everything you did during the period of getting it off the ground. But once it’s up in the air, and it’s in cruising altitude, the things that you have to do typically are different, like date night and so on.
And this is why one of the things that we get the men to focus on when they go through The Activation Method, or even The Inner Circle or whatever it may be, is always identifying: what is the keystone habit? So, what is the one thing that you can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary? So, an easy example here would be – I want to lose weight. Okay, cool. So what’s the keystone habit? Well, the keystone habit is that you have to go to the gym three times a week. Well, is it really?
Because most people, the issue is with the diet. So let’s say you’re struggling to lose weight, and what you’re finding is, you’re going to the gym, you’re working out, but by about 2pm, you want to snack. You’ve skipped lunch, you’ve been working, and hunger kicks in, and you just grab the nearest thing to you. So, therefore, the keystone habit, instead of going to the gym, would be every Sunday at 3pm, and every Wednesday evening, for example, you will prep your lunches for the next three days.
Because you know, if you take your lunch into the office, then you’re not going to skip lunch, you’re going to eat that meal, you’re not then going to reach for things that you shouldn’t be eating when hunger strikes. And then, on top of that you work out, you do the things that you find easy and that you enjoy. It’s the same thing within your marriage. What are those keystone habits, those one or two things? Ideally, it is one. But if you really need two, we’ll give you two. What are those one or two things that you can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?
So, in sales, for example, in order to get the best out of our advisors, it’s three things that, as a leader of that team, I get to do every day. One, have a look over their end-of-day reports, see how their day went, see what their inspirations are, their clarity, their physiology, their necessity, just get a feel for where they’re at. The second one is to have a look over their numbers. What did it look like yesterday with activity? Did their actions align with their outcome?
And then the third is to attend the daily meeting and check in on some of the conversations I had with the men. Did this serve the men? Did that lead the men? We are very much a proponent of observant leadership. Even if it turns out somebody isn’t a good fit for the program, just isn’t the time, whatever it may be, we’ll give them resources and point them in the direction. Sometimes we’ll even point them in the direction for other men’s coaching companies, because we’re just not the ones for them. But the key thing is, if those are getting done every day, the keystone habits, then everything else becomes easier or unnecessary.
Doug Holt: Yeah, it’s so true. In fact, when men start the activation method… We’ve done almost 600 podcast episodes, so I forget that for some guys this might be their first. Our flagship program with The Powerful Man is called The Activation Method, which is designed to get a man from deactivated, or nice guy, or DEER mode, whatever you want to call it, to activated. So standing in his power, so he can save his marriage without having to talk about it.
And so, one of the first things the coaches do, they determine what those keystone habits are. Now we know what those are going to be for almost all men. We’ve worked with 1000s of men before, so there’s no secret there for the coaches. But they tweak them for each individual coach to know where they should have their eye on the ball and what that keystone habit is going to be for that guy. And a lot of times for the men it’s using what we teach called the triad of connection.
So if you picture a triangle, it has three sides, And on those three sides are three core components that the men need to learn in order to save their marriage. It’s not really saving their marriage. Really, what these guys want is the look of admiration, respect, back in their wife’s eyes, the look of love where wife’s going, ‘Man, that is my man.’ First, we start with a clean slate method, which wipes the slate clean, so you can start fresh, not marital counseling or anything that’s looking in the past. The second one, which is really taking your eye on the ball, is the hidden motives technique. We’ve done podcasts around all these.
And the third is the ‘live like a king’ system. And the ‘live like a king’ system is essentially a keystone habit that will allow these guys to keep their marriage at top performance. We don’t want the marriage just to be good for a weekend or a vacation, we want the marriage to be accelerating. So we want it to be like a stock we invest in, we want it to continue to go up. And that’s where the ‘live like a king’ system comes in. When guys execute upon that, their marriage continues to grow. And so that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
When I talk to the guys, and a guy says, ‘man, I’m struggling’, nine times out of 10 I asked him the same question: are you doing your routines? And nine times out of 10 it’s no. Why did you stop? ‘Well, Doug, I was doing so well that I just didn’t think I really needed to do it anymore.’ And the story goes in, because it’s so easy to backslide. When things are going good, it’s so easy to stop doing your routines, it’s so easy to backslide. And like you said, Tim, earlier in this podcast, it’s like a jet engine. Now you gotta get all that fuel to get that routine back in order.
When it was just simple and easy for you, now it becomes difficult. Like going to the gym. If you go to the gym, and you get over that initial soreness period, you’re good. But if you stop going to the gym, whether you go on vacation or something else for even two weeks, you’re gonna go through that soreness again. It’s gonna be sore, you’re gonna be tight. You go through the DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, all that stuff. And it sucks. It sucks. So why keep doing that to yourself when you can just be consistent?
Tim Matthews: It’s a great question. Because I know the topic of this podcast isn’t to dive into that. But I think a lot of guys don’t realize why. Why do they stop doing the things when it’s going so well? Without diving into it in too much detail, shed a little bit light on it, Doug, because I think the guys may resonate with this.
Doug Holt: Well, I know for me, when I stopped doing the things that I know work well, my story I always tell myself is that it’s going to be temporary. You know, this week, I’m going to skip my workouts because I have this huge project to do, and I’m going to crush it. Or I’m traveling. I’m traveling to the UK, or we just got back from Iceland, which was an amazing event. And for this week, I’ll stop my routines, my workouts, and that’s okay, just this week. Well, that week can become two weeks. And then you’re like, oh, man, I got sick. Okay, three weeks.
Or whatever else happens. And now you’re struggling like that jet plane to get the fuel to get back in, because you’ve lost momentum. We sell ourselves the story, that it’s okay, I’ll do it tomorrow. And this hope that there’s tomorrow. Now, where I’m sitting gentlemen, I have the fortunate or misfortunate role and responsibility that our team talks to 1000s of men a week. It’s a lot of guys. They inquire about our programs. And a lot of those guys admit that they’re suicidal. A lot of those guys are at the end of their rope, so to speak.
And it’s unfortunate, because we always think there’s tomorrow, we always think that there’s more time. And we all know that we’re not guaranteed tomorrow, we’re not. We also talk to guys that thought they had more time in their marriage, and come to find out that the wife has moved out when they’ve come home, the kids are gone. They’re fighting for now just to keep their family together. Because they weren’t willing to put in the work. And I’m not beating these guys up, because I’ve been in the same exact boat.
For me, as a businessman, my excuse oftentimes, for skipping my routine, is I got a special project that’s really going to move the needle for the guys. I want to launch this thing because the guys are going to love it. And so therefore, this week, this week only, I won’t go to the gym first thing in the morning. Instead, I’m going to produce this program for the guys. You know, we’re doing this hopper group, we’re doing a free group in the Facebook. You can’t get into it anymore, it was a one-time thing.
And you know, I’ve used that as an excuse, because I have presentations and deadlines to get done that have stopped me from doing some of my morning routines. And it’s hard getting back into them. But I do it. And I look at myself each time, man. Every time I go, dude, you know better. You know better than to do this. But the thing you also get to do is give yourself some grace. Give yourself some grace for being human. The key is not being perfect. The key here is continuously moving forward.
We all know that old saying: you fall off a horse, what do you do? You dust yourself off and you get back on. And that’s what you got to do. So,maybe it’s in your health. Maybe you’re an alumni listening to this, you’re like, Oh man, if I don’t do my Alpha Rise And Shine, or my Alpha Decompression, or the things that TPM has taught me… That’s okay, you can get back into today. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Do it today. And if tomorrow’s out of the question, because you’re listening to this or watching this on YouTube in the evening, set yourself up for success for tomorrow.
Get your workout clothes out, put them by the door, put your running shoes by the door. Pack your lunch, or whatever else it is. Cue this podcast up, if your relationships are an issue. Stop listening to business books on Audible if your relationship isn’t working. It’s not helping you. You need to make your relationship and your marriage your focus. You need to invest in a program, like The Powerful Man or something else, to get yourself unstuck. But you need to take massive action.
We all take setbacks. Tim’s not perfect. I can tell you a lot of stories. I’m not perfect, just one or two on my end. And we’re not at all. The difference is, we have a brotherhood of trust in a circle around us where we call each other out, and we make sure that we’re all moving forward as quickly as possible. I falter all the time, all the time. I’m always having forward momentum. And that’s what I want you guys to do.
So, if you take your eye off the ball, whether it be in your relationship, whether it be in your business, whether it be, marketing, sales department, what you want to do is, right away, take massive action. Now most of you guys, in the area of your business, if you found out that you took the eye off the ball in sales, or marketing, or deliverability, you would jump back in with ferocity.
You would just jump back into that department, bring in a specialist, try to figure out what’s going on, diagnosing and fixing any constraints that you find. You’d want to know exactly what was going on, you put everybody to task. Why don’t you do that in your health? Why do you not do that in your marriage, or your relationship as a father with your kids, or just with yourself? That same level of urgency that you would apply to your business needs to be applied to these areas. Not with judgment, not with guilt. But with determination.
Tim Matthews: Well said. I think you hit the nail on the head, the grace and the compassion to be able to course-correct. If your kid is learning to walk it gets up, takes a step, stumbles. What do you do? You pick them up, give them some encouragement, tell them to go again and take another step. And this time, they may take two steps, they may stumble and fall, what do you do? You don’t stand up, turn your back and walk away.
You can apply that same understanding to yourself. Now, the key is to make sure you’re progressing. And the key is to make sure you are moving forwards, obviously. Otherwise, you could be stuck in a pattern. And that’s a different conversation. We don’t want that fear, obviously. But again, it is vital who you surround yourself. Whether you go to our Facebook community, whether you’re in the movement, whether you’ve got your own group of men, whatever, whoever, wherever it may be, just make sure you are surrounded by guys that can lift you up when you fall, because you will. And that’s okay. Because we all need it. We all need it from time to time.
Doug Holt: There’s no doubt about it. I mean, two days ago or yesterday even, I reached out to you and Arthur. And I was like, Hey, guys, look. And this is where I think really the key is, admitting or recognizing when you’re faltering. And I reached out to you and Arthur, I was like, Look, guys, I’m faltering here. I’m struggling on this area. And I need some guidance. Because when you’re in the forest, guys, when you’re in the war, so to speak, or whatever else you want to call it, it’s hard to see what’s going on.
And actually, it was just really just reaching out to Tim and Arthur, that I had almost instant clarity. It was this weird thing of just admitting that I’m struggling in this area right now. Because a lot of us, as men, we want everybody to think we have it all together. Don’t we all? We want everybody to think that we know everything. No one does. Not even Tim The Powerful Man Matthews has everything together. Now most of the time he does, which can be frustrating at times, to be honest with you guys, most of the time he does, but not always.
And you need to do that. So the first thing you have to do is have optics and admit what’s going on, raise your hand. Most of you guys are here because, if you’re a business owner, we are known throughout the world for being the number one place to save your marriage without having to talk about it for business owners. Period. End of story. So, most of you guys are here because your marriage, you know, isn’t working. But you got to raise your hand.
You got to get on the phone with one of the advisors. If not with one of our advisors for the activation method, talk to another group. We’ll be happy to refer you out, because not everybody is a good fit. Now, we do have a program for non-business owners, just to help you guys out, something we put together called The Powerful Marriage Reset, you just need to inquire about it. We want to help as many men we can. But as a businessman myself, we decided to work with business owners and executives because we talk a lot about business.
We talk a lot about business in our programs because as a business owner, we don’t turn off. You just don’t, unless you’re really learning how to decompress properly. So I struggle, I take my eye off the ball, Tim does. The key here is to raise your hand when necessary. And like Tim said, we have a free Facebook community, we run trainings, we really want to make an impact on this world. If you want the shortest possible path, and you’re business owner or executive, it’s the activation method, bar none.
Go somewhere else. That’s cool. A lot of our guys come from other programs. Bar none, the activation method will activate you. I’m going to the Alpha Reset, which is a live transformational experience for men. Very tight. We keep our groups super small. Horrible business model, but impactful. So all our guys are business guys, so they tell us this all the time. And we deal with a lot more than just the relationships, because once the relationship is working, then you want to work on the other territories.
Self, health, wealth, relationships, and business are the five territories we teach to The Powerful Man. So, guys, when you find yourself taking your eye off the ball, first of all, give yourself some grace, laugh. Second, do what I did – reach out to trusted advisors. If you don’t have trusted advisors in your corner that you can talk about anything with – and I do mean anything – you need to get them. It’s a need. I choose my words very carefully. You need to get them. You need a brotherhood of men around you.
I have Tim, Arthur and hundreds of other men that are within our community that I can talk to about anything and get advice. And there’s never judgment around it. And it’s amazing. And it keeps me course-correcting. You need that. Maybe it’s your friend circle, you know, it’s not going to be EO or anything like that. It’s not gonna be tech. It’s not gonna be these organizations. Because you’re just talking about business, You need an organization of peers outside of your business world that are businessmen to do that. And raise your hand so you can get your eye back on the ball, in your marriage, or business, or anywhere else. I speak for Tim that we want that for you guys. Tim, any parting words?
Tim Matthews: No. That’s perfect.
Doug Holt: So, gentlemen, as we always say, in the moment of insight, take massive action. I’m in your corner. Keep your eye back on that ball.
But there’s also a second man, a second man that listens to a show just like this. And this is a guy who takes massive action so they can shorten the learning curve, compress time, and get results to be the wolf. WOLF is an acronym for wise, open, loving and fierce. Now, ask yourself which one am I? And just be honest with yourself there. And there’s no judgment on my end. But, if you’re ready to move from deactivated DEER mode, which is defend, excuse, explain, react, to activated WOLF, wise, open, loving and fierce, then go over to https://www.thepowerfulman.com/vs-biz/.
And go there now. In fact, I’ll make it super-easy for you. I will even put the link in the description here, so you can just click it and go over there now to learn more. Guys, in the moment of insight take massive action, go from deactivated to activated, because like I said, life is too short for average. I’ll see you on the next episode.
