Episode #581
Are you upset with yourself because you’re making the same pattern again?
Do you have the plan to get things back in order?
If you want to change what’s not working for you, then stop hoping to get things better and start executing a plan to take the lead back in your marriage.
In this episode, you will learn the effects of not taking action and what you can do to achieve the greatness in life that you deserve.
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TRANSCRIPTION
Doug Holt: Hey, guys, welcome back to yet another episode of The Powerful Man Show. Tim, so good to have you here, brother. How are you?
Tim Matthews: I am very well. Gonna have a sparring session this morning and yesterday. I’m just loving being back in the gym, working out, pushing myself. Last week was my first week back from Iceland. So, I was back in the gym then. But you know what it’s like after a few weeks off, everything’s creaking, weakness. It’s just awkward. So, week two, I’m getting back in my groove. It feels great. It’s just fascinating, how it impacts the mind as well. Amelia said to me, ‘you’ve been a bit defensive lately’. I’m like what, really? And then after working out this week, I can feel the difference. Just absolutely feel the difference. It’s fantastic. I love it. So I’m doing well. What about you?
Doug Holt: Yeah, man. Honestly, I’m a little tired. My wife and I went out. Tuesday is our date day. So, we do it during the day. So we can put the kids to bed, young little guys. We had a few too many glasses of wine with my wife, so both of us are a little slow this morning. The kids woke up in the middle of the night too. So, doing the dad thing. But also, my wife and I had some really tough conversations, but some great ones. And I’m always grateful for the tools that we teach and have learned here at The Powerful Man, because I was able to apply them to these conversations. Ended up having a great night, made some lemonade out of those lemons. Just, unfortunately, put some vodka in that lemonade, and now I’m feeling the ramifications of it.
Tim Matthews: I was gonna say it’s a good problem to have, waking up with a foggy head after a good date day. That’s great.
Doug Holt: Yeah. In terms of problems, I’ll take this one every time. But nonetheless, still feel just a little bit slow.
Tim Matthews: I spoke to one of the guys on the team today. And he’s in Amsterdam, following his favorite football team. It was, I think, 10AM, and he had a gin and tonic. Oh, my God. I do not envy you right now. He’s like, ‘I feel like crap. I was up late last night.’ I’m like, 10AM and you’re on the gin and tonic with your full English breakfast. Those days are long gone, for me.
Doug Holt:That guy seems to do it all the time, too. I don’t know how he does it. It’s absolutely amazing.
Tim Matthews: Yeah, I think it’s starting to wear on him too. He’s like, ‘I can’t do this thing. I think the days of me going to away games and following my sports team around’… Because typically, the away games are the raucous ones. All the boys get together; they’re traveling. It’s overnight. It’s more of an adventure. Whereas the home games, you drive, you’re back home, you don’t really drink because you’re driving, that kind of thing. But he said, ‘I think it might be a little bit past me now. I think I might be over this. I might have to reconsider how often I do these because I just can’t keep up.’
Doug Holt: Well, it’s a good point. And it’s kind of what I came to this morning. And it brings me to this podcast topic: what you’re doing isn’t working. We hear this a lot. And for myself, transparently, I woke up upset at myself, because I wanted to wake up feeling fresh and alive and great. And now, granted, I had a great night last night, and what I’m doing isn’t working. And just hoping things are gonna change on their own without me taking action, or holding myself accountable, it’s never gonna change, Because just like a hangover, which everybody listening to this has probably had, it’s going to be in a matter of days before you forget about that pain of the hangover. And then, for this guy that you’re talking about, or for me another date night is going to come, and we’re gonna have a good time, open a bottle of wine. And, you know, one more glass will be fine. Yeah, just a little bit more will be good. I’ll go to bed early. Not a problem, I can handle it. And then next thing you know, you wake up – for me, it’s around 4:30 In the morning, and you’re going, ‘man, I feel like crap. And I did this again.’ Now, how many times have you, we, us as men, said this to ourselves, and a little bit of shame and guilt of – Wow, I did it again. And what I want to talk about, though, is, for a lot of men, this shows up in their businesses and in their relationships as well.
And to the point of marriage, I was talking to a guy just yesterday, an amazing man that I’m working with. One of the things he told me is before he joined The Powerful Man, he thought things would just change. Now, we’re talking about almost 10 years of this. 10 years of just hoping things would get better, hoping his wife would wake up, hoping things would change, and she would finally realize how amazing he is, and give him respect, give him the appreciation for all the hard work, the things that he built for him and his family. And he was just hoping it would be better. And guess what? It didn’t. It didn’t till he actually put in the work. And just like me feeling like crap today, it’s not going to change if I do the same thing, and just hope it gets better unless I hold myself accountable to a higher standard. And part of that could be talking about it now. Now, you guys listening to this, you can hold me accountable. Tim, you can hold me accountable. And then I can change a pattern. If it’s a pattern that’s occurring in my life, I now have the power and the responsibility to take action and change that, if it’s not working for me.
Tim Matthews: Yeah, reminds me of a guy I spoke with yesterday. His wife had filed for divorce. But in the state that he’s in, there’s a 90-day cooling-off period where nothing can happen. So what he’s hoping is that during those 90 days, she changes her mind. Because what he said was, if she changes her mind, then it makes sense for me to invest in this, and I know that it’s a good time for me to then make a change. ‘I’m not going to be with her; I’m going to be out of state for those 90 days to which I said, that’s a great thing because mystery, desire, and imagination are one of the woman’s biggest sex organs – there are so many things you can do by not being there physically, to stoke that fire. And I gave him all the examples of all the men that have been in that position, that have used Alpha Rise and Shine, that we give which is one of the bonus trainings in the Activation Method. And he’s gone from no contact to a peak of curiosity, to, ‘hey, let’s just grab a random FaceTime’, to having another FaceTime, to be able to send flowers randomly and the be received. So suddenly, ‘hey, why don’t you come back and just visit for a night?’ And it goes on. But the point being is, what that guy was doing isn’t working. He’s gonna sit, and he’s going to wait, he’s choosing not to take action. He’s choosing to follow a plan… It’s not really a plan.
Doug Holt: It’s hopium.
Tim Matthews: Yeah. I know he thinks it is. And this isn’t any disrespect to the guy. But, if you’re listening, I told you yesterday that you don’t have a plan. The plan of sitting and waiting around with something completely out of your control – your wife – is just not going to work. But yeah, to your point, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, Doug, things don’t change; you’ve got to be able to notice it. This is why we give the men the COIL with the weekly review, so they can reflect and really make sure that what they’re doing is working. They get a weekly score, they go through the wins, lessons, or improvements, and they get to focus on the wins; they can strengthen that muscle. But equally, they can course-correct because it’s not about being perfect. We always say the journey is the destination. And that way, you’re surrounded by a community of men, who can hold each other accountable. You and I get to hold each other accountable, which is great. You gave me permission the other day to hold you even more accountable. So, I replied with a thank you for that. So, thank you again for that, just publicly. I’m with you 100%.
Doug Holt: Yeah, first of all, I don’t remember giving you that permission, but we’ll talk about the time. Yeah, the coil is amazing. The COIL, for those that don’t know, is the chart of intentional living. We call it COIL for short. Just for clarity, there. But, I’ve been in this situation, Tim, where you hope things will get better. You’re like, ‘Okay, next time, I won’t do that dumb thing. When I was in the throes of my relationship with my wife, I was hoping that she would wake up and realize how good she had it, and how amazing I am. All of these things that the other guys think too. And that’s that hopium that gets us caught because really nothing changes. We’re hoping that by some miracle of God or otherwise, that divine intervention is going to happen, and somebody’s going to step in – or really, what we’re hoping is our wife is going to wake up, she’s going to make all these changes. And the truth is, we as men get to lead that. We have to lead ourselves. Leadership within ourselves first, then within our family. And so often, at least for me, what happened is, when I actually started working a plan, coming up with a lot of what we teach now in the Activation Method and started applying these things to my life, my wife did change.
She did start to appreciate me more; she did start to look at me with that love and respect in her eye. And it wasn’t because I waited; it was because she saw me take massive action and actually do something about it. Now, the same thing, and I’m going to use the same principles, the same philosophy, to me feeling like crap this morning. Because the truth is, yeah, it’s not a big deal. You wake up; you don’t feel quite the same. I had a coaching call this morning with one of our great guys, also from Leeds, an amazing man. It went really well. Nobody would know if I didn’t tell them. However, I know. And I wasn’t as good of a father as I could have been to my little kids. And that kills me. As a man, as a father, that bugs me. I wasn’t as present with my wife this morning. We usually flirt in the morning. As guys know, you want to start flirting early in the morning if you want to have some fun in the bedroom later at night. And not that that’s all it’s about, but I wasn’t on top of my game. And for me, I’ve made a commitment to not do that. And I crossed that barrier.
So you have to have a plan. I get to put a plan in place for myself. I used to have an alarm on my phone, 7 PM – No alcohol past 7 PM at all. And I didn’t last night because we were having a great conversation, and a great bottle of wine was opened, that bottle you save, so to speak. And it was amazing. And yeah, I want another glass and one glass, but one glass begets another. But you gotta have a plan there. And when you’re looking at a business – for the men that listen to the show, most are business owners – when you’re looking at your business, if you go and look at your accounts receivable, or your cash, your bottom line, your EBITDA, whatever you’re looking at, if it’s below where it should be, you come up with a plan to get it back. Whether it’s increasing sales, marketing, or maybe it’s fulfillment, you’re going to develop a plan to get things back in order. So, why aren’t you doing this with your marriage?
Tim Matthews: Yeah, it’s interesting; breaking promises to yourself is one of the most harmful things you can do. Because if you can’t trust your own word, you know the truth. And then this is why we speak to the men about this. That’s why the COIL is designed in the way it’s designed. Because when you break those promises, and you don’t really acknowledge that things aren’t working, it impacts your self-esteem, impacts your self-image. The next time you say you’re going to do something, you doubt yourself. Am I really going to do it? That little seed of doubt is there. And that’s not a great place to start from. Whereas the flip side can be true, where you can actually. When you say you’re going to do something, have the excitement, the confidence, and the certainty, knowing that you’re going to follow through, because that’s your track record.
Doug Holt: It’s very true. And you gotta have that. And that plan begets that confidence, and that confidence begets and allows you the ability to take leadership back in your marriage and regain control. Go from DEER, which is an acronym for defend, excuse, explain, react, to a WOLF, which is wise, open, loving, and fierce. But to be the wolf, if you’re watching, the logo, the poster that’s Tim’s left shoulder, that wolf represents what we, as men, want to be. And also, that wolf has a plan. That wolf is going to have a plan to protect his pack, to protect what he’s built. And if it’s in the area of your business, you need the plan to get yourself out of the situation you’re in. We all know there are uncertain times coming, so you have to have a plan. How are you going to navigate these waters? If you don’t have a plan, then you are planning to fail. In your marriage, if you don’t have a plan, a methodology or something that you can do to get yourself reactivated in your marriage, then your plan is to fail. That’s just the truth. I always say in coaching, whenever I coach the guy, I say look, my job is to tell you the truth. I will be the guy to tell you that you look fat in jeans if you do if you ask me. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m shooting you straight. If you do not have a plan you follow to get your business back on track, you need to get one immediately. If you do not have a plan that you are following to get your marriage back on track, even if it’s good, you deserve greatness. What is your plan? What methodology, What proven plan are you following today?
Tim Matthews: Yeah, I’m listening to a book right now called Good to Great. It’s one of the great business books by Jim Collins. It’s amazing. One of the points in there, what these great companies did over the decades, is facing the brutal facts. Face the brutal facts of reality. I think, so often, guys can easily fall into the trap of either surrounding themselves with people who are not going, to be honest with them, who are kind of like yes men, who don’t tell them that they look fat in those jeans. And they were able to get away with ignoring the brutal facts of reality, and they’re able to get away with not having a plan, and not really owning the fact that what they’re trying isn’t working. And at the same time, I think it’s quite easy to fall into the trap of surrounding yourself with people who haven’t played at the level you want to play at. And naturally, when I spoke to a friend of ours last week, we’ve spoken about this friend previously, and he works with billionaires and world-class athletes and otherwise, and he said, ‘Look, the most powerful thing in anyone’s performance is the environment.’ The environment is key. It trumps everything. And therefore, the environment that you’re in is when you’re surrounded by people that are playing at a lower level than you; then again, it makes it easy for you to ignore the brutal facts of reality, lie to yourself and pretend that it’s okay that you don’t have a plan, when in reality, I mean, I always like to say, what advice would you give your kids? Typically, if your kids wanted to achieve something, or strive for something, to get a job or a profession, you’d lay out a plan for them. Let’s say they had a passion for computers. You start to get them into coding, and you might talk about where this could lead. It’s a plan. So if it’s good enough for your kids, why would it not be good enough for you?
Doug Holt: That’s a very good point. So, gentlemen, if what you’re doing isn’t working, whether it be in the area of self, health, wealth, relationships, or business, you need to devise a plan today. When you’re watching this, it’s going to be Halloween in the US, and kids will be out trick or treating. Next thing you know, it’s Thanksgiving. Next thing you know, it’s Christmas. Then it’s 2023. What is your plan? What is your plan for Q4 right now, today? For me, I’m going to set some alarms and have people keep me accountable to make sure I don’t go for that extra glass of wine, so I can wake up in the morning feeling fresh and free, and I can be that amazing father that I know that I am, the amazing husband that I know that I am. The amazing coach that I know that I am. That I can perform at the top of my game. Because being good enough isn’t good enough for me. And what about your marriage? Do you have a plan or a methodology? If not, I invite you to check out the Activation Method. It is our proven methodology that takes men from deactivated to activated within their marriage in a very short period of time. So, I highly recommend checking that out, you can go over to thepowerfulman.com. You can get more information on that. You can speak to one of our advisors. No obligation, to see if it’s the right fit for you. But whatever you do, have a plan and a methodology that has a proven track record that you can take out. And make sure you also have accountability. Because as strong as a man that you are, we’re all just humans. We are all humans, and we have faltered from time to time. So, get that accountability, the plan takes massive action.
