May 2, 2024 • 35 mins
Explore the compelling concept of 'strength' in this captivating episode of the Brother's Creed Podcast hosted by the Thomas Brothers - Jared and Ethan. Journey into a detailed discussion on strength - a multi-faceted virtue applicable in diverse scenarios, vital for self-development, and significant in molding the next generation. From physical strength to resilience, our hosts delve deep into different dimensions of strength and portray vividly how strength empowers individuals to grow into better men, fathers, and contributors.
Gain valuable insights on how one can practically infuse the essence of strength into their lives, transform personal beliefs and attitudes, foster resilience, and tactfully manage stress, pressure, and emotions. Lend ears to the candid anecdotes of personal experiences and expert opinions that send across an affirming message - 'Strength is always beneficial.'
Understand more about the significance of physical strength in handling everyday tasks, emergencies, and protection. Learn about commendable fitness habits and the importance of maintaining a health regimen from a young age. Moreover, discover the essential connection between emotional and mental strength as we touch upon the significance of integrity, ethical behavior, honesty, and the courage to stand up for what's right.
This podcast episode showcases diverse aspects of strength, including an often overlooked dimension of it - 'moral strength', emphasizing the power of adhering to one's principles when everything is at stake. We further transition into discussing 'social strength' and provide practical suggestions for parents to boost their children's confidence.
Through this episode, the Brother's Creed podcast inspires its listeners to grow stronger every day, equipping them with the necessary tools to confront their fears, embracing discomfort, and adapt to evolving scenarios. Emphasizing that everyone can be a hero in their own way, this episode suggests that strength lies in adaptability, improvisation, and the indomitable will to overcome obstacles.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of a Brother's Creed podcast where we inspire
fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation of our children.
And we are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Jared. And I'm Ethan.
And today, one of the pillars or principles of that blueprint that we'll be
talking about is strength.
(00:20):
We've talked about so many different principles that have just been things that
we can add to her own personal creeds and to grow and to become better men and
father and contributors and husbands.
And strength was one of those ones that kind of seems all encompassing because
(00:41):
there's so many different ways that people can be strong, that people can be...
I think we already did one on resilience, right?
And so it's kind of similar, but I think it even goes beyond that.
So it's going to be a great episode. We're going to get in, we're going to talk
about strength, different aspects of it, maybe tell some stories and learn how
(01:03):
we can add this to our own personal creeds.
Yes, sir. Let's go ahead and let's do it. Let's dive in. Let's do it.
Do not go gentle that good night. Old age should burn and grave the close of day.
Music.
You should be a monster an absolute
monster and then you should learn how to control it no retreat no surrender
(01:27):
you can't conceive of what i'm capable of there is no tomorrow there is no tomorrow.
Music.
What we do in life echoes in eternity,
So, one of the things about strength that I think is interesting is it's kind
(01:50):
of, it's like a multi-tool.
It's like a Swiss Army knife.
There's so many different meanings to strength. So, that's why I'm calling it
the virtue of many meanings.
And I think in some cases, some of the virtues that we talk about,
you know, you could, they're There can be bad, the virtues are simply just words,
(02:12):
and it depends on how you apply that, right?
So it's like, one thing I was talking with my wife about is like, loyalty, you know?
What if you apply your loyalty, it's like, I'm loyal to the Illuminati,
or, you know, a bad organization, or I'm loyal to an organization that aims
to pollute every river in America, or the world.
(02:34):
And it's like, okay, well, that loyalty is misserved, you know?
So in that sense, the word loyalty is not really, you can't just blanketly apply
that, right? Because you can have misaligned loyalties.
But I don't think strength, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong here,
Ethan, but I think that strength is one of those things that the stronger you
(02:54):
are across a multitude of factors.
Doesn't necessarily i mean there's extremes i think but
that doesn't there's no being strong is i
think always a good thing right it's never
there's never a situation when being strong is a
bad thing i mean i think strength could
(03:14):
be i think strength could
be maybe compared to maybe
utilized poorly to take advantage of
other people maybe right maybe to maybe overpower someone
that's not willing or you
know and maybe i'm talking physical strength but
(03:35):
but the attribute but being strong in
the first place the actor the attribute of being strong yeah no i don't see
any negative to that i mean i guess well one thing that's usually the stronger
you're the less flexible you are so maybe that's the downside well i mean it
kind of maybe there's there's There's this guy on YouTube,
(03:56):
his name's Juji Mufu, and he's a bodybuilder, but he's like an acrobat.
And so he's like super flexible. He's the guy that has like,
he'll like hold the 135 pounds on a barbell above his head and do like a split.
Oh, geez. I've never seen that video. I haven't seen that.
No, but there's a couple different... So when I think about strength,
(04:17):
I think about a couple different attributes or facets of strength.
First of all, physical strength. I mean, that's probably the most obvious, the most no-brainer.
I actually feel like, I mean, maybe I'll just give it two seconds to that one.
And then maybe we could just walk through all of these, Ethan.
And then I'm sure that you also have comments on a lot of these different ones.
But let's talk about physical strength first.
(04:40):
I think that it's so important to, one, just be physically fit.
I saw this video on social media of this lady who is like in a parking lot with
her and her child is in a...
Stroller and the the stroller
starts rolling towards the main road and the lady is
like trying to get to the stroller but she's so you know
(05:02):
out of shape and so overweight that she falls down and then she can't get back
up and like meanwhile the stroller is careening towards the main road with busy
cars and she can't even get back up to save her kid in a life or death situation
so those people have to run in and save her kid because she can't get up because she was
so overweight and out of shape, she just fell over.
(05:24):
So yeah, you need to absolutely be strong enough to not only protect your family,
especially as men, but to do the things that you want to do in life.
You don't want to be that old guy who's just basically broken and unable to
(05:44):
do anything other than just sit in a chair and watch the History Channel all day.
You want to be the the person that's out doing things out being active
and that start those habits start
when you are young and throughout your
life so make it a point to go to
the gym to choose something that you like model that
for your kids this just this past weekend my wife ran a 5k first
(06:07):
race she's ever done she's not really much of a runner but she wanted to challenge
herself and it was and one of
the reasons why she did it she was like you know you you
know her speaking to me to me she's like you do your jujitsu competitions
and the kids get to see you being strong she's like
i wanted them to see me being strong too and so it's
important for and i was like i think that's absolutely great
awesome you know it's like that they can see her be
(06:30):
strong as well and they can cheer her on because obviously we wouldn't cheer
her on at two different spots in the race and so
to model that for your kids we like i was telling you earlier i think we go
we walk around the neighborhood we walk like almost like a
mile loop around our neighborhood on the sidewalk probably shannon and
i probably do it at least three times a day and then we
take the kids with us probably at least two
(06:53):
or three times a week always on saturdays sometimes
in the evenings we'll go as a family but it's
just that's just part of our family culture you know is just being exercising.
Being healthy going to do things you know i've been doing jujitsu as well as
working out and stuff like that and ethan you've been doing some stuff as well
so that's kind of my My ideas on how to model and the importance of physical
(07:17):
strength. What are your thoughts?
Yeah, I completely agree. I think just being capable of even just everyday tasks is very important.
And I remember I really felt this whenever, what was it, probably about five years ago.
I had like two herniated discs in my lower back and one that was like supposedly
(07:46):
they said it was like fully ruptured.
Like it was like all the goodness was squeezing out, right? Not in a good way.
Not in a good way. And I was in tons and tons of pain.
And it was like almost debilitating pain. Like the only way I could get through
the day was taking like, you know, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen four times a day.
(08:10):
And even just getting up and like going out and like mowing the lawn or like
picking some weeds or like taking the trash out was excruciating.
And you just feel like you feel useless to a certain extent.
And, you know, I guess that's the only way that I can really equate not being
(08:33):
like physically capable because I've most of, you know, all of,
all of my life, I would say I've always been pretty relatively fit and capable,
but it's just, it's just so important just to stay healthy.
And I think that directly ties into kind of one of the next strengths,
which is mental strength.
You know, that is one, at least for me that I have noticed is Because some of
(08:59):
the best times I have ever felt mentally and the strongest I've ever felt mentally
is when I was taking care of myself physically.
And I think a lot of people can say similar. Obviously,
there are, you know, there's lots of maybe sicknesses or imbalances or hereditary
(09:26):
things that people deal with from a mental standpoint,
maybe even from a physical standpoint too, right?
But whatever your baseline is, I think you could definitely get stronger.
You can get more resilient, and you can adapt, learn to adapt to a situation
depending on whatever your baseline is and to move forward with that.
(09:48):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you there. I appreciate your story about you being injured.
I think there was a saying that,
trying to remember it and not butcher it, that a healthy man has a million wants,
(10:08):
but a sick man has only one want, and that is to be healthy.
And so whenever you're sick or in pain or you're hurt, all you want to do is
be back to being healthy so that you can then do everything else.
And so just one more comment on that.
I heard a thing where it was like, oh, if you're an old person and a measure
(10:34):
of your health is if you're able to sit on the floor like Indian style,
I guess it's not a PC bar, cross-legged or whatever.
Criss-cross applesauce. Yeah, the Indians didn't take too kindly to that type
of language about their culture.
So it's like you should be able to sit like that crisscross applesauce on the
(10:54):
floor and then be able to stand up,
Without using your hands, right? And then that's how you know you're in good
health. I'm like, dude, that's a low bar.
I feel like, dude, I'm old. It's like the bar should be like you should at least
be able to bench 135 or something.
I don't know what the bar should be, but like you should be able to like walk
a mile and not be dying or something like that.
(11:17):
You know, I guess it depends on exactly how old you are. But,
I mean, that's like a boomer measurement for health, you know,
of someone who's never exercised in their whole life.
You know, so it's like, I think our rising generation is much more health-focused
than many of our predecessors in the boomer generation.
(11:38):
And I think Gen X is a little bit more as well. But anyway, I thought that was
a kind of a funny measure of health that, you know, I was just like,
okay, we're setting this standard way low here.
So mental health. So I was actually looking at some research.
There's some guy named Peter, a professor, Peter Clough, who works at Applied
(12:01):
Psychology at the Manchester Metropolitan University.
So he did a study, and he kind of came up with a book, and he defined mental
toughness as, quote, a personality trait which determines in large part how
people respond to challenges,
stress, pressure, irrespective of the circumstance.
(12:23):
So it's like, regardless of circumstance, how do you respond to these different
pressures, challenges of life?
And he has categorized kind of mental toughness into four categories.
And I'll go through those and kind of describe them.
One is control. He says the four C's. So the first one is control.
(12:44):
This one, he talks about having a sense of self-worth.
It's important to believe in yourself and be able to control your life by your actions.
And how can you control your display of emotions? Or are you out of control?
He said people who can keep on keeping on irrespective of how they feel and
(13:07):
work through emotionally charged situations without being totally derailed.
That is mental toughness.
So it's like you know
i feel like people do this
a lot of the time it's just like i'm feeling tough i'm having a hard
day but i'm charging through i gotta get what's this stuff done so that's
control the second one is commitment how well can you set and achieve goals
(13:29):
can you keep promises to yourself on things you say you will do set goals and
achieve them i feel like this is one that we've tried to mold for ourselves
myself included i feel like this is one that i'm I'm constantly trying to work on,
but also this is part of our podcast and part of our thing is like setting goals,
trying to achieve them, pushing yourselves and being disciplined.
(13:52):
I mean, essentially that's being disciplined, right? Commitment to yourself, being disciplined.
Next one is confidence, confidence in your abilities, confidence to deal with
the challenges and also being able to influence people so that you can influence people to persuade
them in whatever it is that you may be needing or whatever.
(14:14):
So you have to have confidence in yourself that build mental toughness.
That's why there's people talk about imposter syndrome and all these kinds of things.
You know, that's if you don't have any confidence, that's mental weakness,
right? And the last one is challenge.
Can an individual push back on boundaries, embrace change, accept risk?
How do they handle new people, places, innovation, creativity? So, you know.
(14:39):
There, there's this aspect of like dynamic, how dynamic is, is your, your brain?
Are you able to adapt, overcome, and really get to be like all other parts,
challenge other people, push back on boundaries.
And so those are the four, the four C's control, commitment,
challenge, and confidence.
(14:59):
That's how he's kind of bucketed those different aspects of mental fortitude.
And so as you guys, I went through that list, you can think,
okay, well, maybe I need to work on this one. Maybe I need to work on a little bit more control.
Maybe my commitment piece is a little bit wanting.
That's where I need to maybe make goals or be more disciplined with myself.
Or maybe it's risk tolerance.
Maybe when you are in a situation where something is different,
(15:21):
you really start to freak out.
And so I feel like for me, for mental toughness, one of the ways that I,
continue to challenge myself, and I think this helps with confidence,
I think this helps with challenge just into being in a difficult situation is
these jiu-jitsu tournaments I've been doing.
(15:42):
I've done, I think, five tournaments so far, and this two weeks will be my sixth.
And they are, I mean, they're tough physically, but mentally it's the toughest.
It's really, I mean, it's nerve-wracking getting out there.
It's, you're nervous. I mean, different people handle nerves differently.
(16:06):
Some people throw up. There's one guy in our gym. He's probably the best guy in our gym.
He's a younger guy. He's 20. He'll throw up. He throws up in a trash can before every single match.
And he'll throw up three or four times at a tournament.
And he'll puke, and then he'll go out and absolutely destroy someone.
(16:27):
And then other people are like, oh, I've got to go to the bathroom.
They've got to go take a dump. The nervous peas.
Or the nervous poops or whatever. And so part of it is just like the buildup
and then the anticipation.
And it's this uncertainty of, I don't know what he's going to throw at me.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
You have kind of a game plan in your head. But for me, that's actually been
(16:48):
a way for me to really get outside my comfort zone and to put myself in a stressful
situation where normally,
if I was in a situation like that, I would leave the situation or I would just
be like, Like, oh, I don't want to do this.
And so I feel like it's a way to help me grow.
(17:09):
And I feel like I heard once that courage is being afraid,
but, or being afraid, but not, but keeping a straight face is basically what
courage is. That was kind of how the quote goes.
Embracing the fear, yeah. And so, I mean, it's really nerve wracking and it
(17:31):
doesn't, in some ways it kind of baffles me because I don't often get myself in those situations.
And so i'm like well why why am i so nervous about these things and
like i don't want to get injured but is it
that i don't want to lose i mean i don't like care that much if
i i want to win it's like i but it's like i paid to
be here so i'm gonna do it yeah and it's like oh well you know sometimes when
(17:53):
it's over i'm more happy that it's over than if i won or lost it's just like
oh now the stress of that anxiety of doing that is over so but once once you
start fighting actually or once you start or actually the match,
all that goes out of your mind.
And you're just like, I got to get this guy.
And it just all goes away. Well, so, yeah, it's kind of cool.
(18:14):
It's a unique experience for sure.
The next one I had was kind of like, what I was thinking was emotional.
I kind of lumped that in with mental, but do you have anything you wanted to
say about emotional strength?
Yeah, yeah, I think you had said one
thing while you were talking about mental that I
(18:35):
think defines emotional really
well is if you're like whenever you're you know faced with a
stressful situation you don't just like freak out you know I think that's what
it is I think emotional strength is being able to regulate your emotions in
accordance to what the situation needs to in order to be resolved yeah right
(18:55):
being able to match your emotions with
the needed resolution is definitely,
I think, an important skill to have, for sure. Oh, yeah.
And then the last one here I had was social.
So I had a few notes on that. But anything you think on social?
(19:18):
I think one of the ones that I had before social, and then you can get into
social and some of the comments you have, was I actually had moral strength.
Oh, okay. Which is not one that you talk about often.
But it's really interesting. Moral strength encompasses integrity,
honesty, ethical behavior, a strong sense of values and principles,
(19:39):
and standing up for what is right.
That is something I definitely think it takes strength to do the right thing sometimes.
Sometimes, even if that right thing is might might affect your reputation or
it might affect your job or it might.
(20:00):
Create a situation where you or someone or everyone might be uncomfortable,
or I think it takes mental strength of the saying that you can really tell the
integrity of a man by what he does when others are not looking.
I think that is definitely moral strength.
If you can build fortitude around a certain set of moral standards that you
(20:23):
have placed for yourself.
A personal creed, if you will. Yeah, a set of principles or guidelines that
are aims that help guide your actions, right? Moral strength.
Definitely not one that's always lumped into this group, but I think it's very important.
Yeah. I like that one. I don't know that I would call it... For me personally,
(20:51):
I don't know that I would call it moral strength.
I would say strength to live your creed, or strength to stand up for what you believe in.
I think the connotation of moral is...
Morality can be a construct, right? We say moral, that means like good or bad,
(21:13):
right? We think of like sinful or righteous.
Whereas I think a lot of these things, I mean, what's sinful for one could be righteous for another.
And so I think it's just like the strength to stand up for your beliefs.
Is what I think I would categorize that, yeah. But that absolutely is such a
(21:34):
strong thing, and I thank you for bringing that one up.
That's absolutely. I mean, if you don't stand up for what you believe in, then.
You don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything, right? Yeah.
Cool. Yeah, so what do you have about social strength?
So, no, I just was thinking about that quote you just said.
It kind of struck me a little bit differently than I had always heard it before.
(21:58):
If you don't stand for something, then you'll fall for anything,
unless you're falling for the thing that you stand for.
Unless the thing that you're standing for maybe is not worth standing for.
Like, I don't know, that's kind of going back to what I was talking about loyalty, right?
Be sure that your loyalties are aligned to the right things,
(22:21):
and then stand for those things.
Well, and that something can be different for everyone. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, sorry, that was just a little bit of a side thought that I had.
An epiphany, if you will. Yeah.
Sometimes things hit you differently at different points in your life.
So socially, so I think that this is so important as parents to think about with our kids.
(22:45):
Anxiety is at all time highs right now with kids, with rising teens.
I've got a child, at least one child, that is highly anxious.
And so we really kind of have to watch him.
And he says he's not anxious, but we think he has some anxiety tendencies.
And I think a lot of kids do now.
(23:08):
And I think part of it is just because we, as a society, realize it's anxiety
and we're not just like, oh, rub some dirt on it kind of a thing.
And so we can actually deal with our problems and not just like men wipe them
away with mud, which is kind of this, I think, false sense of masculinity.
I mean, I think in some ways, yes, you just need to like man up on some things.
(23:30):
But dealing with your problems actually instead of just avoiding your problems
is even more masculine. you in.
So when we talk about anxiety, some of the things to watch for in your kids
for anxiety is do they avoid social situations?
Are they physically slumped over or do they shrink in public?
(23:50):
Do they have difficulty engaging in conversations?
Are they overly self-critical or do they have low self-esteem?
Are they overly concerned with how they will be perceived by others?
Do they feel overwhelmed and easily embarrassed in social settings.
So it's kind of a social anxiety.
And these are some tips that you can use to boost that confidence.
(24:10):
If you feel that way too, these are some tips you can do to boost your confidence.
Encourage a positive self-talk in yourself and in your teens or your kids.
Learning how to do positive affirmations, you know, will help a lot.
If you keep telling yourself, I'm awful, I'm terrible, I'm dumb,
every single day, You're going to be that.
(24:30):
So say things like, I'm great. I am strong.
I'm capable. I'm amazing. And let that raise you up and be that.
And the next one is practice being assertive. Role play situations that may
cause anxiety to you or your child, such as maybe asking a teacher for help or talking to peers.
(24:57):
Role play those situations, and it takes the scariness out of it.
Be supportive. Encourage your child or yourself to identify their strengths
and focus on what they can do rather than what makes them anxious.
So focus on some of your strengths.
And then you know if obviously if there's a
situation where you are so deep into it and you
need some help reach out to a counselor or or
(25:20):
a doctor i think that in some situations people
may need some medicine to help balance them out and
or to help get them on a path where
they can operate effectively and so there's
lots of different things there but things to watch
out out for because nowadays young kids kill themselves
man like the number one cause of death i think from
(25:42):
kids like ages you know like nine
or probably six to eighteen is i think is suicide and so you know we just got
to watch watch out and we'll also build these things on ourself yeah i think
it's so important to develop a some sort of repertoire skill sets that you can
(26:03):
implement to be able to deal with situations personally or to help,
you know, teach your kids.
And, and, you know, I, I kind of have a similar thought and I know I've talked
about this before and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but.
When we talk about strength, I always actually looked up and read several studies
(26:25):
that were done on exposure therapy.
And exposure therapy is psychological treatment, right?
That it's an approach, let's call it, that is used to help individuals confront
and overcome their fears, their phobias and anxiety disorders and other emotional challenges.
(26:46):
So it involves gradually and systematically exposing a person to the feared
stimulus or situation in a controlled and supportive environment.
So you expose them, like you were saying, you know, do role plays and do different
things like that so that they can almost learn how it feels to be uncomfortable.
(27:11):
So the kind of continued small doses of, you know, small doses of poison, right,
will help you to build up antibodies to be able to resist that thing that is feared in your life.
And so, you know, for me, one of the things that I guess maybe I personally
(27:34):
struggle with is, is especially in the workplace is I'm not super social in the workplace.
I don't know if it's because I don't really have much in common with people
or I'm weird or whatever else, but I'm kind of an introvert in like the quote
unquote networking world.
I think some of it has to do with people that are my age typically haven't been
(27:55):
married for 12 years and have four kids, right?
People my age who are in their early to mid thirties are like,
you know, just getting out of the.
Party phase yeah they're engaged right now
yeah or maybe engaged right and so it's like i
have a hard time relating sometimes but that's a whole different topic but
one thing that i have tried to do is you know
(28:16):
we we have these like luncheons and stuff at work
and there's like you know 50 people in there and they bring in pizza or whatever
else sometimes i find myself i'll go in i get a piece of pizza and i'll just
go sit at my desk and i'll like eat pizza and work yeah and i think So that's
just because I don't want to have to be forced to socialize.
(28:37):
So I really kind of tried to put myself out there and say, okay,
in these situations where we have these social hours or whatever,
I am going to make a specific effort.
I'm going to go and talk to like two people that I don't know and introduce
myself and kind of I have a little,
(28:58):
you know, this is what I do type spiel that I can, you know,
kind of just say just to kind of introduce myself to people.
And it's it's uncomfortable and a lot of
times i have to like build myself i'm like all right i
said two i said two let's do it let's do it you know and then
go and do it and it's it it has been great it has been
uh i've gotten to know more people which is good but also i think it has just
(29:21):
kind of put me in a position to where the more that i've done that it's it's
not that big a deal anymore yeah it's it's like oh yeah you know i could go
you know talk to whoever about whatever ever and everything else,
which is kind of weird because I'm not like that all the time. Yeah.
And so exposure therapy can do several things, but some of the studies that
(29:46):
I'd read and I pulled out some of the, I guess the ways that it can help you
build strength is just building resilience to a certain stimulus.
It can help you to develop coping skills.
Skills so you know if you do something a couple
times and then you're like oh it
actually went a little bit easier when i said it this way or
(30:08):
even when i you know took deep breaths before i went out and did this thing
that was difficult it helped me right so it can help you develop coping skills
in certain situations it can definitely increase your confidence because you
you can basically You're showing yourself that you can do hard things,
which is a confidence booster.
(30:30):
It helps you to promote emotional regulation, to not just freak out in a moment
of stress and stimulus, but to calmly react. Right.
If someone is is terrified of spiders.
Right. But then, you know, once a day they go in and they,
you know, take one step closer to a tarantula that's in a box in the corner
(30:54):
after, you know, years of stepping closer and closer and closer and closer and
realizing that it's not that big a deal, then, you know.
The first day they might've ran out of the room screaming, not being able to
control their fear and emotions.
But after that exposure, they're like, oh yeah, this is no big deal.
I can regulate my emotions and my reaction. Yeah.
(31:15):
And then just overcoming, overcoming limiting beliefs.
Like what you said, just thinking positively, positively of yourself,
right? Positive affirmations. Oh yeah, I can do this. I got this. Not a big deal, right?
This is, this is, you know, easy stuff.
So that was kind of exposure therapy is one thing that I think is really important.
(31:35):
And I think it's important to learn how to be uncomfortable because then it
makes you appreciate so much more comfortability.
And it opens your eyes for sure. And you had mentioned this earlier.
And I think the last thing that I had was the whole adage in the military,
one of the main phrases is adapt improvise and overcome and you you had said
(32:01):
adapt and overcome earlier and the phrase is adapt improvise and overcome is
a very commonly used military,
phrase that just it kind of reflects the essence of strength right yeah assess your situation,
Figure something out.
And beat it Whatever it takes And I think that is True strength Yeah,
(32:27):
no it's good man I love it You already kind of shared a couple quotes I do have
one more quote And I have a quote after you So this one kind of ties back to
what I was talking about Jiu Jitsu.
But it's by Eleanor Roosevelt. And it says, you gain strength,
courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
(32:49):
And it just made me think, you know, how often are you looking fear in the face?
How often are you nervous? Do your hands start to sweat about what you're going to do?
And if it's not very often, then maybe seek out opportunities to do that.
And it could be as simple as going to introduce yourself to two people in the company pizza party.
(33:12):
Or it could be starting that new company.
Or it could be talking to a girl, you know, for a single guy,
talking to a girl or having that hard conversation with your wife or whatever it may be.
Or going to do a tournament or doing a race or something like that.
Do something Something that makes your palms sweat.
(33:33):
And that is how strength and courage are built. Makes your knees weak.
Your arms are heavy. Yeah, exactly.
That's how you get stronger, man. Without that, you're just living a life of luxury and comfort.
And that's not where strength is built. Yeah. Yep.
Strength and resilience is not built in comfort.
The quote that I had was from good old Superman himself.
(33:58):
Clark Kent. Christopher Reeves. Oh, okay.
So he said, a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere
and endure in spite of overwhelming circumstances and obstacles.
So, yeah, a true hero is just a normal guy.
(34:20):
Anyone can be strong. You don't have to be the quote unquote world's strongest
man, right, to be strong.
Anyone can be strong. Ordinary people that find strength to persevere in overcoming
whatever the cards they have been dealt are.
Yeah. Whatever that is. I think adapting, improvising, and overcoming is a virtue
(34:45):
that will build strength in your life for sure.
Yeah. No, it's been great. These have been great things. things definitely give
me a lot to think about and try to look for those opportunities in my life to,
do that, to build that strength.
So for those of you listening, we appreciate you listening with us today.
Appreciate you joining us in our journey to build our personal creeds.
(35:08):
And hopefully you've gleaned some things you can apply personally here as well
to the children in your own family or your own lives or nieces and nephews, whoever it may be,
influence others to grow in their strength plus a variety of different factors.
So with that, let's build that creed together.
Music.
Hello and welcome to another episode of a Brother's Creed podcast where we inspire
fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation of our children.
And we are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Jared. And I'm Ethan.
And today, one of the pillars or principles of that blueprint that we'll be
talking about is strength.
(00:20):
We've talked about so many different principles that have just been things that
we can add to her own personal creeds and to grow and to become better men and
father and contributors and husbands.
And strength was one of those ones that kind of seems all encompassing because
(00:41):
there's so many different ways that people can be strong, that people can be...
I think we already did one on resilience, right?
And so it's kind of similar, but I think it even goes beyond that.
So it's going to be a great episode. We're going to get in, we're going to talk
about strength, different aspects of it, maybe tell some stories and learn how
(01:03):
we can add this to our own personal creeds.
Yes, sir. Let's go ahead and let's do it. Let's dive in. Let's do it.
Do not go gentle that good night. Old age should burn and grave the close of day.
Music.
You should be a monster an absolute
monster and then you should learn how to control it no retreat no surrender
(01:27):
you can't conceive of what i'm capable of there is no tomorrow there is no tomorrow.
Music.
What we do in life echoes in eternity,
So, one of the things about strength that I think is interesting is it's kind
(01:50):
of, it's like a multi-tool.
It's like a Swiss Army knife.
There's so many different meanings to strength. So, that's why I'm calling it
the virtue of many meanings.
And I think in some cases, some of the virtues that we talk about,
you know, you could, they're There can be bad, the virtues are simply just words,
(02:12):
and it depends on how you apply that, right?
So it's like, one thing I was talking with my wife about is like, loyalty, you know?
What if you apply your loyalty, it's like, I'm loyal to the Illuminati,
or, you know, a bad organization, or I'm loyal to an organization that aims
to pollute every river in America, or the world.
(02:34):
And it's like, okay, well, that loyalty is misserved, you know?
So in that sense, the word loyalty is not really, you can't just blanketly apply
that, right? Because you can have misaligned loyalties.
But I don't think strength, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong here,
Ethan, but I think that strength is one of those things that the stronger you
(02:54):
are across a multitude of factors.
Doesn't necessarily i mean there's extremes i think but
that doesn't there's no being strong is i
think always a good thing right it's never
there's never a situation when being strong is a
bad thing i mean i think strength could
(03:14):
be i think strength could
be maybe compared to maybe
utilized poorly to take advantage of
other people maybe right maybe to maybe overpower someone
that's not willing or you
know and maybe i'm talking physical strength but
(03:35):
but the attribute but being strong in
the first place the actor the attribute of being strong yeah no i don't see
any negative to that i mean i guess well one thing that's usually the stronger
you're the less flexible you are so maybe that's the downside well i mean it
kind of maybe there's there's There's this guy on YouTube,
(03:56):
his name's Juji Mufu, and he's a bodybuilder, but he's like an acrobat.
And so he's like super flexible. He's the guy that has like,
he'll like hold the 135 pounds on a barbell above his head and do like a split.
Oh, geez. I've never seen that video. I haven't seen that.
No, but there's a couple different... So when I think about strength,
(04:17):
I think about a couple different attributes or facets of strength.
First of all, physical strength. I mean, that's probably the most obvious, the most no-brainer.
I actually feel like, I mean, maybe I'll just give it two seconds to that one.
And then maybe we could just walk through all of these, Ethan.
And then I'm sure that you also have comments on a lot of these different ones.
But let's talk about physical strength first.
(04:40):
I think that it's so important to, one, just be physically fit.
I saw this video on social media of this lady who is like in a parking lot with
her and her child is in a...
Stroller and the the stroller
starts rolling towards the main road and the lady is
like trying to get to the stroller but she's so you know
(05:02):
out of shape and so overweight that she falls down and then she can't get back
up and like meanwhile the stroller is careening towards the main road with busy
cars and she can't even get back up to save her kid in a life or death situation
so those people have to run in and save her kid because she can't get up because she was
so overweight and out of shape, she just fell over.
(05:24):
So yeah, you need to absolutely be strong enough to not only protect your family,
especially as men, but to do the things that you want to do in life.
You don't want to be that old guy who's just basically broken and unable to
(05:44):
do anything other than just sit in a chair and watch the History Channel all day.
You want to be the the person that's out doing things out being active
and that start those habits start
when you are young and throughout your
life so make it a point to go to
the gym to choose something that you like model that
for your kids this just this past weekend my wife ran a 5k first
(06:07):
race she's ever done she's not really much of a runner but she wanted to challenge
herself and it was and one of
the reasons why she did it she was like you know you you
know her speaking to me to me she's like you do your jujitsu competitions
and the kids get to see you being strong she's like
i wanted them to see me being strong too and so it's
important for and i was like i think that's absolutely great
awesome you know it's like that they can see her be
(06:30):
strong as well and they can cheer her on because obviously we wouldn't cheer
her on at two different spots in the race and so
to model that for your kids we like i was telling you earlier i think we go
we walk around the neighborhood we walk like almost like a
mile loop around our neighborhood on the sidewalk probably shannon and
i probably do it at least three times a day and then we
take the kids with us probably at least two
(06:53):
or three times a week always on saturdays sometimes
in the evenings we'll go as a family but it's
just that's just part of our family culture you know is just being exercising.
Being healthy going to do things you know i've been doing jujitsu as well as
working out and stuff like that and ethan you've been doing some stuff as well
so that's kind of my My ideas on how to model and the importance of physical
(07:17):
strength. What are your thoughts?
Yeah, I completely agree. I think just being capable of even just everyday tasks is very important.
And I remember I really felt this whenever, what was it, probably about five years ago.
I had like two herniated discs in my lower back and one that was like supposedly
(07:46):
they said it was like fully ruptured.
Like it was like all the goodness was squeezing out, right? Not in a good way.
Not in a good way. And I was in tons and tons of pain.
And it was like almost debilitating pain. Like the only way I could get through
the day was taking like, you know, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen four times a day.
(08:10):
And even just getting up and like going out and like mowing the lawn or like
picking some weeds or like taking the trash out was excruciating.
And you just feel like you feel useless to a certain extent.
And, you know, I guess that's the only way that I can really equate not being
(08:33):
like physically capable because I've most of, you know, all of,
all of my life, I would say I've always been pretty relatively fit and capable,
but it's just, it's just so important just to stay healthy.
And I think that directly ties into kind of one of the next strengths,
which is mental strength.
You know, that is one, at least for me that I have noticed is Because some of
(08:59):
the best times I have ever felt mentally and the strongest I've ever felt mentally
is when I was taking care of myself physically.
And I think a lot of people can say similar. Obviously,
there are, you know, there's lots of maybe sicknesses or imbalances or hereditary
(09:26):
things that people deal with from a mental standpoint,
maybe even from a physical standpoint too, right?
But whatever your baseline is, I think you could definitely get stronger.
You can get more resilient, and you can adapt, learn to adapt to a situation
depending on whatever your baseline is and to move forward with that.
(09:48):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you there. I appreciate your story about you being injured.
I think there was a saying that,
trying to remember it and not butcher it, that a healthy man has a million wants,
(10:08):
but a sick man has only one want, and that is to be healthy.
And so whenever you're sick or in pain or you're hurt, all you want to do is
be back to being healthy so that you can then do everything else.
And so just one more comment on that.
I heard a thing where it was like, oh, if you're an old person and a measure
(10:34):
of your health is if you're able to sit on the floor like Indian style,
I guess it's not a PC bar, cross-legged or whatever.
Criss-cross applesauce. Yeah, the Indians didn't take too kindly to that type
of language about their culture.
So it's like you should be able to sit like that crisscross applesauce on the
(10:54):
floor and then be able to stand up,
Without using your hands, right? And then that's how you know you're in good
health. I'm like, dude, that's a low bar.
I feel like, dude, I'm old. It's like the bar should be like you should at least
be able to bench 135 or something.
I don't know what the bar should be, but like you should be able to like walk
a mile and not be dying or something like that.
(11:17):
You know, I guess it depends on exactly how old you are. But,
I mean, that's like a boomer measurement for health, you know,
of someone who's never exercised in their whole life.
You know, so it's like, I think our rising generation is much more health-focused
than many of our predecessors in the boomer generation.
(11:38):
And I think Gen X is a little bit more as well. But anyway, I thought that was
a kind of a funny measure of health that, you know, I was just like,
okay, we're setting this standard way low here.
So mental health. So I was actually looking at some research.
There's some guy named Peter, a professor, Peter Clough, who works at Applied
(12:01):
Psychology at the Manchester Metropolitan University.
So he did a study, and he kind of came up with a book, and he defined mental
toughness as, quote, a personality trait which determines in large part how
people respond to challenges,
stress, pressure, irrespective of the circumstance.
(12:23):
So it's like, regardless of circumstance, how do you respond to these different
pressures, challenges of life?
And he has categorized kind of mental toughness into four categories.
And I'll go through those and kind of describe them.
One is control. He says the four C's. So the first one is control.
(12:44):
This one, he talks about having a sense of self-worth.
It's important to believe in yourself and be able to control your life by your actions.
And how can you control your display of emotions? Or are you out of control?
He said people who can keep on keeping on irrespective of how they feel and
(13:07):
work through emotionally charged situations without being totally derailed.
That is mental toughness.
So it's like you know
i feel like people do this
a lot of the time it's just like i'm feeling tough i'm having a hard
day but i'm charging through i gotta get what's this stuff done so that's
control the second one is commitment how well can you set and achieve goals
(13:29):
can you keep promises to yourself on things you say you will do set goals and
achieve them i feel like this is one that we've tried to mold for ourselves
myself included i feel like this is one that i'm I'm constantly trying to work on,
but also this is part of our podcast and part of our thing is like setting goals,
trying to achieve them, pushing yourselves and being disciplined.
(13:52):
I mean, essentially that's being disciplined, right? Commitment to yourself, being disciplined.
Next one is confidence, confidence in your abilities, confidence to deal with
the challenges and also being able to influence people so that you can influence people to persuade
them in whatever it is that you may be needing or whatever.
(14:14):
So you have to have confidence in yourself that build mental toughness.
That's why there's people talk about imposter syndrome and all these kinds of things.
You know, that's if you don't have any confidence, that's mental weakness,
right? And the last one is challenge.
Can an individual push back on boundaries, embrace change, accept risk?
How do they handle new people, places, innovation, creativity? So, you know.
(14:39):
There, there's this aspect of like dynamic, how dynamic is, is your, your brain?
Are you able to adapt, overcome, and really get to be like all other parts,
challenge other people, push back on boundaries.
And so those are the four, the four C's control, commitment,
challenge, and confidence.
(14:59):
That's how he's kind of bucketed those different aspects of mental fortitude.
And so as you guys, I went through that list, you can think,
okay, well, maybe I need to work on this one. Maybe I need to work on a little bit more control.
Maybe my commitment piece is a little bit wanting.
That's where I need to maybe make goals or be more disciplined with myself.
Or maybe it's risk tolerance.
Maybe when you are in a situation where something is different,
(15:21):
you really start to freak out.
And so I feel like for me, for mental toughness, one of the ways that I,
continue to challenge myself, and I think this helps with confidence,
I think this helps with challenge just into being in a difficult situation is
these jiu-jitsu tournaments I've been doing.
(15:42):
I've done, I think, five tournaments so far, and this two weeks will be my sixth.
And they are, I mean, they're tough physically, but mentally it's the toughest.
It's really, I mean, it's nerve-wracking getting out there.
It's, you're nervous. I mean, different people handle nerves differently.
(16:06):
Some people throw up. There's one guy in our gym. He's probably the best guy in our gym.
He's a younger guy. He's 20. He'll throw up. He throws up in a trash can before every single match.
And he'll throw up three or four times at a tournament.
And he'll puke, and then he'll go out and absolutely destroy someone.
(16:27):
And then other people are like, oh, I've got to go to the bathroom.
They've got to go take a dump. The nervous peas.
Or the nervous poops or whatever. And so part of it is just like the buildup
and then the anticipation.
And it's this uncertainty of, I don't know what he's going to throw at me.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
You have kind of a game plan in your head. But for me, that's actually been
(16:48):
a way for me to really get outside my comfort zone and to put myself in a stressful
situation where normally,
if I was in a situation like that, I would leave the situation or I would just
be like, Like, oh, I don't want to do this.
And so I feel like it's a way to help me grow.
(17:09):
And I feel like I heard once that courage is being afraid,
but, or being afraid, but not, but keeping a straight face is basically what
courage is. That was kind of how the quote goes.
Embracing the fear, yeah. And so, I mean, it's really nerve wracking and it
(17:31):
doesn't, in some ways it kind of baffles me because I don't often get myself in those situations.
And so i'm like well why why am i so nervous about these things and
like i don't want to get injured but is it
that i don't want to lose i mean i don't like care that much if
i i want to win it's like i but it's like i paid to
be here so i'm gonna do it yeah and it's like oh well you know sometimes when
(17:53):
it's over i'm more happy that it's over than if i won or lost it's just like
oh now the stress of that anxiety of doing that is over so but once once you
start fighting actually or once you start or actually the match,
all that goes out of your mind.
And you're just like, I got to get this guy.
And it just all goes away. Well, so, yeah, it's kind of cool.
(18:14):
It's a unique experience for sure.
The next one I had was kind of like, what I was thinking was emotional.
I kind of lumped that in with mental, but do you have anything you wanted to
say about emotional strength?
Yeah, yeah, I think you had said one
thing while you were talking about mental that I
(18:35):
think defines emotional really
well is if you're like whenever you're you know faced with a
stressful situation you don't just like freak out you know I think that's what
it is I think emotional strength is being able to regulate your emotions in
accordance to what the situation needs to in order to be resolved yeah right
(18:55):
being able to match your emotions with
the needed resolution is definitely,
I think, an important skill to have, for sure. Oh, yeah.
And then the last one here I had was social.
So I had a few notes on that. But anything you think on social?
(19:18):
I think one of the ones that I had before social, and then you can get into
social and some of the comments you have, was I actually had moral strength.
Oh, okay. Which is not one that you talk about often.
But it's really interesting. Moral strength encompasses integrity,
honesty, ethical behavior, a strong sense of values and principles,
(19:39):
and standing up for what is right.
That is something I definitely think it takes strength to do the right thing sometimes.
Sometimes, even if that right thing is might might affect your reputation or
it might affect your job or it might.
(20:00):
Create a situation where you or someone or everyone might be uncomfortable,
or I think it takes mental strength of the saying that you can really tell the
integrity of a man by what he does when others are not looking.
I think that is definitely moral strength.
If you can build fortitude around a certain set of moral standards that you
(20:23):
have placed for yourself.
A personal creed, if you will. Yeah, a set of principles or guidelines that
are aims that help guide your actions, right? Moral strength.
Definitely not one that's always lumped into this group, but I think it's very important.
Yeah. I like that one. I don't know that I would call it... For me personally,
(20:51):
I don't know that I would call it moral strength.
I would say strength to live your creed, or strength to stand up for what you believe in.
I think the connotation of moral is...
Morality can be a construct, right? We say moral, that means like good or bad,
(21:13):
right? We think of like sinful or righteous.
Whereas I think a lot of these things, I mean, what's sinful for one could be righteous for another.
And so I think it's just like the strength to stand up for your beliefs.
Is what I think I would categorize that, yeah. But that absolutely is such a
(21:34):
strong thing, and I thank you for bringing that one up.
That's absolutely. I mean, if you don't stand up for what you believe in, then.
You don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything, right? Yeah.
Cool. Yeah, so what do you have about social strength?
So, no, I just was thinking about that quote you just said.
It kind of struck me a little bit differently than I had always heard it before.
(21:58):
If you don't stand for something, then you'll fall for anything,
unless you're falling for the thing that you stand for.
Unless the thing that you're standing for maybe is not worth standing for.
Like, I don't know, that's kind of going back to what I was talking about loyalty, right?
Be sure that your loyalties are aligned to the right things,
(22:21):
and then stand for those things.
Well, and that something can be different for everyone. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, sorry, that was just a little bit of a side thought that I had.
An epiphany, if you will. Yeah.
Sometimes things hit you differently at different points in your life.
So socially, so I think that this is so important as parents to think about with our kids.
(22:45):
Anxiety is at all time highs right now with kids, with rising teens.
I've got a child, at least one child, that is highly anxious.
And so we really kind of have to watch him.
And he says he's not anxious, but we think he has some anxiety tendencies.
And I think a lot of kids do now.
(23:08):
And I think part of it is just because we, as a society, realize it's anxiety
and we're not just like, oh, rub some dirt on it kind of a thing.
And so we can actually deal with our problems and not just like men wipe them
away with mud, which is kind of this, I think, false sense of masculinity.
I mean, I think in some ways, yes, you just need to like man up on some things.
(23:30):
But dealing with your problems actually instead of just avoiding your problems
is even more masculine. you in.
So when we talk about anxiety, some of the things to watch for in your kids
for anxiety is do they avoid social situations?
Are they physically slumped over or do they shrink in public?
(23:50):
Do they have difficulty engaging in conversations?
Are they overly self-critical or do they have low self-esteem?
Are they overly concerned with how they will be perceived by others?
Do they feel overwhelmed and easily embarrassed in social settings.
So it's kind of a social anxiety.
And these are some tips that you can use to boost that confidence.
(24:10):
If you feel that way too, these are some tips you can do to boost your confidence.
Encourage a positive self-talk in yourself and in your teens or your kids.
Learning how to do positive affirmations, you know, will help a lot.
If you keep telling yourself, I'm awful, I'm terrible, I'm dumb,
every single day, You're going to be that.
(24:30):
So say things like, I'm great. I am strong.
I'm capable. I'm amazing. And let that raise you up and be that.
And the next one is practice being assertive. Role play situations that may
cause anxiety to you or your child, such as maybe asking a teacher for help or talking to peers.
(24:57):
Role play those situations, and it takes the scariness out of it.
Be supportive. Encourage your child or yourself to identify their strengths
and focus on what they can do rather than what makes them anxious.
So focus on some of your strengths.
And then you know if obviously if there's a
situation where you are so deep into it and you
need some help reach out to a counselor or or
(25:20):
a doctor i think that in some situations people
may need some medicine to help balance them out and
or to help get them on a path where
they can operate effectively and so there's
lots of different things there but things to watch
out out for because nowadays young kids kill themselves
man like the number one cause of death i think from
(25:42):
kids like ages you know like nine
or probably six to eighteen is i think is suicide and so you know we just got
to watch watch out and we'll also build these things on ourself yeah i think
it's so important to develop a some sort of repertoire skill sets that you can
(26:03):
implement to be able to deal with situations personally or to help,
you know, teach your kids.
And, and, you know, I, I kind of have a similar thought and I know I've talked
about this before and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but.
When we talk about strength, I always actually looked up and read several studies
(26:25):
that were done on exposure therapy.
And exposure therapy is psychological treatment, right?
That it's an approach, let's call it, that is used to help individuals confront
and overcome their fears, their phobias and anxiety disorders and other emotional challenges.
(26:46):
So it involves gradually and systematically exposing a person to the feared
stimulus or situation in a controlled and supportive environment.
So you expose them, like you were saying, you know, do role plays and do different
things like that so that they can almost learn how it feels to be uncomfortable.
(27:11):
So the kind of continued small doses of, you know, small doses of poison, right,
will help you to build up antibodies to be able to resist that thing that is feared in your life.
And so, you know, for me, one of the things that I guess maybe I personally
(27:34):
struggle with is, is especially in the workplace is I'm not super social in the workplace.
I don't know if it's because I don't really have much in common with people
or I'm weird or whatever else, but I'm kind of an introvert in like the quote
unquote networking world.
I think some of it has to do with people that are my age typically haven't been
(27:55):
married for 12 years and have four kids, right?
People my age who are in their early to mid thirties are like,
you know, just getting out of the.
Party phase yeah they're engaged right now
yeah or maybe engaged right and so it's like i
have a hard time relating sometimes but that's a whole different topic but
one thing that i have tried to do is you know
(28:16):
we we have these like luncheons and stuff at work
and there's like you know 50 people in there and they bring in pizza or whatever
else sometimes i find myself i'll go in i get a piece of pizza and i'll just
go sit at my desk and i'll like eat pizza and work yeah and i think So that's
just because I don't want to have to be forced to socialize.
(28:37):
So I really kind of tried to put myself out there and say, okay,
in these situations where we have these social hours or whatever,
I am going to make a specific effort.
I'm going to go and talk to like two people that I don't know and introduce
myself and kind of I have a little,
(28:58):
you know, this is what I do type spiel that I can, you know,
kind of just say just to kind of introduce myself to people.
And it's it's uncomfortable and a lot of
times i have to like build myself i'm like all right i
said two i said two let's do it let's do it you know and then
go and do it and it's it it has been great it has been
uh i've gotten to know more people which is good but also i think it has just
(29:21):
kind of put me in a position to where the more that i've done that it's it's
not that big a deal anymore yeah it's it's like oh yeah you know i could go
you know talk to whoever about whatever ever and everything else,
which is kind of weird because I'm not like that all the time. Yeah.
And so exposure therapy can do several things, but some of the studies that
(29:46):
I'd read and I pulled out some of the, I guess the ways that it can help you
build strength is just building resilience to a certain stimulus.
It can help you to develop coping skills.
Skills so you know if you do something a couple
times and then you're like oh it
actually went a little bit easier when i said it this way or
(30:08):
even when i you know took deep breaths before i went out and did this thing
that was difficult it helped me right so it can help you develop coping skills
in certain situations it can definitely increase your confidence because you
you can basically You're showing yourself that you can do hard things,
which is a confidence booster.
(30:30):
It helps you to promote emotional regulation, to not just freak out in a moment
of stress and stimulus, but to calmly react. Right.
If someone is is terrified of spiders.
Right. But then, you know, once a day they go in and they,
you know, take one step closer to a tarantula that's in a box in the corner
(30:54):
after, you know, years of stepping closer and closer and closer and closer and
realizing that it's not that big a deal, then, you know.
The first day they might've ran out of the room screaming, not being able to
control their fear and emotions.
But after that exposure, they're like, oh yeah, this is no big deal.
I can regulate my emotions and my reaction. Yeah.
(31:15):
And then just overcoming, overcoming limiting beliefs.
Like what you said, just thinking positively, positively of yourself,
right? Positive affirmations. Oh yeah, I can do this. I got this. Not a big deal, right?
This is, this is, you know, easy stuff.
So that was kind of exposure therapy is one thing that I think is really important.
(31:35):
And I think it's important to learn how to be uncomfortable because then it
makes you appreciate so much more comfortability.
And it opens your eyes for sure. And you had mentioned this earlier.
And I think the last thing that I had was the whole adage in the military,
one of the main phrases is adapt improvise and overcome and you you had said
(32:01):
adapt and overcome earlier and the phrase is adapt improvise and overcome is
a very commonly used military,
phrase that just it kind of reflects the essence of strength right yeah assess your situation,
Figure something out.
And beat it Whatever it takes And I think that is True strength Yeah,
(32:27):
no it's good man I love it You already kind of shared a couple quotes I do have
one more quote And I have a quote after you So this one kind of ties back to
what I was talking about Jiu Jitsu.
But it's by Eleanor Roosevelt. And it says, you gain strength,
courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
(32:49):
And it just made me think, you know, how often are you looking fear in the face?
How often are you nervous? Do your hands start to sweat about what you're going to do?
And if it's not very often, then maybe seek out opportunities to do that.
And it could be as simple as going to introduce yourself to two people in the company pizza party.
(33:12):
Or it could be starting that new company.
Or it could be talking to a girl, you know, for a single guy,
talking to a girl or having that hard conversation with your wife or whatever it may be.
Or going to do a tournament or doing a race or something like that.
Do something Something that makes your palms sweat.
(33:33):
And that is how strength and courage are built. Makes your knees weak.
Your arms are heavy. Yeah, exactly.
That's how you get stronger, man. Without that, you're just living a life of luxury and comfort.
And that's not where strength is built. Yeah. Yep.
Strength and resilience is not built in comfort.
The quote that I had was from good old Superman himself.
(33:58):
Clark Kent. Christopher Reeves. Oh, okay.
So he said, a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere
and endure in spite of overwhelming circumstances and obstacles.
So, yeah, a true hero is just a normal guy.
(34:20):
Anyone can be strong. You don't have to be the quote unquote world's strongest
man, right, to be strong.
Anyone can be strong. Ordinary people that find strength to persevere in overcoming
whatever the cards they have been dealt are.
Yeah. Whatever that is. I think adapting, improvising, and overcoming is a virtue
(34:45):
that will build strength in your life for sure.
Yeah. No, it's been great. These have been great things. things definitely give
me a lot to think about and try to look for those opportunities in my life to,
do that, to build that strength.
So for those of you listening, we appreciate you listening with us today.
Appreciate you joining us in our journey to build our personal creeds.
(35:08):
And hopefully you've gleaned some things you can apply personally here as well
to the children in your own family or your own lives or nieces and nephews, whoever it may be,
influence others to grow in their strength plus a variety of different factors.
So with that, let's build that creed together.
Music.
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