Taking Ownership: Communication & Feedback – Lachie Stuart – MensGroup Podcast

In this episode, Lachie Stuart and Sean Galla from Mensgroup get into the importance of community and healthy communication for men. We also get into taking feedback and ownership of thoughts, feelings, and actions and how to recover from a breakup.

Today’s https://mensgroup.com/podcast guest Lachie Stuart is a men coach who helps career-driven men to live, love, and laugh more, and he’s here to talk about the importance of community, accepting feedback, and coping with difficult situations such as a breakup, divorce, and infidelity. 

 CHAPTERS:

00:01:16 Community & Communication

00:01:16 The Importance of Community  

• Getting together with people that share your same core values will help you stick to them and encourage you to keep doing the things that align with those values. 
• People in your community will hold you accountable for maintaining the habits that resonate with the kind of life you want to live, and at the same time, will point out whenever you’re drifting away from your path. 
• The concept of community comes down to surrounding yourself with people that will help you grow into the person you want to become. 
• Keeping positive people close is key – research has proven that negative influence in your life can be even 6 times more impactful than positive influence.

00:13:40 Good communication

• How you articulate what you’re feeling and what you’re experiencing is crucial – If you’re able to put into actual words what you’re going through, it will make it easier for you to deal with that specific issue or situation.   
• Learning to communicate in a good way will definitely have a positive impact on your relationships, from friends and co-workers to your family and closest beings. 

00:18:00 Learning to cherish feedback

• Feedback can highlight those areas in which you can eventually improve, and help you accept how you are doing on those in the meantime. 
• Sometimes people who are not used to receiving feedback can get pretty defensive about it since it can be taken as a piece of evidence that they’re not perfect. 

00:35:50 Taking ownership of your thoughts, feelings, and actions

• Most men struggle when it comes to taking responsibility for themselves, and have a strong tendency to blame others for their own issues. These men are in fact passive about their lives and are just expecting things to change on their own. 
• Even though it’s worth it, it’s actually harder to take ownership, given that this may imply dealing with limiting beliefs and carefully reviewing how you talk to yourself. Unfortunately, due to how demanding this process can get, most men end up accepting mediocracy, choosing to remain in their comfort zone. 

00:47:25 How to recover from infidelity, divorce, or breakup

• When dealing with a tough breakup, it’s important to accept the situation as challenging and allow yourself to mourn and to feel sad.  
• After infidelity or a difficult divorce, it’s tempting to want to take revenge. In a situation like this, just ask yourself – how do I want to respond? Does that response align with the kind of person I want to be? 
• Having good support around yourself and talking with other guys that have been through similar experiences can be a powerful tool throughout difficult times like these.  
• It’s essential to give yourself some time to go through the situation in a healthy way, rather than trying to deny it or trying to avoid dealing with painful feelings.