June 17, 2024 • 37 mins
In this conversation, Chris discusses his personal journey of transformation and how he helps dads improve their lives. He shares his experience of going through phases of discipline and inconsistency, and how he reached a point of dissatisfaction that motivated him to make a change. Chris emphasizes the importance of connection and the power of a supportive community in helping dads overcome their struggles. He also addresses the challenges that arise in relationships when one partner is working on self-improvement while the other is not, and the need for open and effective communication in these situations. The conversation explores the importance of commitment in relationships and the impact of mental health on fathers. It emphasizes the need for self-care and personal growth, as well as breaking cycles of negative behavior. The role of community and support in improving mental well-being is highlighted.
Takeaways
- Personal transformation requires discipline and consistency.
- Connection and support from a community are crucial for overcoming struggles.
- Open and effective communication is essential in relationships.
- Friction and discomfort can lead to growth and positive change. Commitment in relationships requires saying yes or no forever, rather than questioning compatibility during arguments.
- Focusing on discipline and physical well-being can lead to better overall well-being.
- Self-care involves internal work and dialogue, not just external activities like going to the spa.
- Breaking cycles of negative behavior requires self-reflection, journaling, therapy, and support from others.
- Building a community of like-minded individuals can provide accountability and help in personal growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, my dear friend , welcome back to another
episode of the Curious Neuronpodcast.
My name is Cindy Huffington andI am your host.
For the past few weeks, I'vebeen talking about the
importance of connection andcommunity, and I'd like to
continue that conversation today.
However, for today'sconversation, I'd like to focus
on dads and what they need inorder to have a safe and engaged
(00:22):
community.
Before I begin, I'd like tothank the Tannenbaum Open
Science Institute as well as theMcConnell Foundation for
supporting the Curious Neuronpodcast.
Without them, it would not bepossible and, as I always say,
without you this would not bepossible.
So please take a moment toreview the podcast, to rate it
and to subscribe to it, becausethat shows the algorithm that
(00:42):
you care and that helps supportthe podcast with the metrics and
the funding that we get tocontinue the podcast.
So I came across Chris'sInstagram account a little while
back maybe almost a year ago atthis point and what I really
enjoyed was how he wasconnecting with his audience and
how he spoke about thiscommunity, with the things that
(01:04):
he was doing in terms of keepingthem accountable for certain
things and motivating them.
So I interviewed Chris becauseI wanted to know what are dads
looking for and what do theyneed in this community and how
important is it for them?
What are the changes that he'sseeing?
And so, whether you are a dador you have been trying to
support your partner, yourhusband, in this maybe difficult
(01:27):
situation that they're goingthrough.
I think this is an importantconversation because Chris
shares what he has seen the pastyear with this community that
he's growing and building, aswell as some of the personal
stories of the dads that arepart of this community, so I
think there's a lot of importantinformation in this podcast
episode.
Please enjoy my conversationwith Chris Rodak.
(01:48):
Hello, chris, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Thanks, glad to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No happy Glad for you to have me.
I had you earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I just got done doing jujitsu in my garage with a guy
, so I'm like's all messed upbut yeah happy to be happy to be
here at a great time, the firsttime excited to be here well,
that's what I was going to sayanyway, so you just introduced
that.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
You know, I was on your podcast and I really
enjoyed our conversation, so Ithought it'd be nice to have a
similar conversation, but onthis side, or not similar.
This time we're going to turnthe tables and talk about dads,
and I think that you are a greatperson to do that.
So how about we begin with?
Who was Chris before?
The Chris that I see online?
Who's changing dad's lives?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
At times the same Chris and at times a different
Chris.
I went through various phases,like many guys do.
I always share my story becauseI know guys can relate to it.
I grew up in a big family and Ifell in love with music, went
to college, got obsessed withthe saxophone, gained weight
because I practiced saxophoneall the time and I went to
(02:52):
college for music, became amusic teacher, lived by myself
for a year and got crazy, rippedand in shape and disciplined.
And then I got married, hadkids and let it all go, with
excuses of I didn't have time totake care of myself and I got
undisciplined.
So I gained a lot of weight andthrough that process of losing
(03:12):
this thing that I held so dear,which is my discipline, a lot of
things changed in my life and Ilost kind of a lot of the hopes
and the dreams and my attitudechanged, my identity changed and
through that process I becamemotivated, unmotivated.
Motivated, unmotivated to getmyself back into the shape I
used to be in and to be theperson that I wanted, that I
(03:34):
thought I could be.
And that was a 10-year process.
That was some months getting inshape and getting disciplined,
other months not.
I tried to start businesses inthat time but, like I said, I
lost my discipline for myphysical body.
So that transferred toeverything I did, it transferred
to my business, it transferredto everything.
So I was a very up and downperson.
I wanted to be in shape.
(03:55):
I didn't think I was that outof shape, but now that I look
back at those pictures I say,man, you were not the guy you
thought you were, and so I wouldsay was a more emotional,
undisciplined, sloppier versionof myself, but at times also
disciplined when I was motivated.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But inconsistent is a good word well, I think that
word is exactly what I wanted tofocus on for a second, because
I think many of us moms and dadsstruggle with that
inconsistency, right like wewant to be better at something,
whether it's you're, you know,being physically fit.
Or some people come to me andsay I'm trying to journal, but I
can, and I get in and out ofthis habit and I, you know, or
morning routine of some sort,and I think that we fall into
(04:34):
that, and then we're hard onourselves when we fall out of
that routine that we are tryingto do, did you?
Um, so what, what?
What changed for you in termsof getting back to that
discipline that you wanted toachieve?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
wife whose husband paid for everything her entire
life.
And then one time she asked ifshe could buy something and then
he said for what?
And then she said it's nevergoing to happen again.
And then so she went up,started the business, became
wealthy herself.
So she said never again am Igoing to ask anyone for money.
I got to the point where I saidnever again.
That's the Jim Rohn story.
So for me, I saw a picture of myson.
He was happy, a beautiful wife.
(05:29):
I had the job I wanted at thetime house, car.
We were on vacations,everything was going right in my
life.
I had no reason to be unhappy.
But I looked at this picture ofmyself and I was unhappy.
Why was I unhappy?
And I did not want for the restof my life to be an unhappy,
miserable dad, and that wasbecause I allowed myself to kind
(05:51):
of rot and decay a little bit.
I let myself go so badly that Ididn't like who I was.
So I, honestly, was looking atthis picture and saying there's
no reason I should be miserablewith everything that I have
going for me.
I need to make a change.
You call it a rock bottom momentor whatever it was, but it was
(06:11):
also over a course of years andI started joining jujitsu.
After that I started learningmore about my health and then
it's been a year's process.
The dads that you speak withonline and that you connect with
(06:37):
are they experiencing thatsimilar moment, that rock bottom
moment that you call, or thatmoment of realization be on the
brink of divorce?
Maybe they just got in a fightwith their kids for the
hundredth time and they say Idon't want this to be the way it
is.
Maybe they have a health scare.
Or maybe, for the 50th time ina row, they got motivated to
work out and then they lied tothemselves once again and they
(07:00):
just say man, this can be mylife for the next five to 10
years.
And in the content I post, I tryto bring these perspectives to
the forefront, because thereason I was stuck for so long
is because I continually lied tomyself.
A lot of it was mindset andpsychology.
I kept on telling myself I wasbetter than I was.
I kept on telling myselftomorrow was going to be the day
I was going to do something,and then five years would pass.
But I kept on believing theselies, and that's hard whenever
(07:30):
you're the person whocontinually lies to yourself
because you're stuck in your ownfog and your own brain.
So I try to break through thata little bit with some of the
guys I'm speaking to and saylisten, you might be lying to
yourself right.
If you're like I was, you mightbe lying to yourself right now.
You might be worse off than youthink you are.
You're not going to go to thegym tomorrow and look back at
your past five, 10 years.
Have you been breaking promises?
Okay, yes, all right, we needto change something.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Right.
The past couple of days I'vebeen really focusing on talking
about connection and I feel thata lot of people have been
responding to that, saying Idon't feel connected to myself,
I don't feel connected to mypartner.
Um, actually that was thebiggest in the poll, that was
the highest percentage.
It was over 40%.
You know, when I'm thinkingabout the community that you're
building, I'm assuming thatconnection piece to somebody
(08:09):
else who's going through thesame thing is very motivating
for the fathers that you'reworking with.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, it's massive.
It's maybe the most powerfulpart of what we do.
You know I coach some peopleone-on-one, but if you're
joining our Men of Fire program,the most powerful thing that we
do is the brotherhood.
We've got 100 guys in there now.
We have 11 different countries,guys from all over the world.
But why that's important isbecause a lot of times we think
(08:36):
we're the only ones strugglingwith what we're struggling with.
In reality, there's millions ofother people struggling with the
exact same thing.
They're either before you areon your journey right now,
they're exactly where you aregoing through the exact same
things, or they've solved it insome way.
So whenever you share yourstruggles and stories about the
things that you are sufferingfrom, you immediately connect
(08:59):
with other guys and they say hey, wow, I'm not alone in this
struggle.
I'm going through the samething and maybe I was struggling
with this last year and I canshow you a path that I took to
get out of that.
And anytime someone joins mygroup, they have to film a
discussion or an intro video,put it in our discussion group
and say these are the things I'mstruggling with, these are the
things I need help with.
(09:19):
And that is our firstconnection point to every guy in
the group because through ourshared suffering and struggles,
like yeah, we're all goingthrough the same stuff and then
they can reach out and reallyconnect with each other.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I'm assuming that video can be hard for some
people, right?
Because if you haven't reallyspoken about what you're going
through and now you're in frontof people that you don't know
and you have to be vulnerableand talk about what you're
struggling with, what do you seein terms of do they open up
right away and just feel likethis relief of this is my space
to do this 95% of them, yes, butalso for 50% of them that's the
(09:54):
first time they've ever doneanything like that in their life
.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Because a lot of guys isolate.
Many men feel like they have todo things on their own or with
their own group of friends.
I know my group of friendsaround here.
We don't talk about thesethings and yet here they are,
with me and guys around theworld sharing these deep
personal problems.
So it can be uncomfortable forthem.
So it's kind of like aninitiation.
It's kind of like I'm settingthe tone for what the group is
(10:18):
like and what I expect and whatthe culture is, and it's yes,
you will share and be open inhere and yes, you will share and
be open in here and yes, youwill support.
The culture in the group is themost important thing.
It's inspirational, it'ssupportive, no judgment, no
criticism.
It's a safe place for people todo these kinds of things.
And yeah, it is hard for someguys at first, but also that's
their breakthrough moment,because some of them share
(10:38):
things that they've been holdingon to for 10 years and they're
one day into the group andthey're like man, I haven't
talked about that.
And then, once they lay it outthere, then we can start to work
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Right, you mentioned that 50% that had never done
this before, never really openedup in terms of what's going on
and what they're struggling with.
But these they'll have partners,right, they'll have wives and
they'll have partners, and so Ithink that's an important point
for us to talk about, because,you know, my community has
always been about like sharingthis with moms and dads.
I'm sharing the science andI've always been very mindful of
(11:08):
not focusing just on the moms.
However, there are more moms,um, but the people that do reach
out to me from the podcast aredads that are listening and
trying to learn from the scienceand applying this to their
lives.
And the dads that reach out tome, many of them struggle with
the relationship theirrelationship with their partner
and they can't be themselves.
(11:29):
They can't really open up abouttheir mental health struggles,
or they have a partner who'sstruggling with her mental
health and they are taking overeverything and not asking for
help.
So I've seen a lot of that andI imagine those are the people
that haven't really shared withtheir partners those are the
people that haven't reallyshared with their partners.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
that's just tale as old as time.
That's.
It happens constantly and yougo through different states.
The husband will be trying toimprove himself and work on
himself and that changes therelationship and the dynamic
between the two.
Then the wife will do the samething.
Then the husband will feeloffended that he's.
There's a lot of like mixedsignals and it all comes down to
communication with each other.
And here's a typical scenario Aguy will join my group and him
(12:10):
and his wife have been living acertain way for 10 years, you
know, eating pizza, ice cream,movies, netflix every night.
So they get to this point intheir life where they feel
undisciplined, a little sloppy,and they're 35, 40 years old and
they say, man, if I continuethis for the next 10 years and
I'm 50, things aren't going tolook too good.
So the husband will join us.
Three months will go by, he'sin the best shape of his life,
he's disciplined, he has morningroutines, he's getting up at
(12:33):
4.35 AM, he's doing all thisstuff and the wife is saying,
well, what's going on here?
For the past 10 years we'vedone a certain thing, like
Friday's pizza night.
Years we've done a certainthing like friday's pizza night,
saturday's ice cream, sundayday, sunday's movie day and now
the husband is has a differentlife and what that can happen to
some people is that createssome friction some needed
(12:55):
friction in their relationship,where they say, you know, one
person whether it's the husbandor wife, doesn't matter says,
well, do you think you're betterthan me?
Or they say, well, are youtrying to get scared because
they think the person's tryingto leave them.
They say, well, you're tryingto improve yourself.
Why aren't you bringing mealong?
And what it does is it kind offorces a mirror on the other
partner and says, well, if I'mdoing this, you could be doing
(13:17):
this too, and maybe we bothshould change or not change.
It forces a well-neededconversation and confrontation
that could improve the marriageor it could reveal some cracks
Also.
Sometimes this happens and thenthe wife or husband decides to
get their act together too andthey end up supporting each
other and fueling each other'sfires and pushing each other.
(13:37):
But either way, it'swell-needed friction because it
causes conversations that havebeen pushed down for years to
come to the surface.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Right, and what I think of when you talk about
this are the couple's sort ofcommunication skills, conflict
resolution and emotionalintelligence, where you can feel
a certain way, express that youknow and share that, and that's
something many of us strugglewith in our relationship.
So I think what you said thatword, that term needed friction.
I think that's brilliantbecause I think that we do need
(14:07):
some of that to kind of I don'tknow what's the word like reset
right?
Is that a?
I don't worry, I'm.
Next week is my 15 yearanniversary and you know my
husband and I kind of like talkabout that a few every five ish
years, like what do?
we need to reset, what do weneed to work on, what do we need
to change?
And I think that's part of ahealthy relationship, where you
(14:27):
look at that together becauseyou hope, you want to hope that
you're on the same path.
But so many couples arestruggling with this.
I know because I've beentalking about divorce a lot
lately, because people arereaching out to me and asking
for help.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
A needed friction is like going to the gym and adding
weights to your barno-transcript someone, a fight
(15:11):
even.
You're trying to relay a point.
It's how you do it.
Can you relay a message that'simportant to you that you know
the other person's going todisagree with, while still being
warm, loving, strong, confidentand not backing down?
Can you do that?
Can you do that and just notsay yes to the other person
because you're afraid ofconfrontation, while still being
strong and confident andholding your identity, without
(15:33):
going into the male patronizing?
I'm right, you're wrongattitude, because if you do that
, no one wins.
So it's how to communicate islike the tone, the tone of your
voice, the tone of your eyes,the tone of your face.
All these things are extremely,extremely important.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Right that nonverbal is louder than the verbal
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
Guys talk about that.
They say well, chris, I didthis on a call.
They'll say I did what you saidto do yesterday and it didn't
work.
My wife got mad at me.
I said well, tell me exactlyhow you said it Like.
Well, I said you should haveput the yeah, listen to yourself
.
You sound like a jerk.
You need to watch the movie ofyour life.
(16:13):
How do you sound?
How are you coming off?
Can you say the things andstill inspire the person?
That's what we're going for.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
That's so good.
Sometimes moms reach out to meand they are struggling with
their partner who's steppingback, who's there but not
present, who is a great father,but again not fully connected
and very disengaged, but notagain not fully connected and
very disengaged.
From my perspective, I alwaysquestion how are they doing
(16:42):
right, like, how's their mentalhealth, and is there a
conversation that needs to behad?
That will be uncomfortable, butsometimes it doesn't go well.
Sometimes these women are shutdown and they're told that
they're fine, the husbands arefine and there's nothing to talk
about.
They're not going out withfriends, they're not connecting
with anybody, they're stayinghome.
I see this very often.
(17:02):
What would you say to perhapsthe wife or the husband that's
listening if there's this sortof barrier, I guess, to having
this conversation?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, I'm not a scientist, I'm not not a doctor,
I'm not a therapist.
I help guys that went throughwhat I went through, right.
So that's where I can I feelcomfortable helping, like if you
can relate to my story, I canhelp you.
Only so, when I felt like thatbecause I did um, it was 100
caused from me being upset withwho I was.
(17:36):
That's what it was.
A lot of guys describe this termof feeling like you're living
in a fog.
You haven't smiled in a while,you haven't laughed in a while,
you haven't felt real joy.
You remember yourself feelingreal emotions, but you haven't
felt anything for a long time.
I remember feeling like that.
I remember journaling about itand a lot of that comes from a
(17:58):
consistent frustration with yourlife.
It's day after day looking atyourself being frustrated with
your progress and your fitnessand your marriage and your
parenting and your business.
Just in life, just in thisfrustration builds and every day
you don't do something about it, you close yourself off and you
kind of build this cage aroundyourself.
So then you don't want tocommunicate to everyone.
(18:18):
I remember feeling upset andfrustrated, my wife trying to
talk to me about it and me justlike I'm fine and just going
away.
I was closed off and I wastaking my inner frustration out
on her when she was the one whocared about me and she wanted to
help me.
So from my perspective, I wouldsay that if you're a wife and
your husband is like that, heneeds help.
He's.
(18:39):
He's suffering right now.
He's probably very frustratedand unhappy with the state of
his life, and I have wives reachout to me all the time.
More and more, every single day, wives say like I'm filling out
an application for my husbandor I was going to ask about that
.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All the time?
No-transcript.
(19:19):
I want us to be really happytogether in the future.
I want you to be happy.
I'm having this conversationwith you because I feel like you
might not be happy and I wantyou to be really happy and just
on fire and confident.
Do you feel like you are rightnow?
He'll probably say no, okay,well, what's missing right now?
Like talk to him, ask himquestions, let him tell you what
(19:41):
you know he's already going tosay, and then you could say, all
right, well, we can.
You just told me you're notfeeling good.
You just told me you're in abad spot right now.
When were you feeling great?
You know, do your own salescall Like okay, back whenever
you know I was working out, Iwas on a football team, blah
blah.
I had guys around me.
I just felt really good.
Okay, well, do you needsomething like that in your life
(20:02):
right now?
And just ask him simplequestions that cause him to just
dig his own stuff up.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
But if you come at it in the wrong way if you come at
(20:32):
it patronizing.
You need this, this is what'swrong with you would be having
with your partner.
They might say something that'suncomfortable for you.
Again, thinking about theemails I've been receiving and
the number of emails that relateto a marriage that's struggling
, I'm assuming you know apartner could say a man could
say well, this relationship isnot going well, I'm not happy in
(20:53):
my marriage, and that would beuncomfortable, but again, it's
that needed friction.
Perhaps that needs to happenand let's see what we could do
about this right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, and guys talk to me about this as well, and I
take it to the next level and Isay well, do you want to get a
divorce?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Just make the decision right now Take it to
the end.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So you had an argument with your wife.
You're offended, you're hurtright now, right, okay, do you
want to get a divorce?
No, okay, then put that out ofyour mind.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Stop dipping one toe in.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Because guys will have that in the back of their
mind Well, maybe we're not meantfor each other as soon as they
have an argument, and then, whenthings are going well, they say
I'll love you forever.
It's like, no, you need to sayyes or no forever.
And it doesn't matter whatsituation you're in, it doesn't
matter what is happening, whatargument.
Either you're the guy who getsdivorced or you're not.
If you're not, that means everyargument you get into, every
(21:50):
confrontation.
You no longer will take thateasy way out of saying, well,
maybe we're not meant for eachother and then you don't say the
hard needed truth that needs tobe said.
Because if you think maybewe're not meant for each other,
you will always slip out theback end and you're never going
to say the hard thing that takesguts to say to your wife You're
(22:11):
all in or you're all out.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, that's such good advice.
What do you see with dads interms of yeah, that's such good
advice.
What do you see with dads interms of?
Do they talk about their mentalhealth and not, not mental
illness?
But this is I'll explain.
So I've been doing a bit ofresearch, talking to parents,
and I find that you don't haveto have a diagnosis of a mental
illness to not be well.
Sometimes we're not well, we'restruggling, which is what we've
(22:33):
been talking about, but there'san insight, right.
So once they join you, focus onthe discipline and physical
that we've been talking about alittle bit, but to me, focusing
on that would lead to betterwell-being.
So that's what I mean by youknow, do they speak about
feeling happier in other partsof their lives or just feeling
(22:53):
better once they started thisdiscipline?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, absolutely, and it's immediate.
It's not something that needsto take a long time and if
you're listening to this andyou're struggling, you're in a
down spot.
You can feel better one minutefrom now.
You can reflect that externallyin your physical body if you
maintain discipline over timeand you do the consistent,
boring work like going to thegym and eating healthy.
(23:18):
And you can do that over time.
But if you want to feel goodright now, just walk upstairs,
put your face in a bowl offreezing ice water and say, wow,
I did something that feels good.
That was hard for me.
I scared myself a little bit, Ipushed myself.
I guarantee one minute from nowyou're going to feel an ounce
of pain and then you're going tofeel really good about yourself
.
(23:38):
Guys feel good when they aregrowing and progressing in life.
If you are not moving towards agoal and you are stagnant, I
don't care if you have a billiondollars in the bank.
If you are stagnant, you'regoing to feel miserable.
And there's many men out therewho have very successful
businesses, who are making tonsof money, but they're still so
unhappy because their marriageis failing, they have no
(24:02):
connection with their kids,they're personally, they've
allowed themselves to rot away.
And they've got this businesson autopilot.
That's bringing in money.
And they say, well, isn't thiswhat I'm supposed to do?
I'm supposed to provide?
It's like no, you've created atransactional relationship in
every area of your life.
You're just an ATM now.
You have no personal fulfillmentand purpose in life anymore.
So once they get thesedisciplines and routines in life
(24:26):
yeah, a simple thing likehaving a nice routine in the
morning and working out andbeing healthy and actually
thinking man I can becomesomething more personally and
working towards it.
That will fill you witheverything you need and you can
immediately feel better.
It's by promising yourself thatyou it's doing the hard thing
(24:49):
for yourself because you loveyourself.
I'm willing to suffer for me sothat I can be better in the
future.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That brings to mind the word self-care that I get
annoyed of because it'severywhere and I feel that the
definition that we have outthere of self-care is not truly
what self-care should be.
But you kind of defined it inthe way that I like and do
what's the bad way?
The bad going out, going to thespa, it's, that's not self
Getting a facial.
(25:20):
Right, it's not self-care.
Self-care truly is about theinternal work and your internal
dialogue.
Right, because you can go tothe spa every day and come back
and have a really negative tonetowards yourself.
Right, that's so the you knowI'm I'm thinking.
Also, you talked about beingstagnant and and again, I'm just
thinking of the dads that havereached out, and they, they are
there.
You are speaking directly tothe dads that have reached out
and they are there.
You are speaking directly tothe dads that I've spoken with
(25:41):
that listen to this.
So I just want to focus in alittle bit more on that dad who,
right now, just feels likethey're stuck and it doesn't
matter what they do.
The videos and the stories thatI watch with you, sometimes I
giggle because you give thattough love sometimes.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I see that I alternate yep.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Right, and I think of those dads that are kind of
stuck in that and maybe peoplehave tried but maybe they
haven't received that tough loveof getting into it and
researchers are trying to figureout how to support dads.
Should we be doing more of thattough love?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Some guys need it, some guys don't.
So I alternate my approachbecause different people need
different things.
I know that there is a likeI've got 100 guys in my group.
Some of them love it when Iyell at them and they want me to
call them out Like we have highaccountability in my group,
which means, like you will beheld accountable for your goals
(26:40):
and the actions and the thingyou promise, the things you
promise us that you are going todo.
We're going to hold youaccountable and it may it might
work better with men than women,I don't know, um, but some of
these guys like it.
When I like, I'll send themvideo message.
I'll say, and I'll be swearingat them.
I'll say you didn't post yourworkout this morning.
Get your ass on here, post yourworkout.
I know other guys aren't goingto like that and it's going to
(27:03):
do the opposite to them.
So I have to alternate myapproach.
But I know I've got a largeamount of people watching me.
When I make one video, there'sgoing to be a segment of the pie
chart that is going to relateto it.
Another segment is not going to, and I kind of alternate my way
around that pie chart to try toreach everyone I can.
I know that for me, like, I madea post a couple of days ago and
(27:25):
it was right after I gotcamping with my family.
I was looking through my Googlephotos.
I found a really old, sloppypicture of myself where I didn't
look good and that justmotivated me to make a post.
Like if I could go back in timeand tell this guy, who was
feeling sorry for himself, whathe needed to hear, what would I
say?
And I just like ranted atmyself for a page and a half and
it was brutal and I was digginginto myself and you know, I was
(27:46):
yelling at myself.
I know that if someone at thattime came to me and talked to me
like that, that would have donethe trick for me, like I would
have.
I do not need someone to comepat me on the back and say
you're going to be okay.
I need someone to say quitlying to yourself.
(28:08):
Look at the damage you're doingto yourself and your family.
That's what I need to hear,because if you're in your 30s
and 40s and you're a man andyou've been lying to yourself
for 10 years, you need an icepick to come through your brain
and break out like you on thesecalls I have with guys.
You have to break them open,like they have been lying to
(28:29):
themselves for so long.
You have to reveal the damagethey're doing to themselves and
their family, because thereality is it's just numbers.
Some guys will not make thechange.
At our men's retreat we havemen in their 30s, 40s and 50s on
stage crying in front ofeveryone about the damage their
fathers did to them.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That was my next question.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, and they're never healed because their
fathers never made the changeand their fully grown,
successful men still have thisimage in themselves of this
eight-year-old boy who's damaged.
You have to understand that isthe impact.
So I'm okay getting harsh withguys if it's going to save that.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Right, I was going to tap into that a bit to find out
if they were bringing up theirchildhood, because I know that
when I talk with moms, often wehave a certain voice in our head
and that negative voice couldbe our mother or our father and
it's hard to get out of that.
So dads are bringing that up aswell.
From what you just said,they're bringing up their dads.
(29:26):
Are they bringing up thedynamics between their parents
as well?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, and one of the things we did on our retreat was
we did my workshop was calledmy Story, so every guy had to
get up.
We had about 20 guys there toget up on stage and talk about
something that happened in yourpast that you considered
negative, that defined younegatively, but you have to tell
it why.
It's actually the best thingthat ever happened to you.
(29:52):
So we had to redefine ourstories and guy.
It ended up taking a day and ahalf.
I was supposed to take twohours.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So we just kept on going.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And I wasn't going to stop the guys as they were in
tears and getting emotional.
It's like every single guy wasup there talking about who they
are, their childhood, theirfamily, the traumas they went
through and they said the mostpersonal things you can imagine
and I never remember this oneguy super successful guy owns a
furniture company and I neverremember this one guy super
successful guy owns a furniturecompany, does well, in great
shape.
He's in his 40s.
(30:21):
He told us a story about beingsix years old.
I'm going to tear up talkingabout it.
It makes me emotional.
His parents sent him away tothis summer camp for three
months and he came back and hisparents threw away a special
blanket and he was on stagecrying about it.
I was like man, there's littlethings you remember forever.
(30:44):
And then there's also abuse anddrug problems and guys are
talking about their fathers whocheated on their mothers and
whether it was just tense andcold in the house all day, all
time.
They remember that and it's theguys who grew up with anger
issues in their house have angerissues right now with their
kids.
The guys who grew up with a badrelationship with their moms
(31:08):
and their parents had a badrelationship.
They have a bad relationshipwith their wife right now.
They just took on all thoseburdens and problems, but they
decided to do something about itand break the cycle.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Let's finish off our conversation around that the
cycles right.
It's not easy to break thecycles.
It's first you have to noticeit and realize that you have
continued either the entirecycle or parts of the cycle, but
it takes a lot of insight.
You mentioned journaling before.
Are the dads journaling as well?
Are they starting therapy?
(31:42):
Are they figuring this out ontheir own?
What's the sort of guidancearound that?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, journaling is part of our mandatory program,
so I help each guy develop aroutine that helps build them
over the next 12 months.
So it's something you do everysingle day that will build you
into a disciplined person, theperson that you want to become.
But journaling is one of thenon-negotiables that we have to
do and we have different promptsand ways that we journal, but
(32:07):
the most impactful thing that wedo is just sharing, and I've
had guys in my group who havebeen at therapy and they say
that our group is upgraded.
Therapy do is.
(32:27):
I always start off with alesson or stories from my life
and then we go into the guys andwe say, okay, what are you
struggling with?
What's the thing that's holdingyou back?
What are you frustrated with?
And each guy goes around andtalks about the things that are
keeping them stuck right now.
And for me it's like who canhelp you more?
No, offense therapists.
It's like this person, thisrandom person over there who you
talk to once every other week,or a guy who has the same job as
(32:51):
you, same life situation, ismarried, has kids, going through
exact same struggles, has beensuffering for three years with
what you're suffering with andhas found a way out.
Right, I'm going to read thisthing that some professor said
in the book two years ago.
It's like no.
And then we dig in and we talkabout this and it's three times
a week and the guys that are themost engaged and on all these
(33:13):
Zoom calls, make massive,massive progress and sometimes
just the pure fact of sharing itwith other guys just lets that
beach ball out of the water.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I do believe what you said is part of the future, in
my opinion, of mental healthcare no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You, if you feel like you're alone, then I would just
do some research and starttalking to other men, even your
close friends.
You could just say hey, man, Iknow we don't talk about this a
lot, but this is what I'm goingthrough.
Like, are you going through thesame thing?
It's okay for not, so can yoube okay having an uncomfortable
conversation?
Reach out to me, reach out toanybody, and like there's people
(34:19):
willing to talk to you aboutthese things and what you're
going through is what everysingle guy goes through.
So just, you got to know thatyou're not alone in that.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I'm going to put the links to your website and your
Instagram, because I do wantpeople to have an easy way to
access you and reach out to you.
I know that sometimes dads thatI speak with feel alone because
they might not have kept intouch with friends that they
used to, and now that they'redads they've kind of given
everything to their work andtheir family and there was no
(34:51):
time left for friends.
What do you say to that dad whofeels like, well, I am actually
really alone.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
You don't have to be.
That's a decision.
There's a couple of differentkinds of guys.
There's a kind of guy who getsvalue or he buys into the
narrative that going it alonelike a crusader is somehow noble
.
They think they need to become amonk in the woods and go on
this journey alone.
The only thing that does is itmakes it take you longer to get
(35:20):
to where you want to go.
You don't get any bonus pointsIf I end up at the end.
The goal that you want to getto faster and I get to become
the man the goal that you wantto get to faster and I get to
become the man I want to befaster, help my family faster,
then I win.
You don't get any bonus pointsfor going there alone.
Also, it's selfish Because ifyou go on your journey of
self-improvement alone, youdon't get to bring anyone with
(35:43):
you.
There's other men who need yourhelp and I know like at this
point, when you're suffering,it's a selfish place to be
because you're veryself-obsessed.
You're obsessed with how badyou feel and your failures and
how down you are and what youneed.
It's all me, me, me.
Some people need to help me.
So it's a selfish place to be,but that's okay because that's
where you are right now.
(36:03):
The goal is to turn yourselfish place into a selfless
place, to where you can buildyourself and you can help other
people who are in that selfishplace and build them up.
So you need to build yourselfinto someone who is disciplined,
who has routines, who can thengive instead of take all the
time.
And if you are feeling alone,then it is up to you.
(36:23):
Like Marcus Aurelius, one of hisbiggest quotes.
I'm reading the meditation hesays like his philosophy is it's
up to you, it's up to nobodyelse.
But you, like.
You have to do, you have toreach out.
No one's going to come to yourhouse, pull you by the hand.
This is a tough love thing.
No one's going to come to yourhouse, pull you by the hand and
message Chris Rodak or DrHuffington like I need help.
(36:43):
You need to do that and admitthat you're in a suffering state
, say I need help and guess what?
We're willing to help you.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Thank you for saying that, and thank you for
everything that you share, and Iwill continue following you.
Even if I'm not a dad, I enjoywatching your content.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
It's for everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And it's inspiring.
I've been doing push-ups withmy kids.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Awesome, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I think it's funny, it's really cute.
You continue inspiring and Iknow I've seen your wife now
inspiring as well, and I hopeyou both continue to inspire
everybody from around the world.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thank you, this is great, thank you.
Hello, my dear friend , welcome back to another
episode of the Curious Neuronpodcast.
My name is Cindy Huffington andI am your host.
For the past few weeks, I'vebeen talking about the
importance of connection andcommunity, and I'd like to
continue that conversation today.
However, for today'sconversation, I'd like to focus
on dads and what they need inorder to have a safe and engaged
(00:22):
community.
Before I begin, I'd like tothank the Tannenbaum Open
Science Institute as well as theMcConnell Foundation for
supporting the Curious Neuronpodcast.
Without them, it would not bepossible and, as I always say,
without you this would not bepossible.
So please take a moment toreview the podcast, to rate it
and to subscribe to it, becausethat shows the algorithm that
(00:42):
you care and that helps supportthe podcast with the metrics and
the funding that we get tocontinue the podcast.
So I came across Chris'sInstagram account a little while
back maybe almost a year ago atthis point and what I really
enjoyed was how he wasconnecting with his audience and
how he spoke about thiscommunity, with the things that
(01:04):
he was doing in terms of keepingthem accountable for certain
things and motivating them.
So I interviewed Chris becauseI wanted to know what are dads
looking for and what do theyneed in this community and how
important is it for them?
What are the changes that he'sseeing?
And so, whether you are a dador you have been trying to
support your partner, yourhusband, in this maybe difficult
(01:27):
situation that they're goingthrough.
I think this is an importantconversation because Chris
shares what he has seen the pastyear with this community that
he's growing and building, aswell as some of the personal
stories of the dads that arepart of this community, so I
think there's a lot of importantinformation in this podcast
episode.
Please enjoy my conversationwith Chris Rodak.
(01:48):
Hello, chris, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Thanks, glad to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
No happy Glad for you to have me.
I had you earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I just got done doing jujitsu in my garage with a guy
, so I'm like's all messed upbut yeah happy to be happy to be
here at a great time, the firsttime excited to be here well,
that's what I was going to sayanyway, so you just introduced
that.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
You know, I was on your podcast and I really
enjoyed our conversation, so Ithought it'd be nice to have a
similar conversation, but onthis side, or not similar.
This time we're going to turnthe tables and talk about dads,
and I think that you are a greatperson to do that.
So how about we begin with?
Who was Chris before?
The Chris that I see online?
Who's changing dad's lives?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
At times the same Chris and at times a different
Chris.
I went through various phases,like many guys do.
I always share my story becauseI know guys can relate to it.
I grew up in a big family and Ifell in love with music, went
to college, got obsessed withthe saxophone, gained weight
because I practiced saxophoneall the time and I went to
(02:52):
college for music, became amusic teacher, lived by myself
for a year and got crazy, rippedand in shape and disciplined.
And then I got married, hadkids and let it all go, with
excuses of I didn't have time totake care of myself and I got
undisciplined.
So I gained a lot of weight andthrough that process of losing
(03:12):
this thing that I held so dear,which is my discipline, a lot of
things changed in my life and Ilost kind of a lot of the hopes
and the dreams and my attitudechanged, my identity changed and
through that process I becamemotivated, unmotivated.
Motivated, unmotivated to getmyself back into the shape I
used to be in and to be theperson that I wanted, that I
(03:34):
thought I could be.
And that was a 10-year process.
That was some months getting inshape and getting disciplined,
other months not.
I tried to start businesses inthat time but, like I said, I
lost my discipline for myphysical body.
So that transferred toeverything I did, it transferred
to my business, it transferredto everything.
So I was a very up and downperson.
I wanted to be in shape.
(03:55):
I didn't think I was that outof shape, but now that I look
back at those pictures I say,man, you were not the guy you
thought you were, and so I wouldsay was a more emotional,
undisciplined, sloppier versionof myself, but at times also
disciplined when I was motivated.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But inconsistent is a good word well, I think that
word is exactly what I wanted tofocus on for a second, because
I think many of us moms and dadsstruggle with that
inconsistency, right like wewant to be better at something,
whether it's you're, you know,being physically fit.
Or some people come to me andsay I'm trying to journal, but I
can, and I get in and out ofthis habit and I, you know, or
morning routine of some sort,and I think that we fall into
(04:34):
that, and then we're hard onourselves when we fall out of
that routine that we are tryingto do, did you?
Um, so what, what?
What changed for you in termsof getting back to that
discipline that you wanted toachieve?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
wife whose husband paid for everything her entire
life.
And then one time she asked ifshe could buy something and then
he said for what?
And then she said it's nevergoing to happen again.
And then so she went up,started the business, became
wealthy herself.
So she said never again am Igoing to ask anyone for money.
I got to the point where I saidnever again.
That's the Jim Rohn story.
So for me, I saw a picture of myson.
He was happy, a beautiful wife.
(05:29):
I had the job I wanted at thetime house, car.
We were on vacations,everything was going right in my
life.
I had no reason to be unhappy.
But I looked at this picture ofmyself and I was unhappy.
Why was I unhappy?
And I did not want for the restof my life to be an unhappy,
miserable dad, and that wasbecause I allowed myself to kind
(05:51):
of rot and decay a little bit.
I let myself go so badly that Ididn't like who I was.
So I, honestly, was looking atthis picture and saying there's
no reason I should be miserablewith everything that I have
going for me.
I need to make a change.
You call it a rock bottom momentor whatever it was, but it was
(06:11):
also over a course of years andI started joining jujitsu.
After that I started learningmore about my health and then
it's been a year's process.
The dads that you speak withonline and that you connect with
(06:37):
are they experiencing thatsimilar moment, that rock bottom
moment that you call, or thatmoment of realization be on the
brink of divorce?
Maybe they just got in a fightwith their kids for the
hundredth time and they say Idon't want this to be the way it
is.
Maybe they have a health scare.
Or maybe, for the 50th time ina row, they got motivated to
work out and then they lied tothemselves once again and they
(07:00):
just say man, this can be mylife for the next five to 10
years.
And in the content I post, I tryto bring these perspectives to
the forefront, because thereason I was stuck for so long
is because I continually lied tomyself.
A lot of it was mindset andpsychology.
I kept on telling myself I wasbetter than I was.
I kept on telling myselftomorrow was going to be the day
I was going to do something,and then five years would pass.
But I kept on believing theselies, and that's hard whenever
(07:30):
you're the person whocontinually lies to yourself
because you're stuck in your ownfog and your own brain.
So I try to break through thata little bit with some of the
guys I'm speaking to and saylisten, you might be lying to
yourself right.
If you're like I was, you mightbe lying to yourself right now.
You might be worse off than youthink you are.
You're not going to go to thegym tomorrow and look back at
your past five, 10 years.
Have you been breaking promises?
Okay, yes, all right, we needto change something.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Right.
The past couple of days I'vebeen really focusing on talking
about connection and I feel thata lot of people have been
responding to that, saying Idon't feel connected to myself,
I don't feel connected to mypartner.
Um, actually that was thebiggest in the poll, that was
the highest percentage.
It was over 40%.
You know, when I'm thinkingabout the community that you're
building, I'm assuming thatconnection piece to somebody
(08:09):
else who's going through thesame thing is very motivating
for the fathers that you'reworking with.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, it's massive.
It's maybe the most powerfulpart of what we do.
You know I coach some peopleone-on-one, but if you're
joining our Men of Fire program,the most powerful thing that we
do is the brotherhood.
We've got 100 guys in there now.
We have 11 different countries,guys from all over the world.
But why that's important isbecause a lot of times we think
(08:36):
we're the only ones strugglingwith what we're struggling with.
In reality, there's millions ofother people struggling with the
exact same thing.
They're either before you areon your journey right now,
they're exactly where you aregoing through the exact same
things, or they've solved it insome way.
So whenever you share yourstruggles and stories about the
things that you are sufferingfrom, you immediately connect
(08:59):
with other guys and they say hey, wow, I'm not alone in this
struggle.
I'm going through the samething and maybe I was struggling
with this last year and I canshow you a path that I took to
get out of that.
And anytime someone joins mygroup, they have to film a
discussion or an intro video,put it in our discussion group
and say these are the things I'mstruggling with, these are the
things I need help with.
(09:19):
And that is our firstconnection point to every guy in
the group because through ourshared suffering and struggles,
like yeah, we're all goingthrough the same stuff and then
they can reach out and reallyconnect with each other.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I'm assuming that video can be hard for some
people, right?
Because if you haven't reallyspoken about what you're going
through and now you're in frontof people that you don't know
and you have to be vulnerableand talk about what you're
struggling with, what do you seein terms of do they open up
right away and just feel likethis relief of this is my space
to do this 95% of them, yes, butalso for 50% of them that's the
(09:54):
first time they've ever doneanything like that in their life
.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Because a lot of guys isolate.
Many men feel like they have todo things on their own or with
their own group of friends.
I know my group of friendsaround here.
We don't talk about thesethings and yet here they are,
with me and guys around theworld sharing these deep
personal problems.
So it can be uncomfortable forthem.
So it's kind of like aninitiation.
It's kind of like I'm settingthe tone for what the group is
(10:18):
like and what I expect and whatthe culture is, and it's yes,
you will share and be open inhere and yes, you will share and
be open in here and yes, youwill support.
The culture in the group is themost important thing.
It's inspirational, it'ssupportive, no judgment, no
criticism.
It's a safe place for people todo these kinds of things.
And yeah, it is hard for someguys at first, but also that's
their breakthrough moment,because some of them share
(10:38):
things that they've been holdingon to for 10 years and they're
one day into the group andthey're like man, I haven't
talked about that.
And then, once they lay it outthere, then we can start to work
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Right, you mentioned that 50% that had never done
this before, never really openedup in terms of what's going on
and what they're struggling with.
But these they'll have partners,right, they'll have wives and
they'll have partners, and so Ithink that's an important point
for us to talk about, because,you know, my community has
always been about like sharingthis with moms and dads.
I'm sharing the science andI've always been very mindful of
(11:08):
not focusing just on the moms.
However, there are more moms,um, but the people that do reach
out to me from the podcast aredads that are listening and
trying to learn from the scienceand applying this to their
lives.
And the dads that reach out tome, many of them struggle with
the relationship theirrelationship with their partner
and they can't be themselves.
(11:29):
They can't really open up abouttheir mental health struggles,
or they have a partner who'sstruggling with her mental
health and they are taking overeverything and not asking for
help.
So I've seen a lot of that andI imagine those are the people
that haven't really shared withtheir partners those are the
people that haven't reallyshared with their partners.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
that's just tale as old as time.
That's.
It happens constantly and yougo through different states.
The husband will be trying toimprove himself and work on
himself and that changes therelationship and the dynamic
between the two.
Then the wife will do the samething.
Then the husband will feeloffended that he's.
There's a lot of like mixedsignals and it all comes down to
communication with each other.
And here's a typical scenario Aguy will join my group and him
(12:10):
and his wife have been living acertain way for 10 years, you
know, eating pizza, ice cream,movies, netflix every night.
So they get to this point intheir life where they feel
undisciplined, a little sloppy,and they're 35, 40 years old and
they say, man, if I continuethis for the next 10 years and
I'm 50, things aren't going tolook too good.
So the husband will join us.
Three months will go by, he'sin the best shape of his life,
he's disciplined, he has morningroutines, he's getting up at
(12:33):
4.35 AM, he's doing all thisstuff and the wife is saying,
well, what's going on here?
For the past 10 years we'vedone a certain thing, like
Friday's pizza night.
Years we've done a certainthing like friday's pizza night,
saturday's ice cream, sundayday, sunday's movie day and now
the husband is has a differentlife and what that can happen to
some people is that createssome friction some needed
(12:55):
friction in their relationship,where they say, you know, one
person whether it's the husbandor wife, doesn't matter says,
well, do you think you're betterthan me?
Or they say, well, are youtrying to get scared because
they think the person's tryingto leave them.
They say, well, you're tryingto improve yourself.
Why aren't you bringing mealong?
And what it does is it kind offorces a mirror on the other
partner and says, well, if I'mdoing this, you could be doing
(13:17):
this too, and maybe we bothshould change or not change.
It forces a well-neededconversation and confrontation
that could improve the marriageor it could reveal some cracks
Also.
Sometimes this happens and thenthe wife or husband decides to
get their act together too andthey end up supporting each
other and fueling each other'sfires and pushing each other.
(13:37):
But either way, it'swell-needed friction because it
causes conversations that havebeen pushed down for years to
come to the surface.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Right, and what I think of when you talk about
this are the couple's sort ofcommunication skills, conflict
resolution and emotionalintelligence, where you can feel
a certain way, express that youknow and share that, and that's
something many of us strugglewith in our relationship.
So I think what you said thatword, that term needed friction.
I think that's brilliantbecause I think that we do need
(14:07):
some of that to kind of I don'tknow what's the word like reset
right?
Is that a?
I don't worry, I'm.
Next week is my 15 yearanniversary and you know my
husband and I kind of like talkabout that a few every five ish
years, like what do?
we need to reset, what do weneed to work on, what do we need
to change?
And I think that's part of ahealthy relationship, where you
(14:27):
look at that together becauseyou hope, you want to hope that
you're on the same path.
But so many couples arestruggling with this.
I know because I've beentalking about divorce a lot
lately, because people arereaching out to me and asking
for help.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
A needed friction is like going to the gym and adding
weights to your barno-transcript someone, a fight
(15:11):
even.
You're trying to relay a point.
It's how you do it.
Can you relay a message that'simportant to you that you know
the other person's going todisagree with, while still being
warm, loving, strong, confidentand not backing down?
Can you do that?
Can you do that and just notsay yes to the other person
because you're afraid ofconfrontation, while still being
strong and confident andholding your identity, without
(15:33):
going into the male patronizing?
I'm right, you're wrongattitude, because if you do that
, no one wins.
So it's how to communicate islike the tone, the tone of your
voice, the tone of your eyes,the tone of your face.
All these things are extremely,extremely important.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Right that nonverbal is louder than the verbal
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
Guys talk about that.
They say well, chris, I didthis on a call.
They'll say I did what you saidto do yesterday and it didn't
work.
My wife got mad at me.
I said well, tell me exactlyhow you said it Like.
Well, I said you should haveput the yeah, listen to yourself
.
You sound like a jerk.
You need to watch the movie ofyour life.
(16:13):
How do you sound?
How are you coming off?
Can you say the things andstill inspire the person?
That's what we're going for.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
That's so good.
Sometimes moms reach out to meand they are struggling with
their partner who's steppingback, who's there but not
present, who is a great father,but again not fully connected
and very disengaged, but notagain not fully connected and
very disengaged.
From my perspective, I alwaysquestion how are they doing
(16:42):
right, like, how's their mentalhealth, and is there a
conversation that needs to behad?
That will be uncomfortable, butsometimes it doesn't go well.
Sometimes these women are shutdown and they're told that
they're fine, the husbands arefine and there's nothing to talk
about.
They're not going out withfriends, they're not connecting
with anybody, they're stayinghome.
I see this very often.
(17:02):
What would you say to perhapsthe wife or the husband that's
listening if there's this sortof barrier, I guess, to having
this conversation?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, I'm not a scientist, I'm not not a doctor,
I'm not a therapist.
I help guys that went throughwhat I went through, right.
So that's where I can I feelcomfortable helping, like if you
can relate to my story, I canhelp you.
Only so, when I felt like thatbecause I did um, it was 100
caused from me being upset withwho I was.
(17:36):
That's what it was.
A lot of guys describe this termof feeling like you're living
in a fog.
You haven't smiled in a while,you haven't laughed in a while,
you haven't felt real joy.
You remember yourself feelingreal emotions, but you haven't
felt anything for a long time.
I remember feeling like that.
I remember journaling about itand a lot of that comes from a
(17:58):
consistent frustration with yourlife.
It's day after day looking atyourself being frustrated with
your progress and your fitnessand your marriage and your
parenting and your business.
Just in life, just in thisfrustration builds and every day
you don't do something about it, you close yourself off and you
kind of build this cage aroundyourself.
So then you don't want tocommunicate to everyone.
(18:18):
I remember feeling upset andfrustrated, my wife trying to
talk to me about it and me justlike I'm fine and just going
away.
I was closed off and I wastaking my inner frustration out
on her when she was the one whocared about me and she wanted to
help me.
So from my perspective, I wouldsay that if you're a wife and
your husband is like that, heneeds help.
He's.
(18:39):
He's suffering right now.
He's probably very frustratedand unhappy with the state of
his life, and I have wives reachout to me all the time.
More and more, every single day, wives say like I'm filling out
an application for my husbandor I was going to ask about that
.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All the time?
No-transcript.
(19:19):
I want us to be really happytogether in the future.
I want you to be happy.
I'm having this conversationwith you because I feel like you
might not be happy and I wantyou to be really happy and just
on fire and confident.
Do you feel like you are rightnow?
He'll probably say no, okay,well, what's missing right now?
Like talk to him, ask himquestions, let him tell you what
(19:41):
you know he's already going tosay, and then you could say, all
right, well, we can.
You just told me you're notfeeling good.
You just told me you're in abad spot right now.
When were you feeling great?
You know, do your own salescall Like okay, back whenever
you know I was working out, Iwas on a football team, blah
blah.
I had guys around me.
I just felt really good.
Okay, well, do you needsomething like that in your life
(20:02):
right now?
And just ask him simplequestions that cause him to just
dig his own stuff up.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
But if you come at it in the wrong way if you come at
(20:32):
it patronizing.
You need this, this is what'swrong with you would be having
with your partner.
They might say something that'suncomfortable for you.
Again, thinking about theemails I've been receiving and
the number of emails that relateto a marriage that's struggling
, I'm assuming you know apartner could say a man could
say well, this relationship isnot going well, I'm not happy in
(20:53):
my marriage, and that would beuncomfortable, but again, it's
that needed friction.
Perhaps that needs to happenand let's see what we could do
about this right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, and guys talk to me about this as well, and I
take it to the next level and Isay well, do you want to get a
divorce?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Just make the decision right now Take it to
the end.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So you had an argument with your wife.
You're offended, you're hurtright now, right, okay, do you
want to get a divorce?
No, okay, then put that out ofyour mind.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Stop dipping one toe in.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Because guys will have that in the back of their
mind Well, maybe we're not meantfor each other as soon as they
have an argument, and then, whenthings are going well, they say
I'll love you forever.
It's like, no, you need to sayyes or no forever.
And it doesn't matter whatsituation you're in, it doesn't
matter what is happening, whatargument.
Either you're the guy who getsdivorced or you're not.
If you're not, that means everyargument you get into, every
(21:50):
confrontation.
You no longer will take thateasy way out of saying, well,
maybe we're not meant for eachother and then you don't say the
hard needed truth that needs tobe said.
Because if you think maybewe're not meant for each other,
you will always slip out theback end and you're never going
to say the hard thing that takesguts to say to your wife You're
(22:11):
all in or you're all out.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, that's such good advice.
What do you see with dads interms of yeah, that's such good
advice.
What do you see with dads interms of?
Do they talk about their mentalhealth and not, not mental
illness?
But this is I'll explain.
So I've been doing a bit ofresearch, talking to parents,
and I find that you don't haveto have a diagnosis of a mental
illness to not be well.
Sometimes we're not well, we'restruggling, which is what we've
(22:33):
been talking about, but there'san insight, right.
So once they join you, focus onthe discipline and physical
that we've been talking about alittle bit, but to me, focusing
on that would lead to betterwell-being.
So that's what I mean by youknow, do they speak about
feeling happier in other partsof their lives or just feeling
(22:53):
better once they started thisdiscipline?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, absolutely, and it's immediate.
It's not something that needsto take a long time and if
you're listening to this andyou're struggling, you're in a
down spot.
You can feel better one minutefrom now.
You can reflect that externallyin your physical body if you
maintain discipline over timeand you do the consistent,
boring work like going to thegym and eating healthy.
(23:18):
And you can do that over time.
But if you want to feel goodright now, just walk upstairs,
put your face in a bowl offreezing ice water and say, wow,
I did something that feels good.
That was hard for me.
I scared myself a little bit, Ipushed myself.
I guarantee one minute from nowyou're going to feel an ounce
of pain and then you're going tofeel really good about yourself
.
(23:38):
Guys feel good when they aregrowing and progressing in life.
If you are not moving towards agoal and you are stagnant, I
don't care if you have a billiondollars in the bank.
If you are stagnant, you'regoing to feel miserable.
And there's many men out therewho have very successful
businesses, who are making tonsof money, but they're still so
unhappy because their marriageis failing, they have no
(24:02):
connection with their kids,they're personally, they've
allowed themselves to rot away.
And they've got this businesson autopilot.
That's bringing in money.
And they say, well, isn't thiswhat I'm supposed to do?
I'm supposed to provide?
It's like no, you've created atransactional relationship in
every area of your life.
You're just an ATM now.
You have no personal fulfillmentand purpose in life anymore.
So once they get thesedisciplines and routines in life
(24:26):
yeah, a simple thing likehaving a nice routine in the
morning and working out andbeing healthy and actually
thinking man I can becomesomething more personally and
working towards it.
That will fill you witheverything you need and you can
immediately feel better.
It's by promising yourself thatyou it's doing the hard thing
(24:49):
for yourself because you loveyourself.
I'm willing to suffer for me sothat I can be better in the
future.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That brings to mind the word self-care that I get
annoyed of because it'severywhere and I feel that the
definition that we have outthere of self-care is not truly
what self-care should be.
But you kind of defined it inthe way that I like and do
what's the bad way?
The bad going out, going to thespa, it's, that's not self
Getting a facial.
(25:20):
Right, it's not self-care.
Self-care truly is about theinternal work and your internal
dialogue.
Right, because you can go tothe spa every day and come back
and have a really negative tonetowards yourself.
Right, that's so the you knowI'm I'm thinking.
Also, you talked about beingstagnant and and again, I'm just
thinking of the dads that havereached out, and they, they are
there.
You are speaking directly tothe dads that have reached out
and they are there.
You are speaking directly tothe dads that I've spoken with
(25:41):
that listen to this.
So I just want to focus in alittle bit more on that dad who,
right now, just feels likethey're stuck and it doesn't
matter what they do.
The videos and the stories thatI watch with you, sometimes I
giggle because you give thattough love sometimes.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I see that I alternate yep.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Right, and I think of those dads that are kind of
stuck in that and maybe peoplehave tried but maybe they
haven't received that tough loveof getting into it and
researchers are trying to figureout how to support dads.
Should we be doing more of thattough love?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Some guys need it, some guys don't.
So I alternate my approachbecause different people need
different things.
I know that there is a likeI've got 100 guys in my group.
Some of them love it when Iyell at them and they want me to
call them out Like we have highaccountability in my group,
which means, like you will beheld accountable for your goals
(26:40):
and the actions and the thingyou promise, the things you
promise us that you are going todo.
We're going to hold youaccountable and it may it might
work better with men than women,I don't know, um, but some of
these guys like it.
When I like, I'll send themvideo message.
I'll say, and I'll be swearingat them.
I'll say you didn't post yourworkout this morning.
Get your ass on here, post yourworkout.
I know other guys aren't goingto like that and it's going to
(27:03):
do the opposite to them.
So I have to alternate myapproach.
But I know I've got a largeamount of people watching me.
When I make one video, there'sgoing to be a segment of the pie
chart that is going to relateto it.
Another segment is not going to, and I kind of alternate my way
around that pie chart to try toreach everyone I can.
I know that for me, like, I madea post a couple of days ago and
(27:25):
it was right after I gotcamping with my family.
I was looking through my Googlephotos.
I found a really old, sloppypicture of myself where I didn't
look good and that justmotivated me to make a post.
Like if I could go back in timeand tell this guy, who was
feeling sorry for himself, whathe needed to hear, what would I
say?
And I just like ranted atmyself for a page and a half and
it was brutal and I was digginginto myself and you know, I was
(27:46):
yelling at myself.
I know that if someone at thattime came to me and talked to me
like that, that would have donethe trick for me, like I would
have.
I do not need someone to comepat me on the back and say
you're going to be okay.
I need someone to say quitlying to yourself.
(28:08):
Look at the damage you're doingto yourself and your family.
That's what I need to hear,because if you're in your 30s
and 40s and you're a man andyou've been lying to yourself
for 10 years, you need an icepick to come through your brain
and break out like you on thesecalls I have with guys.
You have to break them open,like they have been lying to
(28:29):
themselves for so long.
You have to reveal the damagethey're doing to themselves and
their family, because thereality is it's just numbers.
Some guys will not make thechange.
At our men's retreat we havemen in their 30s, 40s and 50s on
stage crying in front ofeveryone about the damage their
fathers did to them.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That was my next question.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, and they're never healed because their
fathers never made the changeand their fully grown,
successful men still have thisimage in themselves of this
eight-year-old boy who's damaged.
You have to understand that isthe impact.
So I'm okay getting harsh withguys if it's going to save that.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Right, I was going to tap into that a bit to find out
if they were bringing up theirchildhood, because I know that
when I talk with moms, often wehave a certain voice in our head
and that negative voice couldbe our mother or our father and
it's hard to get out of that.
So dads are bringing that up aswell.
From what you just said,they're bringing up their dads.
(29:26):
Are they bringing up thedynamics between their parents
as well?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, and one of the things we did on our retreat was
we did my workshop was calledmy Story, so every guy had to
get up.
We had about 20 guys there toget up on stage and talk about
something that happened in yourpast that you considered
negative, that defined younegatively, but you have to tell
it why.
It's actually the best thingthat ever happened to you.
(29:52):
So we had to redefine ourstories and guy.
It ended up taking a day and ahalf.
I was supposed to take twohours.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So we just kept on going.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And I wasn't going to stop the guys as they were in
tears and getting emotional.
It's like every single guy wasup there talking about who they
are, their childhood, theirfamily, the traumas they went
through and they said the mostpersonal things you can imagine
and I never remember this oneguy super successful guy owns a
furniture company and I neverremember this one guy super
successful guy owns a furniturecompany, does well, in great
shape.
He's in his 40s.
(30:21):
He told us a story about beingsix years old.
I'm going to tear up talkingabout it.
It makes me emotional.
His parents sent him away tothis summer camp for three
months and he came back and hisparents threw away a special
blanket and he was on stagecrying about it.
I was like man, there's littlethings you remember forever.
(30:44):
And then there's also abuse anddrug problems and guys are
talking about their fathers whocheated on their mothers and
whether it was just tense andcold in the house all day, all
time.
They remember that and it's theguys who grew up with anger
issues in their house have angerissues right now with their
kids.
The guys who grew up with a badrelationship with their moms
(31:08):
and their parents had a badrelationship.
They have a bad relationshipwith their wife right now.
They just took on all thoseburdens and problems, but they
decided to do something about itand break the cycle.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Let's finish off our conversation around that the
cycles right.
It's not easy to break thecycles.
It's first you have to noticeit and realize that you have
continued either the entirecycle or parts of the cycle, but
it takes a lot of insight.
You mentioned journaling before.
Are the dads journaling as well?
Are they starting therapy?
(31:42):
Are they figuring this out ontheir own?
What's the sort of guidancearound that?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, journaling is part of our mandatory program,
so I help each guy develop aroutine that helps build them
over the next 12 months.
So it's something you do everysingle day that will build you
into a disciplined person, theperson that you want to become.
But journaling is one of thenon-negotiables that we have to
do and we have different promptsand ways that we journal, but
(32:07):
the most impactful thing that wedo is just sharing, and I've
had guys in my group who havebeen at therapy and they say
that our group is upgraded.
Therapy do is.
(32:27):
I always start off with alesson or stories from my life
and then we go into the guys andwe say, okay, what are you
struggling with?
What's the thing that's holdingyou back?
What are you frustrated with?
And each guy goes around andtalks about the things that are
keeping them stuck right now.
And for me it's like who canhelp you more?
No, offense therapists.
It's like this person, thisrandom person over there who you
talk to once every other week,or a guy who has the same job as
(32:51):
you, same life situation, ismarried, has kids, going through
exact same struggles, has beensuffering for three years with
what you're suffering with andhas found a way out.
Right, I'm going to read thisthing that some professor said
in the book two years ago.
It's like no.
And then we dig in and we talkabout this and it's three times
a week and the guys that are themost engaged and on all these
(33:13):
Zoom calls, make massive,massive progress and sometimes
just the pure fact of sharing itwith other guys just lets that
beach ball out of the water.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I do believe what you said is part of the future, in
my opinion, of mental healthcare no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You, if you feel like you're alone, then I would just
do some research and starttalking to other men, even your
close friends.
You could just say hey, man, Iknow we don't talk about this a
lot, but this is what I'm goingthrough.
Like, are you going through thesame thing?
It's okay for not, so can yoube okay having an uncomfortable
conversation?
Reach out to me, reach out toanybody, and like there's people
(34:19):
willing to talk to you aboutthese things and what you're
going through is what everysingle guy goes through.
So just, you got to know thatyou're not alone in that.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I'm going to put the links to your website and your
Instagram, because I do wantpeople to have an easy way to
access you and reach out to you.
I know that sometimes dads thatI speak with feel alone because
they might not have kept intouch with friends that they
used to, and now that they'redads they've kind of given
everything to their work andtheir family and there was no
(34:51):
time left for friends.
What do you say to that dad whofeels like, well, I am actually
really alone.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
You don't have to be.
That's a decision.
There's a couple of differentkinds of guys.
There's a kind of guy who getsvalue or he buys into the
narrative that going it alonelike a crusader is somehow noble
.
They think they need to become amonk in the woods and go on
this journey alone.
The only thing that does is itmakes it take you longer to get
(35:20):
to where you want to go.
You don't get any bonus pointsIf I end up at the end.
The goal that you want to getto faster and I get to become
the man the goal that you wantto get to faster and I get to
become the man I want to befaster, help my family faster,
then I win.
You don't get any bonus pointsfor going there alone.
Also, it's selfish Because ifyou go on your journey of
self-improvement alone, youdon't get to bring anyone with
(35:43):
you.
There's other men who need yourhelp and I know like at this
point, when you're suffering,it's a selfish place to be
because you're veryself-obsessed.
You're obsessed with how badyou feel and your failures and
how down you are and what youneed.
It's all me, me, me.
Some people need to help me.
So it's a selfish place to be,but that's okay because that's
where you are right now.
(36:03):
The goal is to turn yourselfish place into a selfless
place, to where you can buildyourself and you can help other
people who are in that selfishplace and build them up.
So you need to build yourselfinto someone who is disciplined,
who has routines, who can thengive instead of take all the
time.
And if you are feeling alone,then it is up to you.
(36:23):
Like Marcus Aurelius, one of hisbiggest quotes.
I'm reading the meditation hesays like his philosophy is it's
up to you, it's up to nobodyelse.
But you, like.
You have to do, you have toreach out.
No one's going to come to yourhouse, pull you by the hand.
This is a tough love thing.
No one's going to come to yourhouse, pull you by the hand and
message Chris Rodak or DrHuffington like I need help.
(36:43):
You need to do that and admitthat you're in a suffering state
, say I need help and guess what?
We're willing to help you.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Thank you for saying that, and thank you for
everything that you share, and Iwill continue following you.
Even if I'm not a dad, I enjoywatching your content.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
It's for everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And it's inspiring.
I've been doing push-ups withmy kids.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Awesome, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I think it's funny, it's really cute.
You continue inspiring and Iknow I've seen your wife now
inspiring as well, and I hopeyou both continue to inspire
everybody from around the world.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thank you, this is great, thank you.
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