Episode #1002
If you’ve been telling yourself “now’s not the right time,” it might be time to take a closer look at what that’s really costing you. In this episode, Doug Holt and Coach Mark Smith dive into the common trap a lot of men fall into—waiting, hoping, and putting off action in their relationships, health, and personal growth.
This isn’t about hype or motivation. It’s about being honest with yourself, owning where you’re at, and recognizing that hope alone doesn’t create change—leadership does. Doug and Mark share real stories from men they’ve coached, what happens when guys delay action, and how taking even the smallest step can shift everything.
If you’ve been stuck in your head, waiting for a better time, this episode is your call to stop hoping and start doing. No fluff—just real talk, practical insight, and a challenge to lead your life, not wait your way through it.
👉 Ready to stop waiting and start taking real action?
Watch the free training now at fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales. It’ll walk you through exactly what’s not working—and how to turn it around. No fluff, just clarity.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
In other words, we can justify our actions for whatever we do. Yeah, we can justify our actions for showing up greatly, for our families, taking the risk of bettering ourselves. It’s an investment right and time and money to better ourselves. But we can also justify why we don’t take action, yeah, why it’s not the right time. It’s not the right time my business life, my kids are five and six. I can’t do it now. Wait till they get older. Yeah, and those justifications are what cripple us.
Doug Holt 0:39
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the TPM show, and today we’re greeted with none other than Coach Mark Smith. Mark has been here at the TPM ranch doing what he does best, which is empowering men from around the world, coaching them, guiding them, and giving them mentorships that they need. And today is a really important podcast episode, because Mark and I are going to talk about something that we hear most commonly from men. This is one of probably the top five issues we’re seeing in men today. So stick around, and at the end of the episode, we’re going to give you some tools to how you can change this mindset. Mark, thanks for being here. Man, oh, it’s always a pleasure. Doug, yeah, it’s not so much fun. The team retreat and everything else, and alpha risings, alpha resets. You’ve been a busy boy.
Mark 1:23
Yeah, it’s been a whole lot of energy expended and received. There you go, as
Doug Holt 1:31
long as it’s two ways, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, what I want to talk to you about, and we talked a little bit this off camera, is something that we hear from a lot of men, and I’ve been guilty of this myself, is this notion of, if I wait it out, it’ll get better. Kind of this idea like, hey, you know now’s not the right time. I’ll do it someday, or I need to wait until later to do it. Or, hey, you know what, my wife’s mad at me. And maybe if I just keep quiet and wait it out next month, next year, things will be better.
Mark 2:03
It’s the same thing with debt. Just ignore the interest rates are going up or whatever. I’ll just ignore it until such time as you know that that business comes in, etc, and then it’ll work out. And oftentimes we get caught out because waiting leaves us with virtually zero control over the outcome.
Doug Holt 2:25
Yeah? And so if we have zero control, essentially, what we’re doing, and guys are gonna hate they hate this when I call it out is you’re being a victim. Yeah? You’re giving your power away to something external of you. You’re throwing your hands up in the air saying, I can’t do anything about this, where I won’t because I’m too scared, is really what you’re saying, yeah? And then they’re playing the victim card, yeah,
Mark 2:46
yeah. And the other word for that, in terms of a victim, would be the king abdicating his kingdom, yeah, he’s not taking leadership, is, is actually allowing things to just to run their course. And there’s, there’s a certain strategic benefit to timing and timing, it can be extremely important. However, there’s a difference between choosing timing and allowing something to just run it, you know, run its course and hope. Hope is not a strategy. Hoping something’s gonna get better will never work.
Doug Holt 3:18
Yeah, I say surviving off hopium like you’re smoking opium, hoping it’s gonna work at the end of the day. And I’ve seen this in other categories, like, you know, the reason you and I were talking about this, we just had our team retreat. I think there was 34 people that make this movement, we call TPM, actually work going forward. And I was talking to a group of the advisors. So for those guys that don’t know, the advisors when you schedule a call to figure out if a TPM program is going to work for you, one is you fill out an application to see if you can get through. Two is the advisors are going to figure out what your story is, right. Hey, why are you on the phone? What’s going on? What’s your situation? And if a TPM is not the right fit, they’re going to tell you that and advise that you go somewhere else or give you some insights. I asked him, I go look what’s the number one reason that when you’re on a phone with a man, he recognizes that something has to change, but he doesn’t take action. And unanimously, they said they gave me about six things, and the underlying current was they’re hoping it’ll just get better on its own if they wait it out. And that seems so odd to me, but yet I can reflect back on other conversations I’ve had with people, and it could be as simple as I want to get in shape, but you know what I got? The Fourth of July is coming up here in the States, and yeah, I know I’m gonna be eating burgers and drinking beer. Yeah, the sixth of July, that’s what I’m gonna start working out and exercising, not today before, and allow myself to have a good Fourth of July. But they’ll wait and they’ll I think what they’re doing mark is they’re pushing the work or the hope for success further down the line, because they’re scared if, if they actually take action and it doesn’t work. What does that mean? Mean by them, about them,
Mark 5:01
yeah, as delaying the inevitable. Yeah, right. At some point you’re going to have to face it. In my experience, going back to the debt analogy, it just gets bigger. The interest rate keeps on piling on the interest. And typically, what happens in those case? Cases, the guys push it off, and they’ll speak to an advisor at TPM and push it off. And some of the advisors will come back to me and say, I spoke to this guy six months ago, and he contacted me again because now it’s got worse. Yep, right, and that’s typically what happens. You hope put your head in the sand and it just the situation does get worse. It doesn’t stay static. It doesn’t get better. It gets worse.
Doug Holt 5:40
Yeah, nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10. Yeah, I was talking to a guy today, and he and his wife were fighting, and his def explanation is his wife is fighting him right, more or less, but he goes, Doug, like I’m getting all of these lengthy text messages, just tons of telling her that I don’t appreciate her. I’m not there for her, and, like, basically, she doesn’t want me in her life anymore. Now, they’ve been married for a long time, together as a couple, dating for much longer. And I just as he was explaining his story, I was listening, and I go, how long has this been going on? He’s like, man, it’s been two days, just continuous, and I’ve been out of the house. She doesn’t want me around. I said, Well, okay, what’s your plan? He’s like, Well, just I’m trying to figure it out and respond to these messages as they come in and see if I can make the situation a little bit better. And I looked at him because I was able to just look him in the face, and I said, Hey, man, why don’t you just go over there now and talk to her and nip this in the bud now, rather than waiting because it’s not going to get better, it actually is going to snowball and it’s going to get worse and worse, and stories compile more and more and more. And I also see this with men who have had marital problems for months or years, right? They think, ah, you know, I’ll wait till next month. Or, you know what? Q4 would be better financially for me to make a commitment, or for me to take the time out of my life. And the truth is, waiting only actually exacerbates the problem. Makes it much, much worse. You’re you’re giving a gap for the other person, in this case, this guy’s wife, to make up more and more stories against you. Yeah,
Mark 7:17
yeah. It’s the same as guys saying that they are not in the right position right now to go and do an Alpha Reset, I say to them, there’s never going to be a right time. Yes, and fortunately for us and unfortunately for us, the only time we have to take action is right now. I cannot be in the future, taking action 100%
Doug Holt 7:39
and as you know, what’s the number one thing guys say after The Alpha Reset or after the activation method? I wish I would
Mark 7:45
have done it sooner or done it years ago. Yes, yeah.
Doug Holt 7:50
And they can’t, right? And so, you know, men listening to this or watching this on YouTube or Spotify or what have you. If you go to our website, you’ll see hundreds of men doing video testimonials. These aren’t guys that necessarily want to be on camera. We don’t force them, but they wreck they wish somebody else would have reached out to them years ago. So they’re going, Hey, I’m gonna pay this forward. I’m gonna speak my truth, yeah, in the hopes that you know, I wish it, it would reach a younger version of me, yeah, and I can help another guy not make the same mistake I have. Yeah?
Mark 8:24
So what would you say is the antidote to hopium?
Doug Holt 8:29
Action? Simple? Yeah, it is. It is really simple. So take the I don’t know who I learned this from, but I learned on really early in my in my personal development journey, my 20s, maybe even earlier, before that is take the smallest actionable step possible, okay? Because that gives you momentum, right? You kind of have to, you know, it’s like, this is gonna be a crass technology, but I’ll use it anyway, because, you know, when you have to go, you’re out somewhere and you can’t go to the bathroom. You don’t want to break the seal, guys say, because once you break the seal, you have to pee a lot. More frequently. I was at the rodeo when I was with you, actually, and Josh and a couple other people. Yeah, someone said that to me. Okay, I think it’s appropriate, because you need to break the seal of your problem or action just taking that first immediate step. So so for this gentleman that I was talking to, his wife was mad at him, texting him, first thing I go. Could you just drive home right now? Yes, get in the truck. Do that now. Yeah, right. And what happens when you get in the door? You’ll figure that part out. Yeah. And it may not work perfectly, but it’s a catalyst for future action. Yeah, you know. And also see for a man listening to this right now who’s on the treadmill or out for a walk doing his ARS. I hope you know, let’s get on a call with an advisor. Yeah, right. The calls, no one forces anybody to do anything. Just get on a phone call, show up, show up, real and have a conversation and see if TPM is the right fit for you or or do another program. Yeah, I
Mark 9:58
think you made a good point. There is. That there is no force and TPM isn’t for everybody, so we qualify guys whether they’re right for us and vice versa. So there’s an opportunity to at least have and our advisors are exceptional in terms of their ability to read a situation and give some immediate input as to some breaking the seal type actions that you can take to immediately have a have a positive benefit. And the the challenge with that is that, you know, you take that step that somebody, either a friend or an advisor at TPM, gives you, and it has a small result, right? Oh, she’s got off my case, or, you know, that situation has has been remediated slightly, and then they stop, yeah, and go back into opium, yeah. So I’ve taken a step, go back into laissez faire. And let’s see what happens, you know, and see, seeing what happens is not a strategy either. You know, allowing things to to just evolve in terms of a situation that needs a solution is is a damaging strategy. The The only thing that I found that works in my life is consistent and I’m I fall over, you know, make mistakes. We’re all human, yeah, but I get back on the horse and I keep going, and I keep going and I keep working at it, because it’s not something that’ll ever resolve itself. Life doesn’t resolve itself.
Doug Holt 11:33
No, it doesn’t. And, you know, our programs are for business owners and C suite executives. Now, we did open a program for their employees called TPM navigate that is available for employees. It’s this totally separate program that guys can go through just to help more men. But when I think about this situation, and I think about all these business owners and executives that are calling up that are making decisions on a daily basis, I would never right. I’ve run a lot of companies. I would never run a business being like, wow, sales are down, you know, complaints are up, you know what? Let’s just wait and see how it goes. Yeah,
Mark 12:11
let’s hope q3 is better than q2 but no plans. Fingers,
Doug Holt 12:16
no plan, no action. Yeah, I don’t want to disrupt our sales team or our product development team, because I don’t want them to get upset. Yeah, that’s no way. No one would do that. They would take immediate action, diagnose the problem, and they would say, hey, sales are down. Is that marketing? Okay, great. Maybe our marketing is not good. Let’s hire a consultant. Let’s get a marketing coach. Let’s bring in a CMO. Let’s bring in help, yeah. But yet, in the most important territory for all the men, which is going to be our relationships, right? When you’re looking back sitting on that rocking chair, sipping some iced tea or bourbon or whatever it may be for you in your 80s or 90s, reflecting on your life, it’s not going to be your business decisions, you’re you’re reflecting on positively, it’s your relationships. Yeah, yet, we, you know, you had a lot of men, and this was me back at Doug 1.0 Yeah, we, we don’t invest our time, resources, etc, energy into developing those relationships or learning how to develop those relationships. Instead, we put our head down.
Mark 13:18
Yeah, it’s like having great health insurance, smoking and drinking, knowing that I’ve got insurance, you know, down the line, it’ll eventually work itself out. I’ll have the resources. Then may not work out. Maybe too late.
Doug Holt 13:33
It may be too late. And that’s kind of the old joke, right? Is wealthy people spend all their wealth trying to get healthy. They sacrifice their health to get wealth, and yeah, they flip the coin. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of us guys have done that in our relationships, right? We put our head down. Hey, I’m gonna bust my ass. I’m gonna make money, I’m gonna provide for my family Mark. I’m gonna make sure that they are good, and they’re gonna love me for it. And then they’re out of resources. They get home, they’re tired, they’re grumpy, they’ve had a bad day, and then next thing they know, fast forward, 1234, years. Maybe throw some kids in the mix, make it more stressful, you know? And they look around, they’re like, where is everybody? Why isn’t everybody thanking me for all my hard work? Yeah, but yet, they haven’t put in the time and effort into that relationship and learning the skills, it’s not inherent as we might think it
Mark 14:24
is. Yeah, well, I had the experience of not seeing my kids, as, you know, because they were separated from me for sometimes an extended period, and I’ve had to put in the work retrospectively to build those relationships, and really, obviously I did all the way along, but like I said, it was every couple of weeks, or every couple of months in some cases. And so the the lesson from that is, and what I speak to guys about, is, every single day, pay attention to your daughter and pay attention to your son, pay attention to your wife, listen to them. Learn them. Learn their preferences. Is be curious, you know, because taking action, as you said, is, is what drives the connection, and what drives the connection builds trust and builds intimacy and and that is a solid foundation for any man and his life from which you can build anything, any business, right? Once you’ve got that foundation and putting that last or putting your head in the sand, or relying on hopium to build your foundation for your life. For me, seems like it’s a suicidal strategy.
Doug Holt 15:32
It is, man. I mean, imagine your kids. What would for you have said, You know what? I’m just going to wait another 10 years, five years a year, and hope that things get better, hope that they finger, figure out the story that potentially their their mother told them wasn’t true, or whatever else narrative they’re being fed. Yeah, and so many men have to unwind that stuff because they have waited. But it’s not too late, right? No, you never, never too late. You and I have seen people in their 60s, you know, or even later, you know, some people I’m talking Yeah, they pull up the plane from the nosedive and reconnect with kids that are children who are adults in their 40s, and re establish that love and connection so they can move forward. Yeah,
Mark 16:14
I actually hopped on a call with a colleague with Andy earlier on, and he was on a call with a guy who had been at The Alpha Reset with me, and after that guy left, Andy said to me, what the heck did you do to him at the reset? Because he literally was in a nosedive, and he was the one wanting to end the relationship because he couldn’t see a way out, and he was hoping that it would get better. Fortunately for him, he took some massive action, jumped into the reset and had a huge epiphany, realized that he had to take responsibility and change his energy, his behavior, his attitude, his communication, a whole lot of stuff. And fortunately for him, he did that, and things are really on the up and up. And the interesting thing is, as a result of really diving into his relationship and what matters most in his life, his business is taking off in parallel. I
Doug Holt 17:03
love that. For listeners that don’t know, the Alpha Reset, the event that you’re talking about is our four day intensive immersion experience. And I would say, because we do an anonymous survey on that mark, as you know, the resets I’ve done, I would say 100% of the men say is it’s in the top three most life transforming events that have happened their life, next to having kids, next to meeting their Creator, you know, or what have you, and seeing that done, and almost every guy has a reason to put it
Mark 17:36
off. Yeah, right, absolutely. Guys afterwards, they say to me, I was doing my best to find an excuse or a reason not to do this, because somewhere in our subconscious, we know that in order to get better, we’re going to have to face some things about ourselves, and that may be uncomfortable. And like I said, going back to the debt analogy, putting all of the debts out on a piece of paper is uncomfortable, because you have to see you know what you owe, and that can feel like a burden, and yet you know the only way to to essentially consume it is eat it piece by piece, 100%
Doug Holt 18:13
and face it, right? That’s that’s the deal as the reason guys have excuses for the Alpha Reset. Let’s see my business can’t run without me. Can’t be away from my wife and my kids. My wife has X, Y and Z. My wife’s giving me pushback. Super common, right? Yeah, these are all reasons that men don’t get on calls with an advisor. These are all reasons that men don’t show up for a program like the activation method, and they’re very common. So some people might think I can imagine myself listening to this. We were talking about putting something off. What is my wife giving me a hard time? Have to do with that? They don’t correlate. And I think it’s completely opposite, right? It’s about leadership, yeah, and making excuses like we’re justifying machines. I am right when I tell this story a lot because I did this when I was in my early 20s. I was paid to be a researcher for the International Sports Science Association. I was the assistant director of education for them, so I researched, and I was on the phones with doctors chiropractors, and helping them with information if their clients had issues. And in that, I was on PubMed, which is this thing where you can look at all the medical published journals and things. And so when I quit drinking coffee, right? I could quote you all these studies on why coffee is bad for you. Then I started drinking coffee again later, and I could show you all these studies on how great coffee is for you. Great for cognition, you know. And in other words, we can justify our actions for whatever we do. Yeah, we can justify our actions for showing up greatly, for our families, taking the risk of bettering ourselves. It’s an investment right and time and money to better ourselves. But we can also justify why we don’t take action, yeah, why it’s not the right time? Yeah, it’s not the right time. Business life. My kids are five and six. I can’t do it now. Wait till they get older. Yeah, and those justifications are what cripple us.
Mark 20:07
And then we get into triage, right? And then suddenly something, there’s a cataclysmic event, and you’ve got no choice, because then you’re, you know, you’ve got drips and various things, and you’re in the ER, and it’s the same thing, you know, are you going to wait for your relationship to implode and then take massive action, purely and simply because you want to avoid an expensive divorce? Meanwhile, during the hopium period, the kids have been watching everything. They’ve been absorbing it. Hey
Doug Holt 20:36
guys, I just want to share something with you. I’m sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what’s broken. And not only need to know what’s broken, but a step by step methodology on how you can fix it. That’s the easiest way to do it right. Otherwise, you’re going to be toiling with things. That’s why I created a free training, a training that only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing, that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have to how you get it back? How do you retain that where your wife’s looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, I do, you know, I don’t know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like I’m her man, that feel like I can conquer the world, and I want that for you, simply go over to the powerful man.com forward slash scales. That’s the powerful man.com forward slash scales, and I have a free video training for you. You can just click play and see if this resonates for you. Now, back to the podcast.
Mark 21:37
You’ve got years and years of work to do thereafter, to to help the kids regulate and to repair the relationship. So why not? Why not get ahead of it? You know, I don’t understand it. It’s for me, somehow, somewhere, I’m very grateful the relationship being first and primarily building a strong, solid family was more important than the business, yes,
Doug Holt 22:00
and that you’re smart, or you learned this along your way. Yeah, I didn’t early on. I thought I got married, check the box. Now my job is to put my head down and so I can get the house with a picket fence and all of that good stuff. And that’s what I did. And I looked up and I’m like, Why is this not working? Like, you know, it was just a fair and TPM wasn’t around then. So I didn’t have an activation, I didn’t have a proven methodology, the activation method that 1000s of men have been through and have worked for. So it there wasn’t that out there, that roadmap, yeah. And I think we, we put, we putter along, right, and think about golf, right? So I want to start getting into golf. Yeah, what’s the first thing I did is I reached out to a golf instructor to take golf lessons, right? Shorten the learning curve, shorten the time gap. I don’t have a ton of time. I don’t have 10 years of doing bad swings out in a golf course, yell throwing clubs at people.
Mark 22:57
You mean, you’re not like me as a golfer. I call
Doug Holt 23:01
myself a bachelor party golfer. I go out and have a good time. I
Mark 23:05
say golf is my handicap, yeah,
Doug Holt 23:09
something I want to get into, and I think a lot of guys can relate to this, is you get a coach, you get somebody to help you along the way, absolutely. But for some reason, relationships or the blueprint, which is our program that we have for men that are just a little stuck and unsure. Relationship is good for those guys, they’re just a little stuck and unsure on their next path in life, and that’s been a proven program. We don’t talk about that one as much. That actually helps guys along the way, but the first thing you have to do is you have to be an inquiry, right? Curious inquiry? Yeah. And when you’re in curious inquiry, you’re asking yourself the question, what do I want? Is the is, what’s what I’m doing now working for me, right? And if not, what else is a possibility? Yeah. And the hardest part is actually going out and investigating. It’s easy to be a keyboard jockey. Sit behind your keyboard, ask chat. GPT, you know what’s the best Pro? What’s the best way to repair my marriage, but actually getting on a phone call and talking to somebody, and this could be golf too, right? Calling the golf the golf course, and asking for a PGA pro or somebody to work with, and actually talking to the golf instructor? Yeah, is very different, yeah, yeah.
Mark 24:22
And it’s like, guys will say, Well, I’ve, I’ll just get Doug’s book and I’ll do that. Yeah, you know version. Well, I’ve read many golf books, yes. And I’m nowhere near Tiger Woods. What I have done is, is worked on myself continuously for many, many years, and been willing to turn around and face the things that have been difficult and that has moved the needle, yeah?
Doug Holt 24:43
So, well, you have to, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with reading a golf book and going out to the course. Yeah? No, absolutely, it’s a big difference. I mean, to use a different analogy, I use a lot. I was interested one time about flying planes, right? With a small airport nearby, and I started reading about how to fly a plane, yeah? I get in the cockpit by myself? No friggin way, no. But you read the book and you get the professional guidance along the way to help you and your particular What are your limitations? Doug, you know? Oh, did I mention I’m afraid of heights? Yeah, yeah. These small little things that that set us back. So we go from a curious, a curious framework like so is what’s happening now working to me. And the way that I look at that mark is, is my situation serving me to the best of my ability? So if it was relationship, and I had this conversation today with a guy, I said, Are you settling? And it’s okay if you you consciously are settling, yeah, for what? But, are you settling for, for and are you happy? Yeah. And he’s like, No, I’m settling and, no, this is not what I want. Okay, now we have something to work with, right? Things aren’t good, yeah. Now what can we do to make them better? Yeah, you know. And how do we do it as quickly as possible? You and I both know that. Gosh, when our relationship’s not working, it bleeds into every category. Yep, I thought it was just me Doug, and you just can’t concentrate at all on what’s going on. So actually, and then that’s where the action step comes in.
Mark 26:13
Well, that’s why it’s foundational, isn’t it, because if something isn’t working in our love life and in the family unit, the I challenge any man to have have a great day and have that not affect you at some level. I mean, guys will put on a mask and pretend go and do meetings, and they’ll go and potentially even close a huge deal, yeah, at the same time, driving home from that huge deal that, you know, I can’t really phone her because I just yelled at her or called her names, or whatever it is, or I’m shrouded in shame, doesn’t make for a great celebration? Yeah, no. So it impacts everything. It totally does.
Doug Holt 26:53
So gosh, yesterday morning, I woke up, didn’t have a good night’s sleep, had kids in the bed. My wife was, she’s a morning person. Chippers can be of coffee. And so we got in a disagreement, but, you know, it was about a trip that we’re that we wanted to take, and we saw the trip very differently, okay? And so we got in a disagreement, and we quickly repaired, right? We use The Hidden Motives Technique, or I use The Hidden Motives Technique, I should say, well done. Thank you. Gotta eat your own cooking. So I use The Hidden Motives Technique. And there’s a little voice in the back of my head, Mark. It was like, you know, kind of the teenager don’t do it. Just, you know, kind of get angry, yeah. But I was like, This is not what I want. And I reflected on this after the conversation we had repair, and I reflected on this, and I was like, Man, that would have been an argument that would have lasted at least two weeks of disconnect. Oh, we’re both stubborn as all get out. It had been walls put up. It would have been stonewalling, like, you know, I’m really good at the stonewalling thing, and be a passive aggressiveness all the bad things, right? That’s what we’ve done. And then we wouldn’t have had there’d be no intimacy, we’d both be disconnected, and it just wouldn’t have worked now, so that was yesterday morning, prepared. It reconnected, great. And then a family emergency happened today, where my wife really needed me, like she needed me in a big way, okay? And if I wouldn’t have repaired that mark, she wouldn’t have come to me. Wow, right? So there’s the impact, right there, the huge impact. And guys, I think a lot of men, don’t realize that their wives are struggling, right? They’re crying in the showers. We hear this all the time, because they don’t want their husband to know. They don’t want to appear weak. And there’s little events like this, right? Maybe your wife is wanting to come to you, but she’s scared, or she’s pissed at you, or or mad, or whatever it is. And I can tell you, man, all the money I’ve invested in my own growth, I would have doubled that amount, which is a lot of money, just to be able to have that moment, to be there for
Mark 28:58
my wife. Yeah, I love that something that occurs to me, and I’m linking it back to the topic of taking action and really stepping up for ourselves and for our families, and getting a coach and and being willing to take guidance. Because a lot of business owners are like, well, I know what I’m doing. You know, I’ve been doing this for years, so that’s also partly, part of the object objection could be a bit of arrogance. You know, I’m a smart man. I’ll figure this out. I’ll move my way through listening to her and what she wants, listening to a coach, being willing, willing to listen to that inner voice in in you that says, you know, just take a step back and and hear what she has to say and validate that it’s extremely possible that she could be right yeah for her, you know, yeah. And, and then take taking action. You know, being being willing to drop the guard, is something that I found hugely. Useful, my self righteous indignation and arrogance would come to play, and then I’d catch myself. I’ve learned to catch myself and then immediately go into, you know, I did that really badly, or I started, I started that off, really in a way that I didn’t mean to. And it’s my ego or whatever getting in the way. Can I? Can I have a redo? Yeah, and I’m sorry for for pushing you away, or whatever it is, stonewalling you mentioned that kind of thing. And as a consequence, my wife and I, we don’t have arguments. We’re very strong personalities, both of us, and we push, push back, but it’s not an argument. It’s people will often say to as cheap as you two, like, tone it down. And we’re not having an argument, we’re just disagreeing with each other and and there’s no disconnect, right? The relationship is solid and stays there even though the subject is disagreeable, yeah, you know, once the subjects over, we go, okay, agree to disagree, then we’re holding hands and cuddling each other, and people like what, you know, because it one of the things that we go through and teach in TPM is that emotional intelligence, that emotionally intelligent listening hidden motives, is part of it. You know, there are a couple of processes we take guys through that that really pragmatically helps you to repair a disconnect at an emotional level. And also, if I have my way, guys carry on doing the work and are willing to create and construct a relationship at the foundational level, which is pretty unbreakable. If you work for years on it, it can last you a lifetime,
Doug Holt 31:34
absolutely. And the thing I loved a lot of the things that you said there, that you’re doing with Bonnie, and also, how long did you wait to have that redo?
Mark 31:46
I don’t wait exactly. Take it, hit it straight on the head,
Doug Holt 31:48
absolutely when that’s the point, right? Yeah. And again, men are doing exactly what you do in business. They’re doing it in all kinds of other areas, yeah. And the point of this conversation is to kind of grab a guy, give him a little shake. If he’s doing this in his area of his relationship, or his health, or whatever else it might be, it’s you gotta be in a state of inquiry and then a state of action.
Mark 32:11
Yeah, yeah. The piece that I think might be useful for guys to know is, we’ve worked with many, many, many men over many years. Yeah, we know what the hell we’re doing, right? You don’t go to a doctor and say, Oh, I’ll stitch myself up. You just write the script. 100% trust, trust the process. And there’s so much wisdom in taking guidance from those who know, those who’ve done the work.
Doug Holt 32:38
Yeah, I think a lot of people, we don’t talk about this much, but TPM has been around for eight years. Yeah, there’s so many of these kind of pop up, fly by night, guy working out of his basement, you know, he’s done our course, maybe. And is, you know, trying to now be a coach. And I respect anybody trying to help other people, right? I don’t want to, don’t want to slam them, but we’ve been doing this for eight years. We have a methodology that we’ve proven time and time again. We’ve invested in 106 acre ranch for retreat center to so it’s a brick and mortar almost, versus online, and that’s where you want to do it. You don’t want to go to a doctor in an alley, you know, yeah, like, Where’d you go to medical school? I
Mark 33:21
had to build to say he, you know, when I was interviewing him to do a remodel for me, he said, I said, Where did you learn? He said, YouTube. He said,
Doug Holt 33:31
Exactly, I don’t, I don’t want, I don’t want to be your first case study. Exactly. I want the doctor that’s done 1000 of these procedures, not his first procedure. What could go wrong? Right? Yeah, exactly. It’s there’s nothing big at stake, just your marriage. Yeah, your family.
Mark 33:44
Like guys going down to the bar and sitting chatting to their friends about their marriage. And that’s the other thing, is that guys do a lot of complaining instead of solving, yeah, right? And it’s weird, because we’re fixers by nature. We try and fix in the relationship, and yet, getting together with somebody who’s a proper mechanic, a trained mechanic, you know, who can get under the hood, seems to be something that that we resist. And I don’t know whether it’s ego, I don’t know whether it is fear of spending money on ourselves, you know, fear of, you know, what will she say if I spend money on myself, you know, and yet, we’ll buy a massive TV or a new, you know, RV or whatever it is. Guys who got RVs been sitting in a in their yards for years every winter, you know, they take it out maybe once or twice a year, but they won’t spend, spend some money on their own self improvement. That’s going to do that to your life.
Doug Holt 34:40
Yeah, it’s funny because so a lot of guys run our program through their business, yeah, as a business expense. And I was talking to one guy, I won’t say his name for a lot of reasons, but yeah, he’s like, this is the cheapest thing I’ve ever, I’ve ever done, yeah, because I came here for my marriage, yeah, but now my business is soaring, because obviously you solve one. Peg and everything else lifts like a rising tide, lifts all ships. And he runs it 100% through his company the whole time. And he’s like, Dude, I got to a client dinner. I’m spending $1,000 yeah. He’s like, this is nothing, and for what I’m getting out of this. So it’s funny to just again, it’s just excuses. Whenever I hear these conversations, obviously I think where am I doing this in my life? Where am I showing up with this hopium, right? The idea that I hope that it gets better, yeah, and then hopefully, when I discover that, I attack it straight on and take that first actionable step, which I think I’m pretty good at,
Mark 35:37
yeah, yeah. I think it’s good to reflect it’s also good for the guys to know that we don’t promote ourselves as perfect, and having sold everything, we work on ourselves continually. Yeah, and yeah, look at what we’re doing and what we can do better, absolutely. And it’s and it’s it doesn’t get easier. You know, no aspects
Doug Holt 35:56
of it get easier, right? But I think the way, I think what you’re trying to say is and correct me if I’m wrong. Like, for you and Bonnie, when you you don’t argue, but Aaron and I arguing, like, instead of it being two weeks, it’s literally 30 seconds, right? You know? Yeah,
Mark 36:09
what I mean is, is facing up to the things that we are, our energy, our nervous system and fear and whatever is trying to prevent us from facing Yeah, that doesn’t get easier. Now, you know the actual so, you know, telling Bonnie that I bought a motorcycle, you know, that wasn’t easy, because I knew she had an opinion against motorcycles because of her brother and so so forth. Now I’ve got two, but so it doesn’t get easier. However, the on the other side of broaching something difficult, it gets better. And there’s there’s more connection 100% man. I
Doug Holt 36:47
love always hearing when people meet us at events and they’re like, Wow, you’re really authentic. You’re exactly who you portray yourself. There’s no acting here. This is who we are, 24/7 and perfectly imperfect, as I always like to say, Yeah, we all were working on what we’re working on. This is just one area that you and I have got down really, really well,
Mark 37:07
yeah, just a man doing the best he can, right? That’s 100% 100%
Doug Holt 37:10
and helping others along the way, if we can. Yeah, you know, just like, I hope the men listening to this, if they’re an expert in another area that they’ve got some they’re raising their hand to help another man lift up, yeah, to support their families and their hardships. Yeah? Awesome. Mark. So closing this out, if you were talking to a guy right now where he’s like, Yeah, you know, just not the right time, I really need to invest my time or my money and my resources somewhere else. But you know what next quarter, next quarter that I’m going to go in a program like the activation method, or another one that’s out there. What advice would you give them?
Mark 37:47
Well, firstly, I’d say Tomorrow is not promised. Yeah, you know, I’ve had situations. I’ve had friends waiting to repair the relationships with their children who didn’t wake up in the morning? Yeah, you know. So it gets real, the rubber hits the road when it’s at that level, and there is no other time than right now. So, yeah, it’s just about priorities, as you say, you know, show me your calendar, and I’ll show you your priorities. Well, is working on yourself a priority? Is that in your calendar? Is it something that’s important to you? Is your relationship important to you? Have you created time to build that connection? And is it in your calendar or not? You know, it’s as simple as that.
Doug Holt 38:32
Yeah, I’m going to give up a secret mark. When guys join the activation method, they actually have to do the work. Yeah? The coach will push you to do the work. Yeah, I hate to break it to you, yeah. You will be calendaring out times with your coaches and with your group. You will be calendaring out the work, yeah, but that’s how you get to the other side, yeah, yeah.
Mark 38:51
And it’s so worth it, right? I mean, the I was sharing with somebody at the team retreat bunny, and I had difficulties at times, there was a really strong connection to something beyond the difficulties. And the secret for me was her daughter, whom I met at the age of eight, Danielle. She she was kind of the glue at times when it was really difficult, and having that vision of a relationship where where things would be amazing and the family unit would be truly connected, kept me going through difficult, challenging times, and like I said now, you know, I’m almost embarrassed to say to guys, I’ve got a relationship where I don’t argue, Where I have absolute support. I feel loved, seen, valued, appreciated, and so does she, you know, and that’s worth gold to me. I don’t care about much else.
Doug Holt 39:48
I love that brother. I love that Yeah, yeah. I think mine would be if I were to give piece of advice to that guy. Same thing, thing. I say almost every podcast is in the moment of insight. So when you get that insight. Like, yes, my marriage is important. Yes, yeah, being at dinner with my family is important, not having a divided house or whatever. What else it is? Take massive action. Yeah, just take just pick up the phone, pick up the phone, get on a phone call with one of the advisors. And again, guys, I’m biased. I think our program is the best. We have amazing coaches like yourself that really give a damn, that care a lot about what we do and about the men, and if we didn’t think our program was the best, we would flip and change
Mark 40:30
it. Yeah, right. I mean, it’s not only the coaches and the advisors, right. I mean, having spent time with with the whole team, there are people who are behind the scenes who wanted just as much for the guys who come on board. And that, for me, is something that’s huge, that’s pervasive in this movement, is everybody gives a damn. You know, it’s not, this is not something that’s just, you know, to bring in Rick and a few dollars. This is, this is what makes a difference in the world.
Doug Holt 40:58
That’s why we call it a movement. Yeah. All right. I love you, man. Thanks so much for being here and all that. And all that you do, yeah, always, yeah. Thank you, brother. Gentlemen, as always, say, in the moment of insight, take massive action. This time, more than ever, right? Mark and I are sharing with you the most common thing that we hear from men is, you know, they’re hoping things are going to get better. And look, I’ve been there. I get it. Society teaches us to just wait a little bit because it’s uncomfortable. But you now, and I know that growth lies outside of our comfort zones. It just does. It does in business, does in our health, it does in everything that we do. But this is me calling you out to take massive action. Now if you think TPM might, and I even mean might be a good fit for you, jump on a call. Head over to the powerful man.com and just jump on a call with one of our advisors. You do have to fill out an application schedule the actual call itself, but guys, it is worth it. You’re gonna get it at bare minimum. You will get a personalized insight from these amazing people. Most have been through our program and been with us for years, helping men just like you. You’ll get an insight, you’ll get something actionable that you can take away, right? And that’s invaluable. There’s no risk to you. It’s just a conversation. Now, for some reason, you don’t think TPM is the right fit. Find something else. Guys just do something we’re broaching on almost 1000 episodes of the TPM podcast. We’ve been doing this for a long time, guys, and we’re here to help you, but I can’t do the push ups for you, so to speak. You have to do the actual work. So in the moment of insight, take massive action. We’ll see you next time on The Powerful Man Show.
