Revisit: Do You Feel Empty?

Episode #260

No matter how much money you have or how successful your business is…if you are not clear on who you want to be, you will still end up feeling empty.

We become blinded by the norms set by society and end up following somebody else’s guidance on how we should be living our lives instead of finding our own way.

We end up striving for somebody else’s ideas of what it means to be a man and have success. Until we determine our own definition of success and being a man, we will feel incomplete…like we are not good enough.

We become trapped in this belief that when we have more money we can solve everything, and THEN we can be happy. We get to work, keeping ourselves busy making money, and end up losing our connection with our loved ones along the way.

In this episode, we dive deep into HOW we can take control of our self-beliefs and shift them to create a happier and more fulfilling mindset.

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Episode Transcript

Tim Matthews  0:00  

Yes I’d upgraded my model of what it meant to be successful. Yeah I hadn’t done the inner work by that point to really understand myself and I think for me that was one of the major reasons why no matter what I achieved or whatever successes I had, they just never landed and as a result I felt empty.

Doug Holt  0:20  

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of  The Powerful Man show. I am your host, Doug Holt with my co host with the mostest, Tim  “The Powerful Man” Matthews. What’s going down brother?

Tim Matthews  0:34  

That was a very different one.

Doug Holt  0:38  

I wanted to see if I could throw you off your game. What’s going down brother?

Tim Matthews  0:44  

I’m doing great. You know we like to record these episodes back to back though when our conversations are just always so phenomenal.

Doug Holt  0:53  

I agree. You know guys I always say this but I wish you could be here for the off recording conversations because they get juicy and they’re things that you know that we try to bring online but it’s everybody’s at a different level for what they’re willing to receive at the moment on their journey. And Tim, you know the things that you’re willing to share and that you and I talk about is just phenomenal.

Tim Matthews  1:19  

I love it. So,what I want to bring to the table in this conversation Doug is why a frame in the present tense why you feel empty? So why do you feel empty? I know we’ve I imagine you’ve had moments in your life that regardless of the people around you, how much love you are surrounded by, how many achievements you’ve had, how many degrees you may have, or how much money you’ve made, you still just feel empty? No it’s true for a lot of the men we work with, I mean one of the biggest complaints of the men have is that you know to everybody else that look like they’ve got the ideal life, the home, the holidays, the cars, the business, the money, but for some reason it just doesn’t land for them. They just feel empty on the inside. They feel numb. And I’m curious what are the times in your life when you felt like that?

Doug Holt  2:31  

Hmm, good question. So, empty I have to say there’s been a number of times when I guess I don’t know about empty I would say but that I knew there was more right I knew that I didn’t feel complete because I knew that there was just a disconnect from what I was doing in the state that I was living in from my true potential. And often for me what it’s been is really following somebody else’s guidance on the way I should be living my life. Now that could be society right? It could be a mentor, a parent, a friend. give me advice probably on their best terms and I feel that I should be following it but not really following my own true north. Right? my own true guidance of what I know to be true and that’s at times is left me feel feeling I guess empty or not filled up in the past Tim and I know as a father a common thing that we hear from men is you almost feel like you’re not doing a good job you have this ideal of what it means to be a dad or what it means to be a husband or what it means to be a successful business owner and when you’re not reaching that ideal you’re not actualizing it you create a gap. A gap between where you are today and where you believe you should be. And I use that word should on purpose and what that does is creates a distance, a disconnect which then creates a gap of feeling empty and feeling incomplete.

Tim Matthews  4:18  

I think you nailed on the head there when you know you fall into the trap of living by somebody else’s definition of what it means to be successful. And you know a common pattern of the men that we work with is that they thrust themselves into business. And usually they’ve kind of done it by default. You know our need to make money because of the belief that money is going to be the answer. Now when I have money that’s when I’ll be good enough. When I have money, that’s when I’ll have power, when I have money, that’s when I look a certain way and I will get the attention significant to me. The man that I think I should be and as a result you know they thrust themselves into thousands of businesses and they make money. However, what they end up doing then is almost having this bottomless pit that they experienced within themselves. And no matter how much money they make, it just doesn’t land for them. And then what happens is they start to enter into this cycle of shame, sabotage and sedition. First of all, they then feel ashamed, because everyone around them is telling them how great they are, and how great their life is, and that they should be enjoying it. But for some reason, some way somehow, it’s just not landing for them, they’re looking in a mirror, and they don’t see what everybody else sees. And that makes them feel even worse. 

And it means that they’re not feeling quite alone as well, because you have no one around them that they can come clean to and share how they really feel. So what they then do is enter phase two of the cycle, which is yet and then often turned to alcohol, drugs sometimes, porn, social media, TV, food, whatever it is, in order to switch their mind off, sometimes caffeine as well. But in order to switch their mind off and quiet  that voice that’s inside of themselves, that’s nagging at them, that’s scratching away in the background, and try to get some form of peace, some form of inner peace, but it never works. It is very short lived. Then what happens in that instance, is then they start to sabotage themselves, because by this point, they have really started to grow resentful of their business, or sometimes even resent the partner, don’t they? Because they start to tell stories like it’s everybody else’s fault. It’s the staff. It’s the business, it’s the wife,it’s the kids, it’s whoever’s fault. And as a result it start to sabotage things either sabotage the relationship and start looking at other women or sabotage their business and stop doing the actions that help the business to grow, take their eye off the ball, start rolling in the office later in the day, not leading the team in the way they know they could. 

Always stop working out and start sabotaging their health. And as a result, they get more shares, more sedition, more sabotage. And it’s this endless spiral that they can often get stuck in. And I know for me looking back, the periods in my life when I really felt empty. I think it definitely had something to do with me living by everybody else’s ideals of what it meant to be a man and what it meant to be successful. In our crew remember this one time I was in a charity auction down in London, and it was held by a billionaire. And I’d got to that point because I’d been in business with somebody who was very wealthy who had hundreds of millions of pounds. And he partnered up with me and another business. And he did quite well with him. And he then brought me in on different business negotiations and different discussions and so on. And it culminated in being at this charity ball. 

I think the tables were about 10,000 pounds and things were getting auctioned off for crazy amounts of money. And I became quite close to the woman who sat beside me and she was the old MD of TK Maxx. I don’t know if you have TK Maxx in the US, but it’s kind of like a middle level department store very well known in the UK and also in Europe, too. Anyway, this woman used to be the MD of it. And she was at the table with her husband, which I found very humbling and also quite strange because this was a room full of, you know, very well to do multi millionaires and billionaires and his, her and her husband was a tradesman. Nothing against tradesmen, but he was a very down to earth guy. If he would have looked, looked around the room, he probably would have stuck out a little bit. But anyway, around our table, everyone kept getting up and going to the toilet at different times. And it always would leave me and this woman and her husband and she turned to me and she said, Tim, make sure you never end up in this room.

Doug Holt  9:22  

Whoa.

Tim Matthews  9:23  

I was only about 26 years old and 27 years old and I didn’t really understand. I was like what does she mean like make sure never end up in this room like what what does that mean then?

Doug Holt  9:37  

Guys, I’m interrupting this episode because I want to know, Do you feel bored, burnout, have broken, discovered the system that over 300 businessmen are using to let go of the grind, find inner peace and unlock unlimited personal power. So they can have more time more intimacy and better sex while living a life they love without stressing about work. Feeling like a fraud, head over to  ThePowerfulMan.com/11. To see what this is all about. Alright, let’s get back to the episode.

Tim Matthews  10:14  

As I was looking around the room, it was just so false. It wasA show that we’re like celebrities there and people that you saw on TV and people that were on Dragon’s Den, which was the UK equivalent to Shark Tank. And these were the people that in the media you will portray that you’d look up to, and this was the image of success. Yet, being in the room with them, there was so much facade, and these people are terrible that kept going up and going to the toilet, they’d come back, and they’d have white rings around the nostrils, which I assume was trucks cooking, then if it was on up last my guest. And as I sat there thinking, make sure you never end up in this room, it really got me understanding that wow, you told me to buy into a certain model of success of what it means to be successful, getting the money and all of the people there. 

From my knowledge, the ones that engaged with all had a string of failed relationships, all very distant and disconnected from the loved ones in their lives from, like I said, the conversation that I had with them. It was similar to you though, it wasn’t a definition of success that was working for me. It really wasn’t, it was turning me off, instead of turning me on. And what she shared with me is stuck with me ever since. And going back to you know why we often feel empty. First of all, it was the model of success and what definitions were buying into the role models around us as well, of course. But then even when I changed that, one of the things that caused the struggle for me was that, even though I was then achieving great things in my life, that just weren’t landing. For whatever reason, I’d always find a way to identify and pick out the things that could have done better, versus the things that did well, and the ways in which I’d achieved and for a long time, I felt like a fraud. It was almost like I was living with this burden and worrying that I was just waiting for the rug to be pulled from the meter.

Doug Holt  12:39  

Did you feel like a fraud or was it more like imposter syndrome?

Tim Matthews  12:44  

I didn’t feel as good as everyone thought I was.Whatever that is,

Doug Holt  12:51  

I would call that imposter syndrome. I think frauds got a negative connotation to it, where imposter syndrome is more of an internal dialogue you’re having. Yeah, where you don’t feel good enough. You’re like, Oh, shit, oh crap, are they going to find out that I’m not as smart as they think I am, or?

Tim Matthews  13:09  

Exactly. And I was just waiting for the rug to be pulled beneath me. And by that point yes, I’d upgraded my model of what it meant to be successful. Yeah, I hadn’t done the inner work by that point to really understand myself. And I think that, for me, that was one of the major reasons why no matter what I achieved or whatever successes I had, they just never landed. And as a result, I felt empty. I felt no, regardless of the amount of love I was surrounded by, regardless of the amount of money I had in the bank, regardless of the amount of freedom I had in my life, the healthy energy, all of it. It just didn’t land. 

Doug Holt  13:51  

Well. I mean, this is the exact reason that people get coaches, Tim, I mean, we think about it, whether it’s jack Welsh, the famous CEO for GE, General Electric, General Electric, it’s been written about a million times, they all have coaches, they all have someone in their corner to help them see the forest from the trees, and find their own blind spots. And all of us, every man listening to this, myself included, have gone through that imposter syndrome feeling we’ve all felt like Oh crap, When are they going to find out when the other shoe is going to drop? I’m not as smart, I’m not as funny, good looking, whatever it may be. It’s usually, I’m not as smart or I don’t have or I’m not as good of a guy as people think I am. Right? Or my intentions or whatever it may be the story that we’ve created. 

And the truth that I know Is everybody can see through your BS, most good smart people. When you and I go to an alpha reset or any function where we’re either coaching people or not, you know if you and I are just attendees, we’ve done this enough times and have enough reps that people accuse me of being able to see through them. And the truth is you can, it’s not that hard when you’ve done it as much as you and I’ve done it is you can see the true person, their true nature. And so guys, you’re not really hiding from anybody but yourselves. And that’s where you look at this lack of fulfillment, this feeling empty and the feeling of desire is really something that’s internal. 

And when are we going to make another million dollars, and that’s when you’re going to feel good, or you’re going to get another degree, and that’s when you’re going to feel good, or buy another house or a new car. And that’s when you’re going to feel good. That’s not the way it works. It’s not the formula, you’ve got it backwards, you’re trying to do a two plus two equals eight doesn’t work that way. And so you need to change your math or as you say, in the UK, maths, you need to change that formula, because really, it’s the inner game, the inner work that you need to work on and get expressed within yourself. So you can take that and carry it anyway, anywhere, excuse me, in any economy in any situation and in the engagement that you have that feeling of being whole complete, and keep doing the rep. So you can continue reinforcing that and stacking the evidence.

Tim Matthews  16:14  

Totally true. So what exercises can you walk us through right now, to physically listen to this? Who’s resonating with this, this feeling empty and unfulfilled despite achieving all the things he thought was going to make him happy? Is there an exercise that you would get him to do right now that would help him to fill that void?

Doug Holt  16:41  

Oh, one? Wow, that’s a big question to answer. The first thing I would get him to do is to write down you know who he is, right we do this is part of The Activation Method is determining who your shadow stick man is. And so I would take him through the shadow stickman method exercise, which is too long to do in a short podcast episode. But really getting real with what’s going on. And what’s really happening for him. What is he chasing? Right? And how have you been listening to this? What is it you’re chasing? And what’s that void you’re trying to fill? And being real with yourself? No, here’s a hint, the first four answers aren’t going to be the truth. It’s usually the fifth or the 10th answer. 

That’s the true one of what you’re trying to do. And the answer all comes down to being loved by the way, it always ends up there never ever in my entire life, have I seen it land anywhere else, but being loved and accepted? Being accepted is really just about being loved. At the end of the day, so with this void, you’re feeling this unfulfillment. When’s the last time you were truly proud of yourself, you truly are not a fleeting moment, but truly proud of who you are as a man, truly happy with who you are as a man. Now, if that moment hasn’t happened recently, it’s time for a change brother, it is time for a change. Get your ass to an activation method. Get yourself on a phone call with Tim or one of the coaches and just have a conversation right about it. You know that we specialize in working with business owners. So if you’re not a business owner there’s other avenues that are out there for you. 

But get yourself out there, get yourself out of your own way and start getting some absolute clarity in your life, what it is where you are today and where you want to be. And most of us never take the time to ask those questions and get that honest clarity. Right and really figure out where we are so I can’t really answer that question Time this in the and the span of the time that we have here. But guys start with this. 

Ask yourself this question: When was the last time I was truly proud of myself and truly happy with myself for an extended period of time? To where am I today versus where I want to be? And three What am I chasing? What am I chasing right now you know and what is that costing me? What does that cost me to chase to find something because then I’ll be happy. Once I get this then the new car, right the $100,000 vehicle then I’ll be happy or the new degree because then I’ll be happy. There’s opportunity cost and real capital costs as well as time, expenses, and your time and energy with all of these things. Why not choose something that pays dividends to your life into your future? That’s what I would encourage you gentlemen to do.

Tim Matthews  19:54  

Wow. So true. When was the last time you were truly proud of the money Wow, wow. Great question.

Doug Holt  20:04  

Well, Tim, that’s all we have for today. And so guys, I would love to hear what you got out of this episode personally, and I’m sure Tim would as well. Please go over to the Facebook group. The activation method is a private community for men just like you. The coaches are there. I’m in there, Tim is in there, having conversations with men, and I would love for you, you listening to this, to share your story in there and let’s connect. I love to have that conversation with you. So until then, this is another episode. It’s a wrap Tim and we will see you guys next time.