Episode #54
We are living in a land of comparison. We often compare ourselves to our future selves or we compare ourselves to a greater person than who we are.
When we start to think that we should be farther ahead than who and where we are now, we begin to feel so much pressure and end up beating ourselves up which can lead to depression.
We compare ourselves to other people that surround us and when we feel that we are lesser compared to that other person we start feeling frustrated. We end up escaping from reality through food, addiction, pornography, social media, etc.. Society is giving us this paradigm that if you do this, you will become like that.
It is important to note that it is not our fault for being in this kind of situation but we DO have control over it. We just need to be self-aware.
It becomes your fault when you become aware of it but you still continue to give your power away. If you feel that the rules dictated by society do not fit your desires, you have to start questioning in order to make a change.
Do not force yourself. Set a goal and enjoy the whole experience starting from the beginning until you reach the endpoint. The whole journey may not be all good but allow the growth to occur and just enjoy each moment.
Do not avoid the energy or emotion that shows up for you. Let these emotions serve as a fuel and learn the lessons that show up. Navigate your way into acceptance and gratitude for what’s coming instead of forcing your way out of it.
Take all the insights and break the cycle.
What you will learn in this episode:
- We have power over the rules dictated by society.
- How to reach your goals without attacking it forcefully.
- How to allow yourself to grow while reaching your goal.
- How to appreciate where you are and what you do right NOW by using all the insights you will learn along your journey for you to succeed in getting to your end goal.
————-
Hungry for more?
Head over to our BONUS page for special access to some of the deeper tactics and techniques we’ve developed at The Powerful Man.
Listen on
iTunes
Sticher
YouTube
Spotify
————-
Episode Transcript
Doug Holt 0:00
And the truth is, it’s not people’s fault. They’re not further ahead, and society has given you this paradigm: if you get up at four in the morning, you hustle your ass off and go to work. As soon as you get home, you have your side hustle, and then you have to be a great father, spend all this time with your kids, you have to be a great husband, do all these things for your wife after that, maybe get a chance to take care of yourself. But really, just shut up. Don’t take care of yourself and just get back to work; sleep four hours a night. And then eventually, when you’re in your 70s, you’ll be feeling great. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man show. I am your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host Tim, “The Powerful Man” Matthews. Tim, what’s going on, brother?
Tim Matthews 0:45
Yo, I’m doing good. You?
Doug Holt 0:47
I’m doing well, thank you. We just came off a very long conversation, which is a great one, which I always appreciate. But Tim, I’m going to switch it up for this episode here. I want to talk about today for the men listening is a subject that comes up a lot. And that is the idea that I should be further ahead than I am. What would you say to men? They’re having this conversation in their head right now. Here I am. I’m 35. Or I’m 45 or 55; whatever it may be, I should be further ahead than I am.
Tim Matthews 1:21
How is that serving you? How is telling a self-love story serving you?
Doug Holt 1:29
Yeah, because if someone’s telling themselves that story, they’re getting some benefit, right? They’re getting something from that story, somehow, some way. And I know, everybody listening is like, What is he talking about? How am I benefiting from this? Somehow, someway they’re getting a benefit from it; otherwise, they wouldn’t be telling it?
Tim Matthews 1:50
Well, yeah, it’s almost like the comfort you get in telling yourself you should be further ahead is replacing the reassurance that you’d get from taking action and being there because basically, the action is obviously to forever reason. Again, wherever storytelling is tough, the action is just too scary for you to take at that moment. Yet, at the same time, the more you tell yourself the story, we should be further ahead. The more power you can give the story, and the more the fear then builds up.
Doug Holt 2:23
Yeah, well, so as a man, I should be further ahead. First of all, you’re in the land of comparison. Now, you could just be comparing yourself to your future self. Right? So I mean, you are for sure for me, I’ll just say me as an example, I’m 42. If I look at where Doug wants to be ten years from now, and then when I get there, I should be further ahead, and I’m comparing myself to a thought that I had previously about where I should be my future self. And whenever we did studies have shown whenever we compare ourselves to a greater version of where we are, now that could be a made-up version usually is, that is a direct link to depression, that actual science shows that came out recently a study about this, that links to how we can get into a depressive state. It’s that gap, right? The gap between where we are today, or at least where we view ourselves at this moment, you and I were talking about this a little bit, that view can be clouded by being tired, not sleeping, enough stress, lack of money, or perception around money or reality, what have you. But either way, where we are in that moment, versus were a comparison of ourselves, either ourselves in the past, right? That could be we used to be in better shape or a comparison of ourselves in the future that we had in the past. Right? I viewed myself at 42, Tim at 42; I would be a billionaire, right? ex-Navy SEAL, ripped, doing all you name it.
Tim Matthews 4:02
and you were telling me those things?
Doug Holt 4:05
I’ve been lying; that’s all yours, no. When you look at it, you’re comparing yourself, and you’re comparing yourself also to others around you. Right? I should be making this much money because that’s the story you’re saying. So and so is, I should be in better shape because the guy in the magazine covers at the grocery store is. I should be a dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, and it goes on and on and on until we shut ourselves to death. Right? We constantly get this area where we build layers, it’s called stacking, we stack layers of evidence upon each other, to get ourselves in this fury and what we get from this frequently, the sense of victimhood is we can get attention which then gets us, love, right people give us attention to give us love to It’s not our fault. It’s not my fault, and I get somebody to blame.
And that often becomes one of the ways they do it. And the truth is, it’s not people’s fault; they’re no further ahead. Right? Men are listening to us, and it isn’t your fault. Now you have control over it, but it’s not your fault society has given you this paradigm that if you get up at 4 in the morning, you hustle your ass off you go to work, as soon as you get home, you have your side hustle. You got to be a great father who spent all this time with your kids, you got to be a great husband and do all these things for your wife. And then after that, maybe you can get a chance to take care of yourself, but just shut up. Don’t take care of yourself and just get back to work; sleep four hours a night. And then eventually, when you’re in your 70s, you’ll be feeling great. And That’s such a load of crap. First of all, no man has that much time in a day. Second of all, you have to take care of yourself first, to be able to take care of other people. So it isn’t their fault, Tim, that they’re in this state of, I should be further ahead than I am.
Tim Matthews 6:08
Yeah, I agree. I know, I’ve been there. I was there for quite some time. And if you’re listening to this podcast, and you’ve been telling yourself this story, then it does become your fault. When you become aware, and you continue to give your power away. Up until that point, if you believe in him buying into a set of rules, dictated by society, or whoever that does not fit your desires, or the lifestyle that you want to live, the man, father, or husband that you want to be, entrepreneur, is not working for you. And you can see that by the results that you get in, by the frustrations that you’re experiencing, then it’s time to question it, isn’t it? And it’s time to question who is responsible for this because, for you to change it, you’ve got to take control back down, you can change your situation, if you’re telling yourself or if you believe that it’s you should be further ahead. It’s somebody else’s fault. And the guys over there are lucky. And for as long as you want to tell yourself that story. Just be aware that you’re not going to be able to make any changes in your life either.
Doug Holt 7:28
Well, it’s so true, right? There are different stages, the first stage is just not aware of the problem, and you go through it. And then, like, as you said, once you become aware, and most men listening to this podcast are in that aware stage, they’re aware of the issue. Now it is on you, and it is on you to make that and get out of that state of victimhood. Cause, that’s not being in my opinion, Tim, that’s not being a man, that’s being a child to being a boy, you haven’t stepped up and owned yourself and your rights to be a man, you’re still in that boyhood of Mommy, take care of me, Mommy, it’s not my fault. Rather than actually being in that, that area of being a man. And oftentimes what happens is the men start turning to food, to alcohol, to drugs, to porn, or social media, which is just as bad or not, if not worse, in my opinion, to escape, to escape the reality that they’re not stepping up as a man.
Tim Matthews 8:26
So I’m assuming, In fact, Tasker, I guess you’ve been in this position, right? Of course. So wouldn’t you become aware of the story you were telling him? What did you do to break the cycle?
Doug Holt 8:40
So it’s a great question. I’ve tried different things over time because this is a cycle that comes up often, and like we’ve talked about in previous episodes, you’re always doing the work, you’re always sharpening the stock, saw anybody listening to this going, Okay, I figured it all out is in the way, is in the worst position possible, in my opinion. So oftentimes, what I’ll do is when I go into this, I’ll ask myself, Is this true? Right, and this is something you and I have talked about today. Offline. Is this, in a court of law, right? If I was standing in front of the judge, the jury, and everybody else, what I’m saying to myself or to everybody else is 100% true. Nobody could argue it. It’s an absolute fact. And of course, it’s not right.
You write it down, an exercise I’ve done in the past. Tim Is writing That story actually down on a piece of paper usually, it takes like two to three pieces of paper and I look at that when I go back with a highlighter, and I highlight the inarguable facts. Nobody can argue it, right? So it can’t be my opinion on a situation because that’s arguable; it can’t be a story of Craig’s because that’s arguable, right? You can have a should or could or would annex that’s all arguable; it’s all my story—just the Facts. When I go and look at that three-page doc document, there’s usually only two or three highlighted sentences, the whole document, which means I’ve essentially created the rest of it myself into a story. And then I go, I set forth to rewrite it, write it a different way. And what I’ve done lately, and I say later in the last few years, is when I start going through my gratitude practice, and not your typical five things you’re grateful for, but a much deeper gratitude practice, where I’m going through a specific list of areas of my life and where I’m finding thanks. And I always start off with something easy. So an example could be, I’m very thankful for my voice. Because I’m able to have a conversation here with Tim and the listeners right now, something simple, something I can get an easy win with. And then I let that snowball to the various areas of my life. And as you and I usually talk about, it’s like, crap, what am I complaining about? Like, the reality is I’m making this up. And I sound like a little baby here. And it’s just a story I’ve created for one reason or another. And I, and I do my best. And I’m not. This is an area of practice of mine. I do my best not to beat myself up. But I am a very competitive person, and I’m kind of like, geez, man, what are you doing? But I do my best not to beat myself up. And then, I move forward with a plan of action to get where I want to go if I’m not there. And how do I enjoy that journey along the way? So, Tim, there’s something you need to think about when we think about goal setting. And I know I’m going off on a tangent a little bit here. But I’ll wrap it up, we will think about it. Well, let me ask you a question. Tim. What’s your favorite song right now?
Tim Matthews 11:48
Rob Ricarda, settling in
Doug Holt 11:51
settling in Robert’s cars. And so, at the end of the song, how long is the song? Roughly? Four minutes? Five minutes? Six minutes? Six minutes. Cool. So at five minutes and 58 seconds, is that the best part of the song? No. 559?
Tim Matthews 12:10
No.
Doug Holt 12:10
six minutes? Is that the best part of the song? Nope. So then why in life? If our life is like a song, and I think it is, we don’t, why don’t we enjoy the whole song. For that song, you have to listen from the beginning to the end to get the full enjoyment of the music, right? But yet, when we think about a goal, we think about something we want to achieve or something we actually desire in life, we think only of that endpoint that five minutes and 59 seconds, that’s when it’s going to be sweet. Rather than enjoying the whole song, the orchestra, the lyrics, the music, the whole experience. For some reason, we’ve separated that. So to answer your question, Tim, I started looking at the whole song; how do I get to get there with my plan, while enjoying every lyric, every note of that song from the second one, to when it just starts, and you get that feeling, right? That feeling when you hear the song that you just love, you hear the first beat, exactly what it is. And it’s going to be in your sweet spot, all the way through the end. And I really sit down and imagine that and write that out and enjoy that. And I build off that point.
Tim Matthews 13:26
I think I know why you chose this topic.
Doug Holt 13:32
Why?
Tim Matthews 13:34
Yeah, he says, with a smirk and a smile on his face.
Doug Holt 13:41
Hey guys, I want to interrupt this episode because I want to talk to you about something important. We put together a case study on how almost 300 men have taken control of their lives, their forex in their business revenues. And they’re having more connected intimate sex, all without sacrificing the relationships or their health by using The Activation Method. Now a lot of you have contacted us, and they want to know how they’re doing it. We put together this short 11-minute case study just for you. So you can see how these entrepreneurs are achieving this level of success. To get this case study, all you have to do is go over to ThePowerfulMan.com/11 Yep, that’s one. And you can get the case study right now. All right, it’s only 11 minutes. It’s going to show you exactly how these men have done it. Alright, let’s get back to the episode.
Tim Matthews 14:33
I get it. I get it. Obviously, in the last episode, we were talking about the navigation of what’s my growth right now, my personal and intimate growth with my relationship. And who I am taking from this conversation right now is so two-fold. While I’ve been telling myself I’m feeling like I’m late , oh my God. Sometimes growing can be so messy and painful. It can be so messy and painful. And I have, I’ve been, I have been telling myself the story that it should be different. Now there’s a flip side to that story that is a gratitude one, an appreciation, one of where I am right now and what we do have going on in the relationship, and then allowing the growth to occur with curiosity, and fun, and enjoyment, rather than a need for the growth to happen in order to get somewhere because the deeper narrative there is that okay, and when I get there, that is when I will insert the blank, feel good enough for be the man or whatever. And obviously, I know that it is never the case that the narrative never works out. Because that point in time never arrives. It’s not a case of when you arrive somewhere; that is when you will be a certain man or in our field. So where you get to, if that’s feeling you sick, you get to feel that today, regardless of the outcome.
Doug Holt 16:27
That’s absolutely beautiful, Tim. I’m not saying that’s the reason I picked this topic. However, that’s a great insight to get. And I think you’re our present, right? Do you want to be in that state? Before, right? It’s we know this; if you listen to this app, I know this, you embody it, Tim, but I know our listeners have heard us talk about this. And I know the men in The Powerful Man movement have gone through this. But it’s a reminder for all of us. And it’s a reason I write this my journal almost every single day, and it’s been, do have, right, be that right there. It’s also present with it at the moment, which is why I go through that whole practice to get there.
Tim Matthews 17:17
It doesn’t feel very good to be present with me right now, though. I agree. I agree it is, and the heaviness that I am feeling? I have a choice right now. And we all have a choice in whatever area we are growing in, telling ourselves a story that we should be further ahead or should things should be different—and understanding and realizing that and reclaiming your power by accepting that. The choice then becomes around whether you then allow something to fold and do so with fun and curiosity. As it continues to grow and develop, or you attack it with force. And when you attack it with force, It might be opinion; all that happens then is you continue the same energy and perspectives that tell the same story that you shouldn’t be further ahead. And that will just continue and continue and continue and continue.
Doug Holt 18:18
Yeah, it’s Groundhog’s Day. It’s like fighting a ripped current you, and you keep fighting it, it’s worse or gonna quicksand it gets worse and worse and worse when you’re fighting it rather than being in it. Now I’ll share with you one other thing as we talk about this subject is the man that married my wife and me, a very spiritual man, a very spiritual, a great friend of mine. I remember I was working with him, and I was coaching him, believe it or not. And we were talking to him, and he was actually going through a state of depression. And he was like, Doug, what does it feel like? For me, it feels warm, wet. Someone got a wet, warm wool blanket and draped it over me. It’s that heaviness I’m feeling right now. And as we were talking and he was sharing it with me, he said, what, I’m going to sit with this feeling. And I’m allowing myself to feel this for three more days. And after that, it’s over. And that was a practice he’s done. I worked with him for, Gosh, maybe a decade, right, for a long time. Amazing man.
And he had done that many many times with anger and different emotions that our society would say our bad emotions, right, anger, jealousy, depression, etc. But his philosophy was different. I liked it a lot. And I still do, his idea was like, No, no, this is a human emotion. We’re human beings having experience here. And I’m going to use this emotion, and I’m going to allow myself to experience this emotion, but I’m only allowing myself to be a victim for three days. I’m only allowing myself To be depressed, and after that, it’s over, and it and what it would be for him, and he would allow himself to deeply feel it like deeply feel it, and he would play into it, and his idea was Hey, this is, again a very spiritual person, his idea was I’m a human being this is part of the human emotions.
Why would I, Why would I try to stop this human emotion rather than celebrate it? And he kind of celebrated what we would typically think of as a negative emotion, and it just built him. It’s amazing, and he’s one of those people, and you meet him. I’ve walked out of so many social situations where someone meets him, and he leaves, and they say, wow, I just want to be him. Hmm, these are very prominent people, and so we talked about this, and I know you brought it back, back to you, but when we talk about this for the other guys, that are listening to this and you’re talking about what you’re doing, and you should be further ahead fine, maybe for you You sit with that for a few days and really dive deep into that and if you’d like to, to experience it to have it because maybe that’s causing you to up-level or disabuse me to hit your highest level to having issues where you’re not breaking through a plateau maybe you do get to feel it at a deeper level to allow you to push through to the next level. Maybe it’s just a sign that you’re about to explode; as we talked about in a previous episode, geometric growth, and all of a sudden, you dip down a little bit before you take your next big leap.
Tim Matthews 21:40
Yeah, that’s definitely true for me. I think let’s say that you’re telling yourself the story that should be further ahead like we said in you then attack it with needing force you ignored in avoiding the energy and the emotion on you whereas for me just like your friend if I sit with it you asked me a question on the last episode well what are you going to do I said I don’t really know right now and I don’t know right now because I’m sitting with it and finding my way through it and dealing with it and I wear my heart on my sleeve I’m the type of person that you can really see how I’m feeling I don’t suppress or hide it and in situations like this for me so I ended up just sending a text message to Amelia and I didn’t wait in situations like this for me being with the emotion serves as fuel and gives me a lot of understanding in which space is then created. And I’m able to then navigate out of that with clarity and real acceptance and gratitude for what’s coming rather than trying to force my way out of it as soon as I’m in it because holy I don’t want to be there because I shouldn’t be feeling this way and if I am then I mean a weak or I’m a loser, or I’m not man men don’t do this whatever it is because then you just repeat don’t you because when you go into the try solve it from the energy that created it Einstein says a problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it. So if you didn’t go and try and do that, even when you learn to achieve the thing that you were telling yourself you should be achieving you’ll still be telling yourself the same story because you’ve not changed the energy, the drive.
Doug Holt 23:31
So true. I mean it’s so true. So Tim, what would you say to a man that’s listening to us right now, right, right in his car working out? That’s as powerful men do. That’s going through this whole scenario right now, saying, man, I should be making more money; I should be doing this. Because usually what happens is, I should be doing this. I should be making more money because then I can feel or then I can do what you have. What advice would you give them?
Tim Matthews 24:01
Can you sell flow to Leeds, and let’s wallow in self-pity together. Just for three days, three days nameless. Let’s make a change. Yeah, seriously, be with it. It’s there to serve you. One of them, I don’t have full cards right now about my next steps, and I’m okay with that. Because I know that same with him being with it, things are going to drip feed through bit by bit inside by inside of the next few days. And in my experience, my biggest periods of growth have come from an experience like this, which has then led to an exponential uprising. And it’s in these periods where I’ve let the insights trickle through, without forcing them without needing to change the energy and the emotion that you and men don’t wallow in either they’ll come to a point where you’ll cut it off. So be with it. Take the insights gleaned from them and then change. I love
Doug Holt 25:04
it. Love it. Alright, gentlemen, that is a wrap for us and another episode of The Powerful Man show in the bag. Until then, have an amazing day, and we’ll see you next time on The Powerful Man show.
