Episode #811
Have you ever wondered why changes in relationships often spark distrust, even if they’re for the better? Why does transformation trigger fear, and how can we navigate the delicate balance of trust?
In this episode of “The Powerful Man Show,” we delve into the complex dynamics of personal change and its impact on relationships. Joined by the host’s wife, Erin, they explore the woman’s perspective on witnessing transformation, the tests of trust that follow, and the quest for emotional safety in partnerships.
Erin offers unique insights into why women might distrust change in their partners and shares personal anecdotes to illuminate the struggles of accepting newfound stability. The discussion revolves around the importance of consistency, emotional safety, and the critical role of communication in reinforcing trust.
Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the intricacies of trust, the challenges of maintaining changes, and practical advice on fostering a supportive and secure relationship dynamic. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to strengthen their relationships through understanding and mutual respect.
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Transcription
Erin Holt 0:00
But what a jerk. He’s not sharing his world with me. He must not trust me. I can’t trust him. He doesn’t share his world with me.
Doug Holt 0:05
She’s questioning Well, if I open my heart up to him again, am I going to get hurt
Erin Holt 0:09
when one partner changes, even if we want it, it disrupts the way we have done things, even if we want it. Like I said, it’s scary.
Doug Holt 0:17
Therefore, she’s got a test to see if it’s real. And that’s why she doesn’t trust it. Because he’s tried things before. This is about providing stability and emotional safety for your wife, and for your children.
Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode of the powerful man show. I am once again joined by my beautiful wife, Erin, she’s here to give us a woman’s perspective. Babe, thanks for being here.
Erin Holt 0:54
Yeah, happy to me.
Doug Holt 0:55
Yeah, this is great. We did one earlier I thought was so useful for the men going through. And guys, if you haven’t listened to that previous podcast, go back and listen to that Aaron gives you a blueprint, if you will, on how to allow your wife to slip in her femininity. And another thing that comes up often for the guys is in this happened just on a call that I was on recently, a guy was talking about, hey, you know, my wife, she’s seen the changes, she’s seen me change, but she’s seen the differences and she’s loving it. But she doesn’t trust it, she doesn’t trust that I’m gonna, this change is gonna stick. What’s going on there. from a woman’s perspective, it
Erin Holt 1:33
was so many things. And every time I come and speak after their you guys run your retreats, sometimes they come in on that, let’s say it’s always, always, always, always a question. So I know it’s super, super common, both ways. When one partner changes, even if we want it, it disrupts the way we have done things. And even if we want it, like I said, it’s scary. So there’s many things that I think can be going on. But if there has been a pattern, and I’m just gonna use the men, because you’ve asked from this perspective, like that you have shown up and been really short with her really cold. Just kind of, you know, from your own place of hurt, not treating her with that much respect or admiration, or desire, you just kind of their roommates Sure, talking about logistics, super boring, super unfulfilling for everybody, super hurtful for everybody. And then all of a sudden, you’re doing this work with TPM, and you’re really learning all these things and skills and connecting to your power and yourself, which is going to result in you showing up in a way that you’re proud of showing up in a way that you would get results that you want, and make her feel really safe and protected, and admired and heard, and wanted. And given respect, is new. There’s probably been quite a few years of the other. So sometimes when we we take the I have done this versions of this exercise my clients, but when we take the question like off of ourselves, and we kind of think about it maybe from a couple different perspectives, like come up from a helicopter point of view. So like, sometimes you can, an exercise you do, let’s just use fathers for now. Like men, like think about your father or your father figure, whoever raised you from that perspective. Like you could fill in the blanks for anything. Like if you thought about your father, my father always X. I always felt X when I was near my father did. So there was a story written there in that relationship, whatever it is, I use positive, negative and air quotes that could be whenever I walked in the room, my father always looked up and made me feel like the most important person in the room. Or it could be like, whenever I walked in the room, I always felt like I was annoying my dad and he was always too busy for me. Right? Like, yeah, so it’s same thing. It’s like, you can think about that. And think about right now, like how have you been as a husband? What would your wife say? And then you can think about that. And then also it’s like, okay, also you’re in a space of like, if you’re in this program, we’re listening to podcasts, I know you’re really have the desire to deeply have more for yourself in your life and your marriage and your if you’re a parent your fatherhood. So it’s like, Who do you want to be you your people can count you count on you to show up as how do you want them to feel when you’re around? them that help that perspective? Yeah,
Doug Holt 4:33
it does. And so let me give you kind of get by my own twist on a little bit. So sometimes there’s there’s a couple different scenarios that play out in my mind’s eye. One of which is we as men, we call it The Activation Method that’s our flagship program guys go through. When they become reactivated. They start to become the man their wife has always seen them to be because We talk about this but, guys, when your wife marries you, she not only sees who you are, but she sees who you could be your potential, your potential. Yep. And she’s looking for that. So when they go to The Activation Method, they get what we call activated they go from DEER, which is defend, explain excuse react to WOLF wise, open, loving and fierce. They go to the WOLF mode, and she gets excited. She’s like, Yes, finally, he’s here. And then also, there’s trepidation of like, is this gonna last? Do I, you know, she’s closed herself down. In a guy’s eyes, she’s become icy, cold, distant, maybe mean, even bitchy. But she’s questioning Well, if I open my heart up to to him again. Am I going to get hurt? Right? So therefore, she’s got to test to see if it’s real. And that’s why she doesn’t trust it. Because he’s tried things before. guy that was on a call earlier said yeah, I’m doing cross we come across fit, just signed it up and do a six week challenge. And his wife immediately said, yeah, he won’t last you’ll quit. You’ll give up. As another guy said, Hey, are you doing your Morning Routine? He’s like, Yeah, every once in a while. He’s like, but it doesn’t impress my wife I go is not impressed. Or why he’s like, Well, because I always start and stop. You know, again, again.
Erin Holt 6:20
Just gonna say when I mean for any human, but particularly in partnership, it’s like, what we want for a man is you to be your word. Yeah. And consistent, right. Be Your word. If you say you’re gonna do something, actually do it. Sure. Yeah.
Doug Holt 6:34
So there’s two different things, right? So she could be not trusting it. Because the valid like you said, You’ve been a jerk for seven years, and you’ve been a powerful man for three weeks, she’s got seven years of evidence that you’ve been a jerk, and only three weeks that you’ve been a great guy. So you got to give her more evidence and more consistency.
Erin Holt 6:57
Yeah, and like the consistency isn’t, let’s just say, it’s not just for her. It’s for it’s for him first, but has to be
Doug Holt 7:03
for him. Otherwise, it’s that. So great point. And this is another thing I always tell the guys is, if you’re doing it for her, then it’s not real. If you’re doing it for you that it’s easy to be consistent, because it’s just who you are. And as a result of that she’ll know it’s real. And it’s gonna last. Yeah,
Erin Holt 7:23
it will feel music numbered feel on purpose for women, we navigate our world through feelings. It will feel genuine to her or feel solid to her, even if it does feel scary. That coming the energy, everything is energy and the energy you’re coming at it from matters. Like IPs, probably the most important thing. Yeah, that is it’s one of those things, you can’t track it or test it or see it or feel it. It just is and it’s like who you being is in the energy you show up is when you’re doing your you know, column sacred starts I have that what do you call it? You’re in the mornings, Alpha Rise and Shine. And, like, the more connected you are to her, I mean yourself, the more you’re gonna be able to be connected to her.
Doug Holt 8:17
Yeah, yeah. 100%. And the difference is again, it’s you do it for yourself. Therefore it’s going to last Yeah, right. It’s got the stickiness to it. It’s rare, it’s rare, but mental join The Activation Method. And during week one, they’ll go from literally having divorce papers given to them by their wife to turning their marriage around to being the best marriage ever. Because the guy has drawn a line in the sand and changed who the way who he is as a man. Right and when I say that it’s really like kind of they asked Michelangelo How’d you make David and he said why just chipped away the rock everything that wasn’t David? Yeah. And that’s what we do with The Activation Method. We strip away all the BS for the men and so they just become more of who they naturally are. Yeah, and The Alpha Reset same thing. So when that happens, she can feel it viscerally. And she knows it’s true. It’s when guys are dabbling with these changes that she knows like yep, it’s the fad diet the fad diet right you know you’re gonna be doing carnivore keto paleo for two three weeks and I’ve definitely done that. And after a while, you’re like Screw this I’m gonna I’m gonna have some pizza and a beer. So she’s she’s seen that consistency. But when you show up consistently and when she tests you when women test consciously and unconsciously their man to see if he’s shakable when you pass those tests, guys, she’s going to trust you more and more and more. And another
Erin Holt 9:45
thing is, again, I mentioned in the other podcast in the masterclass and I went deeper into this but this is coming up for me so I’m gonna share is like a difference between men and women like just is Since nothing’s bad or wrong, whether it be like estrogen or marine and testosterone, testosterone brain, like you guys, talk less, and it’s fine, like you get to the point, and it’s just the way you speak, right? It’s just and there’s a purpose behind it. And I’m not going to teach that right now. But like, we talk a lot more. I mean, just, it just is and like, we like the details. So an act of partnership that men can do, which will probably feel really uncomfortable at first is share more of your world with her, why you’re doing this, what you’re committed to what you want with her, what you want to create with her, like what you’re committed to doing, to healing, to processing to working through, so that you can be XYZ for yourself, for her for your family. Because what women do women to women, is we share details. And the women that we share details with or the women that we trust, if we do not share details with a woman, first of all, it’s weird. Second of all, like any woman in the room is like, that’s, something’s wrong there. There’s a breach of trust, something happened or so, in a way, with I’ve done this with Doug and I shared, I’ve shared this before, like, when he would come home and or whatever, or like, we’d be working through some challenging times. And I would ask him, like, Hey, how did that go? But he’s like, good. Before I knew this, or like, I wouldn’t be like, Oh, my God, what a jerk. He’s not sharing his world with me. He must not trust me, I can’t trust him. He doesn’t share his world with me. That is, can be what is happening on like a biological level. And it’s not even like a conscious choice level. But that for sure dynamic happened between you and I before. Now I laugh when he gives me his one word answers. And he also knows, he was asked me he’s like, do you want the short version or the meadow and I’m like, every single million 100,000%. That’s and I’m a number time I want as many details as possible. So a really big act of partnership is you can do is share more of what you’re doing and why and what you’re learning and what you’ve worked through. With her.
Doug Holt 12:06
Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on the meadow. And what that analogy, we’ve done it before. But maybe we’ll do that the next one, if you have time to stick around. We’ll record another one and talk about the meadow. But what I was talking about is, you know, when your wife says, Hey, how’s your day? What do we say? Good. When you walk away? What you’re saying is for women to relate to each other, you share a lot of the details of what’s going on. And that builds trust. And sometimes as a man, it seems like they’re not even friggin listening to each other. They are they’re not it’s just a different form of communication communicate very differently. Yeah. So what you can do is give your wife again, I always use the analogy speaking a different language. It’s not manipulation. Some guys are like, Oh, am I manipulating her? No, you’re learning to speak in her language because you love her and you want her to feel heard. You want her to feel that you care. So you’re just learning a different way of doing it. And that’s why I asked you, you know, sometimes I still don’t do it, then you’re like, give me the details. Tell me more. Yeah, don’t take it personally anymore. Yeah. And we’ll joke around about it a little bit. And it’s in to your credit, sometimes I’m like, No, I don’t want to talk about it. Because for sometimes for guys, it’s just it can be exhausting. Right? It can be it’s not always but it can be. But yeah, so that’s something you can do for your wife as she uses teller. And if you’re tell her about this podcast, right, that’s something that a guy could do if if the his wife seeing the changes, but not trusting, share this podcast and listen to it together and then talk about how to have a shared experience. Yeah, what did you get out of what Aaron said or what Doug said? Interesting. I got a different perspective because I can almost guarantee you that she’s going to hear something different than you’re hearing is the man right in the same podcast and that’s why they don’t you know, I witness testimony they don’t take in some courts because you can see a traffic accident two different people have two different perspectives of what happened. So it’s the same thing listening to us but you can use a podcast like this, especially the ones that Aaron’s on had a guy yesterday, you like this ask me said Doug, what podcasts right listen to my what with my wife, because I want to he’s been in the program for different programs we have for over two years. Great guy. I said, you know, share the ones that Aaron’s on because you now have a woman’s voice and a man’s voice. And you guys can now create a dialogue around that. And just say, Hey, this is the stuff I’m learning. What do you think? Yeah, you know, because I think a lot of people also have gone a little bit tangent. But they gave me coffee because I bet six to keep me going. A lot of people think they hear the word the powerful man. They think of this kind of macho, anti like we hate women. It’s the opposite. It’s the power from what’s inside of a man. How do you tap into your inner power is really what it’s about. So that’s also a way to share with your wife what you’re learning what you’re studying. You and I talked about you and I are always growing Learning, we exchange it all the time. And that to your point builds trust. I’m getting into your world, I’m letting you into mine. And so we’re now sharing, which naturally builds trust.
Erin Holt 15:12
Yeah. And I just like for the ladies like respect that it’s, it’s not as natural for them. And that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with men. They don’t share weight the way we do, they don’t relate to sharing details that we do. So when he does, like just know, he’s most likely probably coming from really good place trying to really connect with you. And it is an eye like an act of partnership to do that to learn a way to connect with your partner, and honor it and respect it. And it might be bumpy at first because it’s new and different. Whenever Doug and I go through different phases, learning new things, like it just is. Yeah, there’s always a bumpy phase. It’s like learning
Doug Holt 15:49
to ride a bike. You don’t just stop, heard a great analogy, you know, someone said, you know, I’m trying this is just not working. And somebody else said, oh, yeah, kids. Cool. Yeah, have kids. Oh, so when your baby got up and tried to start walking fell down to just give up on him? No, you don’t you keep trying and trying and trying. Muscle laughing because I’m remembering a time and I do this with some of our female coworkers that know this. I’ll ask them like, do you want the meadow? And they always say yes. But I go, I have to sigh because I had to get ready. Okay, here we go build up the energy. Yeah, I gotta give you all the details. She was wearing a red dress. And this is what she said. But she didn’t say this. She said that Linda did that? Where guys will leave out all those details doesn’t matter. Exactly. So what we said earlier is like, I want you to be happy. I love you. I want you to be happy. So why wouldn’t I? If it’s not, you know, hard for me too. Which is not? Why wouldn’t I give that to you by communicating differently when I can? Yeah. And and vice versa. You got to remind me sometimes and sometimes also, I get I get the opportunity to say no, not now. And I get to be respected in that area. Yeah.
Erin Holt 17:03
And the other part that comes from you sharing your world with her and creating trust, trust with you, her band will lead to feeling safe. Yes. I just want to like exhale when I say the word safe, because like, it’s there. Oh, man, we did a whole thing on this to like, the men and women’s relationship to safety is very, very, very, very different. And completely different. And so for her to feel safe with you to have a safe place to land to share, to cry with to know like she can release her emotions with to be in her femininity to just be like, That is a beautiful place to be where yeah, you can really build a beautiful partnership and rebuild and heal from
Doug Holt 17:56
and that’s a really good point because starting off with this was like, Okay, I’m making the changes. She’s liking him. But she doesn’t trust it. If you don’t have that underlying current of safety, she can’t trust it right, naturally. And I remember one time I distinctly remember that you told me like, I don’t feel safe around you. And I was just like, first of all, I got pissed. I got angry. I’ve never hit a woman before. I’ve never even done anything to physically hurt a woman. How could you not feel safe around me of all the men out here? I’m probably the safest. You know, at the time. I was just, I was in great shape. I was athletic. I was like I did boxing and did jujitsu like you’re safe. Like you’re physically safe. No other man is gonna hurt you. Right? I can protect you physically. I wouldn’t hurt you how I was offended. How dare you say I’m not safe. I felt like you’re questioning my manhood. And really what you’re saying is I’m not I don’t feel emotionally safe. Which I that was like I don’t even freaking know what that means. And that’s why I love telling that story because that was such a journey a long journey for me to try to figure out what the heck does emotional safety mean? And as men some guys just get it. I didn’t though I grew up in a household guys played sports all men was in like fitness business and in just in business. So tell me from your perspective, real quick, give me the non metal nonmetal give me the direct to the point what is emotional safety for a woman look like? I’m
Erin Holt 19:30
gonna give you the NAM meadow and then I’m gonna give you a different perspective. Fair enough. So the the nonmetal place is like simply said it’s you her man or the place that she knows she can come to and share her whole self. We as women we have a very big range. Not we can become very untapped to it but it arranged where we can come to you and cry in your arms and you’re gonna be able to handle it. You’re not going to try and fix it or stop it or be uncomfortable or joke it away. Because for us to be in our femininity we need to, we just experienced this with our daughter. But like we get to feel actually feel our feelings, process them, share them move through them, and they’re out, suppressing them not having a place where we feel like we can go to remand and be like, I’m having really hard time with this, or I just need to cry, I need to cry to move this out of me. And I want you to hold me like that is emotional safety just kind of in a nutshell, or, or opposite, she can show it could show up to you and be like, I’m so fucking pumped, like, this just happened at work, and you’re gonna be genuinely excited from her for her. Because you’re her bed, like, you’re going to be happy for her happiness sake. So it’s like the range of emotions you can handle. Like I said, you’re not going to try and fix them, joke them away, tone them down, because they’re too big for you. Because for her, like I mentioned before in a different pockets, our feelings live right here. We live our world by our feelings. So when we have a safe place, we can go with them, particularly our man, it’s a really big trust brother connection brother, intimacy, brother. Yeah,
Doug Holt 21:13
I think it’s guys get this when they go through The Activation Method. But specifically, when they go through the offer reset, which is a four day experience guys go through, we’re having one here at The Ranch, the TPM Ranch and a little bit. And that’s when they get to really get this when emotional safety is at a core level, because they can tap into themselves, they become reactivated in a much stronger way. And so for so many of us, guys, it’s, you can kind of get it logically a little bit. But it has to be almost experienced. Yeah.
Erin Holt 21:47
And the longer part like it’s interesting, I was having a conversation with some of the coaches that work at 2pm. about safety. And the difference between a man’s and woman’s relationship to safety. Do you want to go there? Sure. Okay. So, I’ve men, some men might know that some don’t. But like, for women, we are part of our diffuse wareness a huge percentage of it is always, always, always, always, always, always use to monitor if we’re safe or not. Constant. It’s not even it is conscious. Because we, we know we need to do it to stay safe. But it’s not like we’re making it happen. It just is. So it’s like things like we’re constantly going out to car we’re taught to carry IQ certain way or like you’ve bought me mace or, like I there’s certain things like we were in Hawaii for vacation, and we were trading mornings about who gets to go out and go for a walk while the kids are still sleeping. And like I was scared to go it was still dark, because there could be there are bad men out there not men are not bad, but there are bad men out there. So I would wait until it was a little bit lighter. Doug wouldn’t even think about it. He goes out. It’s pitch black doesn’t even faze you, women, we have to think differently. And like, I’m just like, there’s huge percentage of our diffuse awareness, monitoring our safety, literally constantly. Yeah, this is your daughter’s your wife, your mother’s you want every woman you know. So because we have you guys have testosterone, a much higher percentage 15 to 30%. So that testosterone just gives you an just like an innate, you are so much stronger than us. Even if I’m standing next to a guy that I’m taller with and bigger with. He can hurt me he is stronger. And I’ve worked out and I take care of myself. Like he could hurt me very badly. So like you guys are just have a relationship to your strength. Like yeah, we’re just like, you don’t even think about how, like you’re just strong. You just are. And with that strength. There are bad men that could and do hurt and rape and kidnap and do lots of bad things to women. So our safety meter is always on. Yeah. So
Doug Holt 23:57
it should be the mean. In fact, someone sent me a video was a young girl, she happened to be 20. And I’ll shorten it the best I can. But she was saying, Hey, I just left Walmart. I was in Walmart and a guy in a Walmart vest came up and said Hi, my name’s Nick. What kind of car do you drive because it’s being towed? She told them anyway, she exchanged information. The guy was on speakerphone turned out there was another person they believe was waiting for her by the car that she was smart enough at least another got man came up and broke. The guy started being inappropriate towards her, told his guy to go Hey, leave her alone. She went and talked to the man to the WalMart customer service and said, Hey, look why you told me my car because she still thought her car might be being towed. The manager came out and said no, we don’t do that. Second of all, the guy you’re describing is not an employee or an associate, I think here they walked her out. They made her use a plastic bottle. Plastic bags to touch under the door handle. Because apparently, you know, people put things they’ll make women knock out. And then Walmart did this the Walmart employee that was they happen so much at this particular Walmart apparently, according to this, this video I got, they brought out an air tag detector, the detector her air tag then also detected another one that they found under the hood of her car. So somebody would have been tracking and following her. And I share that with you one is because scary too is I want you to be safe with three fours man. Like that’s not wouldn’t even crossed my mind.
Erin Holt 25:33
Like when’s the last time you were scared for your physical safety?
Doug Holt 25:36
I can’t even I? I don’t know. Exactly. I don’t know anything. You have been all over the world. Yeah,
Erin Holt 25:42
women. It’s daily. It’s probably yesterday, you know, yesterday. Yeah,
Doug Holt 25:45
well, yeah. You and I were at an event. And, gosh, there’s 1000s of people, there was a personal development event over a decade ago. I don’t know how many 1000. Were there 5000 Or so maybe. And at the event, everybody was told to stand up. And it was like, Hey, if you feared for your life in the past, I don’t know. I can’t remember the time. Let’s just say for for the shortness up past week, if you fear for your life, stay standing, if you haven’t sit down 99% of man set sat down, not one woman sat down. Then he went down to as far as if if you feel if you fear for your life in the past 24 hours, stay standing. And there were a large percentage of women standing. And we had been in that car that conference for three days that meant at that hotel. At that event. There were women that have feared for their lives.
Erin Holt 26:35
Or had to think differently, like, do I walk back to my hotel? Alone? No is the answer do I you know, make arrangements so somebody can walk me because now it’s going to be dark, you just have to we have to constantly think in a way to protect ourselves the best we can.
Doug Holt 26:50
So bringing this back full circle to emotional safety. A woman is always conscious of safety, whether it be physical or emotional physical is one element. And most of the men listening to this can physically protect their wife. But emotionally safety they become the intruder in their own house. Which is a scary thing to think about.
Erin Holt 27:10
Yeah. And nobody wants that. And nobody’s intention is ever that but oh no, no. No
Doug Holt 27:14
guy listening to this has mal intentions towards might be mad and pestered his wife right now, but he wouldn’t be bettering himself. Right. That’s what makes to me. That’s what makes the TPM program so amazing, is these are amazing men that are there to better themselves for their families. Those are all great guys. Yeah, this is super helpful. Thanks. Again, I know the guys are gonna get a lot of information through here. And gentlemen, if you’re interested in becoming activated, going through The Activation Method for relationships, our flagship program, go over to the powerful man.com Ford slash apply now. That’s the powerful man.com Ford slash apply now get activated so you can provide safety in your home. And I’m not talking about physical safety guys, it’s not about getting an AR or whatever. This is about providing stability and emotional safety for your wife and for your children. And as men, we’re not taught how to do that, you know, you can’t use you can’t take jujitsu classes to learn how to provide that kind of safety. So make sure you become activated if you don’t go through the TPM programs go somewhere, find out how to do this. I was never taught it. No man I’ve ever met, was taught how to provide this level of safety and as a man, that’s something I want to do. I want to make sure my family feels safe. It feels comfortable. And that’s paramount. I know you want it to so as I always say in the moment of insight take massive action. We’ll see you next time on the TPM show.
