Dhru Purohit Show - The Power of Changing Your Mind and Why We Need Strong Relationships to Make Us Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient
Episode Date: January 9, 2023This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers and InsideTracker. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru welcomes his Man Morning group back for a third episode. This time Dhru sits down with Anton...io Neves, Mark Lebowitz, and Adam Cobb to talk about the life-changing force of community and how investing time, effort, and energy into your friendships can bring newfound joy and perspective into your career, marriage, and other relationships. Antonio Neves is an entrepreneur, award-winning journalist, and world-renowned speaker known for helping people get unstuck and confidently make their next move. He is the bestselling author of Stop Living on Autopilot, the founder of the Man Morning newsletter, and host of The Antonio Neves Show podcast. Mark Leibowitz is a director and photographer whose work has been commissioned by advertisers, brands, studios, and other media outlets worldwide. His commissions range from high-end visuals for studios and brands to campaigns of cultural movers and shakers. Adam Cobb is a performance coach, speaker, nutritionist, and movement and mindset coach. Adam is on a mission to share his vision of living life as if you have an extra day, a mindset he calls “8 Days A Week,” through the art of moving well, eating well, and thinking well daily. In this episode, they dive into: -Examples of how Dhru and the guys have embraced other people’s opinions and perspectives (4:00) -How we can learn from the people we disagree with (12:28) -What Man Morning is and how it changed the guys' lives (20:32) -Why it’s important to check in on your “strong” friends (27:05) -How to maintain a community of friends throughout life (54:12) -How the guys optimize joy in their lives (1:09:01) Also mentioned in this episode: -Sign up for the Man Morning newsletter here -Instagram clip on men neglecting friendships when they get into a serious relationship -Quote from Esther Perel Magnesium Breakthrough really stands out from the other magnesium supplements out there. BiOptimizers is offering my community 10% off plus a special gift with purchase. Just head over to https://www.magbreakthrough.com/dhru with code DHRU10. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to https://www.insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
How many people even at this table have somebody in their family that they love, but that person has
completely different opinions on them on major aspects of life.
Hi, everyone, Drew Prode here, host of the Drew Perrault podcast.
Happy New Year first and foremost.
Today we have a fantastic episode for you, all on the topic of making you more mentally resilient
and helping you step into a growth mindset.
We have a roundtable discussion with a few of my friends who I've invited to be on the podcast
today.
and we have a whole host of topics that we're going to get into that I'll give you a little preview.
Before I do that, just a shout out to today's guest, three guests today, Antonio Neves, Mark Lieberwitz, and Adam Cobb.
I'll tell you a little bit more about them in a second.
On today's podcast, as I mentioned, we're talking about stepping into becoming more resilient.
One of the first topics we get into where I openly share about something that's made me more resilient,
and that's the idea of the power of changing your mind.
You know, as we grow up and hopefully we become more wiser, we sometimes change our mind.
Changing your mind is a healthy sign of growth.
But a lot of people resist the idea of changing their mind even when they feel differently
about a topic or a subject.
I talk about how I struggled with this and how I got better at stepping into the power
of changing your mind, which unlocks so many aspects of growth inside of you.
Next up, we talk about the idea that people who need help, people who need help, people who are
struggling in life, sometimes look like people who don't need help. And this topic was
inspired a little bit by the unfortunate and very tragic passing of a celebrity figure,
Stephen Twitch boss,
Stephen Boss, also known as Twitch,
on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
And while we don't have all the details
of everything that he went through,
it inspired a discussion
about reaching out to our friends
and our family members
who are going through a tough time
and surrounding ourselves with people
who could support us
when we're going through a tough time,
a fantastic discussion.
We also talk about
how building a strong tribe
that meets regularly in your life is the unlock to not only joy, happiness, and success,
but also your 2023 goals.
Take any of your goals that you've written down or any of your intentions for the year.
If you want to accelerate them, group accountability, partner accountability, friend
accountability, and meeting with those people regularly in your life is a huge hack
to make sure those health and wellness or financial or personal development,
goals actually end up happening. Lastly, we go through a little bit of a roundtable, quick,
celebrating and navigating discussion on what's going on with the guys. And you're going to get
some great hacks, including one from our dear friend Adam Cobb on how him and his wife got
their sexy time back in their relationship. Hey, that's an important part of a healthy relationship.
I think you're going to love today's discussion. Now, the group of men that are on this podcast
today are all part of my men's group based here in Los Angeles called
man morning. And by the way, you could start your own man morning or you can start a goddess morning
or anything like that. We talk a little bit about how you can set up your own accountability
group that meets on a regular basis in today's podcast. And Antonio Neves, just a little bit about
him. He's an entrepreneur, award-winning journalist and world-renowned speaker. We have Mark
Leibowitz on the podcast day too. He's a director of photography who's worked and been commissioned by
some of the biggest brands in the world. And we also have Adam Cobb is a performance coach,
speaker, nutritionist, and movement and mindset coach.
Let's jump into today's discussion with some my dearest friends from my man morning group.
When I was younger, I actually really enjoyed the spirit of debate.
I never took formally, I never was part of debate, but I always enjoyed the spirit of it.
And I would read a lot of contrasting ideas and topics on things.
And I really like to look at all sides of the equation.
I think as I started to become and step into being a young man,
I got very clear that my view on the world was the right view on the world.
And that had me, especially into my 20s and probably even like early and mid 30s,
it put me in a situation where even though I was a very compassionate individual,
I would often see any kind of arguments, diet, politics, whatever it might be,
social issues, politics.
I would see it very clearly through my lens of, hey, I'm coming from the right side of history.
coming from truth.
And so I don't even need to, there's a phrase that's being used a lot these days,
I don't need to steal man the other side of the argument.
And I would say that in the last probably good five to six years of my life,
I've gotten back into the component of just because I think I know that something might
have elements of truth to it, let me steal man the other side.
Let me make sure that I understand the other side of the art.
argument and could explain it, even if I don't agree with it, just as strongly as I could my side
of the argument. And what that's done is it's made me have much more compassion for complicated
subjects that are out there in life. And there are some subjects in life that are very cut and dry,
that are very black and white, you know, physical harm, other stuff, how we treat, you know,
just compassion towards like society and just like, there's some basic stuff that are there
that is just very black and white. And there's a lot of other stuff. And there's a lot of other
stuff that is in the gray area. And I want to make sure that as somebody who likes to live in the
gray area, have empathy and has an audience that comes from all sides of the spectrum on all
different sorts of viewpoints, I want to make sure as a good host that I have the ability
to see the other side of the equation, again, even if I totally disagree with it, and that has made
me a better person because I'm asking different questions now. And when I'm asking the experts that
on my podcast or talking to friends who might have a different viewpoint of the world than I do,
I'm able to be there for them and be a better listener if I'm willing to step into the other
side of the argument and really make sure I take on that perspective. So that's one area for me.
Was there one particular incident that made you realize this or a time, a story you could share?
I think the thing is that I realize that I always had that compassion,
externally to the world.
So in the world that I'm in of wellness,
people have a lot of different ideas
about what is the right type of diet,
both for health-wise,
supported by lab work, studies,
evidence-based literature out there,
but also ethically, morally.
At one point in time,
early on in my life,
like in my early 20s,
I was like a hardcore plant-based vegan.
And I really felt like
that was the way
to view and approach the world.
And then later on,
as I got into the world
of functional medicine,
had some great mentor,
and people and clinicians that I was business partners with,
I started to realize the layers of that
that didn't make sense to me anymore
and that still might make sense to somebody else.
I think it probably started off with some dietary aspects.
But as that world opened up,
it just became almost every major area of life
where I was willing to hear a different or contrarian
or other side of the argument
and just step into it a little bit before I spoke.
You know, there are, sometimes you'll see these memes on social media, which is, and I think you've shared it one time before, Antonio, you don't always immediately have to have an opinion about something.
And I think that the way I approached the world before is that, hey, I look at this subject, right, exactly this way.
That means that this next subject that I don't have any real expertise or I haven't even taken the time to like learn about, I'm just going to say my thoughts on it are the same.
as everybody else who's in my tribe, my camp.
So I would do a lot of that.
By association, oh, these three guys think that this is the right approach for this topic,
I'm going to think the same thing as well, too.
I took a step back and said, okay, first of all,
let me not have to have an opinion about things right away.
And second of all, I don't need to have an opinion sometimes ever.
If I actually feel like I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about when it comes to a topic, right?
Then thirdly, if I genuinely care about it,
let me make sure I understand both sides of the equation so I can actually argue the other side,
quote unquote, even better than maybe somebody from the other side could do it.
So that has been something that has made me a much better thinker.
It's made me a better business person.
It's made me a better friend.
And it's actually made me less judgmental on the world, which has improved my day-to-day
level of happiness because I'm not projecting my opinion of how things should be.
on everybody else that has a different way of living than I do.
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Now, back to today's episode.
Man, what a brilliant reminder
that we don't have to have an opinion on something.
I think that can save us so much time, so much energy.
I'm just, as you were talking,
I was just visualizing holidays
and families getting together for dinner,
whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, or something else.
And inevitably, uncle somebody going to say something
that's going to piss somebody off.
at the table, right? Of course, we start going back and forth, but we can sit there in that
situation and not have an opinion and that argument is not going to happen. It's like we're feeding
the fire sometimes. There's also, as you were talking, Drew, it's a reminder to me that we can still
learn from people we disagree with. We've reached this interesting place in time where somebody has
an opinion on something that you adamantly disagree with, whether it's politics, whether it's
health, you name it, all of a sudden they're a bad person or you want to cancel them,
etc.
But I'm a firm believer that even folks I may disagree with on the topic, I'm open, to
your point, humble enough to say, I still can learn from them.
We've all taken courses or read certain books.
And I get frustrated sometimes when if somebody reads a book and they're like, it was a good
book, but you know, that chapter eight really got me mad.
And I'm like, are you going to focus just on chapter eight or the other 11?
chapters that were pretty amazing. We have a choice. We have a say in this, right? Yeah.
It's a good point. How many people are in society, even people's own, and the thing is that
people forget that this is already happening. How many people, even at this table, have somebody
in their family that they love, but that person has completely different opinions on them on
major aspects of life. We're all doing it on a daily basis. We still treat them with kindness, right?
Now, we might have boundaries in it where it's like, hey, listen, I'm not going to get into this subject
with you. We may have communication that's like, I understand you feel this way and I'm going to love you
from a distance, but I feel opposite. Sure, there are times where somebody is so adamant about their
opinion that it spills over and they can't even control how it impacts sort of like, you know, they want to
bring it up or they want to berate you. But there are so many of us that have family members,
friends, et cetera, that have a different opinion than we do and we still love them. We still care about
them and we still function in the world with them. And yet some of that same compassion we apply to
our own family doesn't often get extended externally to the rest of the world. Adam, were you
about to say something? I was just interested in because we've known each other for a while. And I think
that you've always been really good at making someone not feel judged. But I do, I would say like
over however many years, the last few years, there is an even more openness, you know, to have
help somebody feel really safe, whatever their, you know, beliefs are.
And I'm wondering, because I'm like, I can get better at that.
I don't know.
I'm sure everybody could get better at that.
And this is the one thing that you've changed or tried to shift a little bit in you.
I'm wondering if there's like a leading question or something that kind of opens up that
conversation for you when there's someone that you do have a difference of opinion on.
And you can feel maybe the judgment rising.
And you're like, all right.
because I'm wondering, like, sometimes when that happens from me, I'll take a deep breath.
I'll say, I have time, maybe, right, slow and steady.
But maybe I can just kind of lean away from it rather than lean into it.
And you're really great at leaning in.
So I'm wondering if there are, yeah, there are any kind of open questions that you lead with when you want to?
I think more important than questions is also the realization that, and there's data to prove this as well, right?
When somebody feels that we are trying to change their mind, they often, even if we come in with facts and in this day and age, you know, different people have their version of what the facts are, when somebody feels that we're coming in with the intent to have them see our point versus first practicing what is proven, which is practicing the component of mirror neurons, people are more likely to engage in a truthful conversation with us when they feel like we're a like.
with each other. So when you're genuinely listening and you're and you're hearing them and you're
asking questions and other stuff, now people feel like they trust you, right?
Yeah.
When we come in and as a rebuttal back to it, there's just like John Mayer's song. I'm a John
mayor fan. I have no problem admitting that. It's like he said, have you ever met anybody
that's changed their mind from the writing that they've seen on a sign, right? So a sign is
yelling out. A friend is yelling out like, I feel about it this way. I feel this.
often they just has people double down
and you don't have any sense of dialogue.
So I think that there's that just genuine understanding
that if I'm actually,
and it's also the component of
maybe there's a part that I actually don't know.
This is the hardest part.
The hardest part is even if you feel you know a lot
about a particular subject
or you feel like you're very adamant
about a belief in a particular subject,
in that moment of listening,
can you put that down because it's not needed
because you're just there to listen?
Can you set that aside
because all that is just going to be
filters between you and the other person.
So when that happens,
I find the questions or the prompts,
they're natural.
They're not any one phrase you have to say
because that can either feel fake
or it can feel real
if you're genuinely in that spot.
On a practical level,
I love everything Drew just shared
and Mark referenced, you know,
Dr. Gay and Katie Hendricks earlier
and their work is amazing from conscious living
to conscious loving to the book,
The Big Leap, et cetera.
And to Drew's point, one way we can, I think, encounter those situations differently is ask ourselves,
are we coming from a place of, hmm?
You know, somebody says something, you know, hmm, you get tight, right?
Or are we coming from a place of curiosity and wonder where the arms are open, right?
And it's hmm.
Like, how am I approaching this?
Hmm?
Or hmm.
And when you shift to the hmm, I think the way Drew is discussing that, something opens up.
From a language perspective, and I've learned this as a coach, and I've learned this in my years as a journalist,
is one, we got to be careful with the questions or our statements.
Because a lot of times in the language, if somebody says something, what's our response?
Well, don't you think already, once you say don't you think, you're telling them what you think.
You're already going to make them get defensive on their heels.
And what they should think.
Exactly.
You're basically saying, don't you think, well, you should think.
If you want to make somebody get mad defensive and put their claws up to fight, ask the question, why?
Why?
Why do you think that?
That just feeds in to fuel.
That's like fuel to a fire.
However, even if you feel that energy, just five words, five words that are everyone's best friend as a coach.
I'm sure you use these regularly.
Tell me more about that.
Those five words are a game changer in any situation.
Tell me more about that.
How did you come to that decision?
I like to learn more about that.
And for me and my coaching work, whenever I'm stuck with a client sometimes, those five words have always saved me.
And they've also saved me to avoid getting in disagreements or arguments as well.
Save me in relationship.
Part two to your question.
Can you sing the John Mayer line?
I cannot.
I don't even know the lyrics as you saw.
I don't even know the lyrics.
You're over here quoting John Mayer.
I said, I want to hear that one.
Mark, any thoughts on that?
Anything you want to add to it?
I love the listening part that you mentioned and listened to somebody first because there was a moment I was a photo assistant.
22, 23 years old.
And I had just got in an argument with my girlfriend.
And I went to the photographer who's a mentor, like the next morning when we were on set.
And I said to him, Art, I just offered all these opinions and answers to these questions
were coming out.
And I told her what I thought.
And she just got more and more mad at me.
And his reply to me was, Mark, sometimes you don't need to say anything.
You just need to listen.
And it was a early lesson that was a version of that.
But it's something that every time I hear it, even hearing it again right now,
I still need to rehear it.
Because it's something that I think we have to continually be teaching ourselves to listen
and to hear other people's side of the story.
Yeah, definitely.
Anybody else on that before we go to the next subject?
No.
All right, I shared a quote with you guys, taking a turn over here.
You know, our group is called Man Morning.
We get together on a weekly base.
Actually, Antonio, can you just share a little about what Man Morning is?
And don't a little plug for your newsletter because that's part of the reasons we're doing these episodes is we are trying to inspire people to create more of their own sense of community.
And if they want to do in the context of getting a group of men together, great.
If they wanted their version of it, which is a goddess morning, if they want to do their version of it, which is a mixed group, anybody, whatever background gender, they could do that.
But talk about what Man Morning is and what you're trying to put out there with spreading the message with the news.
Yeah, man morning started roughly eight years ago where a group of guys here in Los Angeles.
We all were seeking out community and we really didn't want to go about it alone.
One thing we pretty much all had in common where we were independent business owners,
entrepreneurs, et cetera.
We didn't have that kind of standard job where you go to an office for the nine to five.
And we wanted a community.
So what we decided to do was get together on a weekly basis.
And one critical decision we made early on was to get together early in the morning.
We started off doing these at 7 a.m.
And we always found that having a cup of coffee or a tea, and that conversations you have with a cup of coffee or tea at 7 a.m. are very different than the conversations you have at 7 p.m. over a beer, glass of wine or a cocktail.
Not that there's anything wrong with an adult beverage, right? And we just found the conversations in the morning. We're just an amazing way to jumpstart the day. And during those conversations and to this day, we find ways to talk about business. We talk about life. We talk about challenges. We talk about things we're excited about.
We talk about relationships, struggles, you name it.
And what's amazing is this is a group that really what we do is we call each other up as opposed to calling each other out.
In a day and age in society where it's really easy specifically from social media to call people out.
What we do is we call people up to be the best versions of themselves.
And we do that with clear intention in our conversations.
We're not consulting.
We're not telling you what to do.
We're being curious.
We're asking questions.
We're coaching.
So people walk away.
energized, they walk away inspired, they walk away empowered. I think what's amazing is people will
spend, we do it in an hour, by the way, we're in and out in an hour. People do this, and sometimes
someone won't even talk for that full hour and they'll walk away saying, wow, I got so much out of
that. It's one of those reminders that whatever you're experiencing, whatever you're going to,
you are not the first person to go through that. And what we're trying to do with the manmourning
newsletter, you know, manmourning.com, you know, it's a daily,
newsletter for the for the growth-minded man who wants to start his day empowered and with a strong
sense of community and it provides insights it provides stories it provides anecdotes it provides
resources to start your day with a bang and so check out manmourning.com and i can speak
personally for myself in a time in my life when i was struggling when i was starting to do with a lot
of men during tough times when i was starting to isolate man mourning was my saving grace to
have these folks I look into the eyes every single week and who I knew were there for me and who
followed followed up with me. Last thing I'll share on that as much as Man Morning getting together
weekly in person is so powerful. I've also learned this. Being in the right group chats,
the right group text messages can change your life for the better. The way we support one another,
just in our text messages, our laughter, our Man Morning playlist that we have on Spotify,
checking in on people, et cetera.
It's just so empowering.
And I want every man to have this in some capacity.
I would love for women, whether they want to start a goddess morning,
get ready, goddess morning.com is coming as well.
To have this in their life.
And it's been a game changer for me in the community as well.
I love it.
You got a great job with it.
I'm having a blast with the newsletter.
And the feedback has just been absolutely amazing.
Funny enough, we're talking about this before we hit record,
or whatever.
Funny enough.
A lot of the folks that have signed up are women.
Because, yes, it's man mourning, but what I'm sharing, you know, of course, is empowering for women as well.
But of course, they want their hubby.
They want their guy.
They want the men in their life also to be fueled, right?
With so much in society that depletes us, you know, we need that key thing that regularly refueles us.
The same way great food provides that sustenance.
And that's what this community is all about.
Yeah, man mourning is the antithesis to so many the trends that we see out there, which
is there's increased rates of loneliness. There was a big survey that just came out recently.
Even amongst young people, you're seeing increased rates of perceived loneliness. Older men,
especially in America, especially, yeah, the older that you get, the likelihood of you having a
best friend goes down tremendously. The stats I read in the New York Times, this was a few years ago,
men above the age of 50 who have a best friend,
a huge percent do not have a best friend.
Just think about all the things that you miss out in life
when you don't have somebody you could regularly talk to.
Yes, love your partner, love your wife, love your husband,
everything else like that.
But that person is different than having a friend.
Not that they shouldn't be your friend,
that person's different than having,
and by the way, your partner cannot be everything to you, right?
Your wife, your husband, they can't be everything to you.
You need multiple people.
Human beings are tribal.
We had a lot of people in our life that support us with a lot of different things.
So Man Morning is really the antithesis to so many of the unfortunate trends that are out there.
And it comes at a time where the world needs it now more than ever.
You know, this is our next topic we want to get a chance to get into.
You know, we're recording this on Friday, December 16th.
And just this week, we got some extremely tragic news that was there,
which is Twitch, the DJ dancer from the Ellen DeGeneres-O,
who people have said was the bright and shining light.
I have a few friends that were lucky enough to have a friendship with him.
Never the person complaining.
Always the person talking about how thankful he was for his wife and kids.
Always the person that was putting out abundant energy.
Seems to, we are still getting the reports, nothing is finalized, other stuff,
seems to have passed away from direct inflict of a wound that probably came from
a gunshot, committed suicide. And I think what hit people really strongly is this idea that
sometimes the people that look like they're the strongest and the pillar in their community
are actually the ones that need the most help. In fact, I showed you guys a quote. This is from
my friend Dr. Deepika Chopra, a psychologist who share some great information online. And exactly
the quote said, people who need help sometimes look a lot like people who don't need help.
I want to get everybody's reaction to that, thoughts on that,
and just what it brings up for you in the context of especially
what we're trying to put out there in the world with Man Morning.
Anybody want to start off?
I can go.
Yeah.
I know even with you guys who are some of my closest friends in the world
that very often I will have pain on the inside that I just won't share with you.
And it can happen on a weekly basis.
Like maybe I woke up wrong.
Maybe there's something that I feel like often.
topic and I just don't want to pull the energy of the group down. So you guys might not even
see the difference. But I think that that quote really resonates with me because I know that
externally I will project the same happy, positive Mark wanting to hear about what's going on
with you guys, but I'll have the pain inside. So that quote really rings true personally to me.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As you say that, you know, as a father, you know, as a husband, you know,
that breaks my heart. Again, we're still gathering information and learning all the details,
but that breaks my heart.
Again, some of the strongest people we know,
Adam, I know you work with so many high-profile people
you can't say their names of with these profile,
whether actors or whether they're athletes, etc.
You know, we're in the light.
Some of these people are on stages on a regular basis.
And, you know, a lot of people have that gift
of being able to turn it on, if you will,
in front of so many people.
But it can be lonely when that camera's not on.
It can be lonely when those people aren't in the audience.
For a lot of people, I'll speak for myself as well,
being on stages sometimes in front of 5,000 people giving keynotes.
It's empowering.
It's all that.
But then you get off the stage and you can feel so alone.
Or you can feel so alone still on that stage in front of so many different people.
Look, I know those, I can resonate with that because prior to man morning starting,
I found myself in that kind of funk, where I was slowly but surely having challenges
in my marriage.
I was having a tough time connecting with my newborn twins that manifested by, you know, staying away,
from and not reaching out to a community that manifested by, you know, ending the nights with a
couple of drinks so I wouldn't feel to turn the brain off. That manifested in a really nasty
secret cigarette smoking habit that I have that I talk about in a humorous way in my bookstop
living on autopilot. And it wasn't until one day when I was smoking a cigarette in an alley
in Santa Monica wearing this bright green gardening glove when a homeless man asked me to borrow a cigarette.
And he noticed his bright green gardening glove I was smoking with. He said, why are you wearing that?
And I was like, my wife doesn't know that I smoke so she doesn't smell the stench on my hands.
And he looked at me, man.
He said, man, you got to figure that out.
Homeless dude.
Man, you got to figure that out.
And it was that moment where that it changed something for me.
And I was so thankful to remind you know, I think angels sometimes can show up in the most unique places.
And that turned things around for me to share more.
Start seeking out support from a therapist and beyond.
But the irony is that was behind the scenes in my life.
In front of the scenes, you would have assumed that Antonio Neves was, he's cool.
He's traveling.
He's making a good income.
Has the house with the white picket fence, married kids.
But, you know, the internet tells, here it is, the internet tells a story,
but it can never tell the whole story.
And so that's why I think it's so important with our community and with our friends.
The surface question of how you doing isn't enough because it's too easy to say two of the most dangerous words ever.
I'm fine.
My least favorite question in the world.
How you doing?
I'm fine.
Or what's new?
Or what's new?
It masks so much.
Or what do you do?
Tell me what's going on in your life.
What's new?
What are you?
The questions that we ask you, man, morning, what are you struggling with right now?
What are you excited about being able to look face to face with someone?
Because when you look face to face, man, you can see pain sometimes.
When you hear the silence when people can't speak, you hear something that's not being said, et cetera.
So it's a tragic situation.
We have to remind ourselves that we're talking about this because this person was in a public light.
There are so many men, a lot of veterans especially, as well that we don't know their names,
that they're having the same struggles, the same challenges, so many men who are suffering in silence.
And as for folks who are listening right now, if there's someone in your life, man or a woman that you're thinking about right now,
that I wonder how they're really doing, check in on them today.
Yeah.
Send them a pitch pause.
Send them a text.
As a matter of fact, pick up the phone,
give them a video call because check in on your people,
your phone call, that message,
that note of encouragement straight up could save somebody's life.
Adam, what comes up for you?
And have you ever been in a place where you were going through a tough time
and you didn't reach out?
You have an incredible network.
But have you ever gone through a place where you were going through a super tough time,
but you didn't know what to do or how to reach out to people.
Yeah.
I'd say, number one, as Antonio mentioned, like professionally,
one of the things I love the most is that I get to work with,
whether it's actors, MBA, guys, pastors, leaders, whatever it is.
And I'm that oftentimes that one person that they do share those,
kind of like what you do in the darkness defines you moment.
And it's like they share what keeps them up at 3 a.m.
You know, they share that stuff.
and that's the stuff that I love the most about kind of what I get to do with people.
And because I was often the go-to person for that and not just Adam Cobb,
but coach Adam Cobb that has a Superman cape on all day long when I hurt my knee,
you know, a lot of people hurt their knee.
But when I hurt my knee, I hurt my knee in Australia doing the thing that,
I felt God was calling me to do.
And I felt that I was in the place, like God's country.
I felt like I was in, you know, Bronte, Bondi beach.
And feeling like it was the right moment.
You know, I was also on this like spiritual,
had a spiritual mentor that was mentoring me in such a deep way
that I felt, you know, that like, like this is it.
This is that next kind of launch pad moment.
Well, what it did was it did launch me, but it launched me kind of down.
And I was, I had to fly home.
I remember I had to wait two weeks to even fly home because after the injury,
because I would get blood clot if I flew, you know, because I'm flying from Australia.
And then, you know, this is only five years ago.
So then as an adult man, I now have to live with my mom and dad.
Didn't plan on that happening, you know.
Relationship?
No chance, right?
Like, I'm a little mom and dad.
Like, what?
And now I'm going to be in rehab for about six months.
And everybody said, you'll be great.
You know, you're tough, motivated, and I still had the cape on.
I was doing good.
And then I had the surgery.
And I just came off this spiritual experience.
And I thought, all I need is God.
All I need is Jesus.
I'm good.
Well, let me tell you.
I found myself, I found myself for a month, about five weeks.
I didn't know what to do.
do. I didn't know how to define myself at that point. My spiritual practice felt like it wasn't working.
Meditation that I teach others, didn't want to do that. Movement couldn't move. Nutrition. I found
myself up at 1 a.m. in the morning crushing things like frosted flakes because that was comfort food.
Watching the same rerun of SportsCenter like I was seven years old again over and over and over and over and over and over again.
and I found myself going down that path.
And I needed to ask for help.
You were one of the people, Drew, that I reached out to.
And there were about four people specifically that connected with me consistently, you know,
and just ask, how you doing?
I had one friend reach out and just like, hey, checking in on you, thinking about you.
That's all I needed.
You know, I was in a small-ass town, Massachusetts versus Sydney or New York.
York or LA, one of the bigger cities. And I'm rehab and not really sure what's next. And then I had a
re-injury and it was really scary. And one, I realized that to be open-minded to different forms of
healing. And again, so I started, I did therapy for the very first time. I was always afraid of that
because I didn't want to have to talk about kind of my past and what that would bring up. And I felt
like I was in a good place, big Superman Cape, I'm strong.
So I had to do therapy and I did it every week for six months straight.
And that was powerful.
It was really powerful.
And what was the prompt that got you to even open up with that?
Did a friend suggested?
Did you just think like, you know what?
This is bringing up a lot of stuff.
I should seek somebody out.
Therapy?
Yeah, what was the prompt?
The prompt was, I will never do that.
The prompt was I knew it was going to be quite a hard process.
So I found this young kid,
which was a friend of my cousin,
to literally video this process for me.
Because I was like rather than create document, right?
Like every always says, right?
So document the process.
So I was like, I'm just going to document this journey for me.
So you're finding therapy or doing therapy?
No, of me, of my rehab, of my knee.
Got it, got it.
So went ahead and had this guy, you know,
you know, and he was 18 years old.
And he's in my house as I'm basically crying,
trying to bend my knee.
and I find out that this kid that I, so how I find, he had his dad pass from a heart attack, jogging down the street and his mom die a year before to cancer.
He had both parents pass.
He's only 18 years old.
And he had this therapist that lived right down the street, you know, this little therapist from Marion, you know, Massachusetts.
That you would go to.
he would go to. And then he was like, well, you might want to check her out. And I'm like, yeah,
I'm good, you know? I got God, I'm good, right? Like, we're videotaping this or on purpose.
Well, I'm good. I was still in that, like, keep going mode. And then he's like, I'll send you her
TED talk. So, oh, she has a TED talk. Oh, interesting. So I listened to her TED talk. I'm like,
kind of on the Bray Brown vibe. I'm like, okay, interesting. So I go in and I sit down with her and I say,
hey, listen, I just really need to heal my knee.
And I don't really want to talk about my mom or my father's go, dad, or my stepdad.
I don't even need to do all that.
Right?
I just need to focus on my knee.
And it was about the fourth session.
And I said, hey, I, I'm sorry to, like, try to dictate terms.
I realize I've been coaching these last three sessions.
And I just, everything's on the table.
And she was like, welcome to your first session.
Yeah.
And I've been with her once a week for the last five years.
Incredible.
The power of having somebody to regularly go to and talk about what's going on in your life.
Obviously, in that sense, it's a trained person.
And as a complimentary to people's lives, some people have access to that.
Insurance is good, et cetera.
And I think that it's like that works like hand in hand with everything with Man Morning.
A hundred percent.
I think, you know, one of the things I think about with Man Morning is that our world is missing ritual.
Back of the day, we had rituals.
It could be, you know, in the case of, you know, somebody who might be religious or has a particular viewpoint on that, it could be church, like church you go to, Adam, right?
If it was something that was more community-centric, it could be the ritual of, you know, men going on a hunt together.
it could be whatever ritual it was
but it was something that was baked
into the schedule of society
today we're all doing a lot more
but we're lacking on the rituals
one of the rituals that we have in our life
is man morning it's on the calendar and we often say
that you let us know
if you can't make it because you're
assumed that you're going to be
there and there's something about
that predictability of it being on the calendar
it's everybody knows it's happening
Now, sure, life gets busy, things happen, somebody just has a baby, somebody's busy traveling with work, whatever might be.
There's many reasons why you can't be there.
But you always know it's there and it's happening regardless.
There's some sense of security that that provides people to know when, even if you don't recognize that things are tough right now, you can drop in and man morning will always be there for you.
And my hope is that people get inspired to create more ritual in their own life, not something that they have to every single time plan from scratch, get people together.
We've all done that before in group chats.
Like, that gets tough and it gets tiring.
And usually the person who's really good at that, you know, ends up getting burnt out.
So how can you create some ritual in your life that creates connection
and allows for these different types of questions to come up?
And just briefly, I think this is a good reminder that what's unique about a lot of our
man morning crew is that a lot of us don't have our family here either.
So we're not in a community where we have our family, people we grew up with, etc.
We're all living in L.A. and we came from somewhere else, right?
So you could be right now, maybe you live in a community where your family or your friends,
you went to college or high school with are there.
I think this is a great reminder that sometimes the people who can end up helping you the most
actually know you the least.
There's something special about spending time with people that don't know you super, super well.
Like our man morning crew by now, obviously we're all cool.
Some of us know each other know one another is better than others.
And there are questions that certain people who don't have all the background, all the history,
that mistake you made when you got kicked out of school in 11th grade for doing whatever you,
know all of that, they see you with a blank slate, they can ask you these unique types of
questions. You otherwise probably wouldn't be asked by someone who's known you the vast
majority of your life. Lastly, if someone is considering to working with the coach or
working with a therapist, Adam made a really, really important point that I don't want people
to miss as sometimes it takes a few sessions. It takes some time to get some momentum. A lot of
people like, ah, I did two sessions, wasn't any good. It wasn't great. Sometimes it's that fourth
session or that fifth session when things, when you slowly take off the uniform, you remove the
mask, you take off the layer when magic can actually show up. So if you're just getting started,
you're like, I don't know, give it some time. Don't throw in the towel too early. Let me add to that
too, Antonio, because you said something so powerful right there, and that's the idea of like multiple
sessions and start to get into the momentum. But I know for myself and for many clients, and I'm sure for
you too. It's the, those moments when you feel like you're good, you know, you've done your therapy,
you've done your coaching and you're like, I'm good. I'm in a good patch. I'm going to, I'm going to,
pause on that. And I think for me, at least in therapy, for me, it's when things are really good
is when I know, oh, I really need my session, you know, and I think a lot of times because I'll then
because all of a sudden now I'm starting to focus on myself,
focus on me making my decisions,
not being resourceful,
not asking for help.
I'm not talking about the things that I need.
I'm just like,
okay,
I'm good now.
And I think that's when I have needed it the most.
And fortunately,
I have somebody that's really committed,
you know.
Best dope awareness.
I'm even right now visualizing that married couple,
that is marriage counseling.
But they're like,
we're doing pretty good.
Do we need to go?
Do we need to go this month?
We're fine.
That typically is the month when you really need to go.
And let me add one one thing.
This is so good.
Hey, this is an Adam and Antonio podcast.
Oh, man.
Cut me off to you too.
To that point, my partner name is Daisy.
And we were in a couple's therapy.
You know, we believe in that.
And it's been really helpful in our relationship.
And she had gotten some difficult news in work.
So we just got the, like, got off the call.
And right off the call, we went over to our living room to then have a Zoom session with our couples therapist.
I got a box of tissues for Daisy because I thought, she's having a hard time.
Well, we opened up the session.
Guess who needed that box of tissues?
This guy, the guy that was on fire, the guy that had all the energy, you know, I'd already done a foot workout, my spiritual practice.
But I needed that big of tissues, even though I thought, like, things were great.
well, you know, I needed to be cracked open.
And, you know, even that momentum,
some of them can ride it into a really way that you didn't expect.
Word, right?
Yeah, thank you, Bella.
One interesting thing about that for me is how thin the line is
between happiness and even something as, you know,
like the most serious thing in our life.
I had a friend who was suicidal and,
was talking about how you think you have to like plan this out but it's something where
and we were driving the car she said like I could just drive this car off of a cliff or into a tree
and this at any moment that it can happen and those decisions are so split second that every minute
we have to make a choice that that we want to live even if if we're not thinking about it
so it's it's something where just knowing that like razor thin line where you know you're good
and then all of a sudden you need the box of tissues.
Like that can happen to any of us in any moment.
Yes, because what do you always hear?
She was great yesterday.
She seemed totally normal yesterday.
To your point, that's such a fine line.
Yeah, and the flip of that that's out there in the world
is that sometimes especially when a high-profile person, right,
we just talk about Twitch, but talk about Robin Williams, right?
Talk about anybody else high-profile.
Anthony Bordane.
Anthony Bordane.
People often see the external success this person has created.
and said, oh my gosh, what one take is.
Again, this is just one take out of many takes that are there,
but it's a take that I want to comment on.
I want to give my hot take to this take.
Oh, shoot.
Is how dare they?
They had everything, everybody's admiration, all that stuff.
In some cases, family, right?
And what people don't see is that how quickly,
there's a few things that people don't see.
Number one, you never know the battles
and how long they've been going.
on true right you never know the battles and how long they've been going on what is the thing that
this person's been struggling with for such a long time that maybe not even their closest person
in some cases knew about the next thing is that often for people that are dealing with deep pain
that's there sometimes they are good at their threshold and then two three four events happen in life
in the case of anthony bourdain again a public figure in his situation
there was a very public controversy that involved his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend at the time.
There was a Me Too moment that she was going through, right?
And at least some people that were closer to that situation say that these things were connected.
And that bringing back the spotlight on Anthony, who had been suffering very openly to a few people
with major challenges in his life, potentially some addictions.
That's not exactly.
I'm not as in the know on that.
And so somebody who had the ability to keep everything together had two or three major situations
and they're in the public eye, but for somebody else, it's all relative.
The toughest thing that happened to you is the toughest thing that happened to you.
So you go through one or two of those situations, losing your job, a partner, something happening
with your spouse, a situation within infidelity, some major.
crisis that's there, a health crisis even. And all of a sudden, life can so quickly accelerate.
So I think anybody who looks from the outside and sees that things are going so well, how dare that
person or why would they do that? We don't understand how quickly things can de-escalate in that
situation for somebody who might have been struggling for years to hold it all together.
And we can't forget that people are human. I think one thing that all of us in this table
have in common is that in some shape or form and our work, we've all worked with some extreme
extremely high profile men and women over the course of our careers.
Names that we can't say.
I've had the opportunity to coach some amazing executives and founders over the years.
As a journalist, I work with so many Grammy Oscar Award winners.
I can go on and on.
And from the outside looking in, we look to your point, Drew, this man, this woman, they
haven't made.
They have everything you could ask for.
They've made it.
They've had success.
But then when the lights aren't on, when the camera's not rolling, when it's just them,
and they can turn off what society expects from them,
what their shareholders expect from them,
what their employees expect from them,
what their fans expect from them,
what their followers expect from them.
You see such a totally different person
who can be bruised, who can be raw,
who can be hurting, who can be sad,
but may not feel like they have an outlet to actually show that.
And not only that,
because of how society has used a lot of these people,
a lot of these folks also think,
who am I to complain?
That's what they think.
Who am I to complain?
So many people have it worse than I do.
So they don't even feel like they have permission
to say certain things out loud
because people will say,
you have nothing to complain about, right?
But folks, we've interacted with firsthand,
we've seen this.
And people would be surprised.
That's why I keep saying,
check on your friends, check on your people,
because you never know that that line is so thin.
I said this is why I love the part of me language because part of me can be just thrilled with all the success I'm having at work and so grateful for everything incredible in my life.
But part of me can also be feeling crushed about an argument that I've had with my partner.
And there's so many different parts of us that are simultaneously existing and they're in constant flux.
Part of me, that'd be a dope book title.
Seriously.
This might be John Mayer line as well, Drew.
That was you thinking about, that's what I'm thinking about.
It makes me think about how specifically, like, with men and how oftentimes we're just really bad at being like, well, you know, I'm struggling, but, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Or I'm struggling a little bit.
How often do I know I hear or sometimes I say, yeah, I'm just, I'm tired a little bit or I'm struggling a little bit.
I'm sad, just a little.
and I think to myself, when I hear that, I go like, get rid of those qualifiers, right?
And I say to myself, I'd say to friends, get rid of the qualifiers.
You don't have to qualify why you're feeling sad.
How about you're feeling sad?
Yes.
To the point of the part of me feels sad.
That sometimes gives me the understanding and that I can say it.
It gives me, okay, I feel okay by saying a part of me says that.
I love that languaging as well.
Yeah.
I'm curious to get everyone's take here.
you know, we're in a society now, especially when you look at social media, it seems like
there's so much emphasis on being positive.
You got to be positive. You got to be positive. And I believe in the power of positivity.
If I have to choose to be positive or negative, I'm going to be positive. But I think sometimes
we, to your point, we don't give ourselves permission to say, yes, I may be an optimistic
being. I may have a positive outlook on life. And I'll tell you that that has been a real hard
struggle for me. Because again, I talk about like coach Adam Cobb, Superman Cape, super optimistic.
all of a sudden, then really going to a point of trying to be real with even the question,
how are you?
And going, so nowadays, like right now, somebody will ask, how are you doing?
Though I don't love it.
I still hear it all the time.
And I'll pause.
And I'll be like, you know what?
And someone's I'll say.
In the past, I would have said, I'm great.
But you know what?
I'm going to give you a real answer because that's what I'm committing to right now.
And I'll just be like, how am I doing?
And I do this little kind of rub right here.
For me, I've learned through therapy.
that kind of activates my feeling in my body.
I'm like, I get connected to the body.
And I'm like, oh, I'm struggling with this
and may I say, how part of me is doing this.
But there's that understanding
that I can communicate that way.
You know, but it's been hard for me to overcome that
because not only was I that way,
people got conditioned for me to be that way.
So if I said that I was doing,
if I was having a sad,
if I was sad or if I was having a hard time,
people weren't used to that.
And then it'd be like, oh my God, what's wrong?
No, nothing's wrong.
I'm just letting you know.
I'm trying to be real with your response,
my response to your question.
Yo, or they're like, what's wrong?
Or they're like, I got to go.
Oh, yeah, I got to go.
I can't handle you.
Drew's in a bad, Drew,
optimistic Drew's in a weird mood.
I should go.
This is weird me out because that's not normal, right?
What is Antonio without a big laugh?
Right.
It was out and without a big smile, right?
What is, you know, that case?
Yeah.
Funny and cool thing is I just saw a news article
on BuzzFeed that in the country of Denmark, I'll believe, Tesla, we got to fact check this.
They added a new lane to the grocery stores that's specifically for seniors who want to take their time.
No way.
And chat a little bit with the clerk, right?
And slow down a little bit and be like, how's your day?
Well, here's what's real for them in that moment.
It was just a little note of positivity in this world,
a little note of like, well, something beautiful to do.
Sure, could it be an inconvenience to other people,
but for especially a vulnerable population,
how beautiful of a gesture does that, you know, make happen?
And it brings up this sort of next point,
which we want to get a chance to go into.
You know, for most people, men and women,
their peak level of friendships, relationships, that sort of thing,
is usually around the college,
time frame, right? If somebody didn't go to college like that, end of high school first job.
People have the peak amount of friendships that they're going to have. And then over the years,
we strip away at those friendships. And there's a lot of major life events that end up happening
that do that. Number one, we live in a day and age where even us all sitting here, we've moved
multiple cities in our adult life. So moving, that's a big one. You move to a new city, even though you
have all these old friends, you're just not in touch anymore. Number two, people have kids, right?
People get busier and they're no longer in touch with the people out of there. One that we'll
talk about here, you get into a new relationship. That's another one. And all of a sudden now,
you're focused on that person that's there. You know, back in the day, when there was somebody
in your community, and I saw this growing up with my family in the Indian community where we most
grew up in Delaware.
If somebody died in somebody else's family, right?
Immediately within the community, there was a protocol of what to do, right?
You don't wait for as soon as you hear and you are within a couple layers of
circle of connected them, everybody starts making food, right?
Somebody shows up right away and basically says, I'm just here.
And look, if you need space, fine, you go up to your room or whatever, but I'm
I'm just here.
There was no, can I come over?
There's no, let me double check with you.
It's everybody just shows up.
Now, for some people, that could be a little bit challenging.
But in another way, what people know,
because everybody's lost somebody in their life is,
it's the toughest thing to try to want to interact with other people,
but it's the thing that you need the most
is just the presence of other people in your life
when you're going through something tough.
In that same way,
I feel like we've forgotten that when it comes to friendship
with all these major life events that have happened
that have us strip away at those friendships that are there.
There's a book that I have on my shelf over here.
It's by this gentleman named Sebastian Younger.
It's called tribes.
And kind of some of the concepts that are there
is that human beings, we, for since the beginning of time,
no human being could live in this world in isolation.
Not to mention just like a small little nuclear family
of like a husband, wife, and a group of kids that are just living out on their own.
We actually needed other people.
We needed friends, family, et cetera, to actually survive.
Now, in this day and age, we don't genuinely need others to survive.
Yes, somebody out there is at the electric factory or the nuclear power plant or whatever,
keeping the lights on.
Yes, there's farmers that are out there who are growing food, but they're not people that we have a direct relationship with.
So it's given this illusion that we can be and live in isolation.
So yes, you may not need community or friends, or in this case, brotherhood, to survive,
but you're going to need it to thrive.
And I wanted to set that up with my little stump speech because it goes perfectly
into this thing of, Antonio, you shared a video with us.
And it was on one of the key areas.
We'll link to it in the show notes, a little TikTok video.
you shared it on the man morning Instagram,
and it was talking about this idea
of people dropping friendships
when they get into a new relationship.
Chat a little bit about it and what it brought up for you.
Yeah, this therapist.
Share this beautiful video again.
We'll put a link in the show notes
about how when people get booed up,
they get in that relationship
or they get in that marriage.
Prior to that marriage or that serious relationship,
they had the community.
They'd get together for Mad Morning
or they'd hang out with their girlfriend
and do the periodic dinner
or the hangout, et cetera.
And then all of a sudden, you get in that relationship and something happens.
And you stop spending time with your people.
You start isolating.
Maybe you'll even start spending time with your girlfriend's people or your wife's people, etc.
And as I watched that video, it hit close to home because it reminded me of earlier phases in my life when I lived in New York City and I got in relationships.
And you're so happy because you find someone you care about, et cetera.
Then all of a sudden, you lose yourself in that.
and you realize in your friends, they'll reach out saying, hey, we're getting together to
X, we're getting together to do Y or Z.
They'll keep reaching out.
But then at some point, guess what?
Your friends are going to stop reaching out when you stop showing up.
And I think it's so unfortunate that to your point earlier, Drew, like, we can't expect
our partner to be everything to us.
And I've experienced that personally myself or I've isolated myself because I've been
in that relationship.
And most times, you know, happy relationships.
but I now can see how much I missed isolating myself.
And I'll just, my wife, you know, we have kids, we have a busy household.
These kids are in school.
I'm so thankful.
And I'm sure y'all's booze say the same thing.
It's been a couple of weeks because I've been on the road and I haven't made a man
morning or the man morning crew were getting together for dinner.
And I get in late one night and man morning's happening the next morning.
I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to go tomorrow.
I'm tired and I haven't been helping with taking the kids to school, et cetera.
She's like, nope, hold up.
You are going to man mourning because when I go spend time with y'all, she knows what it does
to me.
It charges me up.
It makes me a better person, a better spouse, a better father, a better person in the household
and beyond.
So she's like, no, I feel so thankful that I have a partner.
And I haven't always had partners like this, by the way.
but I feel like I feel so thankful that I have a partner that's encouraging me like no you need to go
I feel you getting wound up in tight right now please go and I think it's just so rare I've also been
in relationships where I've received friction for wanting to hang out with with my guys go get beverages
or go to the sports game or a weekend away like we go we take weekends away we go out of the
country together my wife's like great have fun you know it's just it's rare
I'll say from my experience, all my buddies growing up.
So I'm curious of everyone else's perspective,
whether it's your relationships,
if you've isolated in the past,
or if you're encouraged to do a man mourning your time with your other friends.
Yeah, well, I'd say along with saying,
you know, performance coach speaker,
I am a girl dad.
And that process with my partner, Daisy,
has been during a pandemic moving from New York to L.A.,
in a pandemic and then having a one-year-old.
It's been a very isolating experience.
And I have, never mind the people that do not have friends or live in smaller towns,
I have a lot of friends in L.A.
And I still found myself going down that same video route that you shared.
And I thought, yeah, thank God for you guys.
Thank God for a man, mourning, because it's a consistent message.
that comes no matter if I say yes or no.
What I've shared with some of my other friends
to make this really explicit was,
keep asking, please, and let me be the one to say no to you
versus you say no to me by not asking me anymore.
But really making it a point to reach out
and making that time.
I think, and you and I've talked a little bit about this,
both being dads,
there can be this underlining sense of guilt
that I'll feel in asking my partner Daisy,
hey, can I, you know, can you take care of Scarlett, our daughter,
while I do this, or I even feel like I need to spend that morning
because there's only going to be so many mornings when she's one
and now saying, papa, papa, papa, which is like a heartbeat.
Right?
And like I'm hearing this and I don't want to not be there,
but yet I know I need to not be there sometimes.
And I need to do the things.
that fuel me up, you know, like your wife tells you, you must be there. So I know that I must be
there and I must be there. You know, speaking in front of you guys on this cast is like, I need to be there
more because that's something that I find myself getting in such a rhythm, we want to take care
of the family and keep in that rhythm, not disrupt it. But it's really the underlying guilt that I
keep in that I don't express.
And usually when I ask,
Daisy, my partner is like, yeah, honey, go ahead, be with the guys.
We'll take care of it.
I'll figure it out.
She's always like that, but it's me not speaking up.
I'm just glad you said the word guilt because I think that's what we forget.
It's a big part of that.
How guilty we can feel.
It's like as if once we come into the real world, we become men,
it's as if everything else has to stop.
We have to make money and be in the household.
Those are two things.
So anything that's not making money, career pursuant,
those types of things and anything that's not taking care of the household, household projects,
etc.
It's as if it's some extracurricular that we don't place as much emphasis and weight on that we should.
So we feel this guilt.
And then all of a sudden, guess what?
If my wife feels me show up with her with that with guilt kind of passive energy, hey, is it okay?
I mean, they don't want that, that, that, I was supposed to say a word that's not cool.
I was going to say that soft energy.
But if I'm not coming from a clear standing rooted stance, I need to.
this time with the guys. I'm hanging out with them. But if I'm asking permission, hey, if I'm
tiptoeing around, that's going to typically, that's in any, that's in so many different types
of relationship. That's going to be met with confrontation when you show up with a passive
energy. Is it okay? I'm tiptoeing versus knowing what you want. So guilt is real for so many
dudes. And I know that firsthand. And sometimes you have a partner that doesn't get it. And it's
okay to sit down and say, here's why this thing is important to me. Right. Here's why this thing is
important to me. And then that person getting that, oh, this is not, you know, in our case,
and this is obviously the message that we're trying to spread out there into the world, this is
not a bunch of guys getting together for a beer. This is a group of guys who are all driven,
successful, want to be great husbands, fathers, partners, et cetera, who are going to refill their
cup by talking about what's real for them. You know, we ask a question that starts off with
Man Morning. And it's, what are you celebrating and what are you navigating?
and we borrow this a little bit from, you know, Summit Series and the Summit Junto group that's over there.
And I love this question.
And obviously, please, anybody can take it and use it.
But what are you celebrating and what are you navigating?
Sometimes I don't even know what I'm celebrating until I get to Man Morning.
And sometimes I definitely don't know what I'm navigating until I hear that prompt.
And two, a few things beautifully happen when we get into that conversation.
Number one, I get to hear myself think out loud.
I'm not a journaler.
I know some people are, Adam, you're a big journaler.
I don't like to write down my thoughts in terms of what's there.
I have to speak them out loud.
But sometimes it's hard to just say it out there to yourself.
So when somebody asks you, you get to hear yourself think.
Number two, when other people share what they're going through,
there's this universal feeling that everybody has, which is, ah, I'm not alone.
Even if I'm not going through the same exact situation,
not only do I have empathy for their situation,
but they're also struggling to.
So guess what?
It's okay that I'm struggling as well.
I'm sure there's a lot more there,
but those are two things that immediately I get
when we drop into that.
What are you celebrating and what are you navigating?
When a partner, when a wife, when a spouse,
hears that and how important that is
and how that makes you show up in the relationship better,
how can you not want that for that person?
Mark, were you going to say something earlier?
Yeah, there were two thoughts that came up
as you guys were talking about,
this and the first was just being clear on what it provides for me so I know what
man morning provides and you guys just touched on a lot of it so I won't go back into it
it but it provides a lot and I know it's there and therefore it is worth the
effort for me and effort's another yes big thing that's really important like I
recently moved from the west side of Los Angeles where I was literally the closest
person I was a one-minute drive to the park entrance where we would hike like one
minute and I moved across town and I now need to leave at least an hour prior to the start.
To leave a day before.
I have to leave a day before.
And it's a lot of effort.
And the flashing back to earlier in my life there was a point where I was shooting at the fashion
shows up in Milan and I had this great Italian friend who lived a five-hour train ride away from Milan.
And one of the seasons I was there, he hopped on a train, rode for five
hours, we hung out for dinner, we're together for about three hours, and then he took a train
five hours back home. And the effort that he put for our friendship has always been an example
for me of if there's a friendship that's worthwhile for you, if there's something that other people
are providing you, like what MMT, like what May morning provides for me, then it's worthwhile
and it's worth taking a train ride for five hours. It's worth driving across town for. And as we are
getting more isolated as we're getting older, we need to continue to make the effort for the
things that we know are important in our lives. The effort piece is so huge. I'm so glad you brought
that up because I think I forget about that and that we have to have that willingness in the midst
of fatigue, in the midst of busy schedules, in the midst of traveling, et cetera, being willing.
I think I lived in New York for a long time and one of my biggest regrets, you know, New York,
going to New York to London is what, the same as going from New York to Los Angeles, basically, right?
Right. And there are many times I could have did like a little weekend getaways of London for different events, soccer matches. And my brain was like, I'm going to go all that way for two days. And I didn't do it. My brain was like, I'm not putting that effort forward. Now my brain is like, why wouldn't you go if you only went for a day? It's worth it to your, what an amazing friend. Because you're worth it, right? You're worth it as a friend to get on a train for five hours to meet you to hang out for those three hours. You're worth it. But also, we're worth it to put.
put that effort into it, getting up an hour earlier.
There's so many great examples.
So I'm so glad you mentioned the effort piece.
Well, one thing that Man Morning's known for is just powerful questions that create dialogue.
So on that note, I have a question that I'd love to toss out to you guys that'll set up the next
part of this chat here.
You know, one of the things is, and I'd love for, you know, anybody wants to talk about this
first part first.
As men, I don't think we talk enough about joy and optimizing our lives for joy.
And there are so many things that could add a significant level of joy to our lives that are
simple, often free, or often easy to do or low cost.
And because we don't talk about it and we don't share with other people, we often don't
pursue it.
There's this whole idea, which is what you measure will get the tension and what you measure
can improve.
And joy is one of those things that seems so fluffy and squishy and not able to be held
that often it isn't measured.
But if you talk to people and you ask them, what is something in your life that by focusing
on it, even if it's something small, whatever, something you're not doing, that it would
add a significant level of joy.
to your life.
So I'd love to throw that out there to you guys,
just on that question.
Because again, I don't think we as men talk about enough,
and yet joy is one of the most fulfilling feelings that are there.
I can have a week or a month or a year in business
where I didn't grow as much.
But if I did a few things that added a significant level of joy to my life in that year,
like, I still feel good.
I still feel happy.
I feel connected.
And that doesn't mean I can't still have the goal.
I might even be more fired up to pursue that goal
if it's something that really matters to me.
Who wants to start off with the topic of joy?
Mark?
In the last podcast that you did with Antonio,
Janine Mark Mayhouse,
some other guys in the Man Morning group,
you read a quote from Esther Perel
about how we bring the scraps home.
And this is a perfect example for me
of how Man Morning brings me more joy.
Yeah, and just that quote for everybody
I'm paraphrasing here,
but we'll link it up in the show notes,
was sometimes we put our best out there into the world only to come home and give scraps
to our partner.
I listened to that.
It immediately resonated with me.
And I said, I need to make time with my partner with my wife opt out, not opt in.
And I need to prioritize that because it brings me so much joy when we can have quality time
together.
And when it's not at the end of the day, when I'm fatigued and tired.
and put into practice for the first time this week,
and we had one of the most incredible dates that we've had in years last night.
And it made me so happy, like literally woke up,
and I found myself looking into her eyes and her looking into my eyes
in a way that I haven't felt in a long time.
And it was because of something I learned listening to you guys talk,
wasn't even at that particular meeting of man morning,
but just overheard it was shared with me.
And this new practice of making my relationship the first priority,
putting those things on the calendar first is something that I know will bring me incredible joy
because the relationship is just, I can feel the benefits already.
I love it.
And so what does that look like for you?
I know last night was a date night.
It's not like you guys don't do date nights,
but what does that look like for you now when you're talking about being opt out versus opt-in?
is it a reoccurring event on your schedule or is it a set time that you guys want to do?
And also, too, transparently, if you guys are still figuring out, that's fine to say that, you know, you're still figuring it out.
We are still figuring out, but there are going to be three days where we're going to set a time, even if it's a half hour or an hour, where we're going to have an activity that we know we both want to do, whether it's to go out to a restaurant, go to a museum, whatever it is is exciting about us, but we're going to put the times on the calendar.
and then work will be crafted around those times
as opposed to saying, oh, where can we fit in this time together?
We're actually going to make our time together the priority
and then build the rest of our lives around that.
That's beautiful.
And there's something powerful about just knowing
that something's on the calendar.
How much frustration in relationships
is just people feeling like,
it's not that a lot of couples don't do date nights.
It's not like they don't make time or take walks,
but it's a little bit sort of random, right?
When things are good, you're excited about it,
when things are bad, you're not doing it.
And when things are busy, you're often not doing it.
So even though it sounds so simple, how many people are doing it on a regular basis
and having it on the calendar for everybody to look forward to,
sometimes the joy in planning a vacation is the anticipation to the vacation itself.
So the anticipation of the date night is like part of the joy that comes from,
you know, scheduling it in the first place for both sides.
Adam, did you want to add anything?
I see a group yay, yay for Mark right here.
Yeah, man.
eye contact in the morning, okay.
Yes.
I'm not going to ask what happened afterwards, but okay.
The imagination take off.
It reminds me of, it reminds me of something called no brown days.
You guys ever got it into that?
No brown days.
Brown. BROA.
No brown days.com.
I think it was Wayne Cotton.
And basically this whole concept was, you know, you have yellow days, red days, blue days, green days.
And the yellow days were mellow yellow days.
The whole idea is that those colors don't blend to become brown, right?
And what you just said was like you starting to add you to the calendar.
And this whole concept, which was start with yellow.
And it was like put you first, my time, mellow, yellow, time.
I just thought it was always stuck with me.
It was always something, which I haven't always put into practice.
So that's the other part to it, right?
Personally, for me, I'd love to get being that we're in LA,
but I'm on the east side, like you mark,
the getting to the water once a week feels most important to me on the topic of joy and on the topic of
joy it gives me so much joy and by the way ever since i've known you just to cut you up yeah
you've always been like this like it's so clear that the water the water gives you energy and i
and i flirt with silver lake reservoir because i live next to it but it's not good enough damn it
you know i need to get to pacific and get in the water so for me i have a surfboard so i would love
to and maybe even get into the water surf before one of our man mornings, you know,
because I can, it's just like an hour in the water.
You're not going to surf much long.
Yeah.
What is it?
Habit stack.
Yeah, habit stack.
Exactly.
So that's exactly what I want to do.
And then in the relationship, because you bring up a great point there, it's like for me
to bring more joy.
We recently, as we have a one-year-old, started getting a babysitter for, you know, a Friday night
or things like that.
And what I found was it was good.
It's been good, but not great.
great. And I was wondering why, you know, like, okay, we're having date night. We have dinner together
and it's nice. But then we had a nanny come on a Sunday morning. And oh my God, it changed our
world. We were able to go next door to this gym and do like a mobility kind of stretching class.
And in that moment, because Daisy and I fell in love like moving together, like during walks and in nature
and working out together and sweating and in like and just kind of the movement of life.
We both love movement.
That's our love language, the sixth love language movement.
And we both love it.
So then in that moment, I remember her even reaching like in this moment.
We're about 20 minutes into class on the Sunday morning.
And she kind of like I just had this intuitive hit like pick up her water bottle and give it to her.
And literally as I handed her the water bottle, her hand was right there reaching for it.
And it was just like, oh, pitch and catch.
This is, and I just felt so connected to her in that moment.
And as we were walking, holding hands, you know, noon at that point,
I'm like, honey, we've just been missing this movement part of our lives.
This is how we felt in love.
So sometimes I would imagine people listening.
It's like that the way in which you fell in love, like oftentimes we get away from that thing.
So how did you fall in love?
and like can you somewhat, you know, simulate that.
And I forgot about that, you know.
And that's why the dinners were good, but not great.
But that movement in the morning together was great.
That is a major hack.
Like there's other people that will totally resonate.
And also, too, you know, I'm sure being a parent.
And it's like there's so many things that pile up at the end of the day.
And not that a date night isn't great, but it's like, what about a date morning?
It felt exhausting.
Right?
Yeah.
What about a date morning?
And then maybe even grabbing some food after whatever, whatever.
Food, a coffee.
It was so wonderful.
It's like I often enjoy the morning way more than I enjoy like the evening that's there.
Yeah, man morning.
That's a man night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just think that's a brilliant reframe.
One about the date morning.
I mean, I think that's a thing right there.
Yeah.
We need to buy that URL before.
We're starting another newsletter.
Date morning.
Every week, a new date morning idea.
Before you published this, I'm going to start about buy that URL.
But also you said something about it was just.
It was a word, man.
You said something to the tune of, you know, the way we fell in love, we stopped doing it,
whatever.
Like that's just what a great way.
We forgot.
We forgot.
The way in which we fell in love.
That's what we all have.
We all do, man.
Yeah.
And that could be with the person with something that we actually do now, how we earn a living.
What we love, we forgot.
So great point.
That's dope, man.
Thank you.
As you guys are talking about Joy and I love that both of you mentioned your partners,
I'm not going to in this example.
She's amazing.
But what a great reminder about the movement because guess what?
the same thing with us.
We are so much more connected when we move and we work out together.
So we find excuses because of the kids.
But now what a great reminder.
I'm going to make that happen.
Two things that bring me so much joy that I haven't done in the long time in the past
couple of years, haven't helped it at all.
Something I absolutely love that brings me joy is I love going to movies by myself.
So do I.
At L.A. is such a blessing to have such amazing movie theaters where you can see such
amazing art house films,
these unique films you can't see anywhere else.
And nothing brings me joy than more joy than like,
well,
a lot of things bring me more joy.
But something that brings me joy is like going to that 11 a.m.
or 1 p.m. showing of a new indie film or something like that,
getting popcorn,
getting my,
my thing of raising nets.
Raising nuts and pop corn.
Yeah, just all of it.
And just sitting by myself and just getting engrossed in that film.
Yeah.
Like, I love it.
What are you sitting in the theater?
I'm all about the,
I like to be close to aisles for even.
media exit if need be. I got some trauma. I got to get over. I want to be able to leave when
I need to leave. But that just brings me joy. And I haven't done. Right now, I can't tell you
last month. I can't see the excitement right here. I can't wait to go see a movie. It's not,
it's not the, it's great movies on Netflix, Apple Plus. It's not the same watching that experience.
I have a great TV, but it's not the same. So that's one. Second, as you're talking,
Drew, about joy. I've been an athlete my whole life, you know, three sports a year,
middle school and high school, collegiate athletes.
And one thing I absolutely love is I've loved competition.
And since I've, I guess, got out of college and in New York, I was in men's basketball leagues, etc.
But I no longer get that regular competition.
There's something that activates, and I'm sure you can speak more on this, but there's something that activates in me when I have to earn it.
Like if you're playing a group soccer or basketball, when another man's like push you out the way to box you out.
And something activates that in me, this carnal kind of thing that I love, that competition, but also,
it carries over into the rest of my life.
And I'm just thinking back, we had a mad morning trip a few years back.
We were in Austin for a weekend.
And one morning, I don't know who scheduled it, but I'm so glad they did.
We had a basketball game.
Our buddy Nerov.
We had a basketball game.
And it wasn't, we were, we were having fun.
We weren't going crazy.
But we were having fun.
And that brought me so much joy playing basketball that morning.
So those are two things for me that, I mean.
I'm excited to get back into my life.
How about you, Drew?
I love it.
This podcast and making the intention,
and first of all, shout out to all you guys
and the rest of the crew who's been making time for this,
this isn't necessarily the thing
that my audience would say on any survey
they would want episodes on.
And especially for an audience of, you know,
could be about anywhere from 50 to 100,000 people per episode
that typically listen to my main audience is on my main audience on health episodes,
that audience is primarily women through a combination of different reasons that, you know,
it ended up being that way. And so an entire podcast of me just talking with my,
not just, but from the outside just talking about men and importance of getting together
and why we started this, not that women can't get the benefit from it. There's a lot of women
that listening that reached out last time was like, oh my gosh, I love this new format. Sure,
the episode numbers were way down because on the front end,
it doesn't seem like something that I'd be talking about or what is it.
But hey, you know what?
To just get the opportunity to hang out with my close friends,
to chat about something.
And even if it helps just a couple people, one person,
and inspires them to do something like this in their hometown
and get a few people together,
goddess morning, man morning, whatever it might be,
that is worth it.
And if nobody listened,
and this was just like our archive and our opportunity,
to spend time and laugh and hang out together,
the joy that I get from doing it is astronomical.
And I wouldn't be able to do it without you guys showing up.
So shout out to you guys.
But this is something small that initially the part of my mind,
which we all have, the lizard brain, the amygdala,
is like, uh-oh, what's this going to do for download numbers?
Uh-oh.
Is people going to listen to this?
Uh-oh.
And like all of us, it's like, why am I doing this?
I'm doing this because it brings me joy.
bonus if it helps other people I think it will the first couple episodes did and so that's why I'm
happy that I'm doing it dope man yeah yeah yeah all right gentlemen we've been chatting for a little bit
um I want to end off with this question which I think it's good for people to hear us chatting about
we mentioned it before but a little bit of what level you feel comfortable to share right it's a podcast
to be out there in the world, so don't be putting your partner on blast.
What is something in your life you're celebrating and what's something that you're navigating,
right?
What's something you're celebrating?
What's something that you're navigating that you feel comfortable to share about here?
And I think it's good for people to hear because the same things that we get, number one,
they get to ask themselves that same question.
And they might be able to give somebody else the answer in their life, right?
So if you're listening here today, maybe you ask somebody, ask your sister, ask your brother,
ask your kid, ask your husband, wife, whatever it might be.
Ask your coworker if you feel comfortable with them.
What's something you're celebrating?
What's something you're navigating?
And then also in our sharing, people realize that the same stuff that we're all going through,
and I think of you guys as being some of my most successful friends,
we're all going through the same things, right?
And by the way, if you don't have anything that it seems like, you know,
Like don't feel like you have to share anything that you don't aren't present to right now.
Right.
So even if it's basic stuff, something simple.
It's just the prompt of the question to connect us.
Who wants to start off?
I'll go and it's funny because, you know, I'll share what I'm navigating is something I actually shared in our man morning, yesterday morning.
I'm navigating.
My father has dementia.
He's in a long-term care facility.
He can no longer walk.
He can no longer talk.
He can no longer feed himself.
no longer go to the bathroom on his loan.
You know, no conversations, none of that kind of fun stuff.
And what I'm navigating is I noticed, and I shared this with the crew yesterday,
is that I used to get back pretty much every quarter to see my dad at least once
and sit next to him in the long-term care facility and just be there with them and talk with them,
et cetera.
What I'm navigating now is that this is the first year.
Of course, the past few years have been a little unique.
And for some time periods, I couldn't actually go see him.
But this is the first year that I've only been.
been back to see him for once. And I was early in the first quarter of this year. And I've been
navigating, frankly, some guilt that I feel around that, navigating why haven't I gone back to see him
this year, as I did in the past. He's 85 years old. So I've been navigating that. And again,
guilt, getting curious about it, a lot of different emotions. And we had a great conversation about that
yesterday. So that's what I've been navigating him being, you know, way over, him being in
Kentucky and me being in California. I can be, it's a direct flight away. I can go get a ticket and go
tomorrow if I wanted to. Stay for a day, come back the next day. Haven't done it. That's what I'm
navigating. I'll say what I'm celebrating. I'm going to put my spouse on blast because she's,
man, she's phenomenal, man. Like, she's just, the way she's just able to, I'll say, manage the
household in so many different regards.
our kids, you know, our six-year-old twins.
She is so involved not only, obviously,
is a phenomenal mom at home,
but what it's even more impressive,
she's so involved in their school.
Like, she's this mom that volunteers at the school.
The folks know her on a first name basis.
I mean, she's volunteering.
She's, we're hosting fundraisers for the school.
She is so ingrained in that community in the kids' life,
volunteering in their class.
I mean, just so much.
And I'm just so impressed.
how much she shows up for them.
I'm not surprised, but just so impressed when it's easy to say, you know, I'm not going to do this.
I'm not going to do that.
Those excuses aren't there.
Like going back to something marks it earlier, there's effort involved in everything that she does.
And even with that effort, even in the midst of fatigue, even in the midst of her being a really in-demand dula, the work that she does, she's still showing up like that.
And for me, it's just super, super impressive.
So shout out to Gigi.
Y'all all know.
Yeah.
Love it.
Who's got something for us?
Celebrating, navigating.
Mark?
I'd like to celebrate you, which I don't know how often, how often happens in your podcast.
Maybe it happens all the time.
But Drew was the glue for man mornings and keeping it going and start.
He was the person who brought most of us in.
And you have done such an incredible job.
over all the years of keeping it relevant for all of our lives,
for bringing great questions, for introducing new people.
And so much of what it is today is based upon who you are as a person
and the growth that I've seen you go through.
So I'd like to celebrate you because you are an incredible human.
And appreciate you.
Here, here. Thank you.
And in terms of navigating, one of the things
that you just said about the way that we fell in love was different.
I think that one of the ways that my wife and I fell in love was through traveling and
getting to especially go visit places internationally together, spend time on the road together.
And as we've got more responsibility to our jobs with our house, we don't have kids yet,
but just more responsibility here in Los Angeles, we have lost,
that. And I think that it's something that had been in my head and you brought a lot of clarity
to it for me, that it is something that we need to navigate, which is to be able to go back
to some of these early parts of our relationship and this idea of traveling together. And I don't
know, I don't have an answer for how it's going to work yet, but I'm excited to go on the journey.
That's dope. Beautiful. I think there's a lot more eye contact coming up in the future.
Yeah, man.
I'd say one, I think of celebrating my partner, Daisy and I, we're getting our sexy back.
You know, there's a year out of giving birth, and we're both, you know, I think oftentimes I hear from people the challenges of connection.
It's not just intimacy, but intimacy, right?
Intimacy, but also just connection in general.
And what I've found through my coaching practice as well is that, you know,
is that oftentimes people need to like whether it's workout, train, you know, eat right,
do all those self-care practices so that they feel good about themselves
and they feel then available for touch, connection, intimacy.
Right?
You're not doing it for the other person.
You're actually doing it for you so you then exude your sexy again.
So one, we're getting our sexy back.
Amen.
two, because it takes two, it takes two in that way.
And I was like, I'm not getting a dad bot, not doing it, you know.
Leave it up to me.
I'm not up to you.
So I created a workout called the dad god.
We'll talk about that later.
Teaser, dad god.
And two, I have, I had this celebrating just a creative exploration of the artist's self that lives inside
of me that really was awoken, a woken, a
when I hurt my knee and I had a few different artists, actors that approached me and they pushed me,
literally walked me into a very high level. You had to audition for this class, you know,
and I just really took to it. And I've been practicing kind of in private, but now being here in
LA, there was an audition that just happened, which was going to be a huge audition. And a client of
mine said, you need to do this.
And I thought, no way, no way.
But we ended up, she prepped me for it.
And I went ahead and did that dish.
I didn't get the role, but I found out that it was a huge director.
And who got the role was this actor that I, I've watched all of those movies.
I thought, that's cool.
I can lose it to him.
But it's been, it's really, I think having a daughter, I feel so alive to every moment.
And I watch what she looks at.
and I'm like touching the ground more and I'm my senses are more alive and what this exploring my
artist self it's also um it's touching that same aliveness and it's been really good for me in all
areas of my life so I don't know where it's going but I'm walking it right I'm walking the path
I'm not hiding from it I'm exploring it um through different ways of having conversations which I
wasn't having so I was afraid of having that conversation with the maybe the client
because they wouldn't maybe respect me as a coach then, right? So I'm pushing through that. I'm really
celebrating that. And I've had people, one like Mark, to really support that effort and
and other people asking for help and, you know, and resourcefulness. And I've been really,
and you guys have helped me with that. You know, MMT helps, right? So it's interesting how,
as I'm just sharing this part, I'm realizing right here in this moment that like have an MMT,
having the group, the consistency, and having a safe place to go to, to just share openly.
And then that goes, okay, I can share that also within myself openly and I can take more risks.
I'm not afraid to fail because you guys won't look at me, you know, in a bad way, you'll welcome that failure.
And you'll say, oh, great job.
Nice bravery.
Nice courage at him.
And I'm like, yeah, I want to show up in that way.
So that's really, I can, I'm just, I can feel it, you know, coming up.
in that celebration mode. And what I'm navigating, what I'm navigating is something real,
the same thing that I didn't want to go to therapy for. You know, I, and I've shared it with a few
people, but I had my father, my biological father, call me, not sure how he got my phone number,
but he called me a month ago. And he left.
left a voice message and it was on a day that I was so grounded.
I was so grounded.
You know, I did all my practices.
I felt on top of the world, right?
About to walk in a class, scene study class actually.
And feeling so good and prepared.
And this call came, I listened to his voice for the first time since I had been, since I was 12.
So all of a sudden, I was a voice first time since I was 12.
and it rocked me it rocked me you know and I felt confused and angry and a lot of feelings came up you know
so I I need some space need to process it thank God I have a journaling practice because I
journaled the shit out of this and talked to a therapist talk to a few friends because it's not
just a therapist that we can go to and I'm really navigating it you know what to what to
do next and I'm trying my hardest to not run from the feelings you know my therapist I can just open
the jar take a look at it for a little bit and then close it if I want you know I don't have to spend
all day in it but I also don't have to close it yeah you know so um so I'm just that's what I'm navigating
right now and it's uh and it's been really hard it's been really hard yeah thank you man I appreciate
you're open up about that yeah yeah well I'll share here before we wrap up and get some final
thoughts from the guys. So one thing that I'm navigating is doing this podcast brings me a lot of
joy. And I have an incredible team. Shout out to Patrick, Tessa, Melanie, everybody who helps me,
you know, keep it all together. And also my day job is I'm the CEO partner for a group of
companies with my business partner, Dr. Mark Hyman. We've had a great year. We want to continue to
build, we want to continue to expand, we want to continue to do these components. And on a realistic
level, like the time that I spend, especially now that I'm doing more podcast episodes, eats into
my day-to-day work that's there. And what I'm navigating is that it's really just being
tighter with my schedule and also letting go of the guilt. Talk about the guilt component.
I'm super thankful. Shout out to my business partner, Dr. Hyman. He's actually like, look,
the podcast gives you so much joy. Like, do it. Like, he's not even.
Bringing it up.
It's like you always handle your stuff.
You always take care of stuff.
We have a great team that makes it all possible.
But if that's what it takes for you to show up and be happy, you got to do that.
Right.
So but still the navigation part is the guilt.
Should I be, oh, I just use an entire day.
And then podcasting is also very cerebral.
You're asking a lot of conversation.
You're asking a lot.
You're listening a lot to people.
So usually I can't just immediately drop into a bunch of phone calls.
I need some sort of palate cleanse.
I need to work out, need to do cryotherapy, do something, right, to get back into the body,
give my mind a little bit of a break, eat, and then jump back into stuff.
So I'm navigating that, but both are important to me.
And so it's just literally that.
It's navigating those waters and recognizing that the number one thing to stop me is myself,
if there's guilt, especially on a week that might be a little bit of a tougher week
where I might have a lot of podcast episodes where we're getting ahead for the holidays.
But just take it one day at a time.
If you need to scale back, scale back.
but just constantly be present to that guilt that's out there.
So that's number one.
On the celebration side, this weekend,
I've talked about this podcast before,
but this weekend is my older sister and my younger sister.
They're eight years apart, but both of their birthday is tomorrow.
Oh, wow.
And I'm celebrating my sisters because my sisters were truly my original best friends.
And I talked about this in the first podcast that we did with the Man Morning Group.
and my sisters, I'm celebrating the fact that they have upended their life that they thought that they're going to be on the East Coast and, you know, just outside of like Philadelphia and sort of the hustle and the bustle.
And they were willing individually and to convince their families and my older sister with kids to say, you know what?
our brother's saying we should give California a shot.
So it's happened at different phases,
and it's taken 10 years with the completion of my parents moving out here to San Diego.
But I want to give a major shout out and celebration to my sisters who talk about joy.
I am so connected to my family,
and we both are so supportive of each other,
and we don't get in each other's way,
which is probably one of the main reasons that I can also work with
my sisters too. And it just brings me so much appreciation. And I have to remember because even though
there are two hour drive and sometimes like I'll wake up tomorrow morning, I got to get up early to
beat the traffic to head down there and convince my wife that, you know, this is, you know,
this is why we got to leave this early. Because I know she doesn't like sitting in traffic either.
But just to remember that like I used to have to hop on a flight and it'd be an entire day.
And even still, maybe that's best case scenario.
once a month. Now I'm in a place and position where I can see my family on a pretty regular basis.
Even some weeks, if I don't have a really busy Wednesday or Tuesday or Thursday, I might just drive
down for the day and then come back and just get a little bit of time with them. My life is so much
better because I can get that time with my family. And a big part of it, big part of it has been
my sisters. And of course, shout out to their husbands as well, Neil and Anthony for taking the
leap and moving out here to California. And tomorrow we get to celebrate them.
because it's their birthday.
That's dope, man.
So that's what I'm celebrating.
Gentlemen, this has been fantastic.
I don't know about you guys,
but I feel like we really got into the zone here.
Yeah, it's good.
It feels good.
That was a really great conversation.
Let's go out on the table.
If you heard a voice that you want to keep in touch with,
you saw somebody on YouTube, you want to check out, see more about their work.
Let's give a shout out to what people are up to and how people can find you.
Mark, what's start on your end?
my website is leibwood's pictures.com
Instagram is markleywood's pictures
love it awesome
Antonio yeah I just invite everyone to check out manmourning
dot com for some daily
inspiration empowerment
community focus information so just check out
manmourning.com
also you can learn more about me
and my work and my books on social
at the Antonio Neves
the Antonio Neves
beautiful Adam great yeah websites coach Adam Cobb and Instagram's coach Adam Cobb you can message me
there and let's look forward to any questions and you know keep the conversation going beautiful
and in the case of Adam and also Antonio are you guys working with new people if anybody is
curious about you know both of you being coaches and stuff just putting it out there yeah
you guys working with people I think yeah I think it's if it's the right fit you know for me it's
always, you know, when somebody wants it, wants the work, and needs the work. Yeah. And they're
really committed. Yeah. I would second the same thing. Uh, that the Adam says fits critically
important. But yes, it's a year for 2023. Uh, for folks that are excited to make some new things
happen in their lives, get unstuck, find some focus 100%. Yeah. Well, this season to be grateful.
I'm grateful for you guys. Have an amazing Christmas for those that celebrate. Have a beautiful
new year's. And gentlemen, thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks, Drew. Thank you.
