Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Wounds From A Broken Man with David Waldy

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

In this conversation, Shawn French and David Waldy discuss their personal journeys and the challenges they faced. David shares his experiences of growing up in a fractured family, dealing with addiction and mental health issues, and finding his purpose through a moment of crisis. They also explore the power of empathy and the importance of authenticity in personal growth and relationships. In this conversation, David Waldy and Shawn French discuss the importance of seeking relationship advice from elderly couples, curating influences, and investing in personal growth. They also explore finding identity and healing through faith, addressing wounds and blaming men, and defining who you want to become. The conversation emphasizes the significance of keeping your word to yourself, taking radical responsibility, and habit stacking. They also discuss the power of following your intuition, transforming your mind, and the role of coaching and accountability. The episode concludes with an invitation to connect with David Waldy and The Ardent Man.   Key Conversation Points Challenges and hardships can shape our lives and lead us to discover our purpose. Authenticity and vulnerability are essential for personal growth and building meaningful connections. Understanding and embracing our unique strengths and gifts can lead to personal fulfillment and success. Empathy and compassion are powerful tools for creating positive change in ourselves and others. Seek relationship advice from elderly couples who have created successful marriages. Curate your influences and invest in personal growth for exponential growth. Find healing and identity through faith and deep introspection. Take radical responsibility for your life and address wounds tied to men. Define who you want to become and align your actions with that vision. Keep your word to yourself and build confidence and integrity. Utilize habit stacking to create positive changes in your life. Follow your intuition and overcome resistance to achieve greatness. Transform your mind and create an identity shift through consistent action. Seek coaching and accountability to accelerate personal growth. Align your life with your vision and prioritize what truly matters. Connect with David Waldy and The Ardent Man for support and resources. Connect with David: The Ardent Man- https://www.davidwaldy.com/homepage56163949 Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/davidwaldy/?hl=en Connect with Shawn-  Join his FREE newsletter- https://mailchi.mp/thedeterminedsociety/newsletter Work with Shawn- https://calendly.com/shawnmf32/strategy-call?month=2024-02 Create your Athlete Narrative- https://ambassador.athletenarrative.com/shawn-french-join   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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We've got this spectrum. Obviously, you've got everything from various degrees of autism, aspergers, things like that. We've got ADD, ADHD, bipolar, OCD, like all these different things that are medical terms that are really thrown around. And even words like anxiety and depression. The problem with these words is that they are, we define this. based on a very specific filter, each of us individually. Like if one person says anxiety, it doesn't mean the same thing to another person. If one person says I'm depressed, it doesn't mean the same thing as if someone else says I'm depressed, right? There's like this spectrum

for all of them. And what I started to realize was that through the research is that there are certain things that are considered hardwired strengths and gifts. Like we're born uniquely with certain predispositions. Anyone that has to be. kids understands this. You can have one kid and you have another kid, raised in the same environment. They're not the same. Southwest Florida is one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida or even just moving to a different part of the state, I want you to think of a big, beautiful luxury home. Contact legacy luxury

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potential. Imagine stepping into the box when it counts the most and feeling totally confident in your ability, feeling invincible instead of insecure, ready to seize the opportunity instead of shrinking from it. the mindset I help athletes develop. Don't waste another minute on comparison and self-doubt. Take control of your mindset and become the confident, unstoppable competitor you were meant to be. The end or comment below to get started with Edge and transform your mental game. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode. I'm your host, Sean French, and I have with me today a special, special person, a man of faith, a fierce empathy. He's actually

a fierce empathy coach, a business consultant, a keynote speaker. And he is the founder of the ardent man and fierce empathy solutions. He leads with purpose, passion, profit, and peace. I have with me, my good friend, David Waldy. What's up, buddy? Sean French. What's up, my man? It's great to be here, bro.

It's great to be here with you, brother. We are having such an amazing conversation pre-recording. Like, I'm like, dude, we better hit record because we've already, we've already dropped some serious fire. And the camera's not even rolling yet. Let's not waste it, right? Yeah. Man, I'm excited. We're going to have a good combo today. And I hope for everybody listening that you dial in. Sean and I have talked about some deep stuff. And it's useful things we've found. We were just talking before the show how we're very different in a lot of ways. And we're both weirdos. Like I, my family and I, Sean, we have this word. We call ourselves goobers. It's just it's a lighthearted way to be like, look, I'm different. We're all different. We're all built different. So let's just learn from each.

other and have some fun and enjoy it along the way it's so funny dude because like i can see the reactions of people in my real life and when i'm interacting with people out there in the community and it's like people can look at me like this is a strange dude i'm not like a weirdo weirdo like creepy weird but i'm different i know i'm different i know i say things and do things that may confuse and perplex people but it's just what i believe in right it's just who i feel like who I feel I am and how I'm wired. I'm wired completely different than a lot of other individuals. And in fact, you and I are wired a lot differently. However, we have the same big dreams and aspirations, but it's just going to take us a different path to get there. But like no doubt,

you know, we'll be the two giants standing on the, standing on the top, you know, very, very shortly. So why don't you walk your, uh, your, your history past the guest that, that may not know you. I mean, you've been married from nine years. You've had three failed businesses that you openly speak about, right? And I believe that all failure leads to true, I guess, feedback and in future success. So walk everybody through your journey and kind of what has led you to where you are now and what you're doing. Yeah. It's been a wild ride.

And God has been in and through it. So that's one thing that people will take away today. I hope is that all of the success and everything that I've accomplished, my family, my health, my business, the stages that I've been on. It's a humble recognition that all of the things in my life are simply a manifestation of gifts that he gave me. And I'm simply the steward. Like, I'm just the steward of what he's placed inside of my heart. My job is to tap into that potential and lean into that potential every day because a huge part of my purpose is I want to make the lives of everyone that I interact with better. And the hard part with that, as you

You know, Sean, is that means that I can challenge people. Just my presence can be very challenging and discomforting. And I like that because I want to be around the same type of people that are constantly challenging me and questioning my perspectives in a respectful and honorable way. And that leads to the depth of relationship, which is what causes us to feel fulfillment. It all comes down to connection. And so for me, I come from a history where there was a lot of. lot of disconnection, a lot of fracturing, a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty. Much like everyone listening here, we all have been through what I call stuff. It's like we've waded through it,

we've walked through it, and there's some darkness, you know, that I've been through that I'm sure we'll probably get into at some point in this conversation. But I'm a Kansas farm boy at heart. I grew up in the Midwest just outside of Topeka, Kansas. We lived on a stretch of land that my grandparents lived on a couple acres, my cousins lived on a couple acres, we lived on a couple acres, and we shared about 70, 80 acres together. And so my, my childhood was Opie Taylor, man. Like, I'd wake up in the morning, give me a fishing pole and a BB gun and my dog, and I'm on my way. It sounds like a little house on the prairie.

Yeah, very similar, you know, but there's that song, hunting, fishing, and loving every day. And that was, that was my life for all. my childhood. My dad was a veterinarian. I was still a veterinarian. My mom worked in education. I've got a younger sister, and she's about five years younger than me. And I grew up in what I felt like was, you know, I think all of us, we grow up having our childhood, not realizing how different it is than everybody else. Then you become an adult, and you're like, oh, snap, maybe things weren't supposed to be like that, you know? And so I'll kind of fast forward through kind of the teenage high school years and say that we moved to Florida just before I turned 14.

I was not thrilled because I found out when I moved to Florida that you don't get your learner's permit until 15. And I was like two months away from getting it because I could get my farmer's permit in Kansas. So I was going to be driving the truck at 14 and then moved to Florida. But it was culture shock for me, man. We moved from the country to suburbia to where I could stick my hand out my window and touch my neighbor's house, this little tiny plot where everything is. jammed in, you know, it was complete and total culture shock for me. And so fast forward through high school, I was the guy that I was involved in everything, man. I did sports. I did chorus. I did drama. I was decent at grades. I was in with the nerds. You talk about the jocks. I was playing

every sport that there was. I was the guy who was, I was in all the clicks, but I wasn't in any of them, if that makes sense. Like I never felt like I belonged to anyone like this was my crew. But I was friends with all of them, which was kind of cool in retrospect, because it allowed me to pollinate in different ways and to really see different worldviews and to learn different things. And I am what many people refer to as a multi-potentialite. You can't peg me with a label. It's impossible for me to give myself a label because I have so many different interests in so many different fields. And I get hyper-fixated on things. And so that was being cultivated as a kid.

And then when I went, it was in high school, right after we had moved, moved to Florida, my parents actually separated for the first time. And that was where really this fracturing started to happen. I didn't realize that my parents, the reason that they had moved across the country was really to save their marriage. It was a last ditch effort. We moved to just outside of Tampa, Florida, a little town called Apollo Beach. and for anyone who was familiar with the Tampa Bay Area, those big smokestacks that are there in Apollo Beach, that is, you know, right on my back door, man. So that was my stomping grounds during high school. But it was really challenging, Sean, because when my dad, like, you know, I say he walked out, but it wasn't, you know, your typical, like walking out.

It was just like, he left, right? He left and separated from my family. I didn't understand that as a, I think it was 15 at the time. So this was a little bit before high school transitioning to high school. And so that's where the fracturing started. Like the disconnection started for me where this whole journey of fierce empathy really, really was born because there was a part of me that died in that season. When my dad left the first time, they were later reconciled temporarily and we'll get into that.

But there was a man that stepped into my life that was a pastor. And he was a youth pastor. He became a father figure to me, like took me under his wing, just pouring his heart. into me and involved in ministry and everything like that. But what I didn't realize at the time, and I didn't have a word for it then, is that there's this concept called grooming. And he ended up taking advantage of me and violating me. And it was a very weird time being a teenager and feeling like you've been abandoned by your dad. And then you have a man who steps in, who is supposed to kind of fill that role and he takes advantage of you. So my construct and how I saw masculinity was very,

very skewed from a young age, and especially those formative years, you know, you're, you're not a kid anymore, you're not a man yet, you're trying to understand like what the next steps are, what your path is in this world. And man, I, I ended up when I was 18, I took a trip with a buddy of mine to over to Europe. And we had been kind of contracted to be counselors for this, for this youth camp. They wanted English speakers. And so I got to spend two months in Switzerland, France, and Germany just as an 18-year-old. And I got to see and experience the world like I had never experienced it before.

And I kind of, you know, I took a plunge down into some things that weren't ideal. It's my first real introduction to alcohol. And I grew up in a traditional conservative. evangelical Christian family. And so alcohol I wasn't allowed to have. I'd never had. But over there, when you're 18, you can drink. So I was like, all right, it's legal. Game on. Hey, let's go. You know, I also picked up, you know, smoked my first cigarette there, was hooked immediately. Even though everyone's smoking there was like, don't do this, don't do this as they're huffing and puff. And I'm like, come on, let me give me a try. So that's really where addiction started to come in.

You know, there had been some addiction before that when my dad had left and that all happened is really my first introduction to pornography, was addicted to porn from a very, very young age. And it was something that was just hidden. Like, I had this life outside where I'm the good Christian kid. I'm the chaplain at high school. Like, I'm leading worship. I'm doing all the things, right? I'm playing the sports.

I'm in chorus and drama. I'm doing all the extracurriculars. And what I didn't realize, Sean, was that those formative years and the reason I'm spending so much time there is because each of us, we oftentimes don't recognize how much we have been programmed by what's happened to us, right? We don't realize that the results, many of the results that we have today, they're really not our fault to some degree.

Now, it doesn't mean that we can make excuses. It doesn't mean we can make justifications because we do have a part to play. But there are things that happen to us that hardwired us to see the world a certain way. And so we talked about this just a minute ago is that you most of us were operating from this place of just default reaction. We just react. We react. We react. And we're not intentionally thinking about, okay, how can I step back?

How do I really want to respond in a situation? And so that sent me into really a spiral in my high school years, hiding things, just pretending to be the perfect kid. And that's where I mastered the art of masking. I learned how to be exactly who I'm. needed to be in exactly the moment so that everybody would like me and everyone would see me the way that I wanted people to see me. But inside, I started like completely fracturing because the man that I presented was not the man I saw in the mirror. And I started to hate. And I say, man, even at the time, I really was boy. Like, I didn't feel like a man. I didn't think, you know, like a man. And so

fast forward, I decided I was going to go into, instead of going to college, I went to a, is an internship program called South Carolina School of Leadership, which is how I ended up in South Carolina. And it was focused on leadership development, interpersonal communication, ministry. I was taking some Bible classes. And I was kind of on track to going into ministry, becoming a pastor. This was really, really frustrating for my parents because they had gotten back together. But the year that I left, they just, they said, we're done.

We can't do this. And so for me, it was simultaneously in retrospect, me trying to run away from all of that and just trying to start fresh. But two, I had known from a very young age, like God had a call on my life. I had some really powerful spiritual experiences that, like, no one could tell me otherwise, that it wasn't the living God, just speaking into my bones. And so I felt some form of calling, if you will, to go into ministry. And it was a really challenging season.

It was a beautiful season for me. But the reason it was so hard on my parents was because I turned down a full ride scholarship. And they had instilled into me since I was young. Like if you want to succeed, you go to school, you discipline yourself, you get good grades, you do all the extracurriculars, you build out your resume so you can get into college and succeed. My mom was the first in her family to go to college and my dad was the first in his family to get an advanced degree. And so for me to walk away from that and say, yeah, I'm going to this little tiny internship program in South. South Kakalaki and like I'm turning down this this you know is a hundred percent full

ride that I was any college in the state of Florida any college or through bright futures or something like that yeah yeah yeah and so I was really hard on them but I I I just knew that I needed to to lean into something else and and I'll never forget it was a phone call I was probably I think it was 19 at the time I was working at Starbucks and I get this call from this man named Darren Heilman he says David We've got this school called South Carolina School of Leadership, and I've been hearing about you, I've talked to your pastor, and I feel like you would make a great fit for.

I'd love to have a conversation with you. And Sean, this man's voice, it was the first time in many years that I felt like maybe, maybe this is a man that I can follow. Maybe this is a man who won't abandon me, and maybe this is a man who won't take advantage of me and will actually help me understand what the hell is going on. and who I'm supposed to be and what life is about. And how do I really have a relationship with God?

How do I be a man? How do I understand transitioning into adulthood? And that was 100% God ordained, like not a doubt in my mind. And so I came to two years in South Carolina School of Leadership, graduated from there. And I went straight into the workforce, man. I went straight into sales. I'd been working that entire time.

I worked my way through school. And it was a really trying time. And I call my 20s really my dark ages. I learned a lot. I was still plugged in with church. I got married, had our daughter. And I was doing everything that everyone said you're supposed to do. You go get a good job.

You build a career. You make six figures, which we know nowadays, like six figures is still. You're broke. Right? Yeah. But at the time, I mean, we're talking, you know, 15, 20 years ago, it was like, like that was the vision. It was like, hey, yeah, you can make it. You can get six figures and you'll be golden, right? Well, I got there by the time I was 24. 24. 25, I roll into the glass corner office.

I get the company car. I got the six figure salary. I've got the house. I've got the wife. I've got the kid. And there was a series of other events that had happened that, man, I was just, I literally felt like I was living in darkness. I was just, you know, just going through the motions being like, okay, one day, one day, I'm going to break out of this. One day, one day I'm going to have like, you know, I'm going to be successful. One day I'm going to feel great about myself. One day, my marriage is going to be amazing.

One day, you know, all these things. And it was actually not that long ago now. Fast forward to April of 2018. And I found myself on a Sunday afternoon. standing in front of the mirror with with a Glock in my hand. And I was about 50 pounds heavier than I am right now. I was working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. My wife and I had a decent relationship,

but we were having communication issues, connection issues, sex issues, like just a lot of stuff. I was still dealing with porn. I was still, you know, hiding my, you know, smoking and things like that. And alcohol, fortunately, I will say that was a huge thing. Alcohol has never really been like an addiction thing for me, which I'm very grateful for because I know how devastating it can be, especially if you have a propensity towards that addiction. It is so dangerous.

But regardless, I was just a fractured human being, just completely broken inside. And mind you, like, I'm still leading worship for the youth group. I'm still plugged in at church. I'm leading Bible studies. I'm like, I'm doing the whole facade. like complete and total facade. And it was in that moment, Sean, that God intervened.

And I didn't hear him speak audibly, but it shook me to my core and in my bones because there was a few things that I felt him speak over me in that moment. He said, buddy, I love you. I am with you and I am for you. but I can't fix this for you. And then in that moment, like, to hear that, you know, and to have prayed my whole life, Jesus, just fix it.

Freaking fix it. What am I doing wrong? And this mental chaos, this, what is people refer to as cognitive dissonance and this just disruption of my heart and my emotions and wondering what in the world I was doing and what it was all for and purpose and calling and all of this stuff, the expectations and pressures and taxes and your job and all these things. And all of that really came to a head where I was standing there in the mirror and I felt him say those things.

And then he said, buddy, I've given you a head and a heart to use. You get to decide. You get to commit. it you get to become. And I remember setting it, setting the gun down on the counter and just staring at myself, hating like everything inside of me wanted to kill the man in front. I hated the man in the mirror.

And just this overwhelming sense of peace and love. It just filled me from the ground up. And I broke down crying. I just, I walked over to my bed. I just fell in my bed and I just wept. and that was the moment where I realized that I had been putting all of the responsibility for my life on God. God, if you want me to go here, tell me.

If you want me to do this, tell me. If there's a problem, you fix it. If I'm dealing with health complications, it's not my fault that I'm eating trash food, chugging energy drinks, smoking cigarettes. It's like, you got to fix this, right? You got to fix this. Jesus, fix it, fix it, fix it, right? And I realized that I had basically created this version of God that is what so many people create, unintentionally oftentimes, of just like zero responsibility for my life, zero accountability outside of maybe a handful of guys that, you know, we're still struggling with the same things.

We'd be like, oh, yeah, dude, did you look at porn the other day? Well, yeah, I looked at it. Probably shouldn't do that anymore. This isn't good. But not real, like, calling you to a higher standard. And so it was in that moment, Sean, where I realized, and I'll, I'll shut up now. We can get into some stuff. There, there was this moment where I realized that when he said, I can't fix this for you.

And it hit me when he said, you, you get to decide. You get to decide. You get to commit. You get to become. I'm like, become what? You decide. You decide. You decide.

And that's where everything shifted, brother. And I, since that day, I've never looked back in my life. I don't even recognize that man anymore, bro. I don't. You know, first of all, thank you for sharing that with me and the audience listening. I'm rarely speechless. This whole time I'm listening to your story. And I feel like I'm at an event.

And I'm listening to this amazing speaker speaking about their story. speaking about their life. And I found myself just diving into the story and the emotion. I mean, you probably caught me at the beginning with tears in my eyes about, you know, the pastor that violated you. So many emotional triggers in that story.

And I just want to let you know, I see you and I feel you. And I absolutely love you. I didn't know any of this stuff. And so for the audience that is so used to me coming back with something right away, I got to be honest. And be real. I'm struggling with it right now because that was such an impactful and captivating journey of a man who was in the ditch and probably, you know, quite literally living hell on earth to the man you are now. The one thing I would say, you know, I also have a hard time with men. And I don't know if you still do. But I have a hard time trusting men.

but I also have a bigger and even more hard time worrying about letting men down. And I think I know where it comes from for me was, you know, my biological father left when I was to beat the living crap out of my mom. She was in the hospital. Of course, I don't remember an event, but subconsciously, I probably, you know, have some, you know, type of lasting effect from it. Then she remarried again. the guy broke her arm, quick divorce, then married my stepfather, who is my father, and, you know, gave me everything that I needed in sports and baseball to a point where he would take me everywhere, buy me all the stuff, make sure I had the lessons and

all the tools to work hard and become a man and a manly man that doesn't cry, that, you know, just shuts his mouth, puts his head down, and works, and doesn't complain about anything. and strives for perfection. You know, then ultimately, you know, I don't think he knew any better. I think he was doing the best that, that, you know, he could do. And when I'm speaking in past tense, the man is still alive. We just don't have a relationship. As I got older, I noticed that when I would be around him, the last time I was around him,

my cousin who's an actor, he was just praising me on how far my body had come. and how well I'm doing. And then in the background on the other side, my dad is sitting there saying, look at him. He's still got a little fat right there. He's still got a little fat ass. And I'm hearing him, but it's also like white noise in a sense, right? It's just like this background of like it.

It's just calling on my childhood. And right then I'm sitting there, this is the first time I've allowed myself to be around him. This is the first time I allowed my wife to be around him. It's the first time I allow my children to be around him. You know, my two, my two youngest children hadn't even met the man. My son met him when he was nine months old and that was it. Came by for like two hours and had to leave. We didn't want to spend the night.

You know? And then the next thing he said to me, set me off. It was, how's that little podcast going now, boy? I looked at him. I said, you don't get to speak to me like that. I don't know who you think you are, but we're done here. I said, Jackie, get the kids, get their shit. We're out of here because I'm not allowing this man right here that's broken in his own right

and is so unhappy with himself and the decisions that he's made in his life. And now he transitioned away from his daughter and his son and his marriage. I'm not letting this energy in my life. We're leaving. I haven't spoken to him since. But I still, at the very core of me, is this sad little boy that can't make his dad happy. And it sucks. No.

Because when I get mad at my son for doing something stupid, treating his sisters a certain way, I'm not as hard on him as I am my daughters. I could be mad at my daughters. I could stay mad at my daughters. but the moment that little boy makes me mad, I want to break inside because I can't stomach. I can't stomach him feeling about me the way I feel about my dad. Completely different scenarios, completely different stories and journeys. Although I feel as though there's a huge synergy in how men have let us down in our lives. Yeah.

And that's hard. You know, that that's really hard for me. You know, so I just wanted to share that with you and the audience has heard it, but they've heard it in different energies, probably never this calmly. But, you know, the other thing, man, what I really caught out of your story, other than the big things, you said thing, but you became a master at masking. Yeah. I'm myself in McKin at masking. And it takes that one person to see right through you. And I always talk about her on my show, my friend Chantelle, saw right through me. She was a client when I was selling her payroll. We were sitting in Starbucks on Pine Island Road in Cape Coral, Florida. And she goes, how are you? I am great. She goes, you are lying. You are broken and you are not connected. I can see your energy. You're an amazing man, but you are completely way off. And she has. help me find who I was.

And, you know, so how did become a master of masking allow you, is a two-part question, I think, allow you to go to pollinate from group to group, and how did being able to pollinate from group to group and not being a part of any click, but really having a place in every single one of them, lead to the ability to be such an empath? So there's a lot of research that's recently been coming about empaths and understanding that there is a segment of society. And we probably all heard certain terms before, right? We probably heard the term neurodivergency where there's like you've got neurotypicals, neurodivergence.

We've got the spectrum. Obviously, you've got everything from various degrees of autism, Asperger, things like that. We've got ADD, ADHD, bipolar, OCD, like all these different. things that are medical terms that are really thrown around and even words like anxiety and depression. The problem with these words is that they are, we define them based on a very specific filter, each of us individually. Like if one person says anxiety, it doesn't mean the same thing to another person. If one person says I'm depressed, it doesn't mean the same thing as if someone else says I'm depressed, right? There's like this spectrum for all of it. And what I started to realize was that

through the research is that there are certain things that are considered hardwired strengths and gifts. Like we're born uniquely with certain predispositions. Anyone that has kids understands this. You can have one kid and you have another kid raised in the same environment. They're not the same. Different. Completely about their childhood.

Right? Completely different. They have different ones, different needs, different emotional tendencies, different ways that they communicate, different ways they give love, receive love. And so to some degree, there are certain things that are just hardwired inside of us. And there's a great company called, you know, Clifton Strengths. Strengths, Strengths Finders 2.0 is one of the most researched millions of people like over, over decades, have gone through their training and learning about different hardwired strengths. And what was really interesting to me is the first time that I took that test, Sean, I was 15 years old.

my top five i'll give you number one empathy number two adaptability number three includeer number four connectedness and then number five is input and now input may seem like hey you like to give your input i do like to talk a lot but that's not what it means input is input is like you input information usually you find this for people that have some form of a collector's mindset for me i collect information I obsessively collect knowledge. I read constantly. I read every single day. The more I learn,

the more I learn how little I know about anything. And it's really an interesting thing when you start to learn about your strengths. But as a 15-year-old kid, Sean, it pissed me off, dude. I was like, what the, I have empathy? That is, give me motivator. Give me something like, you know, combative or something. where I can mark it, man.

Right. Exactly. So I was very, there was not only this, you know, this, this natural way that I had with people of being able to relate and interact and all this other stuff. But the masking really came not because I was inner of learning how to adapt in different situations and relate. The masking came because I was living a lie. All right.

Yeah. The masking came because I was, uh, there were certain situations where I was showing up and I was hiding all of these things and pretending to be something that I wasn't. I think on one hand, being a part of all those groups was just a natural part of who I am. Like, you throw me in a crowd, somebody's going to walk away being my friend. Like, I'm going to make a friend. Like, that's how it is. Yeah, for sure.

We're the same in that regard, man. Right. So that's not a bad thing intrinsically. But where the masking comes in is when you are living a lie and you are not showing up in full authenticity. And the hard part about this, Sean, is that most people I've found, because I was definitely this way. don't know how to show up authentically because they don't even know who they are.

They don't know who they are. They don't know what they want. And really, the only thing that they can tell you is what they don't want. So how are you supposed to show up authentically in the world if you don't know who you are? You don't know your core values. You don't have mission and purpose. You don't know what you want. And all you have is a list of complaints and injustices for why this world is a screwed up place.

And you're entitled to whatever, right? And so I say all that just for a little bit of context because this empathy thing for me, like I said, when I was 15, it like, dude, I was mad. Like, especially in a formative years, I'm like, that's not a masculine trait. Give me like empathy and connectedness and includer, right? You know, all these different types of things. And you write Hallmark cards for a living. Right.

Well, quick side story, too, that I think is really important for context here. I was so different than so many of my friends of being engaged and involved in different things. And I always naturally gravitated to having friends that were older than me. Most of my friends averaged four to six years older than me. Like even in middle school, I was friends with all high schools. When I was high school, all my friends were in college. I still associated with everyone. But what was interesting about it was that I, particularly in high school, all my college friends were like,

dude, don't date in high school. This is the stupidest thing on the planet. You're not going to talk to 99.99% of these people. If you even talk to one, you might have one person. I'm like, oh, okay, they're older than me. They're smarter than me. Maybe it's stupid to date in high school. So I decided I'm not going to date in high school.

Well, because of these things that were going on, because of the separation of my parents and all this other stuff and all these things. And then these natural hardwired giftings, I didn't date, which if you're in high school, unless you're labeled, the weirdo or whatever or your it's just uncommon my parents my parents really really internalized that and there came a point where and this was actually the first time that i considered suicide as my parents brought me into into a room and they said buddy we just want to know something oh boy they said we love you no matter what but are you are you are you gay and sean

to be a 17-year-old kid trying to figure it out, trying to do your best, trying to make friends, trying to be good at sports, trying to get A's, trying to do like everything, man. And you make a decision and be like, hey, this is stupid. I'm not going to do this. Like, if I'm ever going to date, I'm going to date for a wife. Like, that's it. So we're any young people out there? Like, if you're dating for any other reason than to find marriage material, I love you, but you're doing stupid.

stuff. Stop it. Stop it. And the reason I share that though, Sean, is that something again in that moment fractured inside of me. And for anyone that knows at Tampa Bay area, there's this bridge called the Sunshine Skyway. Oh, it's huge. I got in my car and I headed straight for the Sunshine Skyway with one agenda. One agenda. I said, I'm, I am done. I've given my heart to Jesus. I'm living in ministry. I'm doing these things. I'm trying to be my best.

I'm working hard. Like, I'm just, what? And my own parents? Because what happened was not the fact that they questioned it. It planted a seed. What if I am? What if I, what if I, I'm obviously different from everybody else. And just for context, for everyone listening, to some of us now in our culture, that might

not seem like that big of a deal. Then growing up in a very staunch, conservative, evangelical Christian, that was like saying, I murdered someone. They were asking if I murdered someone is what it felt like. It was a complete, like complete twist and destruction of what I felt like was whatever character that I had. And so I share that just for a little bit more context, because in the midst of this, I started, like, nobody knows who I am. My parents don't even know who I am. Everyone is wondering who the hell David Waldy is, and David Waldy doesn't even know. And so there's just this chaos.

And you fast forward. And it's funny because over the course of 15 years, I took that same Strengths Finder's test. You know what my top five are? The exact same freaking thing, Sean. There's still the exact same thing. My number one is empathy. And what I realized, though, and this is for all of you, listening. There are certain things that are hardwired into you that you resent about yourself

that intrinsically are beautiful and good and you will not find what you are looking for until you stop resenting those things and learning how to turn them into something good. Learn how to leverage those. Mitigate your weaknesses but maximize your strengths. And for me, I realize that these words that we use. Like for me, meaning is so important. The words that we use, context, nuance, all this stuff. This is why I struggle with social media, Sean, is because everything's out of freaking context. And I'm like, don't get me started. You know, and what I started to after that series of, you know, my 20s, like, and then ending in the bathroom, I realized that I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I wanted. All I knew was what I hated and what I wanted to change what I didn't want.

And so I went through this process of complete rediscovery. I got plugged into mentors. I hired coaches. I started getting into rooms where I felt like I had enough awareness to say, okay, the results in my life are nothing, nothing like what I want. So who has similar results in their life that I would want in my life? And how can I emulate them? How can I plug in with them?

I remember there was a season, Sean, for almost an entire year. I was an outside sales. I would be in and out of nursing homes, retirement facilities. I had one agenda. And it wasn't to make the sale, although I made a lot of sales just because my one agenda was to ask them about their relationship and how they create an incredible marriage. So I would look for the old people that are sitting there and they're like, you know, 80s and 90s and just holding each other's hands. I'm like, hey, how long have you been married? We've been married 63 years. And I was like, tell me what did you do? And I was like, tell me what did you do what did you do tell me because everyone else has obviously got this

screwed up you've been together your entire life i want what you have i want that how did you create that and so i started looking for people that had the results in their life and i started curating the influences in my life and that process caused me like when people talk about paying for speed, I realized like not just paying financially, but in time and energy and money, when you pay for it, it is an investment that will cause exponential growth. And so I went through this process of not only trying to find the people that had the results, but I had to go really deep within myself and really get on my face before God and say, God, who am I? And you talked to Sean about that fatherhood thing and this, you know,

are resistance to men. And I love the book, The Shack. It was turned into a movie, which the movie's okay. The book is much, much. Book was mind-blowing. And there's this part where the main character, Mac, he's given an opportunity to judge God.

He literally goes through, because he's so angry about this man who has killed his daughter. And then he goes through this series, like, well, what about his father? And what about his father? And what about his father and his father and his father? And you go all the way back until you get to God. And then it's like Mac loses it.

And he's like, God is to blame. This is his fault. And I had to come to that place for myself. And what was beautiful. And is that even when you come to that point where you're at the end of your rope and even blaming and cursing God. And there, I'll tell you. That scene was in my truck. There was a couple dozen F words and every other thing you can imagine in between,

directed straight at God. I'll try and keep it PG-13 for us here. Well, you know, you know my show. I was so angry and all I heard, John, all I heard was, buddy, I love you. And for me, what I've realized, and especially for us men, is, and I think this is just humanity. It's, well, I shouldn't say especially for men.

It's true for men and women is that the wounds that we carry, they're tied to men most often. Now, I'm not saying you don't have mother stuff. Sure, but there's something about this incessant, persistent, constant theme in all of society that my dad or my stepdad or a man in my life or the uncle, some authority figure is the one that screwed me up. And this is where fierce empathy comes to play, Sean, is that when I look at my story, we can hear, and it's still, like, there are days where I'll share it and there's no emotion

that comes. There's days like today where I'm remembering stuff and there's emotion that comes up. It is a very, very visceral thing. When I look at it, I wouldn't wish what happened on anyone, ever. And if I could go back and have it not happen, I would have loved for it to not happen. But I now have come to the place where I'm completely on the other side of that, that I can actually hold all of it with gratitude. Not for what happened to me at all. I'm not grateful for what happened to me. I'm not grateful for what happened to you.

But what I am grateful for is that God has made good on his promise to turn beauty from ashes, to take what is broken and make it whole, to restore what was stolen, to redeem. And for me, it was this process where God just, he became so real to me that it was no longer pages on a book. It was like I was getting into the Bible and I understood finally for the first time what it meant to eat. Like I was being sustained and I was, and I started really, you know, you've heard it

before. We talk about affirmations and declarations and doing different things and yourself talk. And I started saying, God, I only want to know what you think about me. What does your word say about me? Who do you say that I am? And not some, you know, pardon my friends, not some religious bullshit. What does he actually say about you as his child?

And when we, I have only found this is the only thing that brings the peace that passes all understanding, the confidence, the boldness is that when you start to understand who you really are and you get really. honest with the man or the woman in the mirror. And you start to define specifically who you want to become. What you need to do gets crystal clear. But everybody's going around saying, how do I fix my marriage? How do I fix my health? How do I fix my boss? How do I make more money? How do I do this? And we're all asked, they're useful questions. They're just the wrong first question. The first question is who do you need to become? Because when you can define who you want to become, who you need to become. Everything you need to do gets crystal clear. And for me, I didn't know

who I wanted to become because I didn't know who I was. And I had to go back to the beginning and say, God, who do you say that I am? And when I really took the time to understand that and to fight to believe it, because I sure as hell did not want to believe it at all, I still hated that man. I was like, this is this BS, God. There's no way that that, that, that you. love me this much. I've done too much. I've said too much. There's no way that you still love me, especially after all those F words I just threw your way. Exactly. Yeah. And they're done that one. And he took me through this transformative process through the help of, again, coaches and mentors, advisors and friends and people that came into my life of starting to realize that I had to take

radical responsibility for my life. And this is why I love your podcast name, Sean, and why I'm so excited for what you're building here. Thank you. I had to determine what my life was going to look like. I had to determine what I was okay with and what I was not okay with. I had determined where there was festering in my soul, this putrefaction, which is a huge $5,000 word for rotting from the inside out. I was rotting from the inside out because I had such a fractured relationship with myself.

And I'll give you some just some very practical things here for everyone listening. Most of us are really, really good at keeping our word to other people. Now, life happens. And sometimes, you know, sometimes, you know, we had, Sean and I just worked through something. We've been trying to get this on the books for six months. And things just keep happening, right? Yep. And so I'm not talking about that.

What I'm talking about is that usually when we say, I'm going to, I'm going to do it. I'll be there for you. We do it. And so that's what we define as integrity. Societally, we say, oh, that person has integrity. You can count on them. You can trust them, right? They're going to be there.

They're going to do what they say. They have integrity. Fam, this is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin of integrity is do you keep your word to yourself? Yeah, man. That's one right there that is so easy to break. Keeping your word to yourself is the easiest one to break because no one knows what you're thinking. You can break your word to yourself and it's like no one knows.

It's okay. I cannot go to the gym. I cannot do my homework. I cannot. I can. No one's going to know if I hit play on porn. No one's going to know. Yeah.

But the bottom line is, is you know, you know if you're keeping your word to yourself. And what many people don't realize is when we don't keep words to ourselves, we do have that petrification. We rot from the inside out because here's why. Now the confidence level is completely in the shitter. Okay. We're not confident. We cannot go out in the world and create amazing things because there's no confidence surrounding what we do.

And the problem with that is it runs so deep. It runs so deep and you're going to keep hitting your head against the wall. Why isn't my show working? Why don't I have the views? Why don't I have the listens? Why am I not making enough money? Why am I still fat? Why does my relationship suck with my kids?

Why does my relationship suck with my spouse? It's like, dude, you're becoming someone that is just breaking your own word. And what happens is eventually people smell it. Yeah. People smell what you're putting out is not really who you are. Now, the great part about that, everyone listening is your integrity with yourself, that is fixable. You start there and you start from the inside out, right? People talk about, well, I don't want to go to the gym or don't want to do this show or do this, write this book because I'm not motivated to do it.

I need some motivation. Here's what people don't understand about motivation. Motivation doesn't come right away. Motivation comes after you've already taken some steps and you start making some progress and then you're inspired. then you're inspired. And it could look different every single day. But our job as human beings is to push through that. Lean into those feelings.

No one's saying that you can't feel, you know, a lack of motivation or not wanting to. You can feel it all you want. But what would your higher self do? What would? How about this one? Because I,

and if people listen now, they've listened to me enough, my biggest fear is getting to heaven's gates. And God introducing you. me to the man I was supposed to be and me not know who the heck that person is. Yeah. Scares me. It scares me.

So how we get there is by following our intuition. And our intuition is going to tell you every single day. It's going to tell you when you don't want to go do something. It's going to say, you know that feeling you get when your face gets hot and you're like, I should probably go do that. But you say, screw it. I'm not going to. Yeah, that's your intuition.

That's a gift. That's a gift. And if you don't follow that gift, then no. you don't have integrity with yourself. You don't have confidence in yourself. You're not building the things that you want to build in your life and in your relationships and with God and in your career. And maybe even with your children. And guess what?

You're not going to recognize that man or woman when you get to heaven's gates. That scares me. Well, all by just following your word, man. And there's something you said in there that I want to take a quick second to give some very practical step by step. because I'm a guy that likes the step by step. Like, okay, there's probably people listening to me like, Sean, David, I get it, right?

I get it, I get it. But what do I need to do? They're still asking that question, what do I need to do? Like, what do I need to do to become, you know, right? And what I'll say is this, I give an example, is that if you tell your wife that you're going to do something and you don't do it, right? You might get a pass once.

You do it again? Maybe. Maybe, right? Maybe. It depends on how good your relationship is. It depends what it is. Correct. You're not wrong there. That's the yes. And you take any relationship, though, if you give your word that you're going to do something,

you say you're going to do something and you consistently don't do it, it starts to erode trust, right? When trust starts to a road, eventually it gets to the point where respect starts to a road. When respect starts to a road, it destroys all. semblance of confidence in that relationship. And so for each of us, what we have to recognize is that it is the exact same thing that you have with someone else. You have that within yourself.

I'm not going to snooze tomorrow. I'm going to get up and go to the gym. And then you snooze and you don't go to the gym. Guess what you just did? There's a little bit of trust you just lost within yourself. A little bit of respect. You just lost within yourself. A little bit of confidence you just lost in yourself.

And so people are always asking, how do I cultivate confidence? And confidence requires first and foremost courage. courage is the prerequisite to all confidence you got to do this shit scared like you got to do it even though you don't feel like doing it and yes the motivation and inspiration often comes after you've done it but when people are like well what do i need to do the first thing is is that you got to pick something small that you can commit to i don't care if it's something as simple as i'm not going to snooze tomorrow like that's it and i'm not going to do it if you can get that one win, one win and then say, sweet, I did it. It's just what they teach. It's what they teach in any form of

addiction rehab. Just focus on this minute, this hour, this day. Don't say I got this goal. I'm not going to snooze for the next 30 days. Yeah, you are. You're setting yourself up for failure. Just focus on the one time. Start recultivating trust within yourself by saying, okay, I did the thing I said I was going to do. It wasn't that hard, but I did it. I did it over and over and over and over again. And here's the most powerful component of this entire thing. And Sean, I know you probably know this. I hyper fixate on the weirdest things. And one of those is neuroscience and understanding how and why we make decisions and what fuels our reactions and responses to life, why we are the way that we are and why we do what we do. And so for all you nerds out there like me, you want to literally change how you see the world.

you want to change your mind. The only way, there's really, well, there's two ways. There's two ways that we transform our mind. And it's funny that the Bible says be renewed by the transformation of your mind, not your heart, not your spirit, by your mind. Scientists have now proven that you do something consistently, that you don't feel like doing for a period of 21 to 90 days. It's somewhere in there.

It depends on the person. Some people, it can be 21, some people is 90 days. There's a lot of differing opinions on it, but the research actually says between three weeks and three months, you do something hard, you don't feel like doing consistently. It will literally create a new neural connection in your brain. Your brain will be hardwired differently than it was before, and you will become a different human being than you were before you started doing that thing. And this is where identity shift happens. And it's why in the work that I do, especially in the coaching and consulting world, Sean, you know this, is that when I'm working with high performance individuals, they already know all the right freaking answers. They don't pay me to tell them the right answers.

They pay me to ask the questions that they don't have the courage to ask or that no one else has the balls to ask them. This is where fierce empathy comes to play is I want to create an environment where I say, bro, I know you want to lose 20 pounds. I know you want to be a better leader. I know that you want to be more consistent and this and this. We need to pick one thing because right now you're lying to yourself. You're breaking trust within yourself. You're disrespecting yourself. So why would you have any confidence?

Why would you be motivated? Why would be you? It makes sense why you don't, why you're not. And so it's speaking the hard truth in love while simultaneously saying, I see you, I hear you, I feel you, I love you, I understand you. But this ain't happening anymore if you're serious about transforming. your life. Because when we can start to do that with the simple things, going to the gym, not snoozing, kissing our kids, being present, putting the phone away, you pick something small. It is habit

stacking. And you do that and then you do the next level and the next level and the next level. You do that for six to 12 months. You will not recognize yourself. You will have created an entirely new identity, not just ethereally. Your mind will literally see the world differently. And this is what we have to get to. We have to get to this point because otherwise we are constantly going to get in our own way, which is why we need people around us like Sean, you and I have talked about, with fierce empathy. Because I love you. But no, this is not who you are.

This is not who you said that you would be. And you need to fix this. And here's how you do it because I cared too much about you. And you said, Shantel was her name? Was that the name? I had a very similar, I'll share this quick, quick little. anecdote story. My name was Sarah.

Sarah Cabra. We're sitting at this little Mediterranean cafe eating Schwarma and a bunch of food I can't pronounce. It was delicious. It was like one of those places on Main Street, the big glass windows. She looked at me. She said, David, who do you want to become? And we've had this

theme kind of through this conversation around defining becoming. And I said, I don't know, Jesus. And she said, wrong answer. He has a cop out. You can't say Jesus. And I said, I don't know. I guess I, I mean, if I think about, I don't know, I probably, I want to be like Tony Robbins. Maybe with a few less F words. I don't, you know, there's certain things I like, don't.

But I mean, I love that he has impacted millions of people's lives. He's passionate about helping people become better. He's like, you know, extraordinarily wealthy. He focuses on his health, like blah, blah, blah. And there's some things like even his past relationships. We all have bags. We all have stupid stuff that's happened, right? Exactly.

So not trying to be judgmental of him, but I said, I want to be kind of. to like that man. And she looked at me and she said, interesting. Okay. So if you want to become more like him, what do you need to do? And that's when the light bulb clicked. I realized that in order for me to first, like to really change my life and for everyone listening here, if you really want to change your life in any area, you have to capture a vision of who you want to become. And you have to define it with precision. You need to look at the attributes of your heroes, your mentors, your coaches, the people that you have in your life that you want to model something to that degree. And you need to start asking, what do they believe that's different than me? How do they think

differently than I do? What are the actions that they take that are different than me? What are their habits? What are the routines? And you just obsessively learn, this is what I need to do. And you craft and you craft this version of the man or woman that you want to become. And this is where alignment comes to play. Is that everyone's talking about alignment nowadays and everyone in their mother is aligning with what feels good. And it's why everyone's depressed and anxious and suicidal and dealing with all this stuff.

You have to pick a vision and you make it plain. You write it out and you define this is who I'm going to be. And then every single day you ask yourself this question, would that version of me, as Sean said, higher self, would that version of me be saying this right now? Would that version of me be waking up this way? Would that version of me be sitting here chugging this? Would that version of me be, what would that version of me be doing? And when you do that, you can re-align your life, your habits, your actions, your behaviors, your choices, your disciplines, all these things

that are freaking hard, fam. Don't listen to people that tell you it's easy. It's simple, but simple is not easy. And you do. this, you get somebody in your corner like Sean French and say, Sean, I don't know what I got to do, man, but I need you to coach me. I'll pay you. I want you in my corner. I want you call me up. I want you challenging me. I want you helping me in every single way. And for you athletes, I know you got a lot of athletes on here. Fam, if you want to be elite, you got to get a Sean in your freaking corner. You got to give him permission to hold you accountable and to challenge you on these things. You need to invest in yourself by investing with this man and say, I know, and by the way, he didn't ask me to say any of this. But, but, you know, and by the way, he didn't ask me to say any of this. I'm preaching real talk here. You need someone like Sean in your life that says, I see greatness inside of you, and I will tell you what you need to hear. You can be pissed off at me.

You can be angry. You can throw stuff at me. You can say you don't want to talk to me, but I care so much about you that I'm not going to lie to you, and I'm not going to let you lie to yourself. Oh, man, I appreciate that, dude. And you know what, man, for those you listen and that got a lot out of the show today. And a lot of what, you know, David,

resonated with you and you connect with him as a person, I want you to feel free to reach out to him. I want you guys to connect with him. He has an amazing group, The Ardent Man. Why don't you tell them how they can find you and learn a little bit more about even just having more connection with you? Let's just call it connection with you, right?

Because I think that that's something that everybody listening right now can truly benefit from. Absolutely, brother. Well, I appreciate that, man. Yeah, so the Ardent Man, it is a brotherhood. It's a monthly membership program. We've got different tiers of access, depending on how much coaching you want to have. And we meet every Wednesday morning, and it is all around a select group of pillars. Ardent is not only a beautiful word, but it's an acronym. It stands for if you're a man that understands and values, accountability, responsibility, discipline, empathy,

nobility and truth. You want to be a better husband. You want to be a better father. You want to be a better leader, we can't do this alone. That's where that community comes in is helping us up level in every single area of life, all seven sectors of life. There's seven sectors to every single one of our lives. And very few of us are intentionally working on each of those in a systematic way. And so that's why that brotherhood exists is for us to, we are imperfect men. So if you're perfect, don't, don't ask. You're not welcome. But outside of that, yeah, most of, um, you know, if anyone wants to connect with me, I mean, most of my actual, like, clients, I work with business owners and a variety of consulting advisory capacities.

But if you just want to jam, like, if you need resources, you need books, you want podcast, like just shoot me a DM on Instagram, be like, yo, David, heard you on Sean's podcast, determined society. I'm at this stage in life. What would you recommend? Fam, I will personally respond to it. I personally respond to every message on Instagram. I can't get to all social media all the time.

I'm a busy man, very intentional with my time. Sean knows that. I got three young kids, my wife, and life's wild, and I freaking love it. But if you hit me up on Instagram, you mention that you listen to this podcast, tell me where you're at, what you're all about, and where you're trying to grow. And I'll point you in a good direction. I'll connect you with people. I'll get you books, whatever I can do to support.

Because I believe that success and winning, the sweetest forms of success and winning are when we do it together. Like, that's it, man. Yeah, man. What is the saying? If you do it alone, you can go fast. If you do it alone, you can go far. I mean, you do it together, you go further or go far, something like that. And I'm butchering the actual quote. But it's true. You know, it takes a village, like all these cliches that everybody talks about. You know, I'm going through a massive growth opportunity now. And, you know, I didn't do it alone. And, you know, there's a lot of hands in this. And there's a lot of things going on. So, reach out to David and guys, I want to encourage you. If this show moved you, please share it on your social, share it with a friend. Yeah, tag me and Sean. We'll reach out. Tag us. I mean, heck, even do it behind the scenes. Just copy the link on Apple or Spotify and send it to someone you love that you know can be blessed by this episode. And we love you. I appreciate you guys. And again, David, thank you for coming on. and delivering such an amazing conversation with me. I'm blown away about how amazing this was, not surprised, still blown away.

But until next time, guys, keep your word to yourself and status Herman. Talk to you soon. Southwest Florida is one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida, or even just moving to a different part of the state, I want you to think of a big, beautiful luxury home. Contact legacy luxury builders. They are a family-owned and operated luxury residential construction company.

As a family-owned business, they believe in the power of building not just homes, but legacies. Contact legacy luxury builders. The nightmare feeling like you'll never measure up of constant second-guessing and self-doubt. It eats away at you and destroys your confidence. I've been there too. Feeling like I didn't belong on the field with my teammates. But it doesn't have to stay that way. I used to compare myself to everyone around me.

I thought that no matter how hard I worked, I'd never be as good as the other guys. It killed myself to leave. I now help athletes develop an elite mindset, so comparison no longer controls them. We teach techniques to cut out the negative self-talk and unlock the full potential. Imagine stepping into the box when it counts the most and feeling totally confident in your ability. Feeling invincible instead of insecure, ready to seize the opportunity instead of shrink from it. That's the mindset I help athletes develop. Don't waste another minute in comparison and self-doubt. Take control of your mindset and become the confident, unstoppable competitor you were

meant to be. The end more comment below to get started with Edge and transform the game.