The Fail-Forward Mindset: Framing Failure as Fuel

The Fail-Forward Mindset: Framing Failure as Fuel

The failures in my life are gold. Gold. Like, I, I can't even describe to your audience how much better my life is now than when my life was ignoring all this shit, having a stick up my ass, and trying to keep it all together. When I start going down that path, it's really easy for me then to be a victim.

It's really easy for me to be like, Fuck that guy. That guy's a piece of shit. That guy did everything wrong. I didn't do shit. Right? That's not helpful. But acknowledge it. Because if we don't acknowledge it, we ignore it or we medicate it. That's what How are you acting like Bruce Wayne today? And how are you acting like Batman?

And how can we all act like Batman more? That's my thought.

D Brent Dowlen: Are you afraid of anything? What about big butcher knives? What if I add some, some scary music? Would that make you afraid? Like this? Oh, everybody knows that sound, [00:01:00] right? That makes us scared. You know what really makes you scared? The sound of a Mossberg 500 shotgun pumping.

This is actually scientifically one of the most terrifying sounds in the world. They even hook electrodes up to people's brains to figure that out. Mossberg has the best sound for that. FYI. But guys, today we're not talking about that kind of fear. Today on the Fallible Man podcast, we're talking about the fear of failure, which stops most people from ever even moving forward.

Today's my guest is Josh Abonado from the Derelict podcast. Josh and I had a great conversation on failure and why failure is actually one of the most valuable tools you will ever have in your arsenal. So I want you to have some FOMO, some fear of missing out, because this episode will absolutely change the way you look at failure for the rest of your life.

While we may not be to the Halloween fun yet, that will come eventually, [00:02:00] this episode, this episode is going to change your look at failure to see how it can catapult your life forward at an incredible, incredible pace if you just learn to embrace it. If you don't like to get to know you section, there's timestamps down below.

Josh is a lot of fun. So we had a lot of fun in that segment of the podcast, but I understand you want to just get to the meat and potatoes of it. Timestamps down below guys on whatever platform you're joining us on. Don't miss this conversation because failure is your friend and failure is your greatest teacher and Josh is going to help us see exactly how.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential? Growing to the men we dream of becoming while taking care of our responsibilities, working, living, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question. And in this podcast, we'll help you with those answers and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. Welcome to the [00:03:00] Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. That's our long time listeners and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. I know there's a lot competing for your attention.

Welcome So from the bottom of my heart, thanks for checking us out. Be sure to connect with me at the fallible man on most social media platforms. I'm especially active on Instagram DME. Let me know what you thought of the show. I'd love to get your opinion today. My special guest is podcaster Josh Abonado and Josh.

I should have asked before we started recording. I probably totally butchered that welcome to the fallible man. No worries,

Josh Abbandonato: Brent. It's so great to be here, man. I'm a, I'm so excited for today.

D Brent Dowlen: Josh, I like to start kind of nice, slow roll here. So how's your trivia?

Josh Abbandonato: How's my trivia? I don't, it depends on what it's about.

Let's go.

D Brent Dowlen: Okay. So here is the question. How many bones are there in the human body? Is it A, 206, B, 205, C, 201, or D, 209?

Josh Abbandonato: No idea. I wish my [00:04:00] son was here. I guarantee you he knows this. I'm going to go with 206.

D Brent Dowlen: Okay. Guys, we know how this works. Don't cheat for God's sake. If you're driving, don't look this up on your phone, make your guess.

We'll come back to it later in the show, because we know that that is the most important thing that's going to happen today. Josh, I don't do big introductions. So in your own words today, in this moment, who is Josh? Oh,

Josh Abbandonato: good question, man. Uh, let's see. So I'm a man. And I'm just gonna start with that, because that's a confusing term these days.

And, uh, you know, I'm okay with it. I'm actually okay with being a man. And I feel like there is a lot of people out there right now that aren't. And they're uncomfortable about that, and they're insecure about it. And frankly, we live in a world where even saying that is somehow inappropriate. So, let's just start with that.

I'm a man. I'm happy to be a man. I do not want to be anything else, and I'm really grateful for that. I am a father. I have three beautiful kids that I absolutely [00:05:00] adore. I am a business owner. I own a couple of different businesses. I own a financial planning business that I've done for a very long time. I own a coaching and the, where the podcast is under, et cetera, business.

We focus on working with men, especially men going through struggles. Uh, right now we're working with a lot of men going through divorce. A lot of men that are either pre divorce or kind of going through that process and helping them avoid really common mistakes. I've been through a divorce myself. So, I'm also divorced.

Uh, I'm fresh off of a relationship from a few weeks ago, so that's, uh, you know, we were together for a couple years, so that, that's pretty recent. I am energetic, I'm fun, I like going and getting stuff done. Uh, I'm kind of a no bullshitter type of person, uh, and I already swore on your podcast, so hopefully that's cool.

And, uh, let's see, what else? I am a very spiritual person. I love getting to know my God better [00:06:00] and, you know, for your listeners or viewers, whether they call that higher power universe, God, whatever you want to call it, I'm all about trying to learn how this whole world just kind of comes together. It's beautiful to me.

I'm on a journey of just really trying to be open to not only experiences, but specifically people. I just got done with a really amazing week long conference that I'm happy to chat about later if we want, but it just had so many beautiful people there. And, you know, I'll just give you one quick example, and then I'll kind of wrap up this intro.

And that is that I was walking outside of the conference center, and I was on the sidewalk, and I was waiting to cross the street. And as I was sitting, standing there waiting to cross the street, this car went zooming by, you know, through the, it was a green light through the light. And then this other car kind of came right [00:07:00] behind it was hung.

Oh, sorry. Let me let me let me try that story again. So this car was slowing down to turn. to the right. I don't think they have their blinker on. And this car came speeding up behind it, wasn't even close. Also, the light wasn't even turning yellow or red, speeding up behind it, laying on his horn. Dude's flipping the guy off, yelling obscenities.

And as I'm standing there, another person from the conference, two people walked up and I was like, wow, and you know what made me think of Brent? It made me think of I used to be that guy. I used to be the guy that would flip him off. I'd get out of the car. I'd start a fight just because I had a lot of anger.

I had a lot of insecurity. I had a lot of fear around just being myself. So really, if I'm on any journey right now, it's just trying to be my true authentic self, no matter what, and being okay whether people like it or not. That is way easier said than done. [00:08:00] I am, you know, I still have a very people pleaser part of me, uh, that wants people to be happy and wants them to like me and everything else, but that's the journey I'm currently on.

Hopefully that answers what you wanted.

D Brent Dowlen: There is no wrong answer in this first part of the show. Perfect. Okay, let me rephrase that. There's like one. I want to know

Josh Abbandonato: the wrong answer. I can't wait. You're good at teasing things up. I love it. The bones and the wrong answer. This is going to be great.

D Brent Dowlen: So, if I was going to sit down with you and your kids at dinner.

What is the story they would tell on you to try and embarrass you

Josh Abbandonato: to try to embed? Oh, well, first of all, they would say that it's really impossible to embarrass me So I don't think you're gonna get that one because they try They might reverse it and tell you the stories that I do to embarrass them.

But let's see embarrass me. Oh, man

I I don't think I can think of one Brent honestly, like it's really [00:09:00] hard to embarrass me

D Brent Dowlen: Like every family's got that one like it might be your kids or it might be like sitting out with your mom and dad Yeah, they all had that one story. They're gonna uh, the awkward story. You're like why? Why are we having this discussion now?

They don't need to know that. Yeah.

Josh Abbandonato: Yeah No, I, I, honestly, man, you've stumped me. I can't even think of one.

D Brent Dowlen: Okay, I'm expecting a good story later on. I know, it's gonna come to me later in the podcast.

Josh Abbandonato: If it comes to me later in the episode even, I'll tell you, okay?

D Brent Dowlen: Okay, okay. I, I know there's, it's back there, you may have buried it.

Josh Abbandonato: It's probably my own insecurities and limiting beliefs that are just like, don't tell that story!

David McCarter: Oh, not that

D Brent Dowlen: question! Okay, wrap of fire, okay? I got a couple for you. Ready? Batman or Superman? Batman. Marvel or DC?

Josh Abbandonato: I guess it would have to be DC because of that.

D Brent Dowlen: Coffee, tea, energy, drink, or [00:10:00] soda or something else?

Coffee. Is cereal soup? Weapon of choice in the zombie apocalypse? Ooh, that depends. Chainsaw. I like it. House of Choice, Game of Thrones? Say that

Josh Abbandonato: again?

D Brent Dowlen: House of Choice for Game of Thrones. Oh God.

Josh Abbandonato: I knew you were gonna ask me that question 'cause you asked me a Game of Thrones earlier and I literally can't even remember any of the house's names.

I'm so bad. With names , I'd like can can you give me like three as an option and then I could pick from those?

D Brent Dowlen: Oh yeah. The big ones are the Targ a Landers, the Starks, Arian, the ies, the tar.

Josh Abbandonato: Even though I loved and fully respected the Starks until, you know, they all died.

D Brent Dowlen: What purchase of 100 or less have you made in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life?[00:11:00]

Josh Abbandonato: That's a great question.

That's

D Brent Dowlen: tough. Do people usually have a quick answer for that? You know, it's tough because there's not a right answer. Yeah, I had one guy who told me a 70 pair of shorts He bought changed his life. Really? You went and bought like five more pairs.

Josh Abbandonato: Oh, 100? Sure. Um, I mean, I don't know if this is the one that really changed my life, but I bought my first pair of Air Jordans.

I've never had a pair of Air Jordans my entire life. I've, basketball's always been my favorite sport, if that's one of the questions, there you go. And I grew up playing, I loved playing, I wasn't really good, I got cut in high school, but I loved playing until then. And I've never owned Air Jordans, and I went to this really large garage sale, and he was selling them, and he sold them for a hundred bucks, so it counts.[00:12:00]

There we go. And I love, I just love wearing, I never, I'm not a, I'm not a, uh, uh, sneaker guy. I'm not, what do they call it? Sneakerhead or whatever they call him. But for whatever reason, when I put those on, I'm putting them on today. Cause I'm going to meeting with a lot of people in person today. But when I put them on, it's a different level of confidence.

I never thought I would have from a pair of shoes. Honestly, I always thought that was ridiculous when people said that, but I really like wearing them.

D Brent Dowlen: You know, I had a, I inherited a pair of Air Jordans. My brother bought them. when he was in high school. When he left the Navy, he left them. And so I grew into him because I'm several years younger than him.

And I've never been a big basketball. Like I've coached basketball, but it's just not my favorite thing. My daughter's play. So now I have to be more into it, but honestly, they were one of the most comfortable pairs of sneakers I ever wore.

Josh Abbandonato: Yeah.

D Brent Dowlen: Like I thought it was all hype. And then I got my brother's hand me downs and I was like, dude, these are super comfortable.

Yeah.

Josh Abbandonato: Yeah, you know, what's funny about it too is that, you know, I'm not a sneakerhead, but then since then [00:13:00] I've bought a couple pairs of shoes on trips that I've been on, including a pair of shoes that I bought when I was in Spain a few weeks ago. And, uh, I think maybe I'm gonna slowly start turning into one.

Because now they're fun. What are you gonna do?

D Brent Dowlen: People underestimate the power of a good shoe. Yeah, it's true. Like, if your feet are one of the most Underappreciated and important parts of your body.

Josh Abbandonato: Absolutely. You know, I, I went to, this is maybe TMI, but I went to a foot doctor a few years ago, um, because I was having some issues with my feet.

I dropped something really big, lost a toe, was trying to figure, or not a toe. That sounded way worse than it was, lost a toenail. And then it has been lost a couple of times since then. And when I met with him, he was like, you know what? Part of your problem is, is that your feet, because they're wide, just squish into every single toe.

And I just had never thought about that. He's like, if this is actually fucking up your feet and here's the reason why. And he introduced me to this brand that have really wide shoes and they are definitely not the best looking shoes in the world, [00:14:00] but I can wear them for days in a row and my feet feel amazing.

So completely agree with you on that. If any, if any of your listeners have really wide feet and you need a recommendation, let me know.

D Brent Dowlen: I tell you, uh, I've, I've, Spent the majority of my life working on my feet. I I didn't have a desk job till much later in life and That was one of those things I learned in my military years and from then on it's like I never I don't skimp on tires I don't skip on footwear right If if I can't be on my feet, I can't function life stop.

Yeah, it all

Josh Abbandonato: starts with the feet obviously

D Brent Dowlen: now We're through rapid fire, but what's your biggest failure and what did you learn from that experience?

Josh Abbandonato: Oh, that's easy. My biggest well It's hard to answer that question without defining what failure means But what I would say my biggest failure is of anybody looking at my life would be my divorce [00:15:00] by far and I've had every failure under the Sun friendships businesses I mean, you name it, I've had all of them.

What did I learn from that? It, it, it was, I, I fully believe that we all have moments where you could call them a spiritual awakening, you could call them a shift, right, you could call them a crisis, I think there's a lot of words for them, But for myself, I like to call them spiritual awakenings. And honestly, for anybody listening or watching, if you don't consider yourself spiritual, just bear with me for a second, because you are everyone's spiritual.

Even the people that don't want to say they're spiritual, they just call it something different. But we all have that feeling where we know that there's something in the universe that is helping us move to some other place in the universe. Right. [00:16:00] So let's just keep it really vague as far as that goes a lot Most people in the world call it God a lot of people call it universe Some people call it spirituality, etc But even atheists that say that none of that stuff exists still believe in some sort of spiritual presence.

I know they do so That was my biggest spiritual awakening of my life by far. I Did not know, you know, they say hindsight's 20 20, which is not really accurate but somewhat. I did not know how unhealthy of a person I had become. I did not want to admit what was going on in my life and how far away I had come from living my true identity, my true self, my true core beliefs, who I really am.

I didn't realize any of that until my wife at the time served me divorce papers. And [00:17:00] I went through a very intense process of working on myself. It was the first time I got into therapy. Uh, I got into 12 step to work on some addictions. I didn't date for quite a while in order just to work on myself. I switched my business.

I started a new business. I mean, I basically just took everything. I lost a lot of friends during that divorce. Um, and then I moved about an hour away. I mean, it was really extreme, man. It was like everything. And it was by far the most difficult time of my life and by far the most growing period of my life.

It was amazing. And Yeah, I guess to come back to answer your question, the biggest answer I would have is that I really learned who my core [00:18:00] was. And I'm continuing to do that because I continue to have insecurities and false beliefs and limiting mindsets and other reasons why I'm not living out my true core.

I mean, I'll just be, you know, I'm a pretty honest, vulnerable guy. I'll be honest and vulnerable with you this morning. I woke up this morning depressed. Last night, I was grieving the loss of my relationship from a couple weeks ago. And I was at a concert with some friends. And I literally just like, I could feel the tears coming out.

And I'm not, I'm not a huge crier. But I could feel the tears coming out. I went into the bathroom and just cried my eyes out. At a concert. Like did not expect it to happen. But sometimes when the emotions come, you just got to deal with them. Because from my experience, when you don't deal with them, they come back bigger, harder, more intense.

And trust me, you don't want that for anybody that's trying to medicate your feelings right now. And we all do this. I promise you, if you do that, when they come back, it'll be harder, more difficult, more intense, more insane to deal with. So just accept them. [00:19:00] So learning how to accept my emotions, learning how to accept how I'm feeling, realizing that feelings are, there is zero feelings that are permanent.

Feelings are always temporary. It's like a wave from the ocean. The emotion's gonna come, and then it's gonna go away. And then another one's gonna come, and it's gonna go away. And if you don't ride the wave, and you don't just sit there and just let it wash over you, All of a sudden you're going to find yourself in an undercurrent right for any swimmers or surfers out there And you won't be able to get out of it, or you won't feel like you'll be able to get out of it So I would say that's the biggest thing so back to this morning So I woke up just pretty depressed pretty sad about that loss of relationship grieving it Etc and as I do when I'm Um, when I can think healthy, I decided to change my state.

So I moved my physiology, I exercised, um, I danced around, I [00:20:00] journaled a little bit. I sent a video to a friend to tell them that I appreciated them. I sent a message to a mastermind group that I'm a part of just being honest about my experience and you know, it took a few minutes and then I was good. And I think a lot of people don't.

You know our culture of like going to therapy for your entire life and everything else I would just encourage people like there's nothing wrong with therapy But only go somewhere if it's actually changing you If it's actually allowing you to get back to yourself because as I just told you I didn't go through therapy or anything this morning It took me a few minutes of doing these healthy activities that I know are good for me and good for my body And then I'm good, man.

Like, I feel great right now and that just took a few minutes and I think a lot of people underestimate how quickly you can shift your mindset and how quickly you can shift just what you're going through and it's not by ignoring the grief. I'm not ignoring it. I know it's going to come again and guaranteed it'll come again today.

I [00:21:00] know it because I can kind of just feel it, but that doesn't it doesn't mean I'm ignoring it. What it means is I'm choosing to change and to have my mindset on what is really going to be perfect. Positive for me today, because even right now, Brent, I knew that if I came into this podcast, just feeling grief and feeling sorry for myself and like, I'm the victim and oh my God.

And why did you know this not work out? That's not a good podcast. No one wants to listen to that shit. We all do that ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with it. But man, I'm here to encourage you. And I'm here to encourage your listeners. And I'm here to give you everything that I got this morning. And I can't do that if I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

So last thing I'll say, Before I end my rant, one of my mentors often reminds me of this and I love it every time he does. What he tells me is he says, look, when you're in your own head, when you're dealing with stress or anger, or let's say, you know, uh, a difficult emotion to deal with, or you're feeling [00:22:00] insecure, you're feeling fearful, whatever it is.

He said, the best thing that I've ever found to snap myself out of that is to find a way to serve, find a way to serve. That could be sending a friend just a quick video say love you, man. You're a dude. I'm a dude very often It's hard for us dudes to tell each other that we love each other, but I love you change your physiology move your body Between those two things I've just learned that I could get through anything and I thought I literally thought I was gonna die after my divorce man Like I wouldn't say I was suicidal only because I have kids and I would just never leave them without me But if it wasn't for kids I would have been guaranteed because I grew up in a culture or religion.

I grew up as a conservative Christian where like you, you don't, you know, you don't do anything with anybody but your wife and then you stay with your wife forever and you never get divorced and it's no matter whatever happens, that was the [00:23:00] culture I grew up in. So I literally thought like, Oh, my life is over now.

My life is over. But I didn't realize that it had just begun.

D Brent Dowlen: Now guys, what you don't know is this is the first of many times you'll probably meet Josh because What we're not telling you is Josh and I just became best friends because we actually live in the same state Okay, I don't think I've ever actually worked with anybody for my own. I know I

Josh Abbandonato: haven't either I don't think I've had to get besides you which I love your podcast.

It turned out great besides you I don't think I've recorded any except for I did record a couple people local because they're just friends of mine But besides that no one online. Yeah.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah. Yeah. No, I I was getting ready for the show. I was like Dammit, I should have just driven down to Vancouver and recorded this.

Josh Abbandonato: I love it. I know. Yeah, I could have driven up to you too. Oh next time that just means there's gonna be a next time Brent Oh,

D Brent Dowlen: yeah. Yeah look for more collaborations coming forward guys I just wanted to spend a little time getting to know josh and let you guys get to know [00:24:00] him Uh josh and I have had a conversation before but i'll tell you more about that coming up In the next part of the show we're going to talk about josh's podcast the dalek podcast Uh, I think you guys are going to be interested in it.

I was interested in it josh and I Will be Overlap on so much like we were just becoming fast friends And we didn't even like intend to to start with and we're gonna talk about the stigma of failure because there's this it's funny no matter how many times you hear the Cliche calendar kind of you know failure is blah blah blah Right.

Everybody still is down on failure. We're going to, we're going to get into that a little bit more as we go into this next part of the show. Now, Josh, I wanted to read a description from your website because I think a lot of our listeners are going to like, like identify, I know when I read it the first time I was like, dude, he's talking to me.

Okay. I

Josh Abbandonato: love it, brother. Good.

D Brent Dowlen: I'm so happy. So this is Josh's website. The Derelict Trot is a tribe of people who are abandoned and neglected from our groups, cliques, families, or friends. [00:25:00] I can never say cliques right. We are disparaged, depleted, delinquent souls trying to find our way. We are outcasts from our communities, many times when it mattered most.

We were seen as lacking in a sense of duty or being negligent. We failed, air quotes. We went through a rough patch or a midlife crisis. We have a few failures on our belt, and maybe a few more. A thick in the thick of it right now. We didn't know where to turn our church, the therapist, family, friends, maybe didn't know how to help us or downright, downright rejected us.

We aren't failures, but we don't know how to deal with our failures in real time. Now, like I said, I read that and I was like, ah, he's talking to me right on. Right. I, I get

Josh Abbandonato: that means a lot.

D Brent Dowlen: Uh, and this is on his website where you go into about us to find out about his podcast. So let me, Ask you this, what is the story behind the derelict podcast?

Josh Abbandonato: Great [00:26:00] question. So it's, it's actually transformed a bit, as you know, in this world, you start one thing and you're like fully set on it and then it just starts shifting, right? It just kind of happens over time. At least every single podcaster I've ever talked to that's been true of. So the derelict podcast started me and my really good buddy, um, have both been in business for a long time.

Neither one of us. have any clue about media or advertising or marketing or anything else. He's a, he's a real estate guy, owns multiple real estate companies, everything from, you know, being realtors to flipping houses to investment properties, super successful guy, amazing guy. And, uh, I've been in finance.

I've had a financial planning company. So neither one of us, this is brand new for both of us. Here is the Genesis. The Genesis was the reason all that is important is that both of us have been to more business conferences than we can count. And here's the thing that drives me crazy about this, [00:27:00] and this is true also online as well.

Okay, so one of the things that we had in common is that we continually went to all these business conferences. And at the business conferences, or honestly you can go on YouTube or anything else and see this all the time. Somebody will get on stage. And they will say this person's on stage, because they came from nothing, they sold their company for a billion dollars.

And then that person will talk about all their successes and everything, and then they'll talk about the failures that they had 20 years ago. And, it always drives me fucking crazy. Cause I'm like, okay, I get that you are successful, and that's Maybe slightly encouraging to me, but what are you struggling with right now?

Like how do I relate to that? And what I found is that often it would just bring shame in my body Because I haven't sold my company for a billion dollars I haven't had that much success and I can't really relate, right? Now if that person got up there and they were talking [00:28:00] about that and then they still talked about the struggles and everything else That they're currently going through great, but that never fucking happens Prove me wrong all of your audience prove me wrong go watch all these videos and tell me and if they could find one Right have them send it to you.

I'd love to see one video where somebody's actually doing this So long winded answer of saying my buddy and I were like, what if we created a space where people could come and actually talk about their Failures real time they could talk about their struggles. They could talk about what's going on in their life And then we decided well If people are, or we're gonna ask other people to do it, then we have to do it.

So, we started the show with, Okay, I guess I have to be vulnerable and accountable and open with my current struggles, you know? My buddy used to say, If, if you want others to be vulnerable, You gotta be the first to get naked, right? Like, you gotta open the kimono first, and then other people are gonna open the kimono.

Have you ever [00:29:00] had that experience? I'm sure you have. Like, you're talking to a guy, and it's, it's not going anywhere, And then you're kinda open about something that's going on, And then what happens? Every single time. You know?

D Brent Dowlen: Everybody starts stumping.

Josh Abbandonato: Yeah, everybody opens up. Because now they feel comfortable that there's a space for that.

So that was the genesis. It has shifted a couple times since then. The first shift was, my buddy left the podcast. So, I have a failure podcast, and then I failed to launch my failure podcast with my buddy. So then of course, guess what the first thing I was, I did that right after he left. I recorded a podcast about how I failed at podcasting.

Launching a failure podcast right and I went actually through the seven stages of grief during that one It's a really it's actually one of my favorite episodes still where I'm just sitting there talking to the camera And I'm talking about the different stages of grief that I went through Losing my buddy because when he decided to leave the podcast what he also did is he also decided to sit [00:30:00] me down for coffee Basically say hey, this isn't really where I want to go with my life He was kind of going through transition with career and stuff, too And then he decided to tell me all the ways that I was fucking up as a friend.

So it was a great coffee It was amazing. I loved every aspect of it and there's no sarcasm in my voice whatsoever right now So that was hard dude it took me That, that I did not snap back from, it took me a month to record again. It took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit, to be honest. But here we are being honest again.

So as is with my divorce, that was the best thing that could have happened to the podcast. Because once I was able to get past this whole idea of we're not going to be able to do this together. And by the way, my buddy and I are still friends. We've worked through a lot of our issues, et cetera, but it's, it's taken months to do that.

But what I then, I had to sit down with myself. And you know, do you ever get so just busy and caught up in shit that you [00:31:00] just don't stop and reflect? Brent, has that ever happened to you?

D Brent Dowlen: No. No.

Josh Abbandonato: This is why I love you. There's gonna be a little sarcasm there.

D Brent Dowlen: Oh, yeah. No, I'm not a workaholic at all. I don't just get.

Yeah,

Josh Abbandonato: I can tell. Yeah, I could tell. So that was me. And this, this really, sometimes it takes a break in relationship. I've noticed with myself. It's a pattern that That break in relationship, I can choose to do one of two things. I can either choose to put my head down and ignore it and medicate based on whatever I want to medicate with, whether it's drugs, work, sex, whatever, or I can reflect and try to figure out how this impacts my life and where I'm moving forward.

So once I stopped medicating with whatever I met it, I don't even remember what it was. It was probably like food and TV back in the day. Once I stopped the medicating, And then I really sat down and thought, what is, why am I doing this? [00:32:00] Why am I doing like, I don't need to do this podcast. I'm still not at a place where I'm making any money on the podcast.

I'm doing it because I love, I love what I'm doing. And I realized, you know what? I have such a heart for dudes. I have such a heart for men. And I have had that heart since I was a little kid. I remember my first memory was in preschool. taking care of this other preschool boy because he was a derelict for lack of a better word.

He was outcast. He was disparaged. The other kids didn't like him. And then I fast forward to elementary school and I remember my next door neighbor who was half Jewish or half from Israel. His mom was from Israel. His dad was from Russia, which is interesting. Now saying that out loud right now, given everything that's going on in didn't even think about that.

I should reach out to him. But lived in a very [00:33:00] white Mormon neighborhood and let's just say they did not treat him Well, and I just remember doing everything I could to take care of him And I'm not saying this to like make myself sound like a saint. I'm not I can be a fucking asshole That's not what I'm saying What I'm saying though is that I've always had this passion for men and it wasn't until I let he left the podcast to where I realized Part of the vision of the podcast right now is his vision.

It was never mine. So where that really Changed is that then I decided Look, it's still it's still the same. I still want to create a safe space where people can be vulnerable and open and everything else But I also want to help men specifically do that and not only do that but also to Re find their true masculinity in a world that has Labeled masculinity as toxic and bad, and evil, and chauvinistic?

[00:34:00] Oftentimes, always. And the answer to that, it seems, in our culture often, is just become more feminine. And that's not the answer. The answer is also not toxic masculinity. It's not go abuse people. It's how can we actually be truly authentic men? And truly authentic men are open and vulnerable, and they deal with their shit.

And they deal with their shit together. They don't just measure their dicks all the time. So that was the that was the launch and that's really where we're at right now. So every Guest now that i've had I would say for the last several months since we made that decision has been focused on that It's been focused on men.

It's been focused on How can we grow as men together? How can we be vulnerable in this space? With the little caveat that there are several episodes that are coming out actually as early as tomorrow. I did a three part series on religion So that's a little bit of a cop, but I've been waiting for it to come out And I'm like I can't keep pushing this off anymore, but yeah, so that's that's the [00:35:00] genesis That's the point the point is we're trying to build a tribe just like I know you are as well of Dudes that just need to be like Okay, being with their failures, with their struggles, et cetera.

So yeah, thank you for asking.

D Brent Dowlen: I, I gotta, there's just so much in there, but I gotta, I gotta jump back for a minute. Cause you said something that just, I think we miss a lot of time as men, as men, we don't realize that we have a habit of launching onto something or latching onto something that's important to us, right?

It might be a project. It might be a mission. And then something goes astray, array on that, right? Just goes totally awry and it's like, Oh God, everything goes to hell on it. We don't acknowledge or even process that like, this is a real loss to us. You were saying you're going through the stages of [00:36:00] grief for the way the launch went, right?

Not just when you experienced your divorce, but you actually were processing this because it impacted you. And I don't think a lot of us stop and go, You know what? There are things we think about grief in terms of people, but I don't think a lot of us realize like, Oh, I can experience grief and that can weigh on me and impact me because I don't realize I'm experiencing grief for a project or an idea or a concept that I had in my head.

Um, Men's mental health is such a important topic to me a lot of, and we've been trying to talk about more and more this year on the show. But I think that's something like, I don't even necessarily think about that out loud, uh, that men are experiencing grief a lot of times that they don't know they're experiencing because we never thought to put that term on it.[00:37:00]

So I love the way you brought that into it and shared that because Uh, I've, I've got, I, I won't go down the rabbit hole, but I, I experienced that earlier this year with a project and like I grieved hard, like it almost just rained me. And it took a while for me to realize that's what was happening to me.

Right. Uh, so I, I just wanted to really stop and fixate on that for a minute in this part of the conversation. 'cause like, guys, you, you have things that are going on in your life. That are not related to a person even necessarily and it might be related to a friendship but we think of griefs only at a time of losing somebody like actual death or something like that are Losing a major relationship.

Josh Abbandonato: Absolutely,

D Brent Dowlen: but grief can happen on a major idea. Absolutely our purpose absolutely.

Josh Abbandonato: Yeah, I that's powerful Brent because [00:38:00] What I've noticed as well is usually people use the term grief when somebody dies You And it doesn't have to be the death of a physical person. It could be the death of a relationship.

It could be the death of a business. It could be the death of a certain part of myself that I was holding onto. It could be the death of a lot of different things. You know, I, the best book on grief I've ever read is called a grief observed by CS Lewis, and he's specifically talking about death in that grief book.

But you can go through that book and apply it to any sort of grief. That you are experiencing, and it, it's true. And, you know, on, on that episode, I go through the seven stages of grief, and kind of talk about each of them, briefly. And to then give stories about how I experience them. And the thing about grief, too, is you just, it's gonna come, and the different stages are gonna come at a different [00:39:00] time.

It's not a circular thing. It's a ping pong, and you'll, you'll, you know, ping pong all over the place. Between them. And, You could ping pong them through them really quick and then think that you're done and then all of a sudden they show up again, you know, that's the thing about it is you can't, you can't control it.

You can't control the timing, but being a curious observer, which is what I often try to do with my emotions and would encourage all of you listeners to do be a curious observer of your emotions and be a curious observer of what's happening and why so not it. Getting stuck in, man, I'm fearful or I'm anxious or I'm angry, but step aside from that and be like, huh?

What's happening here? Where is that fear coming from? Where is that anger coming from? Where is that insecurity coming from? And if you can be a curious observer, just like with anything else in life, if you can remove yourself from being so caught up into it, then you can start to [00:40:00] understand what's happening.

You can reflect on it. You can observe it. And that's the best way to get through it. And like you said, Brent, dude, I'm the first one that wants to ignore all this shit. All the time. Are you fucking kidding me? I don't, I don't ever want to like, there's never a time where I'm like, I want to journal, and I want to deal with my fear, and I want to go cry.

Like, I don't, I never want to do that. I want to go take drugs, or go have sex, or go eat, or go watch TV, or do whatever the fuck I can to medicate against it. So trust me, I am number one guy that doesn't want to deal with this shit. However, I watch men do this their entire lives. And it's so sad to me.

Because you just can't get to a place where you feel like you're living yourself. Where you're living your purposeful life of whoever you are. And whatever your true self is. You can't do that if you just keep ignoring it. Cause it'll just keep getting worse.[00:41:00]

D Brent Dowlen: Now we segued into grief a little bit, but it rolls right back into failure. Right. Because we're talking about grieving failures. We're talking about grieving something that didn't work out the way you planned. But you know, we live, we live in, let me air quote here, guys, an enlightened age, right? There's more information out there than ever before.

And. God knows there's more motivational posters and nonsense. I get so fed up walking through stores and seeing all those. You can do it. Motivational posters, right? The little cat hanging on the bench. Yeah, right. Just hang on. Oh, my God. That's kind of stuff. Just motivational, inspirational stuff just pisses me off most of the time.

But we live in this enlightened era where we know that failure, at least on a conscious level. Failure is not the end most of the time. I mean, it has to be a pretty extreme situation of [00:42:00] failure for it to actually be the end. So why do you think we still have this stigma in our head about failure, right?

Because I know guys who will kill themselves trying not to fail at something. Yeah,

Josh Abbandonato: well, so there's a couple things. Number one, um, just for the sake of this conversation, I just googled definition of failure. And here's what comes, well the first thing that comes up is lack of success, which is not helpful.

Here's the second. which I think is extremely helpful. The omission of expected or required action. Let me say that again. The omission of expected or required action. So what failure means is that I just didn't do the action I was going to do. That's it. I would say that if you ask people on the street, that is not their definition of failure.[00:43:00]

Their definition of failure is, I'm a shitty person. That's been my experience. My experience is most people define failure as some sort of shameful statement. Like, I can't believe that, you know, I wasn't even able to do this. That's not the definition. The definition is, I didn't act according to my best interest, according to somebody else's best interest, according to what I said I was going to do.

It's a commitment. Statement it's not a shame statement So I think that the reason so many people especially dudes Have a hard time with it is because it brings shame It means that I am a shitty person if I'm a failure It means that I let everybody in my life down if I am a failure It means that I I had a failure and therefore, you know, I just feel bad about myself, but that's, that's not the definition of [00:44:00] failure.

The fit failure only means I tried to take an action. It didn't work. That's it. So what's wrong with that? Every single person listening to this or watching this right now has had many failures in their life. And if you don't want to admit it, I would say that there is definitely something deeper there.

So there's probably, I'll just speak for myself in my own life. There's been. Fears, insecurities, things that I have believed, again, about myself, that if I believe I failed or am a failure, then why am I even here? You take that really far down the road, Brent, you know what happens? People kill themselves.

Or they kill other people. Because if I think that I'm not worth it, and I think that everything that [00:45:00] I do is just fucking up, then what's the point of even being here? You know, it first leads to medication, then it leads to some sort of addiction, then it leads to hurting other people or themselves. And that is incredibly sad, because if I could speak to anybody that's ever there, what I would say is you are valuable, you are loved, you are on this earth for a reason.

Every single person has value and love that they're supposed to be here. And the only reason people that don't act like that Is because of some sort of insecurity, fear, anxiety that doesn't allow them to be their true selves. I really believe that everybody is, you know, has beauty in them. I know not everybody believes this.

I do. And I think that when it doesn't show up that way, it's based on insecurity, fear, anxiety. other reasons [00:46:00] why I don't feel like I can be myself. I'm not as popular as that person. I don't have as many followers on social media as that person. I don't make as much money as that person. I'm not as successful as that person.

My relationships never work out. My kids hate me. I'm divorced. I just went bankrupt, fill in the blank, whatever it is. None of those things define us as humans. Those are just actions that we took that didn't work. That's all failure is doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It just means that you tried something and didn't work.

It's

D Brent Dowlen: interesting to me that we're more willing to project a failure as a reflection of our own value, our own self image. We're more willing to take that beating than be vulnerable and say, [00:47:00] I fell short or yeah. Right. Why are we so terrified? of being vulnerable, that we would rather project that kind of hatred onto ourselves, right?

Cause we do, we define it. We're like, Oh my God, I, I, I didn't get there. I didn't get this done. I'm a piece of shit. I just, I suck. Right. We, we beat the hell out of ourselves as opposed to take the road of vulnerability and say, ah, I, I just didn't get there. And it was because of this and man, that was hard, right?

Why are we so afraid of that vulnerability that we would rather beat ourselves up? It's a good question brother.

Josh Abbandonato: I don't know if I am the expert on this I know that it's just as true for me as anybody else. My, my first response is not to be vulnerable and to be open and to deal with this stuff. [00:48:00] It never is, like I've already said several times on this episode.

My first response is to hide it, to ignore it, to move on, to medicate it, to whatever, right? Any, anything I can do then to feel that pain. But you're absolutely right. That just creates more pain. You know, I, there's a couple thoughts swirling around in my head. One of them is, we live in a world, well, let's just use this as an example.

The term narcissist is thrown around a lot these days, right? That person's a narcissist, that person's a narcissist, that person's a Most of the people that even use that word don't even know the definition. So, just, you know, chill out a little bit, calling people narcissists. There's very few people, by the way, just as an interesting point of observation here, there's very few people that, clinically are actually narcissists.

Very, very, very small percentage. Some of us, maybe I shouldn't even say this, some of us, probably all of us have some narcissistic tendencies. Where we let our ego get [00:49:00] out of control and it's not healthy anymore. And, you know, we're selfish and self centered and everything else. I think that would be all of humanity.

There's very few narcissists. So, let's just start with that. But I think the reason that that's important is because I think that we have confused ego and confidence and self worth with narcissism in our world. In other words, if somebody loves themselves and they're confident and they're good with who they are, we often see that person as a narcissist.

That person's not a narcissist, but we see them that way. Why do we see them that way? I think because we're uncomfortable doing the same thing. We're uncomfortable just being okay with ourselves. So we want to label [00:50:00] somebody as, well, that person's just selfish or they're narcissistic or, you know, whatever term we want to use.

And again, I think it comes out of just insecurity of just being myself. Why do I not want to be myself? Because, I don't know, this vulnerability is scary, man. I don't want to get naked. I, I want all of my clothes on in multiple layers and everything else so that people can't penetrate. Right? But

it's a really sad way to live, man. I've lived, I've lived a lot of my life that way. And when you live your life that way, people don't ever really know you. And it's a, it's a, it's a, uh, what, what am I trying to say? It's a, it's a cycle. Like, it's, when you don't shed the layers and let people in, then they can't know you.

And then people don't know you. And then you use that as an excuse of, yeah, but nobody cares about me. And they don't know me. [00:51:00] But that's just because we're self sabotaging. We're not allowing somebody to know us. And for whatever reason, we convince ourselves, through neuropathways in our own brain, that being vulnerable like that is actually scarier.

Then trying to live out our authentic selves. Cause if we live out our authentic selves, maybe somebody won't like us. Maybe somebody won't appreciate us. Maybe somebody will reject us and we are convinced and I do this too. We convince ourselves that that is scarier than actually living our true life.

D Brent Dowlen: Now guys, we've been, we've been waiting through some tough talk here. It's not comfortable conversations. Some of you may have turned off the show already. Some of you are. Kind of, you know, squirming in your seats as we're talking. Uh, but we [00:52:00] had to get to this point in the conversation because from here, we're going to talk about ways to turn your failures into success.

Like how do you stop seeing failure as a failure and start to see it as an opportunity and a way to grow? Um, but we had to get to this part of the conversation. Because you have to start from the ground up. You can't just talk about failure not being a, a horrible life ending thing, uh, without addressing the way we feel about it, whether we want to say it out loud.

And let's face it, a lot of us don't wanna say it out loud. Uh, you're talking about, you know, medicating. It's why I'm, I don't have six fat gabs, man. I, I, I have a rough day and like, I medicate with ice cream. I one of my struggles, right? I want to sit down and curl up with my daughters and watch a movie and eat ice cream.

That's how I want to deal with it. I don't want to actually deal with it. So, we've all got those tendencies, but we had to get to [00:53:00] the bottom of this idea of how we feel about it so we can talk about how it can go forward for you. How are you feeling right

Josh Abbandonato: now, brother? Are you uncomfortable? Me?

D Brent Dowlen: Um, I'm not as uncomfortable as I thought I would be.

Uh, simply because In four and a half years of doing this, the reason I called my show the fallible man was I never wanted to pretend I was perfect or I had all the answers. I gave myself the option to be vulnerable because I wanted to give other men the option to be vulnerable when they heard what we were talking about.

Right. So I kind of Built it into my show That was okay to talk about I

Josh Abbandonato: appreciate that about you very much because this is like you said, this is hard stuff This is hard stuff, but here's the good news and I'll wait for any questions that you have But here's the good news that I just want to say [00:54:00] real quick to everybody listening right now that made it this far like maybe Somebody people turn it off.

Absolutely because it can be uncomfortable talking about these things But if you made it this far, here's what I'm gonna tell you the failures in my life are gold gold You I can't even describe to your audience how much better my life is now than when my life was ignoring all this shit, having a stick up my ass, and trying to keep it all together.

My life is It seems like a dream, brother. Like, it seems like that other life Well, it seems more like a nightmare now, to be honest with you. Now it feels like I'm living out my full purpose in my life and my dreams and everything else. Back then, when I think about it, it feels like a nightmare. Like, how did I get through life like that?

And I'm telling you what, man, if you can accept these struggles, and again, even the word [00:55:00] failure makes people uncomfortable, but again, it's just missing that action. If you can accept them and go through them, dude, your life is going to be fucking amazing. My life is fucking amazing. So anyway, I think you might have a question, but I just wanted to say that real quick.

D Brent Dowlen: No, you're, you're good. Um, I'm, I'm big into application, right? So we, we've talked. I want to give our audience somewhere powerful to go from this conversation with their failures. So you, you've told me in previous conversation we had, you know, you've been through a lot of failures. So for our men listening today, right, give us kind of just a three base step to start with.

So if they're going, well, how do you make this a win, right? So what are the What are the first three steps to start turning that failure into a win and change the way we feel about it? Yeah,

Josh Abbandonato: sure. So, let's think about this. I would say the first one is [00:56:00] acknowledge This is just off the top of my head, so I may even disagree with it later on when I listen.

But I'm just going to go with my gut right now. The first one is acknowledgement and acceptance. It's acknowledging that I am going through something that's tough. And for everybody listening right now, don't call it a failure. If that's uncomfortable for you, that's fine. We don't have to use that word.

Just call it. I'm going through something difficult.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah.

Josh Abbandonato: But acknowledge it because if we don't acknowledge it, we ignore it or we medicate it. That's what happens. So we got to acknowledge it. And honestly, we can affirm it too. In that step, we can say, this is happening. This sucks. I am going through this.

It's that simple. It's just acknowledging it. It's realizing,

D Brent Dowlen: yes. Let me interrupt you for just a second, Josh. Guys, I want you to hear that, okay? We, some of us get a little, eh, when we say the word. Affirm. It's not a [00:57:00] new age, like, woo woo word. Josh just gave a perfect example. Yep, it's happening, it blows.

Okay, that is affirming. So don't think, don't get lost in words. Cause I, I use like, cringe when I, people like, and affirm how you're feeling, I'm like, Yeah.

David McCarter: I love that. Yeah. That's all I'm

D Brent Dowlen: feeling, right? I, I hate that, that word, it's always just been like a, a turnoff for me. So guys don't, this isn't like a woowoo affirm.

This is like, really you just, you're admitting and going Yep. You're, you're dealing with the moment. So, sorry to interrupt. No, that's,

Josh Abbandonato: I am, I'm so glad that you said that because that word is used again. There's a lot of words here you we're, we're seeing with failure and affirm and everything else that are just used out of context for what they actually mean.

So thank you for bringing that up. Another way of saying that as well is let's go back to the curious observer. Okay, so first of all, it's Acknowledging this sucks. I'm going through something [00:58:00] etc. The second step. I would say maybe it's part of the first step But let's call it the second step is to put yourself in the position of the curious observer Okay, this isn't necessarily asking why a lot of people I think fall into that trap of like well Why does this suck and who did what and you know trying to like put blame on things?

That's not really helpful at this stage to be honest because from in my own life when I started going down that path It's really easy for me then to be a victim It's really easy for me to be like fuck that guy that guy's a piece of shit that guy did everything wrong I didn't do shit, right? That's not helpful It's not helpful dealing with your emotions, just, that, that's another way of medicating, is just to be like, Oh, it's somebody else's fault.

We have a lot of that going on in society right now. I mean, we're in the middle, I don't know when this is gonna be aired, but right now we're in the middle of a presidential debate in the United States, where that's all they fucking do. And I get so tired of it, because, [00:59:00] I don't wanna vote for somebody just because they talk about how much the other person sucks.

Like, what a shitty way to vote for somebody. I wanna know what you're gonna do for me. I don't wanna know why the other person sucks, right? So, step one, is just to acknowledge. Like, This sucks and that's okay. It's okay that it sucks. Number two. How do I observe what's going on out of curiosity? So here's what I mean by that.

There are zero bad Emotions, no emotions are bad. No emotions are evil. No things that we're going through are that they just aren't they're not bad That doesn't mean they're not difficult fear is obviously more difficult than joy I'm not saying they're not difficult. I'm saying they're not bad. So when we don't observe them, what ends up happening Is that we shame them, and then by shaming the emotions, we shame [01:00:00] ourselves.

So, please don't do that, because it's not helpful. All you gotta do first is acknowledge, then observe, right? Be a curious observer, like, I wonder why this is happening. I wonder why I'm feeling like this. If I were not me, and my friend, or brother, or sister, or mom, or dad, or partner, or wife, or husband, or whoever was going through this, how would I observe it in them?

That's one way to think about it. Sometimes it's easier for us to think about somebody else than ourselves. So think about somebody else that you know that went through something similar, and what you observe there, because it's probably going to be similar to what you observe in yourself. So, acknowledge, just acknowledge, whatever the pain, emotion, feeling, struggle, etc.

that you're going through, and then observe. And by observing, dude, this is powerful, brother. By observing, you remove yourself from that, so that you can deal with it. It's powerful because if I can be [01:01:00] outside of this, then what doesn't happen is that that very difficult emotion doesn't take over my entire body.

You know, an example of this is when you used to be in the military, right? So when you're in a really highly stressful situation, which obviously when you're in the military, you're, I mean, I can't speak for it. I've never been in the military, but I would assume there's highly stressful situations in the military when there are, there is a part of you that steps up, right?

Yeah. Or shut down. Either way. But there's a part of you that steps up. And you're able to step up because you're not living. You're not letting that fear take over your body. Does that make sense? You relate to that? It doesn't mean that you're not scared. It doesn't mean that you don't have fear. It means that there's still something inside of you that allows you to step up.

So when you can be the curious observer for step two, you can remove yourself enough from the emotion to where you can just observe and be like, huh, that's interesting. And I literally just say that to [01:02:00] myself out loud. Huh? Interesting. I wonder why I'm fearful right now. That might sound a little kooky, but it works.

Huh, why am I so angry right now? That brings the power of that emotion down. Because now you're just observing it. Now you're just looking at it. So, let's see, what would be the third step? Because you asked for three. So there's the acknowledgement, there's being the observer, and then there is, you know, what should I call the third one?

I think the third one is processing. And figuring out then now, how do I, now that I've observed it, how do I process it? In other words, what do I do about it? Do I phone a friend? Do I talk to a mentor? Do I go to therapy? Do I join a group like the fallible man, derelict, et cetera? There's plenty of groups out here where we, there are guys.

That want to be there for you. Is it, you know, a church group or other cultural group or something else where you can go and [01:03:00] get that support so that that third thing would be processing with support, some sort of support. But here's what I would encourage you with support support needs to be. Obviously a safe space where you can feel authentic and be vulnerable and everything else.

But it also needs to be a space where somebody's willing to actually help you get through it. And here's what I mean by that, I don't know about you Brent, but I've met several people in my life that are like the therapy for life people.

Yeah. And I, therapy was extremely helpful for me when I was going through my divorce and everything else. So I'm not against therapy, even though I would say about 80 percent of therapists aren't worth, you know, they shouldn't be doing therapy. It's a big number. I would say that's true in most industries, but especially therapy.

Here's the reason I, I think I can say that, and again, this is an opinion, take it or [01:04:00] leave it as is everything else that I say on this podcast. The reason I say that is because from my experience, most therapists don't actually get you out of whatever you're dealing with. You just stay there forever.

Like if you meet somebody that's been in therapy for 20 years and still dealing with the same thing, why the fuck are they going to therapy? Right? Like, like the misused quote of insanity, it's not actually what was said, but like if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that's how I would feel about that.

So the really important thing here about this community, I'm still not sure what to call number three. It's community, it's processing, it's having support, it's one of those things, is step three. That community, that support, et cetera, have to be the type of people that can help you move past this. Because otherwise you won't.

If you just go to a therapist and they're just gonna talk about what happened to you when you were 3 years old for the [01:05:00] next 20 years, you're not gonna move past it. I'm just telling you what, man, you're not gonna move past it, because you're gonna keep I remember the day I walked into therapy, and I looked my therapist in the eye, and I said, We're no longer talking about my past.

I said, We did. We processed everything. We're done. So either you're going to help me move forward and we're going to figure all these things out or we're done our relationships done that's literally what I said to him and Thankfully, he was a good one and he was more of I would say a coach even than a therapist and he's like, absolutely I agree with you.

Let's move forward and from that moment we move forward now I haven't been to therapy in quite a while now, but it doesn't mean that it you know Wherever you can find that authentic community and it's not maybe maybe I should put a preface out here, too Because I think a lot of guys can go down this road as well.

It's not this like, muscle accountability. If you know what I mean. It's not like, [01:06:00] Oh yeah, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it. Why the fuck didn't you do it? Fuck you man, you gotta do this harder. Like, that's not what I mean by somebody that's supportive. That's not supportive. Like somebody yelling at you in the gym is not my idea of supportive.

My idea of supportive is a place where you can be open and vulnerable and deal with these things and then you can talk to somebody who is wiser than you. And also is not attached to the emotions like you are, even though we're trying to just be observers, we're still attached to them, but it's somebody that can be detached from that and they love you and they can look at you and be like, wow, that's really interesting.

Have you thought about this? Have you thought about doing this? Have you thought about this being your next step, et cetera? That's what I mean by that. Does that make sense?

D Brent Dowlen: I think we should name this step action. I love it. That's what you're describing, right? Is after you observe, you choose which action you're going to pursue.

To whether it's process, deal with, however you want to say it. Yeah, for sure. And I just You're [01:07:00] choosing your action. I'm going to do shit about it, actually.

Josh Abbandonato: It is action. I just think the important thing about that action, though, is that there has to be support and community with that action. There has to be None of us can do this ourselves.

So we need somebody to be along the side of the journey with us, whatever that is.

D Brent Dowlen: I can do it all

Josh Abbandonato: on my own. Dude, trust me. I am like, dude, we're both in the Pacific Northwest. Like, I live a few miles away from where the Oregon Trail ended. Like, it is in my DNA that I will do shit by myself. I will get it done.

I will go explore where nobody's ever explored before. Like, that is in my DNA. Somebody tells me to do something, I tell them to fuck themselves, because I want to do the exact opposite. So yes, I am the quintessential person that does not want to do anything that somebody tells me to do. So I agree with you, however what I've learned is that if I can surround myself with people that are there for [01:08:00] my best interests as well, and that we're on this journey together, man, that's the best place to be.

D Brent Dowlen: Josh, where's the best place for people to connect with you? You

Josh Abbandonato: Well, I mean, I'm on, you know, all the socials. I have the website. I have the podcast. There's YouTube. Great question. I mean, they could just start by going to the website. That would be an easy, an easy start or maybe I'll send you my YouTube link and they can start there as well Um, I love chatting with people on Instagram etc.

I know I'm giving you several answers So probably start with the website because the website has all the links everything. Yeah Yeah, that's that that would be the one I guess because it has all the links for everything is is on the website My website's getting redesigned right now. But yeah, if they go to the website, that's probably the best.

So the derelict biz The derelict dot is

D Brent Dowlen: and even though I said one guys I'll have all of his links down at the show notes. So you can kind of pick a place I just I was giving you preference which one you want to but [01:09:00] Can

Josh Abbandonato: I just say to everybody listening watching etc?

Please if there's anything that you heard here that you are struggling Not sure what to do. Not sure what the next action step is. Please reach out to me. I respond to every Single person That reaches out to me, unless it's like an SEO optimizer or something. Fuck it, those guys need to stop emailing me.

Okay, but I respond to every single inquiry myself. It's not going to be a team member. It's not going to be a virtual assistant. It won't be anybody else. I will respond to it. I find that extremely important because that's why I'm doing this. So, in all sincerity, I don't want anything from it. I'm not going to ask for any money.

I'm not going to sell you anything. I really want to be here because I know that if I continue to do this and give into [01:10:00] men, then the universe will be okay with that and it will reward me in whatever way the universe decides to reward me. So in all sincerity, please reach out. Please don't not reach out.

Just send me a message. Let's have a conversation. I'm more than willing to do that. And if you're not a man, feel free to reach out to it's not like only men can reach out. Women are more than welcome to reach out.

D Brent Dowlen: He's single. That's not what I

Josh Abbandonato: meant, but, uh,

D Brent Dowlen: I know, I know. What's the next big project? Josh?

Josh Abbandonato: Oh, the next big project. Well, I mean, what I'm really growing right now is, uh, my, my coaching business of men and specifically I'm working with men. I think I mentioned this earlier that are either going through divorce or pre divorce You know, maybe they're separated. Maybe they're walking through that.

And of course, I would love to talk to guys that are, you know, maybe years away [01:11:00] from that. We could avoid that because I'm a huge fan of marriage. If it works, even though I'm a divorce guy, I'm not cynical about marriage, but specifically men that are about to go through divorce or going through the process.

There are major, major things that I did wrong during that process. That I currently have a really strong passion of trying to help men avoid not just emotional things not just Failures etc that we've been talking about today, but also money I mean there are several things that we can do and I'm not an attorney But there are several things we can do to help people save six figures in their divorce There are several things that we can do that I messed up on That would get you more time with your kids if that's important to you And it was extremely important to me and I did things wrong that I had to fight to have time with my kids.

Don't make my mistakes, please. So if you're in that process or think you [01:12:00] might be soon, please reach out.

D Brent Dowlen: Hey guys, what you may have caught in there in the course of our conversation, this is actually our second conversation. So if you're enjoying Josh and I having this conversation and think you got something out of this one, we also did an episode of the Derelict Podcast. And I'll have a link in the show notes for that episode as well And you can go check it out on his while you're checking out his podcast You can check out the show we did together over there and I We haven't said anything in stone guys, but I really don't think this is gonna be our last conversation uh, I enjoy josh too much for that so Uh, I would look forward to Multiple collaborations in the future if josh is open to it.

He may be like, oh, absolutely. I'm open to it I

Josh Abbandonato: love this brand like i'm having such a good time right now. I don't even want it to end I i've I love this so absolutely

D Brent Dowlen: I know everybody, after all the heavy conversations we've had today, the biggest concern everybody has is how many [01:13:00] bones are in the human body.

You guessed 206, and the answer is actually 206, so good job. You're somewhere you're from. Yes! You got that one right. And the only question you could have gotten wrong in the first part was, was the Batman and Superwoman. Oh, did I? Oh, I was wondering if you're a Superman or Batman guy, because

Josh Abbandonato: people are very opinionated about that one.

But I

D Brent Dowlen: Right? It's one of the most divisive questions among men right there. Batman or Superman. I have a Superman friend. I'm like there are days I'm like, we're barely hanging on by a friend thread as a friend, dude. I don't care if I've known you for like 18 years You're Superman. Can I just say one thing

Josh Abbandonato: about that?

I was having this conversation I was actually having a Batman conversation with somebody the other day Which is why this is so funny to me because I don't have Batman conversations all the time It's not like I'm always having Batman conversations, but we're having a conversation about it And one of the things that he was talking about, he's a therapist, and from what I can tell, an amazing therapist, a great man.[01:14:00]

And one of the things we were talking about is boy psychology, and how there are many men that continue to live in boy psychology and don't really become, really aren't living out their manhood. And that's a whole other podcast. But something clicked for me when we were having that conversation. And I used an example.

So here's the example I'll use to you. So, my favorite Batman movies are Christopher Nolan. Those, those three. Now, not everybody agrees with that, and that's okay, I don't care. Like whatever movie you like, I don't really care. But, there There was a scene in Dark Knight. I was trying to remember which movie it was.

There was a scene in Dark Knight where, I don't know if you remember this or not, but the entire board is sitting around talking to the, the, bad guy, you know, the, the, the guy that ended up being bad that was like in charge of all the [01:15:00] criminals, right? The one that took all their money and everything. And they were, the, the board of Wayne was, was all meeting with them.

And Batman, otherwise known as Bruce Wayne, was sleeping. Remember this scene? Mhmm. And Morgan Freeman kind of just, you know, his character kind of just says like, Well, you know, he's had a, he's had a long time and he's kind of making excuses for him. And the other guy's like, yeah, it's so disrespectful, etc.

And when, when I was thinking about this, I was like, yeah, that is major boy psychology, right? This is this completely entitled billionaire that's never had to work a day in his life that has all the money in the world because of his parents and everything else. And then what's really fascinating to me that I started thinking about, I was like, yeah, but what's the next scene?

Do you remember the next scene? Yeah, he's investigating into him because he knows right problem So the next scene is he's now talking to Morgan Freeman and basically saying yeah I already knew that we weren't gonna get the deal I just needed to get close enough to him to see his books [01:16:00] To confirm his suspicion that this is a bad man that he doesn't want to be doing business with and I was like, wow Okay, that's not boy psychology.

That's a man acting like a man and then I started thinking about this man How often do I? Misinterpret someone how often do I interpret a man being a man versus a man living in boy psychology? And and you know, what what is the actual truth here? And one of the reasons I think that's why I like Batman so much Because it's a constant comparison of boy psychology and manhood all the time because his you know This guy said something interesting to me, which I'd never thought about before Apparently there's like stories and stuff that talk about how like Batman is the real person and Bruce Bruce Wayne is the false persona versus the other way around.

And I think that that's fascinating because if his core is Batman and he wants to do good and he wants to rid the world of evil and he [01:17:00] wants to do all these things, it doesn't mean that boy psychology goes away. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden he doesn't have insecurities and fears and everything else and then act like this, you know, insecure billionaire.

And I just thought that was, man, how amazing is that? So I guess what I would leave the listeners with is how are you acting like Bruce Wayne? Today and how are you acting like Batman and how can we all act like Batman more? That's my thought

D Brent Dowlen: guys We've we've laid a lot out today. And like I said, you need to you need to follow up Uh, this is not our first conversation But that I was gonna ask you what you wanted to leave the listeners with if they heard nothing else But but that was like, I'm I can't that's like a mic drop. We're good there So guys for josh myself Thanks for hanging out with us today.

Be better tomorrow because what you do today and we'll see you in the next one.

David McCarter: This has been the fallible man podcast, your home for everything man, [01:18:00] husband and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www. thefallibleman. com for more content and get your own fallible man gear.