The Quest for Growth: Men's Personal Development

Can we start with a hard bone of truth here? I mean, really get guttural here and deep into the vulnerability for a moment. Now, don't, don't turn away yet. You don't have to say it out loud. It could help, but you don't have to say it out loud. You don't even have to tell anybody else. Just answer one simple question about yourself.

Is there any one area slash thing area or thing in your life where you know, in your heart, you should probably improve and you have room to grow. Now it can be anything. It could be your health, weight habits, fitness, maybe something professional. You could get better at your job by practicing more, working harder, learning more, Reading more are those things could help you get a promotion or a better job.

Even could you become more organized, efficient, focused, maybe you're not the dad you really want to be, or not the husband that you thought you were going to be, maybe your [00:01:00] mental health could use a little kick in the pants because for a lot of us, it could, or you don't have strong connections with other people.

The fact is you're not two dimensional. There's a lot to you as a man. So. Is there one thing, one area in which you want to grow and kind of feel like you should? Now I'd say it's a simple question, but it's, it's really not. But if you can think of one thing, just, just one, then personal development is for you and it's not complicated.

You don't have to wear yoga pants. You don't have to read a million books or say some kind of weird mantra. If you made it this far, then you came here for a reason. And in this episode, we'll make it easy for you to start growing the area or thing you want to. We'll answer why it's worth growing. And we'll help you get started.

No yoga pants required. Let's get into it. Here's the million dollar question. How do [00:02:00] 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. Now, when I was 40, I had to come to Jesus a moment. I got an email from my company about my 401k. And up until that moment in my life, I honestly thought like a 401k, which is something that came up in a job interview and it didn't mean squat to me.

So I got this email with a link informing me that they had made some changes. And I thought, Hey, it's a company email. It's safe, it's secure, not phishing or anything. I should go look at my 401k. I've been here like six years, so I clicked on the link and logged into my 401k for the first time. Been in this company six years.

Like I said, when I logged in, I also found out the financial institution they used also managed the [00:03:00] 401k that had rolled over from my previous job, which was cool. It was like, yay, good. They're all in one place. But I also realized that it had been sitting there that rollover 401k for six years, not making a dime.

Cause I didn't know that I needed to go invest it in something. It was just sitting in a cash fund. You don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe you should check into that. That might be your area. You see, I realized in that email and in that event that I needed to change my financial IQ, if I had any hope of reaching my goals, I realized I knew nothing about finances about not like real finances.

I could balance a checkbook, but I knew nothing about money or making money or actual financial. In something solid in finance. And I kind of freaked out. Now I'm telling you this because I started my personal development journey right in the same way you [00:04:00] are in this moment. You see, I found out I had a problem that I needed to dress and address.

We'll say, if I can say the whole word and I really had to figure out how the process. Cause I had no idea how to proceed, by the way, my name is Brent and welcome to the fallible man podcast. Your home for all things, man, big shout out to fallible nation. That's our long time listeners and a warm welcome to our first time listeners.

If this is your first time checking us out, thank you from the bottom of our heart, we know that you have a lot of opportunities and a lot of options and. The fact that you're spending a little time with us means a great deal to us. Be sure to connect with me at the fallow man on most social media platforms.

I'm most active on Instagram and let me know what you thought of the show. I'd love to hear your opinion on it. If you enjoyed it, leave us a review or Hey, better yet, give it to somebody who could use the same episode that you just listened to. That's the best compliment you give us. [00:05:00] That's a side note.

Let me get back into what we're actually talking about today because that's what's important right now. The problem with personal development is it's become too commercialized. It's an entire industry for people these days. We have gurus on YouTube, the art coaches like me, a ridiculous, ridiculous amount of books on personal development, guys, trust me.

And everyone has an opinion on everything because it's the age of the internet. And if you want somebody to spout off their opinion, you just have to turn on a social media platform and there will be lots of people to tell you. Now I told you there are no mantras are yoga pants required on my channel.

I'm not here to sell you something or to convince you that it's an easy road. I'm here to make social or social food. I'm here to make personal development easier for you guys, because it really shouldn't be that difficult. So here's the bullet [00:06:00] point. Cheat sheet version for all of you who just want the bullet points, because I know I got some listeners out there.

They don't want the explanations. They just want the checklist. So here's the checklist. Eight points guys. Number one, identify the area or thing. Number two, admit you have room to grow or want and need to, or want to. Number three, break it down into achievable pieces and sequence them. Four incremental growth, one thing every day, that simple five, make it easy.

Number six, reevaluate regularly seven, celebrate the milestones and number eight, persist. Now that's the bullet point version for all of you who that's just what you want. I promised you also that I would give you why you should actually like consider personal development. Well, there's a list of six reasons down below in the show notes.

So I can focus on the how in this episode, but if you want those six reasons of why they're down in the show notes, no matter what platform you're with us on now, if you'd like a little [00:07:00] more insight. Stay with me and I'll expand on those points. But for all my bullet bullet point people, you're good to go.

And Hey, I'll catch you guys in the next one. Easy peasy, right? Number one, guys, identify the area or thing where you started the show, omitting that thing to our area to yourself. That's the first step. Most people will never actually get through this step. Like most people will never be honest enough with themselves.

To apply a little honest soul searching, reflection and identify, Hey, there's this thing that I wanna work on. This second part of that is after you've taken that step to identify that one area or a thing came to your mind. So easily at the beginning of the show out of the massive complexities that you are as a man, this one thing, right?

Even the one thing, here's the [00:08:00] second stage of that. You need to answer the why of that one thing or area. What is the reason? Why should you get better at it? Right? My coach taught me this and I'll share it with you. I've shared it with a lot of people over the years. Go six deep. This is what I mean. Get the why behind the why behind the why Behind the why, behind the why, behind the why.

Yeah, it's really annoying. However, if you're honest with yourself, it takes about six. Wise to just like we were in taught in math class, get down to his lowest, or in this case, the deepest truth about why that thing came to mind, actually. Why is it that thing or that area? This is really important for you to succeed in your personal development journey, and I'll show you where to apply that later, but.

It's like, [00:09:00] I'm a person who likes to ask that question anyways. And I was floored when my coach just barraged me. He's like, okay, and why that? And why that? And why that, man, I thought these were things I was answering all the time. Anyway, turns out I wasn't. So a lot of us haven't had that honest conversation with ourselves.

Six times removed, but that why is going to be critical later in this process. Number two, admit you have room to grow and that you want to, you see, you can't grow if you don't believe you have room to grow or I need to, we live in a world where most people agree if it ain't broke. Hey, don't fix it. And guess what?

You're not actually broken. I don't think you are. That's why it's so challenging to get. Anywhere with personal development. It's the secret to why deadlifts are actually the hardest lift in big lifts in the gym. There's no loading phase. If you lower a bench press, right? Bringing down your chest or go down with [00:10:00] weight on your shoulders or your squat.

Your survival mode kicks in and says, get back up with this weight. With a deadlift, you don't need to lift it. Like there's no need. It's a heavy thing on the floor. Why would you pick that up? And there's no survival mode because it's not crushing you. And you know what? If you try and it gets hard, you just let go.

You're still safe. Don't do that on a bed press. If you like breathing, that's a bad idea. That's why the deadlift is hard. You actually have to get past the mental barriers with a deadlift that your hand is forced and other lists. Well, that's the biggest thing that keeps people from reaching their bigger goals.

You have to not only admit that you have room to grow, everybody's surprised. I'm not perfect. Thus the fallible man, right? Pretty clever. I thought so. You have to want the outcome of said growth besides admitting that. You're not perfect. [00:11:00] You have to not only want it because challenges growth, the challenge of growth often takes longer and a lot more work to experience quote unquote air quotes.

I don't know how to say that. Right. Our air quotes feel the benefit of the growth, right? You have to want it more than you hate the work that you're going to have to go through. To get there, it is far easier and more fun to binge Netflix and eat cool ranch Doritos with a cold beer on my couch, then go to the gym every single day and put in a bunch of work, at least at the beginning, then you kind of become addicted to it.

You have to want the outcome really, really bad. So you have to admit that you have room to grow, which is hard enough for a lot of us. But then you have to want the [00:12:00] outcome bad. Like you have to want it so much more than the easy road. And this is one of the reasons people struggle with it. Number three, break it down into achievable little pieces and sequence them.

Think project management. Now I know not all of you are project managers, but if you were to build a building, you would have to break this task into a lot of little pieces in a specific sequence. You obviously can't put in the windows when you need to dig out the foundation. Right? So I've done entire episodes on SMART goals and organizing your life to help facilitate this particular issue.

I know not everybody has a project management degree or has been trained in it, quite honestly, I've been in project management for a very long time. I never had a certification in it, but I have been managing projects as long as I can actually remember. If you've ever put together a program for your church [00:13:00] or helped with the girl Scouts, you've done project management.

Okay. It's not near as complex as you think, but it is simply this. Taking the big goal and breaking it into little achievable pieces and then putting them in a logical order. But if you want to go deeper on this, I'm not going to go real deep on this one here because I have done so many shows on it. So I'm going to link you the next episode that you want to check out if you need some help with this particular piece of it.

Down in the show notes on whatever platform you're on after this episode, you can go there and I will, I gave you an episode where you're going to dig deep into actually like achieving your goals by going through this process and it will help you out. So that's your next next assignment there. Number four is incremental growth.

Take a minimum of one step to achieve the pieces in the sequence every single day. One of the things that trips people up is that we have this [00:14:00] misconception that every step forward. It's going to be this massive leap. I don't know where this concept comes from, but this idea that we're going to make this life altering jump in progress every few days or with every step, that's not reality.

The reality is that real chain is a process of small, repeatable habits and steps and decisions over a course of time. Now, atomic habits is an incredibly good book and I highly recommend it. If you're a reader, it's also good on the audio book. I've had it both ways. But let me summarize just a little bit of for you success is something that is built on tiny habits and choices that you make every day.

See really deep, right? I had to go really far for that one. 1 percent every day is astronomical growth over the course of the year and say a stock art index fund. My goodness. I would, I don't know a stock investor who wouldn't kill to [00:15:00] see 1 percent growth in their stock every single day. That you'd be rich in no time.

That's astronomical growth. We'll doing one thing every day that makes you a little better or takes you a little bit closer to that goal. That's massive growth and that's real growth that is sustainable. You don't have to do something. That's going to be life altering your shattering. That's not it. One choice to do one thing to take one little step.

Every day adds up to massive growth over a year. And it's amazing how fast it will happen for you. Number five, make it easy. This is the one other thing I will actually share from James clears atomic havoc books, because I don't want to take away from his work. He did amazing work there. I read a lot of books, guys.

This is one of my actually giveaway as a gift to people. When I buy people birthday presents, I like to give books. And this is one of my favorite ones to give people that they haven't read it [00:16:00] because Honestly, it's one of the most impactful books I ever read. But one of the things I will share from this is that to be successful at the little steps you're trying to make, you have to make them easy.

This was a game changer for me. If you want to get better at pull ups, get a pull up bar, but put it in your path every day. So get one of those door frame ones. If you have a door that will hold it, my house is really old. I'm pretty sure it would rip the door apart, but you know, if you've got to start at your house and I do that, we'll sustain that great, but that pull up bar in your path that you pass a couple of times a day, make it easy and just do a couple of every time you walk by, put it in your path, make it easy.

If you want to read more, put the books everywhere. You spend time by your bed, by your breakfast seat, wherever you sit in the dining room table, by your couch, everywhere you sit. Put a book there, make it easy to read. Cause there's always a book available [00:17:00] nine times out of 10. If people want to read at the end of the day, and they're sitting on a couch, if the book is not sitting right there, it is easier to pick up the remote control and turn on the television than to actually get off their butt and go find the book.

So just make it easy from the get go. If you want to eat cleaner, get rid of the junk food in your house. Hard to eat junk food when there's none in the house. And avoid places that you commonly buy it, like gas stations and stuff like that. Sure. Get gas, pay at the pump. Don't go in. You want to be a better dad, put your kids on your schedule, like any other major appointment.

I did this, this is a game changer for me because it's important to me to be a good dad. And so I have one afternoon that just belongs to my children exclusively, and it is marked off on my calendar. If it is easy, you are more likely to succeed at this new step. You're taking these new habits. So make it easy and win [00:18:00] number six, evaluate the project on a set schedule.

Now we're back to that project management idea. If you've ever worked on a project and you all have, you know, things change. They don't always go to plan, whether that's a project at work or a project with your kids or with your church or community or whatever you do, you know, things change. The needs change, the goals change, the situation changes, chain is constant.

It is in the goals that you'll set as well as you evolve through those goals. The situation changes. You have to regularly reevaluate as you make progress. You may need to resequence pieces of the bigger goal. Because they make more sense than, or the goal itself may change. So make sure you're checking in on your goals on a regular schedule that makes [00:19:00] sense for the phase of the project you're in, right?

If you, you know, are in the early phase of trying to eat better. And the first step is to walk through your kitchen with a big garbage bag and just throw all the junk food away. You shouldn't have to check in on that step. Do it, don't think about it, get rid of it. Right? That's not a check in moment. But if you're on a step that's taking you more than a week, or more than a couple days realistically, then make sure you check in at the end of it.

If you're on a bigger step, and you're processing through, you may need to check in a couple times through that process. But check in, make sure you're still on track and make sure you're still going the direction you want to go. It's really easy to get waylaid and sidelined in life. And it happens far more often than people like to admit.

Number seven, celebrate the milestones. I'm so bad at this guys. This is something I'm constantly working on, but [00:20:00] it is so important on bigger goals to take longer. Now, obviously, celebrate air quotes should be proportionate and it should not derail the goal you're on. For example, if you're working on eating clean or eating healthier, And you get to the end of the first week and you've gotten a whole week.

Celebrate the moment with something small, really small, or you get to two weeks and you've gotten two weeks and you've eaten clean, you haven't any junk food, that's awesome. Celebrate the moment, but don't go slam a large pizza by yourself after two weeks of clean eating and totally derail what you're trying to do.

See what I'm saying? So do celebrate the wins or you will burn out before you achieve your larger goals. Sadly, the things you're likely working towards have long term rewards. Well, that's good. They have long term rewards, right, Brent? Yeah, but the problem is they seldom [00:21:00] have an immediate gratification, which is why they're harder.

So celebrate the small wins. Keep yourself going, right? Working out. I know working out is going to do great things for me over time. It's a lot of effort. I know the bowl of ice cream in my, in my hand, that's going to be really good right now, right? See, that's the problem between immediate gratification and long term rewards, but celebrate the small wins and keep yourself going.

You're doing the work. So celebrate you. Number eight, keep persisting until you reach the goal. The truth in business and on projects based on Hofstede's law states, it will take longer and cost more than you plan that aside, we live in an instant gratitude driven society. We need that dopamine hit now.

We want it faster, bigger, better. And now. [00:22:00] You hear that now the second time, that's not an accident. That's just the mentality we have, especially in America. The truth is most things that take time, they'll, they're gonna take far longer than you want them to, and few people will actually persist long enough to achieve those goals.

Don't stop. It's a process and that truth may suck, but it is truth. It's a process. It will take time and persistence on your part. Far beyond what you actually want it to, and what you imagine in your head, you're going to come up with this idea. I had one, uh, business entrepreneur. I talked to on my show once.

Say he has a three times rule and his basis is he puts his plan together and it's gonna take three times longer three times as many resources and Three times as much money as he initially planned because that's just what he has found over and over and over [00:23:00] again It's gonna take longer than what you have in your head and I told you that the why would come into play Here it is.

This is why the why is so incredibly important. Without a truly powerful why, and celebrating the small wins on your journey, you're gonna lose your way. You won't stick with it. You're gonna give up. Your resilience will fade without that truly, truly, truly powerful why. Now guys, I told you there's a list of six reasons Down in the show notes below, uh, whether you're on YouTube, whether you're listening on the audio podcast, they're in the show notes or in the description, there's a list of six reasons below why you shouldn't pursue personal development as a man.

So let me give you the final piece that I did promise you. I told you I would tell you how to [00:24:00] start. Well, the simple truth is you already did at the beginning. Of this episode, I asked you a question. Is there one thing, one area that you feel like you could improve him and you identified that, well, that's our first step, right?

So let me be the first thing to congratulate you because you already started on this journey. If you got here to the end of this episode are close to the end of the episode, I should say, then you already started, whether you knew you were starting in this journey or not. You identified the area or the thing.

Right at that beginning and you educated yourself on how the process goes further. So well done. You started congratulations. Give yourself a pat on the back. You did something about making this change, which is far more than a lot of people are [00:25:00] ever going to do now for more help with step three, there's a link to your next episode down on the show notes to dig into the whole topic a little bit more.

There's also a link to an episode where I had one of my mentors, Diamond Well, on the show. We talked about growth and chain. And Dai has his head wrapped around this far better than a lot of people do. He's one of the people I talk to. So I'm sharing that episode with you as well, if you want to go a little deeper on this topic.

Uh, and get a little bit different angle on it than just me. Join our bi weekly email below for exclusive content and to get news about what we're doing at the fallible man, things that are coming up before anybody else, special officers from our guests. And much, much more. I promise I don't bombard your email.

It's a bi weekly email. I'm not going to send you more than that because that's what I told you I would send you. But I put a lot of thought and effort into those. I really do. It's one of my favorite passion projects. Every two weeks, I just sit down and put together this incredible [00:26:00] newsletter for you guys.

So be sure to sign up for that. Those links are also down in the show notes. Guys, you started, you've already started. Congratulations. You've taken the first step. There are seven more outlined in this conversation. You can do this and you can come back here anytime you do it a little encouragement. I do a lot of shows about achieving your goals and a lot of shows about personal development.

That's what we're here about at the fallible man is your personal development, because we believe that you were built for a purpose. You exist for a purpose. You have incredible value just because you exist. And I would love to be any part of your journey in helping you become man. You've always wanted to be and grow into the person you want to become.

That's what we're all about here because the world needs that person. And I believe in you be better tomorrow because what you do today, we'll see on the next one. [00:27:00] This has been the fellow man podcast. You're home for everything man, husband, and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www.

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