Empowering Men to Shape Their Destiny with Intention with EskAyn Anderson

Life is a tapestry woven with the threads of choices, and every decision paints a part of the larger picture. My discussion with Exane Anderson pulls back the curtain on the unseen artistry of principled living. Together, we examine the mosaic of everyday decisions, tracing the lines back to childhood inspirations and the indelible mark left by personal tragedy. From the meticulous care I once put into drawing trees to the loss that reshaped my understanding of time and connection, these narratives serve as a compass, guiding us toward a life of authenticity and purpose.

The invisible influence of our parents and the legacy they leave for generations to come often goes unnoticed, overshadowed by the pursuit of corporate milestones. Exane and I challenge this narrative, shining a light on the enduring power of parenting and the subtle yet significant impact of principled choices that ripple through time. We navigate through life's chapters, from the gravity of our principles to the sparks of conflict that indicate when we've strayed from our true north, inviting you to join us on this journey of discovery and alignment.

Closing the chapter on an enlightening conversation, we underscore the transformative potential of principle-centered living. With a focus on empowering men to live with intention and harness their growing edge, the episode is an ode to those who seek to be the architects of their destiny, grounded in principles that outlive the ephemeral triumphs of titles and accolades. Take a step into our world and explore how to navigate your own path with purpose, guided by the enduring wisdom of those who have walked the trail before us.

Key moments in this episode: 
10:04 The Principles That Govern Our Lives 
16:22 Aligning with Principles for a Fulfilling Life
20:36 The Battle Within: Aligning with Our True Conscience
24:26 The Undervalued Power of Parenthood
30:41 The CEO of Your Child's Education: A New Perspective
32:18 Principles of Influence: Beyond Manipulation
41:36 Closing Thoughts and How to Connect

How to reach EksAyn:
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvTVXvUp6KBp2dSvj03IQXQ
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eksayn/
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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Choices and Consequences
• 3:21 Drawing Trees
• 8:40 Choices, Principles, and Life Shaping
• 13:21 Power of Principles in Life
• 19:04 Aligning With Core Principles in Life
• 22:14 Impact of Parents on Generations
• 33:53 Choosing Love
• 41:28 Empowering Men to Live Purposefully

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Every day we're going to be confronted with choices, and while some may seem small or inconsequential, as we stack them one on another, we may find that our lives have become a mess, and sometimes even unmanageable. And so why do we do that? Are we just complacent, or is there something more deeper going on? Well, today, my guest and I explore the consequences of these decisions, along with the accompanying actions, and discover that trying to take control of either of these is really what's causing us the issue. And before we get into all that, I just want to know that, if you're interested in raising the standards of a father, husband or entrepreneur, I'm going to encourage you to participate in our group mentorship program, the Band of Brothers. You know we're a group of ordinary guys working towards living extraordinary lives, so you can find more information about us at the Awakened man Training Academy at membersnet. And with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 0:56

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, Many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:27

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. Before we get started, let me ask you a couple of questions. What part of your life needs a tune-up? And, now that you have that in mind, what choices have led to this situation? You know, all choice is followed by consequence and while those can be better or worse, it depends on the situation and the choices that have preceded it. But what if we were to shift our focus to principles? How would that impact our decision making and therefore the consequences we encounter? Well, today, my guest and I attempt to answer that very question. So allow me to introduce my guest.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Exane Anderson speaks nationally and has been seen on Forbescom, speaker Magazine, tv and various blogs and podcasts. His business book, the Key to the Gate Principles on Techniques to Get Past Gatekeepers to the Decision Maker has sold internationally. Past gatekeepers to the decision maker has sold internationally. Now Exane has extensive business experience, including presenting to governments, associations and other businesses and, much more importantly, he is somewhat good at playing hide-and-seek, jumping on a trampoline with his children and setting up a tent trailer when he's taking his family on road trips. Got to love that fatherhood stuff. Welcome to the show Exane. How are things, brother?

Speaker 3: 2:45

Thanks, alan. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here and they're pretty well today, so thanks for asking.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Yeah, right on, great to hear. Yeah, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm really looking forward to this topic about principles and the other things that we're going to get into, but I always start off by asking this first question to my guests, and that's all about all of us being on a hero's quest, and your hero's quest has some pretty, some pretty intense stuff in it, and so tell me about that time in your life when your mother had passed on, and how that experience had shaped you into the man that you are today and the work that you're doing.

Speaker 3: 3:19

Oh, it's such a good question. Thanks, alan. Well, let me tell you this when I was young, I used to like to draw trees and I'd draw them with every twig and every little branch, even the veins and the leaves. You can imagine kind of a tree with lots of branches and maybe dozens of leaves. That's how I'd draw them when I was young. Well, I went to school and saw how the other children drew trees and guess how they drew them? Well, they drew them kind of with two lines and a poofy cloud on top. And when I saw how the other children drew trees, I stopped drawing them the way I used to and start drawing them the way the other kids did. The other children did, and my mom, when she saw this, she cried and you can imagine why kind of trying to fit in with everyone, maybe giving it up a little bit of kind of my gift that I had to try to fit in.

Speaker 3: 4:07

Fast forward a few years I was at a Little League game. By the way, there was a few different ways, alan, to play Little League. You can either be good and hit the ball or, if you were pathetic like I was, you'd just hold the bat out and the ball would hit the bat and drop. It's called a bunt. I had one bunt the entire season, but I'm not here to tell you how pathetic I was.

Speaker 3: 4:25

What happened after this game was important. When we got home from the game, my mom complained of a very severe headache. In fact she said it was worse than childbirth which I have not experienced Maybe some of the viewers here have. But my dad became concerned and he said I'm going to take mom to the hospital. And I remember giving my mom a hug in the front room of our home there, telling her that I loved her, and then they drove away. Well, I was a little bit nervous this hadn't happened. My mom, you know here my dad had taken my mom to the hospital. I went to my uncle, who happened to just be visiting us at the time, and I said is my mom going to die? And he looked at me and said no, she's not going to die, she probably just has a migraine. And I said did you promise my mom's not going to die? And he said I promise she's not going to die. Well, I wanted to believe him.

Speaker 3: 5:11

I went downstairs it was getting late. I climbed up on my bunk bed opened a book. I still remember the book. It was a book about squirrels. I started reading that book and waiting, waiting for my parents to get home and I waited, and I waited and they didn't get home.

Speaker 3: 5:25

And the next morning I woke up. I was a little bit anxious. I climbed off my bunk bed, went to kind of wanted to see my parents and went to the door of my room and outside of this door there was kind of a long family room. But I opened the door, anxious to see my parents. And as I looked out I could see my dad, but something was different. My mom was not there. I looked out, I could see my dad, but something was different. My mom was not there. Instead there was a friend and another friend and a neighbor and another friend.

Speaker 3: 5:51

It seemed like half the neighborhood was at our home. And as I walked closer I could see that my dad had been crying. And as I got even closer I could see that what happened? My dad kind of gathered the children together and he said words that I'll never forget. He said he was trying really hard to choke back his tears and he was not doing a very good job, but he said these words he said I think our mom is going to leave us.

Speaker 3: 6:13

And I started to put two and two together with all the neighbors, my dad and everything, and I went into a panic and I said, dad, we got to do something. We got to do something. What can we do? What can we do? What had happened is my mom had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, which means a blood vessel in her brain had burst and she was now brain dead at the hospital being kept alive by a life support system. Two days later we went down. I remember being in the hospital. I could see my mom on a hospital bed. She had tubes coming out of her nose. She could not breathe on her own. She had a respirator kind of mechanically rise and fall and it was just scary to see my mom hooked up to all these machines.

Speaker 3: 6:51

Eventually it came time to let my mom. There was nothing they could do. She was brain dead. And they eventually took my mom off the machines, the life support system. I remember when they did she kind of crinkled up and turned bluish and I really wanted to give her a kiss but I was afraid to. So I went and kind of kissed the air and walked out.

Speaker 3: 7:11

I got to tell you real quick, there was an anesthesiologist who, after I left the room, he told me later that he said you know, after you left the room, your mom went from being kind of crinkled up to where, on her own, she kind of opened her arms and spread them out with nobody touching her, almost like she was coming into a beautiful place.

Speaker 3: 7:27

But now, when my mom died that day and as an eight-year-old boy I watched her die here's my question for you and for anyone listening how do you think I draw trees now? And the answer is I draw them the way my mom would want me to and I got to tell you I'm sharing my heart with you right now, today, figuratively, in this moment, I'm drawing trees the way I see them right now, and even though I haven't given my mom a hug in over 30 years. There's something almost as good as giving your mom a hug and it's feeling her influence Now, and I got to tell you I feel her influence all the time, so great question man, what a way to start the show.

Speaker 1: 8:09

I got to tell you there's a I'm choked up, really powerful.

Speaker 1: 8:13

I think, you know, for guys we don't have an opportunity to really think back about those times and that moment when there's such a powerful event that happens in our lives. And that moment when there's such a powerful event that happens in our lives and for me mine happened just a few years ago with my father-in-law passing, because he was like my best friend hanging out and he raised two daughters so he always wanted a son, so I kind of filled in that void for him. And you know it's so true. You know we change our lives you talked about in your story there we spend how much of our time in our lives adapting ourselves to fit in, to fit into life, to fit into whatever that we're doing, and we don't get an opportunity to truly shine about who we are. And so tell me about how that experience now has shaped and changed how you see yourself. Do you see yourself still as that person trying to fit in? Do you see yourself more as that person that lives on the edge of those branches?

Speaker 3: 9:11

Such a good question. You know, just having experienced that has made me brave. I got to tell you, sometimes your greatest pain becomes your superpower and I really believe that. You know, some of us are going through hard times, something that's extremely hard. That was the hardest thing that probably happened to me in my life up to that moment.

Speaker 3: 9:34

But I'll tell you, it's become a strength to me to know that my mom wanted me to be who I am. So now it's become just I'm going to share it, I'm going to tell people and I'm going to try to help people cherish the moments they have with the people they love, because that's something that's you know. I feel like I'm on a mission to help people cherish the time they have with people. Having lost my mom at a young age, I'll tell you, life's shorter than you think. I want people to tell people, tell the people they love that they love. Just do it. Just tell them. Realize it's shorter than you're thinking, and then we can talk about principles, principles of something else that's important to me that we can talk about.

Speaker 1: 10:11

But but, great question. Thanks for asking, alan. Yeah, I appreciate the, appreciate that response. I think it's so true. You know, we're really we're really shaped and formed by the, by the pain and the challenge that we faced in life, and I think what that does is it reveals some. I used to believe that those are times in life and I think what that does is it reveals some I used to believe that those are times in life really really shapes and forms our character, but I think it reveals at first, it gives us opportunity to mold if it needs to be mold, to grow if it needs to it needs to grow but to truly to make a decision.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And we talked I talked about in the opening about making choice and having choices in our life. And there's these small, inconsequential decisions that we can make that lead to profound impacts in our lives down the road. And so, because you had that experience at eight years old, being able to really look at and measure life through choice tell me a little bit about how that it's, that the choices've made, and how the work that you're doing, how helping people understand, how, every moment and every day, we have a choice to shape the lives of who we are and what we're trying to become.

Speaker 3: 11:15

I love that and really we do. We have a choice and, like you said, the little things that we do do matter. One of the things that is really that was a thought that's profound to me. You know, sometimes we're not profound, it's. It's a, it's a thought that has really shaped my thinking. Let me let me give you an example. When we make choices, principles govern the consequences to those choices. Let me tell you what I mean when I say that. Like the principle of gravity you've heard of it. Gravity works where I'm at. It works where you're at. It works on the other side of the world, it works. I mean gravity even works out in space. Right, I mean gravity is what keeps the moon going around the earth, keeps the earth going around the sun. Millions and millions of miles away, there's clusters of galaxies that are spinning around, held together by gravity. It's everywhere and when we come in contact with a principle like gravity, we have a choice. We can either align with it or we can ignore it. Let me give you an example about how we could align with gravity, and this is just kind of a. Let me give you an example.

Speaker 3: 12:14

I was in Vail, colorado not too long ago, and in Vail Colorado people. Why do people come to Vail Colorado? Well, the answer is to ski right. Well, the answer is to ski right. So what's actually happening? They get to Vail, they get into the hotel At some point, they get to the ski resort and they take this lift up to the top of a hill or top of a mountain and they have this thrilling experience, pulled down by gravity. So you could say that the people in Vail Colorado have aligned with the principle of gravity and build a ski resort so people could make and they make millions of dollars doing it. Now, this isn't about making money, it's just to illustrate the principle. They have aligned with gravity to make money. Well, I'll ask people, I'll say how else could you align with people with excuse me, with gravity to make money? And these are the answers I'll hear. They'll think for a minute and they'll say well, maybe you could start a skydiving company. So that's a great idea. You could start a bungee jumping company, or you could start a trampoline park, or maybe you could do roller coasters, or you could build a hydroelectric dam across the river and you could let the water go through and turn turbines and sell your electricity.

Speaker 3: 13:21

But here's the next question what if you ignore gravity and you're kind of careless with it? Well, I live near the base of the Rocky Mountains and I can tell you, if you ignore gravity in some areas you could get seriously injured. You might even die, right. So here's the thing. Gravity is everywhere. It's where I'm at, it's where you're at, it's out, it's in Australia, it's in Africa, asia, europe, north and South America, antarctica, north and South. It's everywhere in the world, even out in space.

Speaker 3: 13:49

And I have a choice I can either respect it and align with it and build a ski resort, figuratively, or I could ignore it and fall off a cliff and die or get injured. Gravity itself doesn't change. What changes it's my either respect and alignment with it or my ignoring of it. And so there are principles, alan I believe in life that are just as real as gravity. Just like gravity, they're ancient, they're timeless. And I have a choice I can align with it or ignore.

Speaker 3: 14:18

Now, some people, when you talk about principles, they think about it differently than I'm talking about right now. Some people say well, I have principles, they work for me, and you have your principles, they work for you. Those are not the type of principles I'm talking about. I'm talking about principles that are real, whether you believe they are or not. Can you imagine someone saying gravity, it might work for you, but it doesn't really work for me. You know that same person could go to the edge of the cliff and say I believe I can fly and jump off, and what happens? The principle still takes over.

Speaker 3: 14:48

Right Now there's other principles that can interact with gravity, like aerodynamic. I mean, if you brought a parachute or a hang glider or something, it can interact. But the truth is, principles govern the choices and because they govern excuse me, they govern the consequences to our choices and because of that it becomes so important to really think what are the principles that govern my relationships, for example? What are the principles that govern my business, my relationships, my marriage, my being a parent, those kinds of things? If we can align with them, we can. We can go really cool places. If we ignore them, we end up in spots that we probably don't want to be. Yeah, thanks for listening.

Speaker 1: 15:30

Yeah, no worries, I love that. I love that answer Absolutely Truly. Life is driven by principle and I'm glad that we're we're starting to get into that, because I want to spend a little bit of time with that as well. And while I was thinking about this, about the topic of principles and you're absolutely right, having you know time, tested principles I immediately think about you know the stoic principles, about how they lived by, and so I was wondering you know, from, from your perspective and the work that you do all around this, this particular topic, do you find that there are principles that are more important than others? Is it a matter of how we employ them? You talk about being in alignment how we, how we employ or deploy them. What is? What do you feel? Is the? Is the really the catalyst about understanding principle and how to live a principle centered life?

Speaker 3: 16:22

Well, let me give you a. That's a great question, alan. Let me tell you my view on this. When we're talking about relationships, I think that the prime principle is Well, at least let's start at the basic level, we'll go deeper. I call it the golden rule. Okay, now, some people don't want to call it the golden rule, but I've noticed the golden rule is just if we treat people like we want to be treated. That principle is kind of the master principle to all other kinds of principles. Now, principles are like gravity, they're ancient and they're timeless. Let me give you an example, no-transcript.

Speaker 3: 17:21

Now, I had a choice here. I think the principle of honesty which, by the way, is kind of a let's go just a little bit, the principle of honesty is kind of a break off the golden rule. Don't we want people to be honest with us? I mean, don't we want that as we want to treat people we want to treat? Well, I had a choice here. I was actually straight commissioned as the salesperson, so if I didn't make a sale, I didn't make any money. And he asked me if I'd buy this from him and the truth was I wouldn't buy it from us, not this particular product. I knew you could get it cheaper on Amazon and I had a choice. Do I align with it? I just told the guy. I said you know what? Don't buy it from us, go buy it. You can go on Amazon, you can get a little cheaper.

Speaker 3: 18:02

Now I did not make that sale, didn't make any money on it. Here's the interesting thing, though by the end of the call, this gentleman made a massive order of something else, something that I did feel good about. That we sold, and I really could sense that. I think it was because he didn't feel like I was a push, manipulative, dishonest salesperson that sometimes you know some, some.

Speaker 3: 18:23

There's a little bit of a stereotype that salespeople are like that and there's some great salespeople out there and there's some that aren't. But we have a choice when you know, when we come in contact with, with people and relationships, or we can tell you other kinds of stories about this where aligning with a principle in the long run is always the right thing to do. It may be a little painful in the short run, but do you want to have this power of a hydroelectric dam, you know, pushing you forward, or do you want to have the anxiety that comes from I might fall off a cliff, and that's the difference that you feel when you're aligning with principles versus when you're ignoring them.

Speaker 1: 18:58

I love that analogy about using that power of that dam versus the, you know, standing on the edge of the cliff. I was thinking, as you're describing that story, about we talk in my work. We talk about really being in alignment with our values and we know we're out of, when we're out of alignment, when we have that feeling that we're going to break a boundary, we're going to break a value, maybe a principle that we live by, that's core to who we are, and you get that feeling in your gut. You just know that this isn't the right thing and when we do exercise and and break that, it can be really painful and that's then have that recovery. And so I was envisioning that maybe the sense that that you were going through is that how you find and you do work with folks when helping them really align and discover the principles that are governing their life and how they can recognize when they're in alignment and out of alignment.

Speaker 3: 19:51

That's a great question and, and as before I answer it, one thing I want to make clear is that principles are bigger than us. You know, I didn't invent gravity. I wish I could say I did Right. And so I think, because they're bigger than us and they're ancient and they're timeless, kind of like gravity, like you said, you can feel for whatever reason, whether you're in alignment or out, you can there's a sense, there's almost like a. It's like a a small voice that just lets you know I'm in alignment or I'm not. And, and you know, I I think our conscience, you know that's not. You know, some people may not want to acknowledge that, but I think we all have a conscience and I think our conscience literally can tell us yes, you're aligning with a true principle. No, you're ignoring it right now. And people can feel deep inside.

Speaker 3: 20:40

Here's the thing. Let me tell you this when we are not true to our conscience, that piece that tells us when we're in alignment or not, we're at war with ourself, literally, because there's a part of us that knows I'm not in alignment, and what happens is is, rather than like fixing it, the natural tendency is to take that war out on others, and we do it when we find their weakness, when we find what's wrong with them, and thus we can temporarily forget our own problem. It's an unhealthy way to do it, but when I say, okay, I'm at war with myself, I'm not following my conscience. The most easy thing to do is to say, well, I'm going to find something that's wrong with you because I'm not really feeling good about myself, and the second I start looking for the bad in others. That's a clue to me that I probably have some work to do to get aligned with that true north conscience in my head that knows what the principles are.

Speaker 1: 21:26

And I just love that as well and we echo that wholeheartedly here in our work.

Speaker 1: 21:32

As well as that, when we, when we have a, I talk about it in the terms of having a strong emotional reaction to something that's an indication that we were starting to get out of alignment and it's something that's more about us than it is about them, and to have the courage to explore and really understand what's going on with that.

Speaker 1: 21:53

And I think that's why it's important and I love having guests on. I learned so much from all of my guests. I'm learning a ton here, making some notes, some powerful notes for for what you're, for what you're putting down for us, and I just think it's key that hopefully, the listeners are picking up these nuances about understanding how principle shows up in our life and how we can be become more in alignment. And I want to pivot a little bit as well and just talk about you know I asked you about. You know the world today is pretty crazy. You know I don't think anywhere, wherever you're living, whether you're here in the West, like we are, or if you're overseas, and you know, and the issues that are happening right now in Israel and the Ukraine tell me why you say that the world is completely upside down right now.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Well, that's a good question. I'm going to let me tell you one reason. I think this Okay. So in our world currently, there are some people who a lot of people respect. Let's use a CEO, for example. By the way, I don't want to say anything bad about CEOs. They're wonderful people who are CEOs. They do a lot of good in the world, lots of good. But let's talk about it for a little while. Here's the sad truth Most of the companies that are awesome and doing well right now, in a decade or two, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, will be bought, sold, bankrupted, disrupted. They won't be the same. That doesn't mean they can't do a lot of good on the ground. They can. But let me ask you another question. Before we go down that road too far, I want to ask a question and I'll ask this. I ask this to a lot of people. I'll ask people. I'll say do you know what your great, great grandparents did for a living? When I ask that question occasionally.

Speaker 3: 23:25

I'll get somebody who says oh yeah, I remember, I know my great great grandparents did this, but most of the time people can't tell you. They can't tell you what they did for a living, and so I'm going to ask you a question. I'll ask the viewers a question. I want you to ask yourself do you know what your great-great-grandparents did? Now let's just say your answer is they were farmers or ranchers or something. Now here's my next question Do you know if they had a cool plow? Did they have a cool horse? Was it like a Mercedes-Benz plow or something? The answer is you don't, and the reason you don't is because you don't care. Here's the thing Our great great grandchildren, generations from now for those of the listeners who are parents are not going to care one bit if your car had the right hood ornament on it. They're not going to care if you lived in a nice house or not, because they're going to care about as much as you care about whether your grandparent did that. So we spend a lot of time trying to chase this. I want to climb the ladder, but I'll tell you who the most powerful people in the whole world are. You want to know. Parents have more power, more influence than any CEO. Now, people in this world value parents kind of low. They think, well, they're just, well, she's a stay-at-home mom or he's just a stay-at-home mom and that doesn't carry much clout. But here's the thing Do you know that the choices that you and I, alan, make as parents are going to carry way further than any CEO?

Speaker 3: 24:51

Let me give you a real, obvious example. I live in the United States of America. Now, the reason I live here isn't because I did it. The reason I live here is because I had great, great grandparents somewhere down the road hundreds of years ago who got on a ship and came to America. Now, that choice that they made centuries ago is affecting me today Foundly. It affects the language I speak. I'm speaking English right now because I grew up in a place that speaks English. It affects my educational opportunities, it affects my ability to make money, it affects my religion. It affects so many different things because someone 200, 300, multiple people, actually hundreds of years ago, made a decision and now I'm here. Now that's an obvious one right. That decision they made centuries ago is affecting me profoundly today. It's affecting my children. It will affect my grandchildren. Here's another one.

Speaker 3: 25:47

Here's one that's less obvious Were they fine? Were they angry? Were they drunk? Were they checked in or were they kind of checked out?

Speaker 3: 25:55

I'll tell you this there are tons of things that are happening right now that I don't even realize are happening with you, alan, happening with the listeners on the show, that are profoundly affecting you and me. That happened because of choices made hundreds and hundreds of years ago. That influence that moms and dads made hundreds of years ago that's affecting me, that some of it you can't see. The obvious one was the coming to America is so much more profound than hey, did that company make a lot of money? And 10 years later it's bought, sold, bankrupted, disrupted, irrelevant.

Speaker 3: 26:30

And so when I say the world's upside down, people value hey, he's a senator, he's a CEO, or this person's a rich something or other, and they tend to discount the influence of a parent. But here's the thing Parents have more influence, alan, than CEOs. If you want to make a difference in this world, go home and love the people who you need to align with principles so you can make those differences. But that's one example about how parents and I can tell you others in business. I can tell you how. A secretary was the one who got me in to speak to a CEO. She was more powerful than the CEO in getting me an appointment. In a business situation, the entire world, in my view, is upside down.

Speaker 3: 27:24

So when we're climbing, the ladder and let me just use one analogy from Stephen Covey. He'll say sometimes these guys will climb the corporate ladder, they'll get to the top of the ladder and then they feel empty and they're unfulfilled and they realize that their home life, their children, are estranged from them, having major problems on drugs or jail or something that's really painful for them. Their marriage is on the rocks but they've got a million bucks and they realize once they're at the top of this ladder that the ladder was leaning on the wrong wall.

Speaker 1: 27:54

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. I completely agree with that sentiment as well. I think that is the biggest problem in our in society today, in the world today. Today, we feel we have put value towards things that that look, they're all external pieces, the things that we were supposed to think are important to us, and what we've done is that we've just given over the raising of our children to to the state, to others to look after, and while we've been raised that way, there still doesn't it still doesn't give us the the ability to not be present and be better fathers, be better mothers, have that tight family unit.

Speaker 1: 28:30

So I'm really glad to hear that you mentioned that and talk about really about taking that leadership perspective and coming back and really managing and being part of our family.

Speaker 1: 28:40

I talked about with a client just before getting onto this to this podcast recording here this evening and we talked about leadership because he was had lots of questions about it and feeling like it was such a heavy burden to carry in his family and the thing is, is that we, we ask ourselves or get put into positions to be leaders and to be those parents, and it's when we can own and and and accept that we can do much, much better for our families is absolutely great.

Speaker 1: 29:12

So your, your great great grandparents moved to move to the U? S. But your other questions are so are so more profound, because those are the nuances, the things, the generational changes or the generational pieces that have come over. You know, year after year, that have, if we haven't done our work, we can lead lives are totally out of alignment with true principles, because we've told ourselves this story where we've been led to believe that there's a certain story about who we are as a family, or who we are as a family or who we are as individuals, and so I like how you've made that, you've framed that. I think it's really key for our listeners to really absorb that.

Speaker 3: 29:52

Thank you, Alan.

Speaker 1: 29:53

Listen, let me ask you you're doing a bunch of work also with X Factor. Tell me a little bit about X Factor, what its mission is in the world and how is it serving others.

Speaker 3: 30:05

Well, more importantly, that's a great question. Can I circle back to one thing you said before? That was, if I circle back because that's a good question, because I really I'd like to question. You said something about, I don't know, about parents having an influence on their children and being the ceos. Do we have time to chat about that? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Let me. Just let me throw one thing out there.

Speaker 3: 30:24

When people send their children off to school. Okay, a lot of times we do it just because that's what happened to us. We got sent off to school, that's. There's great people in this public school system. There's great teachers, there's great people. There's some people maybe who aren't doing this great job, but there's some wonderful, wonderful people in the school.

Speaker 3: 30:41

So everything I say here I want you to know I'm not saying anything against any particular school system at all, but I am saying something about this thought that we are the CEOs of our children's education. And let me tell you what I feel like that means. Instead of saying I'm just going to pawn it off to the school and say the school's going to raise my kid or my child, if we can say I'm the CEO, what that might mean is I might decide to outsource to this public school If it's a good school, the teachers are aligned with this mission that I want to have to teach my kids to be wonderful, resilient, giving kind people. Or I might decide to put them in a charter school or a different public school, or maybe I'll homeschool them. I may decide to hire a karate teacher or a piano teacher or a tutor or Chinese tutor or something like this. I could. I could do any kinds of things to try to help my children be successful in the world, but what I can't do is be asleep at the switch and just say I'm going to have somebody else raise my kids and that thought that I'm the CEO of my children's education. Now I just ripped on CEOs, which I didn't really. I really like CEOs. They're great people, most of them, I'm saying, but to say, hey, I can say I'm going to outsource to you, but if you're not in alignment with my mission and what we're trying to do, I may decide to find another contractor, so to speak, or another someone to hire. And I think that's important for parents to realize that they are the CEOs, that they can make those decisions, and to be checked in, because that being checked in is going to have influenced their ripples throughout centuries.

Speaker 3: 32:14

You know I teach people how to influence. When you asked about X-Factor, I can circle back to that. I teach people what I feel are principles of influence. Like we talked about honesty, we talked a little bit about the golden rule. There are a number of timeless, ancient principles that will help you influence. It will help people influence their families, also influence in business and in negotiation and in sale. But how do we influence those we love for good? And I'm not talking about manipulation or persuading or trying to trick people. I'm talking about real, solid, timeless good, being an example, building the relationship so that when we talk they believe us and they have that kind of influence.

Speaker 1: 32:55

Yeah, absolutely, I completely agree with that and, yes, thank you for circling us back and tying a bow on the idea of what it means to be a CEO of our kids, of our kids' education, and it's actually a great analogy because, yes, while we're outsourcing some of these duties, truly, if you're as a CEO, you still have oversight, you still have input, you want to make sure that it's being guided and directed, and I think that's really the key piece here about our conversations about how are we imparting our influence in the development of our children throughout their time that they spend with us and then so that we give them enough of a foundation that, once they leave that you know, the hope is that they continue to flourish and grow and do and do great things in this world and so appreciate that, uh, that you're doing that work thanks al.

Speaker 3: 33:44

I gotta tell and I got to tell you, you are a great host, sincerely, you do a great job and I love that you're trying to shine light on things like this.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Yeah, I appreciate that. I think it's. You know we haven't. We don't get a chance to talk too much about principle and about this type of work, and I think it's really key that we continue to really, you know, bring that forward, because I think that's a missing piece in lots of people's lives.

Speaker 1: 34:05

We there used to be a cartoon years ago. I remember what I had had in my, in my filing cabinet, and it was a cartoon of a couple sleeping in bed. He was on the one side and he was constantly hammering this, the switch, the, the alarm clock, and of course, that one arm was massive and the caption was really about how that's how we treat our days. Right, we have no real purpose, no real mission in life, and so we get unbalanced. We have this one part that we do all the time, but we don't come in total alignment.

Speaker 1: 34:40

And I think about this type of work and the other things that we do here to help people really become all that they can be, to really lean into their lives, and I think we get too many times we just sleepwalk through life, we sleepwalk through it and there needs to be some guideposts and there's lots of different ways to do it Principle is definitely a very powerful way for us, and I think it's truly the foundation. I'm thinking. Throughout your time in your life you must have had some mentors or people that you would lean into, and maybe it comes out of a book, but tell me what was a piece of advice that really had some impact for you and how has it served you today?

Speaker 3: 35:24

Oh, that's a great question. Now, the first thing that came to mind there was a wise man I spoke to. He was a marriage counselor and I asked him. I said if you could tell people one thing, just one. I mean he was a renowned marriage counselor. I said but there would be one thing you could tell people that you think would help people in their relationships. What would it be? He said you really want to know. I said I do. This is what he said.

Speaker 3: 35:51

He said if people would realize that they choose their own feelings, other people don't choose them, that you're responsible and you choose your own feelings and people don't think so, they think, well, he made me mad, or she made me mad, or she's the reason I'm miserable, or whatever it is, because it's really not true. If people could realize that you know, if you're married, for example, you choose whether or not you're angry, you choose whether or not you're at peace, and even if your spouse does something that's triggering, you can still choose to feel otherwise. And it comes back to what you said, alan, about that story. The story that's told like okay, my, so my wife is doing something that triggers me. Perhaps is the story my wife's a bad person. She knows better.

Speaker 3: 36:33

And why is she doing this? And I'm the victim? Or is the story, you know what? Maybe my wife's having a bad day and I can be a little sensitive, or maybe there's some kind of something I don't understand. I can still. I can choose a story that's that's true and real, and not labeling and that kind of thing. So if, if people could realize that they can choose their own emotions and not blame them on something out there, that's powerful. And I, as you said it, that was the first thing that came to mind. I'm sure there's other things we could talk about, but that came to mind.

Speaker 1: 37:02

Yeah, no, I love that. I really love that you put a light on. We have choice in our feelings, because we absolutely do. We absolutely have choice and we also have the choice of how we wish to express that, you know, in the right amount of, with the right amount of timing, with the right person, and that we can do actually learn to express ourselves. And for guys, sometimes we struggle with that and that's just because I think we haven't really learned that skill. And as we develop and learn that skill, then our relationships tend to flourish as well. You know, except for everything that we spoke about today, maybe there was some stuff we didn't get a chance to touch on. If there was one takeaway you would want our guests to have from this conversation, what would that be?

Speaker 3: 37:45

My mom said something and she said it repeatedly. And she said this she said no matter the question, love is the answer. And it sounds a little trite, maybe a little oversimplified, but you know what the truth is. It's true. I think it really is true. No matter the question, love is the answer. It's the answer. And when I talk about love, let me say one more thing about this. Sometimes people were scripted, because of Hollywood and other things, to think that love is just a feeling, and so we're like well, I don't feel love, and I'm going to tell you a story about this really quick.

Speaker 3: 38:15

Stephen Covey is a guy who I look up to. He's passed away now. He wrote the book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There was, I think. In that book there was a story that went something like this, and I hope I'm not misquoting. He said something like this he was at a conference. Somebody came up to him after the conference and said to him I don't love my wife anymore. With that question, kind of, with that, somebody said that to you. Would it catch you off guard a little bit? This is what he said. Well then, lover. And the guy said I don't think you heard me. I've fallen out of love. She's fallen out of love with me. We have three kids. We're probably heading for a divorce and it kind of concerns me. And stephen covey looked at the guy and said if you're not feeling it, that would be a good reason to love her.

Speaker 1: 38:57

And the guy said well, how do you love someone you don't love?

Speaker 3: 39:00

and stephen covey looked at him and said friend, you're acting like love is a feeling. Love's not a feeling, it's an action word, something that you do. It's a verb. But here's the thing If you do the verb, the action, the feeling will follow. I got to tell you I'm getting tingles, Alan, as I say this, because I can feel that it's in alignment with truth. We can lead our feelings with our actions. If I'm feeling like I'm falling out of love with my wife, the answer isn't for me to get a divorce. Most likely there may be situations where that's the answer, but the answer is the answer is maybe I need to go do the dishes or give her a foot rub or do something that shows I love her, even though at the moment I may not be feeling like it, and my feelings will follow. This is a principle. I'm going to give you one more example. I'm done.

Speaker 3: 39:54

I had a friend named Brody Brody did this thing called the Spartacus workout and he said he did it. He hated it but he committed to do it, so he did it again. He said the next day I did this workout. I was so sore I could barely walk. I hated it, I almost wanted to die. Just, I couldn't do it because. But I did it again. I hated it, did it again, hated it, did it again. It was so sore I could barely walk, just kept doing it.

Speaker 3: 40:14

He goes, I hated that workout, it was all. It had all kinds of muscle confusion and I don't know all the things about this particular workout. But he said I kept doing it. He said about two and a half weeks or three weeks later. I said do you remember the day goes? I don't, but it was somewhere around week two and a half or three. He said I got to the end of the workout and something changed. Instead of feeling like I wanted to die, I felt like I was just getting started. He said that day I did it twice. It happened to be the next day where I got to the end of the workout and I felt like I just get me started. It goes, I did it twice.

Speaker 3: 40:43

You see he aligned with this principle that's as real as gravity, that we can lead our feelings with our actions. And so here's my thing If something's wrong, something's amiss, and we choose to align with the principle even though we don't feel like it and that, to me, is the key to success Alan is doing what's in alignment with the true principle, even when we don't feel like it. And then later we feel like it and it's like we've got this huge power pushing us. Wouldn't you rather have gravity on your side than fighting it? So, no matter the question, love is the answer. But I'm talking about love, the verb, the action.

Speaker 1: 41:28

And what a great way to wrap up our conversation here today, opening it powerfully, finishing it with so much power X. I just loved having our spending time with you today, and I think we've we've laid a bit of bread, bread, bread crumbs, fung tide here for people to be able to start to live a principle-centered life. It's truly about how we live on the growing edge of all of our lives, and so if men we do a lot of work here, with men focused primarily, If men are interested in getting a hold of you, participating in your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 42:01

Great question. They could go to my website and and reach out any way they'd like. There's a phone number there. There's a ways to get in touch digitally.

Speaker 3: 42:12

There's two websites my first name, which is xsanecom, e-k-s-a-y-ncom also x factor edge is more the business, uh, sign com either one of those people could get ahold of me. I want to tell you, Alan, too, your choice to do this podcast, where you're trying to find wisdom, where you're being purposeful in this. My hat's off to you what a wonderful thing you're doing and the good you're doing in the world and truly you are helping people revolutionize and be revolutionary men. So I I salute you, Alan, and I mean that sincerely. Thank you for for doing what you're doing to help others.

Speaker 1: 42:51

I appreciate that, brother, thank you so much and I'm going to make sure that all that in contact information is going to be in our show notes, as well as all the socials, so people can creep your pages. They really need to get in touch with you. Actually, you're doing phenomenal work, phenomenal work and once again, thank you, brother, for being on the show thank you thank you for listening to the revolutionary man podcast.

Speaker 2: 43:18

Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.