7 Mind Viruses Destroying Your Marriage (And You Don't Even Know It)

Alright, so today I want to talk to you about 7 mind viruses that are destroying your marriage. And these are invisible to most of us, hidden operating systems, cancer of the mind. And really, the question we got to ask ourselves if we want to save our marriage is the question that we have to answer when we're interacting with another human being, period. And what's in it for me, or more accurately, what's in it for them? When I say what's in it for me, I mean from their, their perspective, right? So even on this call right now, I have to answer that question. What's in it for you? You could be anywhere doing anything with anybody. You're watching this video on YouTube, or you're watching it live, or you're participating in the call. But the reality is you could be anywhere else doing anything else, pretty much with anyone else. So If I want to have your attention, if I want to have the ability to influence what you're doing in order to help you influence your marriage, then I've got to answer this question, right? What is in it for you? Because quite frankly, you don't care what's in it for me. You're only here because there's some benefit provided. So if I was engaging in these 7 mind viruses that I'm going to share with you on this call, you wouldn't stay very long and you wouldn't come back. So keep in mind that our goal here is we have to accurately answer this question for our wife. What's in it for her when we interact with her, when we engage with her? And if she comes back to you, what's in it for her? So let's get into these. I've got 7 viruses here that quite frankly I found myself at a point in my life where I was depressed, miserable, couldn't get out of bed. Nothing was working for me. I was broke. I couldn't hold down a relationship. My bank account didn't tell a very positive story. I was at a point where the interest on my credit card each year was actually greater than my annual income. I was going into the hole day one of the year, and I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And there came a point where I just said, enough is enough. I refuse to live like this anymore. I'm not, I'm not going to— I can't continue to have broken relationships. I can't continue to be sick. I can't continue to be broke. And what I'm going to share with you turned my life around so quickly, every aspect of my life. I couldn't hold down a relationship up to this point. Within, within 3 months of doing this, I was with my wife and we've been together ever since. That was 15, 16 years ago now. What I'm sharing with you will turn your life around so fast in every aspect of your life that if you can do this, you'll be utterly unrecognizable. And people will come up to me 2 or 3 months after I started to really identify these mind viruses and actively get them out of my life and go, "I don't know who you are, Cody Butler. You're so— I don't recognize you anymore," in a very positive way. So the first mind virus here is self-deception. Or in other words, denial. Now some of you will get to the end of this presentation or the end of this video and go, well, I just don't think any of those apply to me, Cody Butler Butler. This is you. This is you. If you get to that point and you— because what I'm going to share, what I'm sharing with you in this presentation is human nature. This is what we brought into this world with. This is our nature. The mind viruses come pre-programmed into the operating system. And we all have them to some degree or another. And the difference between those who succeed at whatever it is we're trying to succeed at here— saving our marriage in this case, but it could be health, it could be family, it could be finances, it could be anything— the, the degree to those who succeed is the degree to which they're able to get control of these mind viruses and, quite frankly, reduce them. Not— it's not really possible to eliminate them this side of eternity, but we certainly can reduce them to a very manageable level. So let's, let's look at these. So what, what are some of the diagnostics of, of self-deception? Well, it just fails to acknowledge the collapse, avoidance of the problem, always got an explanation for what's going on, always has a justification for what's going on, always defending intentions like a bad outcome is justified if the intentions were good. But the reality is it doesn't matter what your intentions are. The only thing that really matters is the outcome that you produce. If you accidentally break somebody's arm, you've still broken their arm. They're still in pain and they're still suffering. So a great example of this is, you know, I've talked to business owners and they'll go, "I've got a great business, Cody. I just have some cash flow issues right now." And it's like, well, You don't have a— this is denial, this is self-deception. A great business throws off cash, it doesn't have cash flow problems. And this is an example of the failure to acknowledge the collapse. It's like if— and I'm just using this as a parallel example, right? If your business has cash flow issues, it's in collapse. And if you're saying, I have a great business, it just has a few issues, This is self-deception. This is denial. And many of us find ourselves here. We, we're not acknowledging the collapse that the marriage is in. We're not acknowledging the damage that's currently being experienced and that's been done. And what it comes down to ultimately is like, in a lot of the men that I work with, they, a lot of men on this call will show up and they think they have a headache and they need an aspirin when actually you need a double amputation. Both of those legs need to come off. And until we can accurately diagnose what's going on, we can't put an active, an accurate treatment plan in place to fix it. So pretty much the reason I've put this first is because all of the other 6 are going to kind of flow out of this, right? There's strategies to deal with the strategies to create self-deception, the strategies to allow you to remain in denial. Which is a very comfortable place to be. So what is the benefit of denial? Well, it means you never have to look at yourself. Means you— it means you never really have to take a hard look at what's going on and go, I did that, I caused that. And it eliminates the necessity for work to fix it. So the price you pay in self-denial is there's no growth, you repeat the same patterns over and over again, you experience the same outcomes over and over again, and fundamentally you become unreachable. As we go, as we go through these patterns here, these mind viruses, you'll see that really each one of them is a mechanism to avoid responsibility, to avoid pain. And when the avoidance of pain and the denial of truth becomes your primary objective, at that point you simply become unreachable, which is a lot of the issues that your wife has with many of you. She just can't reach you. She just can't get through to you because you're employing the mechanisms that we're going to go through here, and it's very problematic. So What's, what's the, what's the replacement attitude for self-denial? Well, it's radical honesty, right? It's looking at your situation and going, let my situation determine what's going on here, not my opinion. If your marriage is in collapse, then something's going wrong. If your marriage is in collapse, there's attitude problems, there's, there's all kinds of issues. And the life you live is the man you are. If your marriage is in collapse, then You have to look at that, right? And I say all the time, don't, don't listen to me. I'm not your guru. I'm not your coach. I'm not— I'm, I'm simply a mirror to hold up, a mirror to you to help you see reality, to help you see the situation as it is. So we need truth. We need external input. You can't see the problems yourself because you're in the woods, you're in the forest, you can't see the trees for the forest currently. So let's move on to the, to the mind viruses that are allowing you to stay in that place of really— this, this, this might seem like it's a negative presentation, but it's actually a very positive presentation because it's giving you the tools to get out of your own head, to get out of your own way, and to help you see the situation like your wife sees it, so you can really answer the question of what's in it for her. So number 2 is victimhood. So how do we recognize this? How do we diagnose this in our lives? Well, living in the past, explaining instead of changing. I hear all the time, well, I think if you understood my situation better, Cody Butler, you'd understand why I've done what I've done. Doesn't matter what you've done, it matters what you're going to do. I don't care how you got here, I care where you're going next. I don't care the reasons for the problems. I care what actions you're going to take to solve those problems. And really, victimhood, it produces a position of powerlessness for you. If you're a victim of your situation, then you have no ability to change your situation. And the example that I always use here to sort of crystallize this is I live in Sydney, which is— I don't know, it's probably the second or third most expensive housing market in the world right now. It's outrageous, it's ridiculous. And there's two, there's two types of people. People say, or people say, well, the housing market's too expensive, it's over— it's overvalued, the, the house prices are a problem. And it's like, well, you can look at it that way if you want to, but you're making yourself a victim of the free market. You're saying that the house prices are too expensive and that's why I can't get in the market, or that the housing market is overvalued and I'm a victim of that overvaluation, that's why I can't get in the market. Or you can take the other attitude, which goes— which is that actually, truly, the housing market is accurately valued, they're not overpriced because plenty of people are buying these houses. The problem is I don't make enough money. That's the real problem. The problem is my income is too low, which is taking responsibility. But as painful as that is to acknowledge, to say actually the problem with the housing market is I don't make enough money, you've just empowered yourself to change that. Now you can earn more money, you can, you can build a better business, you can get more skills, you can get a second job. A lack of income problem is solvable. An overpriced housing market is not. And then many people would not be— would not look at themselves as playing the role of the victim by saying the housing market is overpriced and that's the problem. No, you're a victim of the market. You're playing the role of the victim. You're making an excuse for your failure. You end up having to wait to take action, and the ultimate result of that is you become completely powerless. And again, understand, when I encourage you to take responsibility for your marriage, I'm not saying that your wife is not to blame or does not have a role in this. What I'm saying is you have no ability to act there. And when you make her the cause of the problem, or partially responsible, or co-responsible, and have co-responsibility in the problem, or all you're doing is victimizing yourself, eliminating your ability to enact positively on the relationship, and you're creating an environment of powerlessness. You're essentially neutering yourself. So what are the benefits? Why do we do this? Well, explanation removes responsibility, right? If you go, if the problem of the housing market is that it's overpriced, then that removes your responsibility to earn more money. You can feel good about the problem. You don't have to look at yourself and go, the problem is me. You can look at the market and go, the problem is the market. Well, again, that's fine, but you're not buying a house. That's fine, but you're not moving forward, and ultimately the market is moving on without you. And the same is true here. You can look at them, you can look at the marriage and say it's co-responsibility, she's equally equal in this, and that's fine. If that's what you want to do. But understand that that eliminates all pathways forward for you. It puts you in a position of complete powerlessness. So what is, what is the price for eliminating your sense of responsibility here? Well, the price you pay is that you can have nothing. Everything is taken from you. You, you sacrifice and you lose all power and agency. You ultimately collapse and you ultimately end up in a condition of slavery. The, the ultimate price you pay when you play the role of the victim, or you, you victimize yourself, is you're voluntarily entering into a condition of slavery. That will be where you end up, which I'm sure none of us want. So what is the replacement activity, right? What's the replacement attitude? Personal responsibility, ownership, and agency. I'm responsible. I'm responsible for this. The hell, I want to buy a house and they're too expensive. Well, I'm responsible for making more money then. I'm going to take ownership of that. I'm going to find a way to uplevel my skills. I'm going to have some agency here. I'm not going to take the problem and move it outside of myself into something that I have no ability to act upon. You've just voluntarily entered into slavery when you do that. So the next mind virus, number 3, which really is an extension of victimhood, is blame. It's— look, it— how do we diagnose this? How do we recognize this? Well, it's looking outward. She did this, she said that. Do you not understand the way she's acting, Cody Butler? She's like— I'm sure she is responsible. I'm sure she did those things. But at the end of the day, what, what the true fix to your marriage here is, and keep this in mind throughout this entire presentation, is you have to develop a pleasing personality. You have to become somebody people want to be around. You have to be someone people choose to be around. And again, somebody who's in denial, someone who's consistently playing the role of the victim, somebody who's in a position of blame, everybody and everything is responsible for my situation. Does that create somebody? Does that create a personality that you want to be around? Does that create a man that your wife chooses to be around? These, these are personality traits that will end everything good in your life. That there are few things worse than a man who can't take responsibility. And let me define that. Because I know some of you are going to go, so you're saying I'm responsible for her doing this, and you're saying that I'm responsible for having an affair, and you're saying that I'm responsible for— let me, let me break down the word responsible. Response-able. Are you able to respond to what's happened through choice? If your wife's done something that is not agreeable, we can even say that it's wrong. Are you able to respond? Are you able to choose your response to what's happened? Because if you are able to choose your response to what's happened, then you are response able. And when I say your response in every situation, man, you're responsible, what I'm actually saying is you are able to choose your response to this situation. I'm not saying that being responsible does not mean you caused it. Being responsible does not mean it's your fault. What being responsible means is I'm able to respond to what's happened here, and I'm going to choose a response that serves me. I'm going to choose a response that serves the marriage. I'm going to choose a response that serves the outcome. And when you choose blame, when you, when you blame your wife for what's happened, do you think that brings her closer to you or pushes her further away? When you choose responsibility and say, I'm going to choose to be responsible, I'm going to choose to not blame, I'm going to choose to not play the victim, I'm going to choose to empower myself. That's being responsible. That's being response-able. So what's the benefit of blame? Why do we do it? As I've said, everything we do has a benefit or we won't do it. If we can find the benefit, then we can eliminate the cause. So the benefit of blame is that you never actually have to address the real problem. You never have to look at maybe the problems inside of you. Maybe you, maybe you've outsourced that responsibility. So there's a price you pay for this. The price of having a blame personality, of having the blame mind virus, is nobody respects you. There are no results. Because in order to get results, the formula for results, the formula for saving your marriage, man, as I've said before, is try, fail, analyze, adjust. Try, fail, analyze, adjust. Your job is to try and fail. My job is to help you analyze. Our job is to create a plan to move forward and repeat the cycle. So when you're in a state of victimhood and blame, that cycle breaks down. The try and fail ends up— instead of the, the analysis of that situation turns into, she's to blame, the situation's to blame, this is to blame, that's to blame, my trauma is to blame, my parents are to blame, her family's to blame, the church is to blame, everybody's to blame, which makes it utterly impossible to create a plan to move forward. So you get no results, you ultimately have no respect from anybody, even yourself, no transformation takes place. You just get in this repeated cycle of conflict over and over again. And again, you're in slavery. You essentially become powerless. You voluntarily enter into a state of powerlessness. You eliminate all opportunity to fix the problem. So again, how do— what do we replace the attitude of blame with, the mind virus of blame? Full responsibility, curiosity, ownership. When something happens that you don't like, ask the question, what can I learn from this? What is, what is this teaching me about myself? What is this teaching me about my shortcomings? Many of us say we give lip service to the fact that we want to get better. Well, the only way you can get better is to, is to make mistakes. And then accurately analyze and diagnose how those mistakes had happened, and then put a plan in place to move forward. When you fail to acknowledge that, that you have any responsibility in the mistake, or you're responsible in the mistake, it creates a position to where there's simply no analysis can take place. If we arrive at a point to where whatever it is outside of us is to blame, we have no ability to act on that. Many of you have tried to act on your wife with no success. You can't act on anything other than yourself. So number 4 is entitlement, feeling as though you have some right to something. And really, I put— where I realized this in my life, and this is not necessarily— again, it's not obvious. We've got to, we've got to decide to become awake. We've got to decide to become self-aware, to actually see that we're behaving in a way that's entitled. Or else we go back to Mind Virus 1, which is denial and self-delusion. We're all acting in a way that's entitled to some extent. It's our condition as a human being. And I remember one of the most powerful things that happened to me in my transformation was I asked the question— what, for decades I asked the question, why me? Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me again? Why have I lost this relationship again? Why do people keep leaving me? Why am I— why me? Why me? But then one day it just dawned on me, it just popped into my head: why not me? What is so special about me that entitles me to that outcome? What is so special about me that entitles me to a good business? What is so special about me that entitles me to a marriage, to a relationship? To health? Why do I get to avoid all of those health problems and other people have them? And I realized that my entire attitude towards life was one of entitlement. I'm entitled to relationship, I'm entitled to health, I'm entitled to finances, I'm entitled to access to commerce and the markets, I'm entitled to all of these things. And when those things are taken from me or I'm not given access, I ask the question, why me? But that question opened the door to me to realize I am entitled. I feel entitled to everything. And what that entitlement does, it creates expectations that are unrealistic. It creates resentment because when those expectations are not met, I blame the other person, I blame the market, I blame everything other than myself. And it puts me in a position of complete disempowerment. Why do we do that? What is, what is the benefit of entitlement? Well, it's false certainty. We all crave certainty. It's why we're here. We want certainty that the pain's going to go away. We want certainty that she's going to come back, or we want certainty that everything's going to be okay. One of the easiest ways to get that certainty is through entitlement and also through self-delusion, right? Through self-deception. By feeling as though I'm entitled to this, I'm entitled to it, and eventually it will come around, I get certainty, but it's false certainty. And ultimately it's going to produce significantly more pain because I'm not entitled to a relationship unless I put in the skills to learn how to have a relationship, I'm not having one. And if I get it, I'll lose it. I'm not entitled to access to the marketplace. I'm not entitled to access to property or finances, and I'm not entitled to health unless I take the time and do the work to learn diet, exercise, and what a healthy lifestyle is. Then I'm simply not going to have it. If I don't do the work to understand myself, how I'm showing up in a relationship, how I'm making the other person feel, going that it doesn't— what the only thing that matters is how she feels in this situation, not what my intentions were in this situation. So the price you pay when you're in a position of entitlement, when you still have that, is you're in a state of delusion. You think you should get things that you're just not entitled to, and the end result is resentment when you don't get it. You feel like you've been hard done by, bitterness. Separation from reality, separation from the other person. When you, when you feel as though you're entitled to some level of response from your wife, when you feel entitled to some level of reasonableness from your wife, when you feel like you're entitled to her behaving in a certain way or giving you certain things or showing up at a certain time and having a certain conversation Or if you feel like you're entitled to her listening to you, that's entitlement. And the end, the end result is she's not going to meet those expectations, which she has no obligation to meet, by the way. You're going to get resentful, you're going to become bitter, and you're just going to expedite the separation. That's all that's going to happen. When you arrive at the point to my wife owes me nothing, I'm entitled to nothing, everything becomes a gift. It's very hard to have gratitude when you feel entitled to something. If you feel entitled to 10 out of 10 in the relationship and you actually get 7 out of 10, you feel resentment and bitterness, and it's very hard to feel grateful because you feel like what you've been entitled to has not been provided. If you realize that you're entitled to nothing and you get 7 out of 10, you have a feeling of immense gratitude. 7 out of 10 from a position of entitlement ends in separation. 7 out of 10 from a position of non-entitlement, from a position of why not me, ends up in, in an attitude and a demeanor that's beneficial to saving your marriage. So how do we, how do we replace this? Well, we have to replace entitlement with service, gratitude, and contribution. Very simple. Mind virus number 5 is pessimism. This, this is a terrible characteristic. Now again, the question is, you have to answer the question in the other person's mind: what's in it for me? And one of the ways I like I learned this a while back. How you introduce yourself is very important. People now, when I introduce myself to people, they say, "How are you?" I say, "I'm spectacular. I'm fantastic." And it brings about a response that people go, "That's amazing. What's going on?" It sucks them into the conversation. It makes them want to hear the conversation. It makes them want to engage with me because they think they're going to get something out of it. You know how rare it is to, when you're introduced to somebody, to get an optimistic, positive response from them? How's it going, John? Oh man, you don't want to know. No, you're right, I don't. How's it going, Matt? Don't ask. Thank you for warning me. I won't. Oh, almost everybody I know that I end up in a situation that I have to talk to them that I don't really want to, to be honest with you. Like church, for example, is a great, is a great example where you're in that environment where you kind of have to talk to people. The conversation begins with, "How are you?" And they go, "Oh, let me tell you." No, I'd rather you didn't, because nobody wants to be around a pessimistic person. Who wants to be around a pessimistic person? And let me, let me dispel a myth here. This is a big one, right? Pessimism is not realism. This is what most people say, "I'm not pessimistic, Cody, I'm realistic." No, you're not. No, you're not. You're pessimistic. Who wants to be around someone that has nothing good to say? Who wants to be around someone that complains all the time? Who wants to be around someone that's negative? It's a very undesirable characteristic that, again, when you understand that our goal here is to create a pleasing personality, to create a personality that somebody wants to be around— how do we diagnose this in our own life? Always expecting failure, always looking for the problems, always negative forecasting. Make the changes, man. Yes, but how will she see? She won't see them. How can she— she won't see the changes. It's like It takes about half a second when someone says that for me to go, this is a complete waste of time. It doesn't matter whatever I say to you, you're going to find a problem. Hopelessness. I understand what you're saying, Cody Butler, but what difference is it going to make if I can't get him? Like, this is pessimism. So what's the benefit of pessimism in your life? Well, it creates a 'why even try' attitude. It facilitates laziness. It facilitates a lack of effort. If there's a possibility of a successful outcome, then you have to, you have to try, or you have to take responsibility for the outcome. When you take a pessimistic view of the housing market and go, "The problem is the housing market, it's too expensive, it's unreasonable, and I have a very pessimistic view of it moving forward," you won't even try. You won't even make an effort. And worse than that, not only will you not make an effort, you will feel justified in your lack of effort. At the end of the day, man, you reap what you sow. And what I mean by that is if you don't put seeds in the ground, you don't get a crop. If you want a crop in, in the fall, if you want to harvest in the fall, you have to plant seeds in the spring. And if you don't, you get nothing. That's the only guarantee. The only guarantee here is if you plant no seeds in the spring, you get no harvest in the fall. And the pessimistic man will say, well, but what if there's a drought? What if this happens? What if the animals eat my seed? What if there's locusts? What if there's a hailstorm? What if, what if, what if I put all of this effort in and there's no outcome? What if I invest in the seeds and I invest in the time and I make the effort, and in the fall the crop fails. Well, all of those things are possible, but here's the only thing I can promise you: if you don't plant the seeds because of pessimism, I can guarantee you, you will not get a harvest. I can guarantee it. And here's the attitude, right, that overcomes pessimism. Life is cyclical, life is sequential, it's seasonal. If your crop fails in the, in the fall, guess what? The next spring comes every time. Spring comes around again and again and again and again. So the price you pay for pessimism is there's no hope. You haven't— you, you're in a constant state of hopelessness. Which again, pleasing personality. Who wants to be around someone who there's no hope, it's hopeless, everything is hopeless? Why bother? Why try? Why create a vision? It's not going to happen anyway. What's the point of even getting out of bed? There's no possibility of a better future. Let's put you in charge of the country. Let's put you in charge of the business. Let's put you in charge of the marriage. This is what pessimism produces. Let me ask you, is this— what's in it for your wife to be around a pessimistic man? What's in it for her? Nothing outside of your entitlement. The only reason that a woman would want to be around this level of behavior, pessimism, the only reason you could construe some kind of explanation or justification as to why she would choose to be around that is through an entitled narrative. You, you somehow feel entitled to her being around around you, even though, even though you have— you haven't planted in the spring. So the hope— the replacement behavior is hope, possibility, gratitude, and unreasonable optimism. Unreasonable, you know. And some of you are going, so I should just make stuff up, Cody, and just think everything's going to be fine with nothing Well, you think everything's going to be bad with nothing to back it up with. You're unreasonably pessimistic right now. You have no issue with being unreasonably pessimistic. You don't know how she's going to respond. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if it's going to hail or storm. You don't know if the rabbits are going to eat your crop. You don't know if there's going to be pestilence. You don't know if there's going to be fire or flood. Yet you have no issue taking pessimism as a position. Unreasonable optimism is no more unreasonable than the unrealistic pessimistic place that you've chosen to be. And again, let me ask you, pleasing personality— what's in it for me? Do you, do you want to hire somebody in your business that's optimistic and hopeful, or do you want to hire somebody who's unrealistically, unreasonably pessimistic? Do you want someone who has a problem for every solution, or do you want someone who has a solution for every problem? That's the choice that's presented before you. Many of you are here because you've chosen to have a problem for every solution, and you've outsourced the responsibility for those problems to blame, victimhood, entitlement, pessimism. You have nothing more— there's nothing more supporting your pessimism than your story, in the same way that there's nothing more supporting your optimism than your story. It's a choice you make. So the next one is defensiveness. So how do we recognize defensiveness? Explaining, justifying, arguing, ego protection, rejecting feedback, passive aggression. I understand what you're saying, Cody Butler, but I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. Okay, awesome. Now understand, defensiveness is also attack. So whether you are on the attack, attacking the ramparts of the castle, or whether you are the defender on top of the ramparts throwing down boiling oil, rocks, and arrows, you're attacking, you're doing damage, you're doing collateral damage. And again, if we want, we, we can start stacking these mind viruses on top of each other and go, well, I understand that, Cody, I understand that defensiveness is attack, but she said this, what am I supposed to do? That's blame. That's victimhood. I understand what you're saying, Cody Butler, you saying I shouldn't, I shouldn't defend myself. Well, if you defend yourself, you're shooting arrows. You're shooting arrows back. You're doing collateral damage. The only defense you have is defenselessness. That's it. Authority doesn't defend itself. Authority doesn't argue. Authority doesn't give reasons and excuses. Jesus is the great example, right? When they asked him, 'Who the hell do you think you are?' He goes, 'Whoever you want me to be. I'm whoever you want me to be. Who do you say I am?' Defenselessness. He didn't say, I'm, I'm God, who, who are you to question me? He said, whatever, like, you, who are you? Whoever you want me to be, whatever you want me to be. True authority doesn't argue. True masculinity doesn't argue. It's confident in who it is and what it is, and it doesn't need to defend itself. So the benefit to defense, a defensive personality, is it allows you to attack without responsibility. You get to shoot arrows, you get to throw rocks without the responsibility of it. Now here's the thing with, with battle, there's no winner. A, a, in, in a pitched bat— pitched battle between you and your wife, or two armies, or two anything, it doesn't matter. Is the worst-case scenario. Because even if you, even if you outnumber the opponent massively and you have the high ground and you're right in your moral position, there's no guarantee you're going to win. And you will take collateral damage when two, when two armies battle face to face on an open battlefield, one being the attacker and one being the offend the defender. Both sides take collateral damage. There's no winner. There's no guarantee who's going to win, and there is no winner because both sides take collateral damage. Even defense is negative. I would, I would present to you that the only position that you can truly take is defenselessness if you want to save your marriage, which again comes down to, do you want to be right or do you want to be married? So the price you pay when you're consistently defensive is nobody wants to be around you. Again, a lot of these, a lot of these habits play into this. Defense is— defensiveness is made up of— it can be made up of blame, it can be made up of victimhood, it can be made up of entire— it can be made up of all of these things. It's not my fault, it's not my responsibility, I didn't do this, this was done to me. I didn't choose this fight, Cody. I'm a victim of this fight. The previous mechanisms can play into this. This is why it's 7. We have to, we have to address all of them because they're not isolated. So when you become defensive, nobody wants to be around you. You're avoided by everybody. You're excluded from opportunity. Your blind spots and delusions remain, and your relationships at best stagnate. Again, I say it all the time, many men when I first talk to them want to explain how they got here. This is what happened, this is what I've done, this is what I do. It simply doesn't matter. I don't care what you've done, I care what you're going to do next. I don't care about your story, I don't care about it. I'll care what the story is going to be. What story are you going to write? Many of you feel if you can be understood, then it explains your situation and justify. It doesn't matter. You're in a mess, you're in collapse, you're in marriage breakdown. Doesn't matter how you got here. Doesn't matter who's to blame. Doesn't matter who threw the rocks, said the words, committed the actions. Doesn't matter. That's all victim mentality, entitlement, blame. Self-delusion. What are you going to do about it is the only thing that matters. So you have to replace it with— you have to replace defensiveness with hope, positivity, and unrealistic optimism again. So the final mind virus here, and again, this is, this is the combination. Without the previous 6, 7 does not become possible. Is complaining. Nobody likes a complainer. Nobody likes a whinger. Nobody likes somebody who is entitled, has a lack of gratitude, negativity. Nothing's ever good enough for them. I remember a story one time of a man whose life turned around, his marriage turned around, simply where he sat down at a dinner table after having a conversation like this. And his wife put a leathery piece of tough chicken on the table, and he goes, I'm so thankful for a hot meal. And that was so alien to her. That was, that was one of the catalysts to the transformation. Many of you ask, how can my wife— how will my wife see my transformation? How do I show it to her? How do I get her to see it? In ways that you're never going to understand. In ways that you're never going to imagine, is the answer. She, she's watching every action that you take, and you have no idea who's in the audience. You have no idea who's watching. I decided many years ago that I would never ever complain about a meal that I had no investment in ever again. I used to go around people's houses and like the food they cooked for me. I'd go to a restaurant and I'd complain. What an entitled attitude. What a lack of gratitude. This person's taken time and done their best to cook for me, and now it's not good enough for me? What, what are the chances of that person ever cooking for me again? The answer to the question of how does your wife see your changes— these is in ways you'll never— you could never imagine. You, you do not know who is in the audience, man. You do not know who's watching you. You do not know who's looking. I'm gonna put this part of the video— this— you may be watching this on YouTube or the replay on YouTube. I don't know who's watching it. I don't know what, what opportunity is watching this right now that I have absolutely no idea of, right? I have aspirations of what I want to achieve, in this case in my business, of where I want to take it and what I want to do. But when I understand that I have no idea who's in the audience right now, I have no idea who's watching this right now, how influential they could be, or the opportunity that they could present or the doors that they could open. Every video has to be— every presentation has to be addressed with the same standard. Every, every, every word, every idea has to be measured against if the person that needs to see this is watching this right now, what are they going to think? What are they going to see? What are they going to do? Or have I created an environment where I only act a certain way when I think certain people are watching, or I only do certain things and I only, I only put in the effort to reach a certain standard when I think it's to a certain advantage for me? No, I have to address— every word I say in this video has to be addressed to the person that's going to help me get to the next level. I don't know when, where, or how that's going to happen, and I guarantee you it's not going to happen how I think it is, or with who I think it is, or when I think it is. The same is true with you. You— the answer to the question is you have to assume that every thought you have is being heard, every word that you speak is being listened to, every action that you take is being watched. Because ultimately you don't know what's impacting her. You don't know what's having the impression on her that's actually making the difference. It's rarely, if ever, going to be what you think. And the example— both, I'll give you a couple examples— the, the example of the, the chicken that I just spoke of She said nothing to him. He found out weeks later from mutual friends where she, she was telling friends how impressed she was that the fact that he came home, sat down, and said, "I'm grateful for a hot plate of food." She didn't, she didn't tell him, and as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed within the marriage. Everything had changed within the marriage. He just didn't see it. If you need that constant feedback, if you need that constant validation, you're going to just— you're going to destroy your hope. The second example, as I've told before, but I, I have a precarious relationship with my mother-in-law. We're frenemies, friendly enemies. I came— we came home from a trip seeing the in-laws, my wife's family of origin, and she said nothing to me. My wife said nothing to me at any point. And I'm with my personal trainer, who my wife also shares, a week later, and she goes— he goes, you want some brownie points. Last time you was with your in-laws, your wife's impressed with you. I'm like, really? She hasn't told me anything about that. She hasn't mentioned that to me. And again, she— I had no idea that I was being watched. I had no idea that I was being evaluated. And she didn't tell me. She didn't give me the carrot. She didn't go, "You've done well, Cody. Here's a reward." She didn't say anything to me. She didn't even— she didn't even let me believe that I'd done something right. But she was telling other people— I heard it from a third party, my personal trainer told me, 'Your wife's really impressed with you.' And this is where it's like the seed. If you, if you plant a seed in the ground and all you do is like 15 minutes later you dig it up to see if it's growing, all you're going to do is kill it. You have to assume that you're being watched every minute of every day. You have to be unrealistically optimistic that the seed is growing. You have to be willing to accept the outcome that you may farm all year long only to have the harvest taken at the last minute. So here's the benefit, right? Why do we complain? Well, because it'll get you what you want most of the time. But the ironic thing is it gets you nothing. It doesn't get what you want. It pacifies you. It shuts you up. The last thing you want to hear from me in a coaching call is, "You're absolutely right," because now we've moved into pacification. You're absolutely right, John. You're absolutely right. When you complain, the squeaky wheel gets oiled first. When you complain, you get another plate of food. When you complain, you get a different outcome. But at what cost? People don't do what they do because they think you're right. They do what they do because you're inflicting pain. And giving you what you want gets you to go away. That, that's what happens. Complaining is the most damaging thing you can do to your marriage, your finances, your health, your spiritual life. It's cancerous. It's a cancer. How many of us enjoy people being around people that just complain all the time, do nothing but complain, complain for everything? I don't think any of us enjoy it. So the attract— the cost is you attract everything negative to you. You attract what you are. When you complain, you attract other complainers. When you're positive, you attract other positive people. Ultimately, when you complain, nobody wants to help you. And the end result of complaining is total and utter collapse. It will steal everything from your life. It is literally the most destructive behavior that you can engage in. Even if it's justified. So again, what do we replace complaining with? Gratitude. Become a man who has a solution for every problem. My mother-in-law has a problem for every solution. Doesn't, doesn't matter. She wants— she complains, you give her a solution to the problem, and she finds a problem with the solution. It's exhausting. And many of you are like that. I'll talk to you and I'll give you a solution. You go, "Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but." It's like, my goodness, man, like, do you want help or not? Or are you just going to find a problem with every solution that's presented? "Yeah, I understand, Cody, I can do that, but she's not going to see it, so what's the point?" 'Yeah, Cody, I can see that, but I think it's too late.' 'Yeah, Cody, but—' 'Yeah, but—' 'Yeah, but—' And emotional sovereignty, this is our— this is our goal for it. This is our goal as men, is emotional sovereignty, to be able to act independently. I'm doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. I'm doing the right thing regardless of the outcome. Because here's, here's the thing that you have to learn in leadership, is that you have to learn to give your time to people that deserve it, not people that need it. And when we, when we put that in the context of the marriage, do you do you deserve your wife's time right now, or do you just need it? Do you just need her time? It's very hard. I, I, I spend very little time, if any, with people who— like, everybody needs help, everybody needs advice, everybody needs it, but not everybody deserves it. And we all have a very limited number of resources. Like, if maybe, maybe if I had unlimited resources, things would be different. But in light of the fact that I do have limited resources, availability, and time, then I choose to spend my time with the people who deserve it, not the people who need it. And the same is true with your wife. At the end of the day, she has limited amounts of resources in terms of who she can give her attention to and time. Do you actually deserve that time right now, or do you just need it? Are you just entitled to it and you just think, well, because she's my wife she should give it to me. That's entitlement. The emotionally sovereign man says, I'm gonna— I'm going to move forward regardless. I'm gonna— I'm gonna plant the crop with no guarantee of a harvest. I'm gonna do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. I'm gonna assume that everything I say, everything that I think, everything that I do is being witnessed, it's being watched, and I'm going to hold myself to that standard. That's a man who deserves his wife's time. That's a man who deserves another man's time. The man who says, well, I need you to tell me, Cody Butler, what to say, I need you to tell me what to do— well, no, quite frankly, the ground doesn't respond to your need. The ground only responds to the seed that you plant in it. The ground just doesn't care about your need. And that's how we fix the marriage. We start planting seeds and we allow the ground to respond to the seed, not the need. So the summary here, and then we'll head over to Q&A, is the way that you think— your attitudes create behavior, your behavior creates the relationship. If your relationship is only how she is relating to you— relation, relate to— how she's relating to you. If you're negative, she's relating to you a certain way. If you're entitled, she's behaving, relating a certain way. If you're pessimistic, she's relating a certain way. If you want the person to relate to you differently, you have to show up differently and give them an option to relate to something different. Or in other words, you have to replace the operating system. You have to change the man. And when you change the man, you change the marriage. You cannot expect her to relate to you in a different way without giving her a different way to relate to. So that's it. That's the 7 toxic mind viruses. Let's jump over to— let's jump over to the Q&A.