DO NOT Compromise In This Area Of Your Life

What's going on? Gentlemen, welcome back to the mantalk Show. I'm Connor Beaton, and first off, I just want to say thank you to each and every single one of you who have been tuning in to the YouTube channel and to my podcast. It's been so incredible. The YouTube channel actually has been blowing up lately, you know, gaining 300% on the follower side, on the viewership side. And so thank you so much. I've been putting a lot of effort into that, and I appreciate all you guys tuning in, commenting. And so whether you're listening to this on Spotify or itunes, whether you're watching this on YouTube, just thank you so much for continuing to man it forward to continuing to share this content and the conversations with the guests that I'm having on the show. I have been working really, really hard to bring you some great content and great conversations. So as always, if you want to hear more of certain guests, DM me on Instagram mantalks, I'd love to hear from you. Today we're going to talk about the damage of compromise. And this is a very interesting topic because I see it talked a lot about by red pill. I see it talked a lot about, you know, within the therapeutic space, within relationships, within the psychological industry and the therapeutic complex. And one of the things that's fascinating about this very simple compromise is it can be helpful for our lives to know where and when we can compromise. But compromise can also be our demise. Right? Compromise might be your demise. And I know for me, compromise was my demise 100%. You know, in my 20s, there were times where I didn't pursue my goals. There were times where I wasn't actively pursuing the type of relationship that I wanted. I compromised in my morals and my ethics. You know, I didn't respect myself. And there's a great quote by Mahatma Gandhi where he basically said, all compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. So basically, what he's saying is, on the fundamental aspects of your life, there is no compromise. You know, this is where I see a lot of young men coming to me, a lot of men in general, and they're feeling lost, right? Maybe you feel like this. Maybe you felt like this sometime in your life where you're like, I don't really have direction. I don't really know what I want to be doing with my life. I don't really know if I'm in the right relationship, if this is the right woman for me. I'm really not Too sure. And one of the primary questions that I always ask is, are you compromising anywhere in those areas? Are you compromising on the fundamentals anywhere in those areas? Right? So in your intimate relationship, are you compromising on your fundamentals? In your job, in your career and your work, are you compromising on your fundamentals, on the fundamental values of what you cherish, of what you know is important, right? If you're in a relationship as an example, and one of the fundamental things that you value is connection is respect. But you're allowing the other person that you're dating or you're allowing yourself to act like an asshat and be disrespectful and to, you know, call them names or to let them call you names, then you're probably compromising on a fundamental that's eroding the foundation and the structure and the actual structural integrity of that relationship. And this is where a lot of men are struggling, right? A lot of us. A lot of the men that I work with, and I work with some incredible men, I work with men that are in the top of their field in real estate, the financial industry. It's like top class musicians that are very well known athletes, former Navy SEALs, I mean, you name it. I work with some of the most incredible men. I'm very lucky and very fortunate. But one of the first things that I always work with them on is where are you compromising on your fundamentals? Because this is what gets us into trouble. We just start to slowly let things erode. We compromise on the fundamental of how we want to treat our body, right? And so I see a lot of guys are like, ah, you know, I'm not in the shape that I want to be in, or I don't like the, you know, I don't like my mindset. It's like, well, you're probably compromising in some way, shape or form that is eroding the integrity that you have. I remember when I was a young man, not that I'm that old now. I mean, I'm turning 40 this year, but it's not that long ago. But, you know, I remember when I was in my 20s, I was compromising on a fundamental value. And that value was that I wanted to be a man of respect and a man of integrity, period, full stop. And I wasn't, you know, I was lying, I was cheating, I was unfaithful. I really wasn't somebody that I respected. And so because of that, because of that, compromising on my fundamental values, compromising on what I knew to be important. I always felt lost. I always felt in disarray. I always felt like I can't get my shit together, you know, and. And that's because I was compromising on some foundational pieces of who I knew I wanted to be as a man. I was also compromising in the sense that I wasn't telling people what was going on in my life, you know. And so I remember last year or the year before, I worked with this gentleman who was a lawyer and older than me, you know, in his late 50s, had built this empire, really had built this monstrous business within. Within the legal system and very successful. And, you know, had been divorced and had some kids and kind of done that thing and was dating women and had fallen for this one woman who he really liked, but he was allowing her to get away with things in the context of the relationship, in the context of their life. That were compromises on his own integrity. There were compromises on what he wanted in a relationship. And so she would do things and say things, and he wouldn't set a boundary with it. He wouldn't say, listen, I'm not going to tolerate this. This actually isn't okay. This is disrespectful. I'm not interested in this. And he would go along with it because he wanted the relationship to work. And here's this very powerful man who would not compromise like that in any other area of his life. He wouldn't compromise like that within his business, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten to where he was. But when it came to matters of the. This is very common for us as men, right? There's one part of our life where we think I have to compromise in order for it to work. I have to compromise in order for the relationship to work or the business to work. And so we start to cut corners. Now, I'm not saying in a relationship that it doesn't require some compromise. And this is where it gets tricky, right? This is where the gray area comes in. Relationships do require give and take, right? Like, there's going to be times where you want to go see a certain movie and the person that you're dating doesn't want to go do that and they want to go out for dinner and you're like, ah, I actually don't care that much. And so I'm going to. I'm willing to compromise on this and let's go have dinner, I'll take you out on a date and like, let's go. And so there's those types of compromises which, you know, if you do that again and again and again and again and again, it erodes your sense of self worth, it erodes your sense of self respect, respect, you begin to come to be resentful. But if you do it once in a while, right, if you allow that compromise to happen, that give and take actually nurtures and sustains a relationship, right? Because that's how relationships work. They are reciprocal. If you are in a non reciprocal relationship where you're either only giving or only taking, it's not going to feel fully rewarding for a number of reasons that we don't need to get into. But so those types of compromises, those are okay? We need to execute on those things. We need to discern where we can give and take. We need to discern where we can compromise and that it's okay. But the main one that we cannot compromise on are our fundamental values, our fundamental goals, our aims, the things that we know are important for our own masculine core, for our own sense of self identity and self worth. These are the things that you can't compromise on. You know, if you're in a relationship with someone and she's acting out of integrity and you're allowing it, you know, she's speaking to you in a way that is disrespectful, you know, becoming violent or you know, threatening certain things, or being disrespectful and calling you names, or she wants a kind of relationship structure that doesn't work for you, all of that compromise is going to lead to a kind of self erosion and it's going to lead to a kind of self destruction of you or the relationship that is not sustainable, right? It's not sustainable at all. So we can't compromise on fundamentals, we can't compromise on fundamental values, on fundamental integrities, on fundamental ways of being and versions of who we are, we can't compromise on those things. But it's the everyday things that we can begin to have some sway on. I think this is super important because we don't want to become so rigid that we're unwilling to have any compromise with the people that are in our lives. Our friends, our family, our partners, our kids. Like, if we never compromise with anybody in our life that is not workable or sustainable and it's not relational. And as human beings, we are relational beings. And one of the biggest challenges that a lot of men have is being relational in a really powerful way where they're leading and where they are operating with respect. And so if you're wanting to be successful in your relationship, if you want to be successful in your life, if you want to be successful in your career, in your purpose, in whatever you do, you need to start to look at where you are compromising. Are you compromising too much? Are you compromising not at all? Or are you compromising on your fundamentals? Right. Are you compromising on the things that are actually causing other people to walk all over you, that are causing you to lose respect for yourself? So if you're watching this on YouTube, comment below. Let me know what you thought, let me know what you would add to this. And as always, thank you so much for joining. Continue to man it forward and share this episode with somebody that you know could use it and will enjoy it. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off. Be well.