“Men: Surrender to Win! Control Yourself, Change Your Life” by Michael Jaquith

Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we're excited to welcome life coach and chemist Dr. Michael J. to the show. Hey, how you doing, Dr. Mike?

I'm doing awesome. Today is a beautiful day. We don't have snow on the ground yet. I'm excited. Let's— I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, we don't have snow either, but you know what, actually sometimes we're not seeing snow until January. Sometimes, man, like last Christmas we went without a snowy Christmas. So I know some people like the snow. I'm not a big fan of it, so It is.

I love it. So it's all good.

Oh man. So Mike, man, tell us a little bit about yourself, man, about your background.

So I'm a successful life coach now, but this is not where I started. And so I grew up in northern Michigan, actually quite a ways north of you, up near the tip of the Lower Peninsula. And I grew up in a family that was pretty broken. There was a lot of abuse, a lot of yelling, a lot of anger. And when I was in 6th grade, my dad went to jail for 10 years. And so that kind of set the stage for what I was like as a young man. I was angry, I was hurting, and I was just had a chip on my shoulder the size of the world. Does that make sense? Like, make it sense so far?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes what we see, you know, it shapes us, especially as kids, you know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes we don't know why we— or teachers or other people don't know why we angry, because it's built in, you know what I'm saying? And we let our built-in anger come out into the world sometimes.

Well, I was angry, and I was smart, and I knew how to use my wit to hurt people, and I did that a lot. And so here I am, you know, this young man, and I knew I didn't want to do what my dad did. That's like really all I knew. And so my mom, she's like, you should go become an engineer. I'm like, why? She's like, because you make a lot of money. I'm like, oh, that sounds good. I like money. That sounds like fun. Let's go do that. So I go off to college, right? And I drank like a fish. I chased the ladies. I wasn't very good at chasing ladies. I'm a little too nerdish for that, at least certainly back then, right? And so I tried chasing them, at least the online ones. Those, I could catch those ones. And drink like a fish through undergraduate. And I graduate with degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering. And so then I decide, well, I don't know if I like this job. I'm not really ready to grow up and be a man yet. So let's just keep the school thing going. And I started looking around and I went to graduate school. And this sounds crazy sometimes I tell the story this way, but I said, you know what, I want to make a lot of money, so I'm going to get a big doctorate degree and I'm going to do all that stuff. And so I did it. I went to Cornell and I got a doctorate in chemistry. And at this point in the story, you'd say, cool, Michael shed his past behind, right? But no, in the middle of this mess here, I still have all this anger. I have not found forgiveness for my father. I have not found forgiveness for my mother. I still like very little self-love, self-respect. Inside, I'm still a hot boiling mess. I've just learned to put a lot of fancy robes on the outside of it.

Yeah, I understand what you mean by that. I know it's somewhat— it says in the scriptures, you know, like, on the outside we like this and on the inside we all messed up. You know, we looking good outside, but on the inside we all messed up. So I see what you said about the robe type thing.

Well, one of these I really struggled with was understanding a proper role of sexuality. And, you know, here I am, a young man, and some of my father's crimes involved sexuality. And so that, to me, especially, you know, the sins of the father echo down kind of a philosophy. And so here I am trying to figure this out. I'm still chasing ladies, occasionally catch them, but even when I catch them, I don't know how to care for their hearts. You know, I'm kind of one of those dudes that honestly, I hope my daughters never meet someone like me, that I was like back then, because I was angry, hurting, and not caring. You know, I probably would have scored fairly high on like a narcissism scale at that point. Like, I was kind of a jerk. Yeah. And so towards the end of graduate school, I was starting to get a sense that my life wasn't working out. Like, I just wasn't happy. I was angry and just miserable. And like, I played ultimate frisbee. I actually played on the official Cornell frisbee team for a little while. I had a blast with that. I was athletic enough to get around, but I was so angry and upset inside. And so we don't go too deep into it, but part of my journey then was that I found the faith. And so I found my own faith, and that was a very important part of my— for And for those of you who have an adult conversion experience, you probably testified to this. It feels really good for a little while, but it doesn't fix all the stuff that's still going on inside of you. Like there's still so much more work to be done. So it's January 2008, right? And we, of course, all remember what happened in 2008. I'm applying for jobs. I've got my PhD and I have all these first-round interviews. And the one thing I told everyone is I said, I'm going to stay in the Midwest. I love the Midwest. I'm not going anywhere other than the Midwest. Then 2008 hits and every single Midwest company is like, nope, we're not hiring. The only place hiring is Intel in Portland. And I was like, no way, no how, I'm not going to Portland. That's crazy talk. I'm a Midwest guy, right? Well, God has a sense of humor, right? So I walk to my boss, my advisor, and I'm like, I'm not taking the job. He's like, cool, I'm not paying you either. I'm like, oh, I guess I'm taking the job. So I packed up and went to Portland. And I arrive in Portland and this is where the story starts to get a little more interesting, right? I still haven't really solved any of my drama inside. I still haven't dealt with any of this. And about a year after I arrive in Portland, I'm working for Intel. I do phenomenally well at Intel, actually. I've got the personality I have that makes me such a jerk is actually really successful there. It's, it's a, it's a successful technique. I meet this girl, and, you know, I've chased a lot of girls, and this girl's a little different. She also is faithful, and pretty quickly we just learned, hey, there's something here that's more than just, you know, a casual relationship. So about a year and a half after we met, we courted, and then we were engaged for about 8 months, then we were married. And, you know, I don't know about your experience, but a lot of men I've known, they're like, I've been addicted to porn, I've been chasing girls all my life, but I'm married now, so those problems are solved, right? No, not remotely. Marriage doesn't solve problems. Yeah, right. And so here I am, and now I've just dug myself in deeper. My wife and I said, well, we are not going to have any children for the first couple years, get ourselves some time to get some money, kind of figure ourselves out. Boom, honeymoon baby pregnancy. Okay, that wasn't the plan. Well, sometimes they say that God has a sense of humor.

Yeah.

So here comes this first baby. Now all of a sudden I'm married, my wife leaves her job, which is fine, I'm making tons of money at Intel, but she's at home and she's miserable. She's always worked, she loved working, and she's pregnant and miserable from that. And all the stuff I thought I was getting for marriage, you know, if you know what I mean, all of a sudden isn't coming. I'm like, what's going on here? And all that anger I never dealt with, oh, that's still right there. It's ready.

Yeah, that would— hey, I, I did— that would pull it out of a man, you know, that what you're talking about, that'll pull it out. Like, what you mean? You know, this is not happening today. And so if you did have anger problems, then that would even make you even more angry. So you talk about Intel, like, let me ask you a question, man. So yeah, yeah, why did you decide to leave corporate America and pursue life coaching?

So we're almost at that point. We're very close now. Let me— maybe I'll jump straight to that, my story. So I did very, very well at Intel. I'm being promoted, I'm making lots of money, all the benefits, all the perks, right? And my wife pops up one day, and she is an entrepreneur to the core, right? Like, just that— there's something in some people, I think it's a brain parasite, that makes them really, really love making businesses, and she's got it, right? And so she says to me, Michael, I think we should go do businesses. And I said to her, my dearest wife, that's a terrible idea. Let's not do that. Right? And so I got everything I need here. I've got money, I've got security, I've got safety. And to be honest here, CJ, my faith was a big part of this. And at this point, we had 3 kids and we had a 4th on the way. We now have 6, by the way. And I just remember I was just really trying to explore my life and what matters to me. Where does my purpose come in? And I loved Intel. They make great products, but it wasn't fulfilling this deeper piece of what I wanted. And I looked like I was given the world's best boss. Let me just maybe pause, and this was inspiration for why I decided to leave a little bit. My best boss, he was so amazing. He was so insightful and compassionate. My first team that I was given to manage, within one year, they all wanted to quit because of me. I was that bad. And He comes up to me and he sits down in the meeting. He says that to me. I'm like, whoa, did not see that coming. I thought I was pretty awesome, right? And he looks at me in the eye, he says, but Michael, I see potential in you. And if you're willing to take feedback, to be coachable, I'm gonna give you another team. Yeah. And he did. And he was ruthless. And he pointed out every time that I was a self-centered turd, but he did it in a loving way that nurtured me into a man that when that original team member— he reassigned them all to other teams with a more functional leader, not me. And 2 years later, one of them happened to be at my meeting. And on the way out, he pulls me aside almost violently by the collar. He says, Michael, we got to talk. I said, yeah, Josh, what's up? What happened to you, dude? Like, what happened? You were a complete raging a-hole before, and now I find myself liking you. That's not possible. And so that transformation for me was happening concurrently with a lot of the stuff I finally am working on, was finally confronting some of this anger going on. Kids are great at making you see your own anger. And I thought to myself, wow, I have something there. I love reading and listening to Dr. Jordan Peterson. He talks about finding your purpose, embracing responsibility, finding a heavy load and lifting it. And I'm not trying to say that working for Intel was not a heavy load. Again, they do great work. There's good stuff there. But the heavy load that appealed to me, that drew me, was lifting people out of their own depths of yuck. And my life was beyond a hot mess. I left bodies behind me scattered around in emotional ruins because of how messed up I was. And you want to talk about God, you want to talk about this boss, all these various factors aligned to help me become someone better. And when my wife says, I think we should go do these businesses, I'm like, no, still too crazy. And so I took it to prayer, I took it to reflection, and I really just wrote and I wrote about what matters to me. What do I want my legacy to be? Like, when I look back, And my kids remember the man that was their father, Michael. What are they going to say? That he made really great processors at Intel? That's not a bad legacy, but it's not the one that I felt called to. And it was tough, CJ. It was tough. So when you first decide to leave, you want to inch your little toe into the water of leaving, right? And you're like, maybe a little bit. And that doesn't work. It's fast. It was fast and it was furious. And I remember it was like within just a few months of leaving, I was like, why did I do that? It was so painful because you're just used to money magic. Magically shows up in your bank account every month. You don't have to look for it. She's like, ba-boom, a nice big fat check arrived. Where'd it go? That check's supposed to be there. I feel like the guy in the office space, like, where's my stapler? Where is my check? It is not there right now. Why do I not have my money? It's in my bank account. And well, that's not how entrepreneurship works. For those of you who've, you know, made that switch, it's, it's a roller coaster. Yeah, some months you get zero, some months you get slightly more than zero. Those are the good months. Yeah, but really, I think it was really pursuing purpose and trying to find, like, why did God put me on this Earth? And again, nothing wrong with making silicon conductors. Awesome people, awesome work. But that wasn't what he put Michael on the earth for.

So on top of that question, like you say, searching for your purpose, uh, going into entrepreneurship and leaving Intel. So what inspired you to become a champion for men and helping them get more out of life?

There's no one there for me. You know, when my dad left And I think this is a major problem with our times. You look back 200 years ago, people almost never moved very far. And so you'd grow up in the small little town, village, community, whatever, where you knew everyone and everyone knew you. And so you had your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and you got, you know, old Bill over there has been watching. He's known you since you were pooping your diapers. He walks and he says, Michael, whack, you're doing it wrong, here's what you got to do. Well, we don't have that anymore. We don't have those communities with those thick connections and tight relationships. And what we're watching is we're watching people of both gender just get left in the dust and spiral out into their own problems. Now, I'm by any means trying to take away women's problems. They're real, but I'm not a woman, so I'm not, you know, quite as qualified to speak for them as I am about men's problems. And I've seen a lot of men's problems. I've lived a lot of men's problems. Part of my own journey to finding forgiveness for my father for what he did to me and what he did to my sister was going deep into the psychology of what are men's problems, how do our brains work. And despite what a lot of people might want to say, men's and women's brains work very, very, very differently. If you are married, you know this. If you're not married, you probably just don't know this too. It's not hard to see.

Yeah.

And right now there's not a lot of great support for, especially for faithful men who are like trying to do this thing and follow their faith and, and it's not working and they don't know why and no one's able to help them. And a lot of it's because the way that help is delivered in our society isn't compatible with men. I mean, I'm just going to call this out. Like, I love therapists. Therapists do great work. And when you have capital T trauma in your life, therapy can be awesome. I went to a therapist for years for what happened in my childhood. Good work, good stuff. However, there comes a point when a man needs to move past therapy, and he doesn't need the tender, soft approach. He needs a good swift kick to the bum and to be like, dude, step it up, man it up, enough playing around. You're not that little boy anymore. You've done that work, that healing's done. Now, man— Here in America, work is in trouble. We've offshored our manufacturing, sent away good jobs, and lost so much ability to make things. American Giant is a company that's pushing back against this tide. They make high-quality clothing— sweatshirts, jeans, dresses, jackets, and so much more— right here in the USA. Visit American-Giant.com and get 20% off your first order when you use code STAPLE20 at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com, promo code STAPLE20. And up and go find a load and carry it. And that's the piece where I believe we don't have the support anymore, certainly not within the faith community.

Yeah, I mean, just life, period, you know what I'm saying? Like, like you say, faithful men, men that, you know, love God and just following the word and trying to do the best they can. But then on the outside too, man, you know, it's like, like they say, we plant seeds. So we got to plant seeds all over because it's affecting the whole community, you know what I'm saying? Like, because like you say, you say women problems and men problems, and I'm like you, I feel the same way. I'm not a woman, so I don't know women problems like that, or what they think, or how they go through. I know we were just talking about this the other day. I know one thing, men don't think like women. Like, they may be thinking about stuff that I had no— I had no idea what you was thinking about, you know. Why you just didn't say something? And then they get upset because we don't think like they think, you know. So it's just different. But I agree with you, man, that we need more men like yourself and others out here, man, that's just trying to reach men because of the love that we have for men because we have been through certain things, certain struggles in life that we can give value to other men. Where I'm not going to say that you're not going to go through that, but I can plant a seed where you may not have to go through that, you know what I'm saying? You can probably avoid some of the pitfalls that I put myself in. And it's up to us to put it out there like that, man, because men looking for stuff like that.

So when I was in Portland, there was this really cool system of tunnels called Ape Caves just off Mount St. Helens. And it's this lava tube underground that goes for miles underground, pitch black, absolutely pitch black lava tube. And if you're in there and your flashlight goes out, you are, you are just in a lot of trouble. Like, it's, it's windy, goes up, sometimes jumps up 4 feet, you know, jumps left, right, and you have to squeeze through a few spots. It's really cool. But I use that as a great metaphor for, I think, what it's sometimes like in life. And when you're in those dark tunnels, and a lot of men right now are in those dark tunnels, and they don't know which way is up, they don't know where to go, they got no light, they can't see it. It's not like I can change the tunnel, but I can be in there. I know the tunnel, I've gone through those tunnels, and I got a flashlight. And flashlights, it's so much different to have someone else there with a flash that says, yeah, you got to go up 4 feet here. It's going to be a scrabble. You're going to climb up this little wall and yeah, you might skin your knee a little bit, but it's worth it because this is the way to go. And that is what men need men for. Now, when you look at the Proverbs, as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. A lot of people quote that verse. Very few people think about it. Have you ever seen iron sharpen iron? It's sparky, it's hot, it's friction. Like, it's not comfortable. Both beasts are saying, this sucks, I don't like this. Yeah, that is the process we men go through. Women have a different process, but the process men go through involves that discomfort, and it helps so much to have someone else there to do it beside them.

Yeah, it does, man. I totally agree with what you're saying because as men, we got pride, we got egos, you know. And a lot of men, especially today, don't want other men telling them what's wrong, you know. Like, if somebody come tell you something and you'd be like, nah, Mike, that ain't right, that, you know, that don't make sense, or what you're saying, or what you, you know, what you did. They don't want to hear that. We in a society now, people just want you to agree with what they're saying regardless of, you know, saying how the situation may be. And I wouldn't be a good friend, or I wouldn't be iron sharpening iron, as you say. I wouldn't be sharpening you if I told you something that I felt in my heart that was wrong, that's not right, you know. But We don't like transparency, you know, as it is today. As you was alluding to earlier, it's just certain elements that we're missing that we had back in the day that we don't have no more. And so in this society that we living in now, men just don't want to be corrected, you know. We want to feel like, oh, this is my household, I run it the way I want to. That's true, but that don't mean that you're not doing things the wrong way, man, you know what I'm saying? That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that I'm perfect, that I got a perfect household, but I do know right from wrong.

Most the time when I'm working with a man, I'll say something like, I've done that too, here's how it turns out. And you know, that sort of stuff is so helpful. John Maxwell has this great line, he says, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's the other half of this equation, is we live in a world that's so shallow. And yeah, another man might call you out, but if you don't know him, if you don't have a caring relationship built up You don't feel that he genuinely loves you, not in some homosexual way, but in the original word of the word love, which is, you know, philia, this brotherly love that I can look at you, my brother, and having never met you before, I can say that I love you and I care for you. I want your life to be better. And there's this bond that can come that when that caring and that connection is in place, all of a sudden now becomes possible for me to say, all right, CJ, you know, here's the deal. I'm really struggling. You know, there's this other girl at the gym and I can't keep my eyes off her. And I don't know what to do about it, man. My brain just feels like being taken over. And when you have that conversation with another man, it's totally different. I think a lot of men have this idea that they can have this sort of relationship with their wife, and our wives are awesome, don't get me wrong, but they're not made for this sort of connection. It's actually— metaphysically is the wrong spot to do it. You undermine the nature of masculinity when you go to engage in the conversation with some of these topics with your wife. And so wives are wonderful, But it doesn't work like that. And so we men need men.

You know what, Mike, I'm gonna say this, man. We go to another question because I feel you. I was just talking to somebody the other day about this. Like, you had a party, right? Or, you know, we had a gathering, a gathering, and the men out in the garage and we out here talking and women in the kitchen and they in there talking. You got men that nowadays that don't even want to sit out and talk to the men having men talk. They'd rather be in the kitchen having women talk with the women. Well, when we start doing that, you know, that's just the way we live it right now, man.

It's when we stop celebrating masculinity.

Exactly.

Both masculine and femininity have amazing parts and horrible parts. You can both be toxic. They can both be abundant and life-giving, and they both need to be celebrated, and they both need to be steered correctly. And it's, it's— there's no like one-sidedness there. And our society has lost sight of the life-giving components of masculinity.

I totally agree with you, man. Hey, so Mike, you said something earlier. You said your wife, she had this mind to create businesses and things of that nature, and you know, you stepped away from Intel to do exactly that. So what type of businesses have you and your wife come up together with, and could you tell us a little bit about those ventures?

Okay. So that's a big question. There's— when you have a true-to-the-blood entrepreneur, that's gonna be a long answer. I'm gonna leave aside the ones that were a business she started, like she had a photography business. I don't know if she ever made any money with it, but she had a photography business. It was legally filed and all that. But the big ones were our first foray, and this is funny, and this is a whole different story about how God led us into this one, was actually owning a fence installation contracting company. It's very funny how we came to that, but we did that. We took that from being deep red to being a very productive company. And then the other big one, and we've now split this, is these life coaching companies. And so she has a life coaching company for women that has been split, and I have one for men. And hers has been split because she's been bringing in more partners and kind of developing different stuff. And there's— it's now a lot of different stuff on her side. I've actually been helping run— I'm the organization systems guy, and she's like the dreamer.

Okay, gotta have both, gotta have both. Speaking of life coaching, Hey man, tell us a little bit about your podcast Catholic Life Coach for Men. What motivated you to start it and what message do you hope to convey?

Well, first you may have noticed I like to talk, and so when you like to talk a whole lot, the podcast makes a great form. On that note though, this is so interesting how the timing of this question— last night, as the time of our recording here, uh, Joe Rogan released his interview with Donald Trump. Within the first, what is it, 12 hours, it had 11 million views on YouTube alone, and that's not counting whatever is listening to on this primary channel, which is the audio channel. And I'm of the opinion that podcasts are the new media. Like, nowhere in the conventional media in this entire presidential race have they come even close to anyone getting that many views on anything. And so I think this is— podcasting is the spot to be. Audio content is awesome. That said, I love to talk, and here's the real deal with my podcast: every single thing I teach, you'll find in my podcast. I've got over 200 episodes out there now, like 230-some, and everything's out there. It's not quite as well put together. I can't hold your hand because it's just a podcast, but everything's out there. And I talk to a lot of men who say, Michael, I'm in deep trouble. I can't get this to work, but I got no money. Like, literally, I can't even buy food. Like, great, you don't have to sign up for coaching. Listen to my podcast. I just finished an 8-part series on humility. And if someone's looking for a spot to get to know how my podcast works, go through those 8 episodes. It was so painful. I had to put a few interviews in between because you can only talk about humility for so long before you're like, ah. Anyways, but it's really— I think, I think pride is the sin of our time. And I mean the sin both in the religious sense but also in the secular sense, that we are so prideful, we're so unwilling to look at our screw-ups. That was me when my boss pulled me off the side and slapped me upside the head metaphorically by telling my team I wanted to quit. I wasn't willing to look at where I was screwing up. And I think that is— if you were to start some of my podcasts, start with that Humility series. It's very effective for a lot of men.

Okay, so we can find the Catholic Life Coach for Men.

Yep. So I'm an engineer, I don't come up with clever names. My wife does the clever names.

She's got more names like in 5 seconds than I come up with in 5 days, right?

And so I look to myself, well, what am I? I want to be a life coach. I want to work with men. Okay, cool. But I think the faith is important. I'm a Catholic. I have a lot of Protestant clients. Like, I— as long as, you know, you're in the faith, in the Judeo-Christian faith— I even had one Jewish person I worked with, that's totally fine too. But I think the faith perspective does shift how you look at the world, and it puts a clear— there is something out there bigger and more important than me that I can orient my life in regards to. And we human beings, we are creatures of aim. The technical word for that is teleological. If you look at how our eyes work, the The last bulk of our eyeball is that little tiny 2-3% of the center point of our vision where all— it's all the hot spots in the brain's focusing, right? And so that's just how we work. And so this is me. I don't have clever names. I'm a Catholic. I do life coaching. I work with men. Catholic Life Coach for Men. Sounds good.

All right, hey, you heard it right here. Go check out his humility 8-part series on Catholic Life Coach for Men with my man Mike. Hey Mike, so tell us, man, when it comes to men gaining more control in their lives, What are some of the key steps that we can take?

The first thing is we have to surrender the outcome. You know, I think a lot of times as men, we like this notion that I can guarantee what the outcome of a decision will be. And when I surrender that outcome and I realize the only thing I can control is how I show up, I can control myself and what I do, things start to change. Let me give you a great example here. I sometimes have a short temper. You may— we may have come up with this a little bit. I have 6 kids, which means I have ample opportunity for that temper to be tested. So just this morning, we don't have to go very back— far back in time at all. I want to be out the door by 9:30 with the kids loaded up in the van. All right. And if you know anything about kids, your timelines don't always necessarily align with theirs. Sometimes they discovered last minute they don't have clothes on or shoes on, or they haven't gone to the bathroom, or this list is long. They suddenly discover these things, right? And if I have an agenda to be rolling by 9:30 Well, that's going to be a problem because that's the outcome I want. But here's the deal: I have to control myself. And so when it's 9:35 and one of the kiddos yells, 'I have to party for the fifth time,' I can lose it on them and become a raging rageaholic, which is a lot of fun, feels good, but ultimately does not help the situation at all. And, uh, or I can just say I don't control the outcome. This is where the faith comes in. I would say God's in control of the outcome, and he's going to allow that if the kiddo absolutely has to potty at 9:35 and we don't roll till 9:39— not saying this happened, it's possible that this might have gone down this way this morning— and that's okay, that rolling at 9:39 is all right, and that God will bring around whatever needs to happen for the day, even if I leave at 9:39. And now all of a sudden I'm released from this tension, the stress that I have to guarantee this outcome, and I have so much more self-control over myself. I'm able to show up as the loving father that I want to be. That doesn't mean I get the kid away. He still gets to— he or she, I'm not gonna mention any names here— still gotta talk. You're saying, come on, kiddo, I told you 10 minutes ago to go to the bathroom. You were standing there by the door and you didn't do it. You know, there's a discussion. Yeah, it's a discussion that can come from a place of love and a place of nurturing rather than a place of being out of control. And this is equally as true if you want to talk about your performance at your work, you know, your relationship with your wife. Any man who tries to control the outcome with his wife will learn pretty quickly that doesn't always work out. And instead, if you look just to control, how can I show up as the man I want to be? One of the other steps I tell men a lot is watch your speed. When we men start going really fast because we're stressed and have to do it right now, whatever happens next generally isn't good. It's just a general rule. And just take 5 seconds. 5 seconds. It sounds so short and it feels like an eternity just to breathe. Take 5 seconds and you might discover that And then here's the question I tell them afterwards. What's actually important here? I'm going to share a story from my clients real quickly. So here's the story of the client. He is in a situation where there's a friction point with his wife and this friction point has come up a lot through the marriage as they tend to do. We always argue the same thing, which is really nothing. And she triggers that friction point again and he followed it. He did 5 seconds. He did 5 seconds, he breathed, what's really important? You know what he realized? And this was amazing. This is an amazing insight that occurred to him. He actually didn't care about that point at all. And he realized he was prideful that he was caring for it. He looked at his wife, he said, "You know, honey, I'm sorry. I see that I've done this poorly in the past. I love you. I don't want to go down that path again." It caught her flat-footed. She was like, "What? Wait, that's not the dance. This is not how we do it." We know what happens when I say the friction point, right?

Yeah.

And she was like, "Oh, oh." And I'm not saying it went perfect, but it was a total change. And him realizing he surrendered that outcome and just show up the way he wants to be, what's actually important in life. He was so proud of himself, and I gave him a lot of cheers too. It was good. It was well done.

Yeah, I like that. Put hot coals on their heads and you'll simmer a whole lot of situations, you know what I'm saying? Kill them with kindness. When they want to come to you with something, like you say, okay dear, I love you, you know? Wait a minute, I wasn't expecting that outcome, right? Yeah, I get that one. So, so Mike, man, I only got a couple more questions for you, man. As we was talking about marriage and you was talking about your client What advice do you have for men looking to improve their relationships and marriages?

Number one thing is you have to have other men. You have to have other men that are in it to be real. Let me actually tell you a quick story right there. So I go to the CrossFit gym, and there's another man there who I— we've known each other for a while, and he had not been there for a few days. He wasn't traveling, nothing's going on. And I— and he shows up, I could tell something was bugging him. And I walk up to him, his name is Travis, and I say, Travis, how's it going? Oh, great, great, everything's great right now. And I just paused and I looked at him and I said, Travis, how's it actually going? His head dropped and he said, not so great. And we got to talking. And we need men that are willing to be there, to be vulnerable. And Travis said a few things and I said, you know, that's so interesting. I'm struggling with some stuff like that in my life right now too. And I shared, here's kind of what's happening for me about this. And here's an area where I dropped the ball here. He said, yeah, that sounds a lot like my story too. And we need other men who are willing to do that. I'm at the point now, I'm too old to have relationships with men that just want to talk about sports or the weather. Like, hey, look, I love the weather. Like, I'm an outdoorsman. Weather's important, don't get me wrong. But we need men who are like, here's where I'm really struggling, here's where I'm hurting. I hurt my wife. I embarrassed myself in front of my kids. I lost my temper and yelled at them. I— whatever it is, another man that can say, I hear you, let's talk about that. What were you feeling? What was occurring? What's going on inside, underneath the layer, underneath that layer? Find a man to be with, and it doesn't have to be a coach. The first thing I do when I get a call with somebody is I say, just be honest. I mean, short of a mass murderer, you're not going to say anything else I haven't heard before. I've heard all of it, and we're going to talk through it. I'm kind of waiting for my first mass murderer. I don't have one of those yet. Yeah, I mean, don't— not to encourage ones, don't, don't do that. But you need another man. It could be someone in the church, it could be someone— it can't be at work. Work is too sterile now. It has to be somewhere where you can sit down. Like, the standard, the best spot I found for men being with men is a glass of beer on a campfire. Like that one right there, especially with no kids. You can't do this with kids. If there's kids and/or wives in the hearing range, it doesn't work. Just be like, dude, I want to talk to you. Here's what's going on. And that right there is a life-changing process. I once read that if all a man did was to find a lamppost and for an hour a day talk to a lamppost and share everything that's going on, that would change his life right there. And now if you add in a man that's going to listen and attend and show compassion and care for that will change it. Do not do this with a woman as a general rule. There are rare exceptions, but their brains just work too differently.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's funny you say that. I think it was last week, a week before last, a guy at work, uh, John— that's what we said, named John— he was on the phone and he was upset. You know, I've heard him at work a few times, you know, being— just had a newborn baby, so he's still going through that phase in life. And he was upset. And I said, what's wrong, man? You know, nothing, nothing. I'm like, come on, man, talk to me. And so he opened up and he, you know, started telling me. And so I started talking to him, you know, about certain things because I've been married 15 years, so I've endured some of these things. And so, like you say, sometimes men just need somebody to talk to that they can express themselves to. Because if I'm angry at my wife I can't go home and express my anger that I'm feeling inside about her to her. I got to be able to talk to somebody. Not— and then you got to be careful who you talk to because everybody's not going to give you wisely counseling or good advice, you know. But somebody that cares, like, look, I want to see— because this is what I told them, Mike, you're looking at your situation and how you're feeling about certain things. You're working, you doing this and you doing that, and she's not tending to your needs. I— but what I told him was, it kind of resonated with him because everything I was saying was like, you know what, you're right. I say, but you gotta look at her needs too. She's at home with the baby all day, she's doing this, she's doing that, so she has frustration too. So you might be overlooking what she's going through while you want her to look at what you're going through. Marriage is a compromise. That's just bottom line. Some things you're gonna have to do that you don't want to do. Or whatever, but it's a compromise and it just can't be one way. But as we was talking, he was sitting up, Mike, he said, you know what, because now I'm reading into his marriage, he's like, how do you— because as you said earlier, I've been through that, I've done some of these things, you know, I've got experience, I've been around the corner, around the block a few times, you know, not in marriage, but just around the block a few times, as you were saying earlier. I chased women my whole life. That was my whole ordeal. That's what I did, you know. So do I know women a little bit? Yeah. But I was an a-hole like you said, you know. I didn't love them, you know. I was like— I forgot that one song, like, love them and leave them, you know, uh, Rick James. Yeah, that's how I was back in the day. But, uh, life changes you, man. And like you said, you said something earlier too that resonated with me. You— once you— but once you begin having faith And once you start seeing life differently and knowing that there's a bigger power out there than you, and you start seeing it through those lenses, man, it changed the direction and the trajectory of your life, man. So I appreciate you sharing that because I feel exactly what you're saying. So let me just ask you this one more question, Mike, because you mentioned this earlier. How can men break free from addiction, whether it's pornography, alcohol, or any other challenge?

Absolutely. And it's— there's not a singular answer there, but I want to go in a different direction than most people think of. First off, there's a lot of great services out there which are really phenomenal to help people get free from the chemical side of it. But I think what a lot of people miss is the emotional side of it. And so CJ, what I want to challenge you and the men listening to is that most men today do not know how to process and handle their own feelings. You know, we all like to, you know, rant about women's feelings and, hey, women have louder, more dramatic feelings, but men have feelings that are just as big. We just tend to keep more internal. We tend not to show them as much. And those feelings, if we don't know what to do with them, cause huge problems. And one of the biggest reasons we don't know what to do— why we don't know what to do with our feelings— is we don't know where they're coming from. And so here's— I'm gonna give you an example of my own life to demonstrate this. So when my father was at home, he— his rage would break bones, it would— and bruises. And so I grew up saying I will never rage at and hurt my children like my dad did to me. And so in psychological terms, we call that making a vow. It's not a vow to God, but it has a binding power over myself. And if I step out this, you can talk about this in secular terms or in Christian terms, and you come to the same spot whether it's a soul or whether it's merely about a psychological identity. When we say these sorts of things, they create long-lasting binding effects And later on in life, we start to bump up against them. And here's how I bumped up against mine. Number 1, I was determined I would not lose my temper. And so I would just do everything to try to squish that anger like an old-school trash compactor, right? I'd shove it down there in that trash can, hit the compact button, and I didn't realize it was busting open the bottom of that plastic and leaking nasty goo into the rest of my life.

Yeah.

Then number 2, what would happen is I would lose my anger because it's inevitable. You can't shove it in the trash compactor forever. Then I start what I call a shame cycle. The shame cycle is, "Oh, I can't believe I did that. I'm the worst. I deserve to be shot right now. The only thing I can do, I just go drink to numb this pain," or whatever, or pornography, whatever it is, right? And so, if you don't know this emotional cycle that's happening underneath of the behavior, even if you go through the chemical detox, you're just going to find something else or maybe back to the same thing. And what we men have got to do is face the reality that we have an emotional presence, we have an emotional self, and we have wounds. Like I'm winning my own children now. I guarantee you they will need therapy and coaching when they grow up. I'm not trying to speak poorly of any of our parents. Yeah, but we all have them. And when we ignore them and try to pretend they don't exist and don't deal with them, you might replace one addiction with another. And you can be addicted to some things that are very quiet. It could just be addicted to your phone and just scrolling. It could be addicted to a lot of stuff. And we oftentimes do that because we're not willing to go into that place of emotion that's so painful. Jung said, and I think this is spot on, that which you need most will be found where you least want to look. And it's just simple sense. If you wanted to look there, you already would have found it. And so wherever that space is inside of you, some piece here— I just was working with a man the other day who had came to one of these realizations about himself that he had made a vow, and we didn't even fully articulate it, but his homework is take it to prayer and help the Lord to help articulate it. And he found this vow and peace himself. He's like, oh my goodness, This has been a factor my whole life. My whole life, I've always been scared to trust that God will provide. I always felt that I had to provide because he wasn't provided for as a child. His dad didn't provide. And so he made a vow, "I will provide for myself." And so he refused to let God provide. He refused to let his wife provide. And this just spills out into this anger, into this conflict, and eventually into addictions. And I believe that a great deal of the addictions we see today are merely overused compensating techniques to avoid looking at the emotional place we don't want to look.

Yeah, and I totally agree with you, man. I totally agree. And one thing too, like, I'm listening to you talk, one thing too, and it's key through a lot of stuff that you've been saying today, is taking accountability for your actions.

Yeah, amen, brother.

That's bottom line. We gotta— and I think today, in today's society, because he was dealing with me with that a few months ago, and I had to go read and see what he wanted me to see. And what I read, Mike, is when I was in the book of Genesis, I was in Genesis 3, and I was reading about, you know, the tree and eating from the tree and everything, and how the voice of God was coming in the cool of the day, and he called out to him. And that's what got me, Mike, when I read it. It say that He asked Adam, what have he done? And Adam said, well, it wasn't me, but it was this woman whom you gave me. Damn it. And I just had to stop because I was searching for this, and I just had to stop right there. I said, wow, Adam was the first man that didn't take accountability for his own action.

Denial and blame.

Yeah. So he started showing me, and that's where we are today. Men are not taking accountability for their own actions. I said, wow, you know, you know, just by us reading and being in the faith, he'll start showing you things and giving you things that you want to see that you can take out there and share with other men. So that's one thing I want to share with you men today. Start taking accountability, man, for your own actions. Everything is not her fault, you know. You can't put it on your mama, can't put it on your daddy, your children Some things you have to start taking accountability for yourself. So Mike, in leaving, man, anything else you'd like to share with us, man, in leaving, man? Any side notes?

One last note I have to add, just because we're in Genesis 3, and I also want to emphasize that even if you're not Christian, the wisdom of these writings is beyond dispute. Go watch Peterson's lecture series on Genesis. He's not an ounce of faith in the series. Phenomenal wisdom. So right before that part in Genesis 3, there's this discussion between Eve and the serpent, right? And Adam's standing right behind her because we're told that Adam's right there with her. Eve commits the first sin, right? No. Eve's sin was pride. Adam's sin— that she could handle the serpent, that was her sin. Adam's sin was dereliction of duty. It was inaction. God had charged Adam, care for the garden, take care of it, protect it. You are responsible for this garden. Adam's there watching the serpent going after his woman. He knows it's his responsibility to teach. The moment that serpent walks up there and starts sending those words, before Eve sins, He was his job to step in like, hey, back off there, you little snake thing. This is my woman. You can't mess with her. I'm not gonna let you do that. And he doesn't. He's inactive. It's a sin of omission. It's a mistake of not moving when we need to move. And I think a lot of men— it was the very first male sin. It's still present today. Do something. If you're hearing this conversation, the two of us, do something. You know where your life— you're not living up to the man. It's easy as a man to see. I don't know, it's like this woman, but as a man, every time like this little tiny piece of me shrinks down and cowers because it knows I didn't do the right thing, I know what's happening. And so do you. So do something. Don't sit there with inaction.

Yeah, do something. Hey, hey, Mike, man, I appreciate you coming on, man, and sharing your wisdom and understanding. I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope the audience enjoy it too, man. So Mike, man, I'm just baffled right now, man. I really truly enjoyed it. So So those are parting words for me.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much. And if you need to find out what I do, Catholic Life Coach for Men is my website, podcast. That's all I do.

Hey, go check out Catholic Life Coach for Men. He say check out the Humility part 8 part series if you want to know something about humility. He had to put a couple more in there in between because there's only so much that you could talk about. But check it out, man. You have been listening to the CJ Money Show with your boy CJ Moneyway and the chemist, Dr. Michael J. All right, we out of here.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows, your story might be next.