Breaking Negative Cycles as a Single Parent

Yeah. So today I want to talk about breaking cycles, vicious cycles that we all have or have had. And I think there's a lot of people out there that especially caused by Covid, caused by divorce, caused by whatever.

Triggers trauma, all of the, all of the stuff that we all encounter.

Yeah.

Yeah, brother. So what do you want to start off with?

There's a, I don't, I know you kind of know this, but I volunteer mentoring for people here and there, those that are deserving in my eyes. And recently there's a, a gentleman by the name of Michael Newsome and he lives in upstate New York. And honestly, one of the coolest cats I've had the pleasure of mentoring. And I want to tell you why and the reason I want to tell you and all of our, all of our listeners is because for a 28 year old who has a one and a two year old daughter, two daughters, one and two.

Let's go, let's go for the girl dads.

This guy works his balls off 60, 70 hours a week and he, he's, he's just a good dude. And he reached out to me, which to me is courageous. To reach out to a stranger. Yeah. And he's like, this might, this feels awkward, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I'm, I'm 28, I've made some mistakes and I just really like to have somebody to, you know, go to for advice here and there. He doesn't have, he's never had a father, father figure in his life. As to why, I'll keep that private, but he just hasn't. And so right off the bat, I said, hey, yeah, I'd love, I love, I would love the opportunity to mentor you. But, but as I do with anybody, I want to make sure they're not just looking for an overnight solution or wasting our time. Exactly. So I asked this guy to tell me a little bit about himself. And then I told him, here's what I want you to do. I want you to send a message to your ex saying that, you know, you're just thankful for her out of nowhere. Just because I want you to tell a stranger today, compliment them. Just a stranger. Because we all know when, if a stranger compliments you, how does it make you feel?

Yeah, I mean, it makes you feel pretty good and it just changes the whole mood.

Right. And to make, when you make somebody feel good, it makes you feel good.

Yeah, exactly.

As, and as we both always say, positive action reads positive emotion. And so anyway, I told him to do a handful of things he Literally did them. He screenshotted and he told me about the other things that he did. And I said, all right, I want you to, by the end of the week, throw out five goals, personal goals, financial goals. You know, there's like 10 or 12 goals that I asked him to do. Yeah. I gave him till the end of the week because he works so much. And yeah. Literally two hours later, I get this long text inclusive of all of his goals. And I'm like, man, this guy is for real. And last night I had the pleasure of talking to him because I did tell him, hey, here's my phone number. If you ever need anything, give me a call. If I can answer, I will. If I can't, I'll call you back. Quick. Yeah. He reached out to me and wasn't having a good night. And I'm kind of glad he wasn't having a good night because we ended up having a great talk. Talked for about an hour. And I'm just really looking forward to working with this guy. Yeah. Opening his. Opening doors for him, teaching him. Just bringing knowledge base to him about things that he wants to learn.

Yeah.

But doesn't have the, I guess the resources. And I'm going to provide him with resources. I'm going to provide him with, you know, he's going to have to work, but this guy works his ass off and he's willing to do it. And anyway, I just wanted to share that with everyone. I hope it at least encourages somebody out there, because people like Michael Newsom in Argyle, New York, those are the kind of people I wish we had more of in this world. Because he doesn't want handouts. Yeah. He wants. He literally wants to. Just the opportunity to learn and to work his ass off.

I love that, bro. And that's how you start breaking the cycles. Because he probably caught himself in such a negative cycle, which is what led him to finally reach out. And, dude, anybody who reaches out, I see that as strength 100%. Because pride cometh before the fall.

Yeah.

So you're too good for help. Well, be careful. There could be a fall coming. But when we humble ourselves. Right. I reach out to people for help all. All the time. All the time. You reach out to people for. Anybody who has true, genuine strength reaches out to someone for help. Because we don't all have it all figured out. You know what I'm saying? Like, we need different perspectives, different eyes on things. And so I love that you're giving him very practical things to break cycles because we get caught in these Negative cycles, right. Where things are just happening and happening and happening and then we just get frustrated. But then it's like, well, there needs to be a, of action. And this is something that I was teaching my 1% men and women. I was teaching them how negative emotions. It's not, it's not a problem to be solved. And it's not even a, technically a negative emotion. It's how we choose to see it. A negative emotion more than likely is a call to action. It's life sending you a message like, hey, something's going on here, Something needs to change. And we have the power to, to do two things. We can change the actions that we take. Which is what you told him to do. Right. Which is why he's experiencing freedom and confidence and self esteem is probably on the rise right now. And I can hit on that a little bit later. Right. Why that's happening. But the second thing that we can change is our perspective. It's like, okay, you know what, I can't control this situation, but I can choose to look at it in a different way. And when we choose to look at something in a different way, we gain perspective. And it can help us feel better about the situation. It doesn't make us change the situation, but it can help us experience it differently.

Well, exactly. And we can, there's certain things we can't change, but one thing we can always change is how we handle them or react to them. And it's like he told me the story and I'm not going to get into details, but it's like.

I don't.

Know, it sounded like his, his ex kind of did something that just was just a real kick in the beanbag, man. Yeah. And, and, and essentially that's why he wanted to reach out and, and talk. And I'm like, you know, you can't stop. And then I stopped myself. I'm like, you can actually stop people from kicking you in the balls. And how you do that is you wear a cup.

Yeah.

I mean, but metaphorically speaking, how do you get a cup? How do you put a cup on? Well, you handle the situation when somebody slaps you in the face by, you know, doing something to get at you, demonstrate. It doesn't get at you. Like they, they want to get a rise out of you. Right?

Yeah.

So when they, you know, they do whatever they do to kick you in the balls. Yeah. And, and you demonstrate like, you know, hey, when you do that, it, it doesn't make me feel good. And it, honestly, it can't make you feel good. And we have to, we have to be co parenting for the next, you know, 17, 18 years. So, yeah, let's try and do it without kicking each other, slapping each other with, with these immature things. And you can say that and not fire back. Yeah. And, you know, hopefully that'll get through to them and they'll be like, okay. Or eventually they'll just stop because you're not, they're not getting a rise out of you and you're taking the higher road. And this guy's like, yeah. He goes, I'll. I will be a punching bag if I have to. And I'm like, dude, I don't think you'll have to be a punching bag. Yeah, just throw your cup on and, and rise above and, and I guarantee I can just tell his, the, his, the way he reacted. And I mean, I, I know this guy will just easily rise above and, and become.

Yeah.

I don't know. I, I just said, you know what? We're, we're gonna get into some things. You're gonna start learning and it's gonna change, like, you as a person and what, what, you know, you're, you're gonna be excited about being able to do this and eventually working less hours and having more time and.

Yeah.

That changes you as a person. And it also changes you as, as react to negative things like that. Yeah. And you let it slide off your shoulder like it never happened because you got too much good going on in your life to let phase you. Yep. Yeah. And you're not going to let it phase you. And when they see that, that's like kicking them in the ball. Yeah. It's like returning, but in a good way. Yeah. It's not like, it's not like an intentional negative things like, hey, man, I'm just, I'm doing what's best for me, for us. Yeah. And for our kids.

Exactly. And there's, there's some situations where they'll still continue to do that. I mean, I'll be honest. Like, my, my situation, it's not that she tries to blatantly kick me in the balls.

Right.

But for example, I just signed up my little girl for Jiu Jitsu and mma.

Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.

And she's loving it. Right. So much so that, that I texted her mom and I was like, hey, if you want to take her on Monday, you know, because she's loving it. It's great for her mental health and for like her autism. I'm like. And physically. Right. It's just Good for her all around. And she's enjoying it. So like take her on Monday. Right. And. And she just completely ignored the message. Right. Which again, so this could, this could send someone into like a whirlwind of negative emotion.

Rewind real quick because I saw a post and I don't think you posted it. Maybe you reposted it, I don't know. Or maybe I just saw it. But my question is, did you have a talk with your ex about signing her up before you signed her up?

Yeah. So I had told her I had pretty much had a conversation with her and I was like, hey, look, I've been wanting to get her into therapy for a long time. You've been against it. I've been wanting to put her into like extracurricular activities, like sports. You've been against it. Unless it's only on my time, which is like, dude, there's no teams out there that have a schedule where they only practice Tuesday, every other Thursday and every other weekend. You see what I mean?

I know a place that actually works around co parenting schedules. Oh, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, I was going to say, I was like, why have you not told me that? So in other words, was just making it impossible for my little girl to do anything right. And then after I had another talk with her, peaceful talk, it was pretty much through text, I was like, dude, we need to do stuff like this for her. You know what I'm saying? She said, yeah, I'm actually thinking about like horse therapy, like horse riding. She was like, in some sort of martial arts, so she's able to like take care of herself. I was thinking karate and I was like, well, don't do karate because that's a, that's not a great martial art for self defense. I was like, if anything, self defense, we're going to do jiu jitsu. I'm like, plus, jiu jitsu, you can go 100% of the time, all the time and be safe in it. And, and so I took that and I ran with it. I was like, I'm not going to wait for her to like agree on something. I'm like, I'm going to put her in this gym. And this is like on, on my time schedule, like she's been saying, right. But it's not far from her either. And so I extended that and she ignored it. And again, this could easily be where we fall into a negative cycle of like, see, she's just this and she's that and that and that. But this is something That I tell my one and and women, I'm like, if, if, if I'm fighting someone, okay. And this person keeps throwing the same combination and they catch me every time and I know that it's coming. They're not a good fighter. I'm just a sucky fighter.

Yeah.

Because if I see it coming from a mile away, why don't I move, dodge the punch, right? So it's like we get caught in these negative cycles with our exes where it's like we know what they do to trigger us, but for some reason we still trigger us. So I developed like a whole workshop for it called the Game Plan. So you actually come up with a game plan before you run into them, before you talk to them, before anything like that. And you prepare for it just like this dude. It's like, hey, go in prepared, knowing that she's probably going to try and kick you in the nuts. If she's done it 10 times, why aren't you wearing a cup?

Right?

You know what I mean? Like at that point it's not her fault or his fault. If you're a lady listening, it's your fault because you're not preparing for it. You're leaving the emotional thermostat of yourself on the outside of the house so anyone can control it instead of keeping it on the inside of the house where you choose the temperature of your emotions. You see what I'm saying? And so breaking these type of cycles is so key and it's actually very simple. It's like what you said, you just got to take one thing, one goal and it can be as small as possible. Some of my 1% men, I tell them, I'm like, start off with 10 push ups in the morning. That's it. You just hit a goal. Hitting that small goal will create confidence and self esteem. Because confidence and self esteem comes from the illusion of control. It comes from the illusion that I have control over the situation. And guess what? We never have control over that other person. But when we recognize that, man, I have control, I have the illusion of control, you begin to control yourself. That's why the most confident people in the world are unshaken. Somebody tells them something, they're like, okay, exactly.

And you know, the first couple of exercises that I did with Michael were literally to just kind of build a, a more positive outlook. A pot more positive feeling. Yeah. And essentially what relates to confidence.

Exactly.

And the more confident you are, the more knowledgeable you are, the more motivated you are about something new going on with, with Anything in your life that's positive, then that it changes everything.

Yes.

It breaks cycles.

Yes.

And so I know there's, you know, getting back to, you know, the initial cycle breaking. You know, there's so many people out there that. And we were just talking about one of the listeners that had written in and you know, whether it's I keep falling back into dating the same kind of person or I just can't break the cycle and then expect something different, or if it's substance abuse or, you know, not working out or eating right, whatever the case is. There's just so many scenarios. But whatever it is, just start with one thing, just like you said. Right. And break a cycle. Do something different. Like, like before I go to bed at night, I write down like 10 things that I have to accomplish, I have to achieve the next day.

It's a big list, bro. I write down like three.

It depends on, you know, it's not always 10. Yeah.

Or they could be small, it could be two.

But bottom line is like, I, I don't go to bed at night without having a list to wake up to.

Yeah.

And I also kind of mentally prepare myself the night before as to like, all right, this is what I've got to do tomorrow.

Exactly.

And if, you know, and I prioritize them because there are things that, you know, you get interrupted and yeah. You know, you have to push, but you want the, the least prioritized things at the bottom so you can push those to the next day and then prioritize again. But, you know, that's what I do. And you know, we were talking earlier about Tony Robbins and some incredible. He is. Yeah, but we're not going to get into all that. But yeah, you know, it's like, create a routine of, of, of positive, like a positive cycle. So to start breaking a negative cycle, start adding, even if it's a tiny one, a positive cycle. If it's in the morning when you wake up or if it's making a list of things you're going to achieve the next day.

Yeah.

And I assure you, if anybody just does it, like, it doesn't have to be big, just something like I'm gonna do, you know, 50 push ups before my day starts tomorrow. Right. And get up and do it. Yeah. And say, I'm gonna do that for a week.

Yeah. And then you're proud of yourself that you did it. Dude, the book, you should read it, bro. It is incredible. Everyone who's listening to this should read this book. You can get it for free. The PDF version online. So there's really no excuse, but it's called how to do the work by Dr. Nicola Pera, bro. She has a story in there and I, I read a little, I think I read a little bit about it on here about the placebo and nocebo effect.

Is that the one that you posted?

No, that was an article. That was the parenting article of when they go into like adolescence and the different stages and kids and stuff. But in this book, she's talking about a lady who had genetically received ms, right? She just kind of inherited it and how the doctors told her, yeah, there's nothing that you can do. You're just going to have to live with this. It's for the rest of your life. And she got to the point where she was immobile, like she couldn't really walk or anything. She was pretty much a couch potato. And she started reading and listening to like, Dr. Nicola Pera how she said how even your genes are highly affected by the environment. So you can't change your genetic code, you can change the environment in which it grows up in, right? Which is our body, our mind, everything like that. So this lady, she said, you know what? I can't change the fact that I have Ms. Can't change that. She was like, but I can change the fact that I wake up every morning, the first thing I drink is coffee. So I'm just gonna start drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning. That was her, her one goal every single day. She did that for a month. Okay? That built up so much encouragement, so much self esteem, so much confidence that she was able to stick to drinking one glass of water every single morning before anything else, that now she was like, that's gonna benefit my health. It might not cure my ms, but it's gonna benefit my health. Right? She took one course of action, one change, Right? Right. Then the next month, she started doing what I actually have my clients do, which is called future self journaling. This is not who you think you'll be. This is who you would want to be in an ideal world, in a dreamland, Right? Right. Be completely unrealistic. And she started doing that. And then she started being like, how can I show up as this person today if I wanted to ever become this person? And she would just choose one pattern, one pattern every single month, and she would work on that, bro. This got her to the point where her Ms. No longer kept her on the couch till this day. She can walk, she can talk, she functions like a normal person. She's completely different. Did she cure her ms? Probably not. It's probably still in her genes. But is Ms. Controlling her now? Absolutely not. She broke the negative cycle. And you know what did it? It was a negative emotion. She was probably extremely frustrated. She was probably extremely. Like, how many times have we gotten to the point where we're just like, dude, I'm done with this. I'm done, right? Like, we have to get to that point sometimes. And that's why I say negative emotions, they're a call to action. She said, I can't control that. I can't change that. But what I can change, I'm gonna drink a glass of water every morning. Boom. Started breaking the cycle. The more cycles she broke, she transformed her life. And this is a real story. You can go Google it. I'm not full of it.

I don't know if you remember, but you.

Well, it is for anyone, like, listening. Yeah, but that's so key in any cycle that we're trying to break. Small actions. Small actions. Whenever I was, I went through, like, my divorce and I went through, like, depression. Heavy, heavy depression, bro. I wouldn't get out of bed. I was literally like in bed. I wouldn't even brush my teeth because I hated going to brush my teeth because I'd have to see myself in the mirror and I had gained weight and all this stuff, you know what I mean? It was just terrible. I go back down into the bed and I just put on YouTube, start watching YouTubers. What started changing, it was not me getting out of bed and me not watching YouTube. What started changing was I said, you know what? Instead of just watching stupid YouTube channels, I'm gonna start listening to sermons. So instead of not watching YouTube, I did everything the same. It was a 1% shift. All I did was type a different name into YouTube and listen to that. And then next thing you know, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna brush my teeth now. I would brush my teeth and I would listen to sermons and be in bed all day. And then that led to showering. And then that led to 10 pushups at the edge of my bed. And then that led to 10 pushups into the living room. Then that led to 20. Push. You see what I'm saying? And that's how I started come out of this freaking deep, deep depression that I was in. And it wasn't this massive change. It was just like you said, these tiny. Which is what your boy is doing. He's doing small, little changes in his life that he can Control. And he's starting to see a reward in it. And the more he does that, the more those cycles, they just begin to shatter.

Absolutely. And for literally. I have a solution for literally anybody that whether. Whether. Whatever your. Your cycle is, one thing you can. You can do to start a change, a positive change to break the cycle is get on, go on YouTube or there's a website that I use, it's blinkist.com b l I n k I s t dot com, where you can basically select just about any book that's out on just about any topic, and you can get the audio version. And it gives you the nuts and bolts. The Cliff Notes. Yeah. The meat of, you know, of like, each chapter. Yeah. And if it's something that you want to get more. You want to dig deeper into, then by all means, listen to the whole. The whole book. But every time I. If I, like when I come to the podcast studio, takes me 18 minutes to get here. So I will have something that's about 15 minutes long ready to play. That is. That'll kind of get my mind right or in. In a. I don't know, just in a mode. So I'll find, like, somebody that everybody listens to, somebody on, you know, whether it's like Gary Vee or. I can't think of it, you know, Tony Robbins or. Or Ortega, Single Dad's podcast or whatever. But every time you get in your car, use it as 15, 20, 30, whatever, however many minutes you won't get pissed off for sitting in traffic, you won't get pissed off for, you know, missing, you know, hitting red lights or whatever, and use it as time to, like, learn and listen to the positive things that go against whatever that cycle is that you want to break and kind of create a playlist, if you will, and, you know, just start doing that every time you get in your car. And, you know, if you carpool someone and you don't have a car. Yeah. Get them to listen to it as well.

Exactly.

And I can't think of any, like, how. How that could not help. Yeah. Anyone in some form or fashion. Yeah. Just take the time to figure out what. What it is that you want to listen to that goes against the cycle that you want to break.

Yeah.

And use your time wisely and take action, man.

You have to take action. Like, the only thing that's more powerful than knowledge is execution.

Absolutely. And that's. That's, you know, listening, figuring out, like, all right, I'm gonna make. I'm going to start changing my mindset by listening to things that are going to. Going to motivate me, and then that's going to inevitably change your mindset and your outlook on things.

Yes.

And that's going to inspire you to do something else.

Yeah.

It goes against breaking the cycle. Whatever you're listening to is going to give you instruction on how to do that.

Yes.

You know, so just like you said, it starts with this. It leads to this. It leads to this. It's all about wanting. You have to want to break the cycle. If you don't want to, then you're not going to take action. You're not going to execute by starting small and using your drive time or any time. I know mostly men listen to this, but even if you're taking a deuce, put on something and listen. Why? 3 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you do. But just anytime, go for a walk, throw something on, and you know, in.

The shower, man, I listen to a lot of my stuff in the shower. Like all the. Any podcast that I listen to while I'm showering, I'm like, dude, I try and make the most out of my time.

Not me, bro. I sing. I'm kidding.

Sing the Moana soundtrack. No, but that's what I like to do, you know? I mean, so if I'm not listening to something in the shower, I either got worship music playing and I'm having my own, like, personal time. Right. But it's like just anything that you're doing, you can invite something new into it, and that's living life by design, not by default.

Exactly.

And if you continue to live life by default, you can't get mad at anybody for being in the same place that you're at right now in six months, because we're choosing to do that. And here's the thing. I never want someone to, like, beat down on themselves because they're not executing on something. But what I do want you to do is kind of ask yourself and say, hey, why aren't I right? And the reason that you're not is really because you don't have a high enough desire for it. There's not a strong enough why. On why you're wanting to make a difference, to break that cycle. So create a desire. Create a big desire. On why I want to break why? Because the outcome could be this, the outcome could be that. And that's the power of future self journaling. Right?

Right. And the why is. Is creating goals. You know, it's. It's. And goals are. I'm gonna listen to this tomorrow for 30 minutes, I'm going to execute it.

Exactly, like step by step. And it's powerful, man. Like, this is something that we get trapped in all the time. Even me right now. Like, I have my own cycles that I'm trying to break. And if I'm being honest, the ones that I'm not breaking is because I don't have a high enough desire for it right now. Like, that's simply it. But as soon as I create a desire for it, I'll start attacking it. But it's also not trying to attack all these cycles at one time. Like, just find the one that's most influential, that's got you the most frustrated and take that negative emotion and use that as a call to action of something has to change. I either have to start doing something different or I have to start seeing it a different way because the situation isn't going to change. It is what it is. Right. So you might as well change how you experience it because you can experience it differently. It's proven message. Any one of my clients, all of them are experiencing their divorce completely different than people who, like, want to work with me but end up not working with me. It's like all it is is they chose different actions or they chose a different perspective.

Exactly. And that, and, and that's, that's the difference between a guy called Michael Newsom and all the others that contacted me that I said, hey, do this. And they didn't do it. Yeah. Hey, here's my phone number. Contact me with this. And they didn't do it. And guess what? Michael Newsom's the winner because he's the one person I'm going to give my time to now because he's proven to me that he wants to. He's got a good head on his shoulders and changes in store for this kid. And I cannot wait.

Yeah.

To open his eyes to so much stuff that he has that he has no idea exists.

Yeah.

And just by reaching out, just by wanting to break a cycle, wanting to change, wanting to get out of the. Like, I want to learn, I want to know more, but I can't do it. I need a mentor.

Yeah.

And you know.

Yeah.

No, he found a good one.

No, I love that. And for anyone that's listening, I want to really encourage you and just with this, that you're not just doing this for you, you're doing this for your legacy and what you. What we don't break now. This is what's so, like, heavy is what we don't break now. Our Kids will have to battle. And I am going to do my absolute best. And I know anyone who's listening is doing the exact same thing. I am going to do my absolute best to defeat and conquer as many battles as I possibly can so that my daughter can build off of my shoulders and go even higher. Right? And if I have any other kids so that they can go even higher. This is so much bigger than us, and I think it's worth us doing the things that are. I wouldn't necessarily even say hard. I would just say uncomfortable to try and give them, like, what it is, what it is that they deserve. And I think what we need to focus on and what I want you to focus on is who do you have to become to have the outcome that you want and then take those small steps, like Scott's saying, to become that actual person. What does that person do? What does that person's hobbies? Where does that person eat? How does that person think? How does that person show up? How is he affected or not affected by his ex? Right? Is he not giving her that much attention whenever she's acting a fool because he's got too many things that he's got going on that are too important to give energy to that. And he wants to give his energy to what he is building because he's going to leave that for his kids, right? Or he wants to give that energy to his kids whenever he's with them instead of being stressed out about the eggs and being annoyed and resentful. And now you can't even be present with your kids. So I want you to identify that. Who do I have to. To get the result that I want to get? And then take 1% efforts every single day and conquer them.

And we're going to wrap up. And I want to share this with. With everyone. I sent my son a text because right now, what I'm working with him. He. He is shy. He's, you know, well, not all teenagers are shy and. But they all have insecurities. And, you know, some of his prevent him from, you know, maybe raising his hand in class and asking a question that everyone else wants to but nobody will, or, you know, complimenting somebody that's walking down the hallway. Strike up a conversation with somebody that you don't know, whatever. You know, talk to a girl that you think is hot. But I sent him this text and I don't remember everything that's written in it, so I'm gonna have to like. But I said, hey, bud, I know sometimes I annoy You. But it's just me and my way of wanting what's best for you. I promise if you take this advice, you will thank me. Do something that terrifies you every day. Step out of your comfort zone. There's a badass world out there. When's the last time you did something that terrifies you? It's probably been a while, huh? Unfortunately. Here's the thing about fear in relation to success. Your success in life can usually be measured by the amount or by the number of terrifying situations that you're willing to put yourself in.

That's so true.

Luckily for you though, you don't always have to be facing your fears 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That would be exhausting and would be too overwhelming for you and for anyone to have to deal with. Fortunately, all you need is literally about five seconds of courage. You don't have to live courageously to be successful. You only need to be courageous for five seconds at a time. That's it. Just five seconds.

That's so good.

Five seconds is all you need. Compliment someone. Ask that question. Say no to someone. Not me though. Strike up a conversation. Raise your hand in class. Ask a person to hang out. Say hi to a girl. That's cute. Make someone laugh. Take that risk. Even if it's something small. Whatever it is, all it takes is five seconds of courage. After that, the made up fear that was all in your head will start to fade away. And you'll be the better off. And you'll be better off because of it. I love you, buddy. And I'm proud of you. I don't ask much of you, just five seconds a day. You're an independent, intelligent, handsome young man. And I just want you to see and realize in yourself what I do have. An amazing day. Love, dad.

That's so good man.

And that's powerful. Just FYI, that was a conversation I had with him, not verbatim, but that was more so a kind of a recap slash reminder. Yeah. After he went off to school. So I just don't want everyone to think that I just communicate with my, my son via text all the time like that. That was literally a recap. So. But I wanted to share it with everyone because it kind of relates to what we're talking about and what, what we're about. Yeah. And you know, encouraging our kids to, to, to, to do things that they're. That terrify them or do things that are out of their comfort zone. And these are all Things that I do myself, I just. It's just part of my daily routine. I was telling my son, like, dude, I said if. If somebody said to you, if you're walking down the hall, like, hey, man, those are dope shoes, how would you feel? And he was like, good. I'm like, so do it to someone else.

Yeah.

Just anybody. Yeah. I go, I was at CVS the other morning, and I turned around. I was just one of those check yourself out things that was malfunctioning. I turned around to the lady behind me. I'm like, I don't. I don't think these things will ever replace people because, look, you have to have people monitoring anyway. And I was like. I was like, those are really pretty earrings, and they really bring out your eyes. I'm not just saying that. I really do. And I could just tell the ear to ear smile and probably made her day, maybe her week. And she was so small, too. Yeah. It was just so small. And it's just one of those things I consciously allow. I consciously make myself do. Make myself do. Like, it's so difficult, but I just consciously make the effort to compliment someone that I do not know. Because you never know what kind of day that person's having. Yeah. And, you know, maybe they'll pay it forward. Maybe you'll create a positive mindset, maybe make them happy and to make a better decision. Who knows? Yeah. But if everybody did that. Yeah. Once a day, we'd be in a better world.

Exactly. And at the end of the day, even if it doesn't make their day, it's about who you want to become. You want to become a person that does that. Why? Because it feels good to give. Like, that is literally what love is, is giving, not taken. So be someone that's constantly giving, but in order to give, you got to give to yourself first, which is why it's so important to invest into yourself and to take actions and to keep breaking cycles, because that's the greatest gift you can give yourself and the greatest gift we can get our kids. I don't know which one's the clap one. There it is. Awesome, guys. Well, this was a great episode. Thank you guys for joining us. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Have a blessed day.

Oh, real quick. Oh, update. Publishing the Single Dads podcast app to the App Store today. We'll let you know when it's live. And yeah.

Let's go.

Let's go.

That deserves a. And we're out.