Self Betrayal as a Single Parent.

Hey, what's up, everybody?

Hope you guys are having a good day. First of all, just want to start off by apologizing that we did not release an episode last week. If you're in Texas, or at least in the DFW area, we had what most people would call a normal winter storm, but for us, it's like Armageddon.

Actually, it was. It was nationwide, but, yeah. In Dallas, when we get it, nobody knows how to react to it. Nobody knows how to drive in. It's basically we run to the grocery store, buy every, clear the shelves out, because we think we're going to be trapped for a week. But.

Texas, the place with the most 4x4 lifted trucks with big old tires that can actually drive on this weather, shuts down.

And some people still think that we ride horses to school.

Yeah.

And work.

I mean, some people ride horses. It's called a Ford Mustang, but yeah. No, we're so. We're so sorry about that. Last week, we really had no power over it. The place that we used to record was closed, just like everything else was closed. And so we just. We're releasing this week, but we're pretty excited. First off, we want to give a.

Shout out to Miguel Martinez. What is up, brother?

Thank you so much, brother. He is our first supporter of the Single Dads podcast, brother. We appreciate. Appreciate you. Deeply, deeply, deeply appreciate you, man.

Yeah, the donation, man, put on recurring donations over a month ago for essentially the, you know, the support group. Yeah. That we will have very, very soon now. Yeah. Probably this time next week, which we're gonna ask you guys to help us out with the format and. But we'll get to that later. But yeah, Miguel, thank you so much, man. It really means a lot for you to donate not just once, but on a recurring basis, and hopefully some others will follow in your footsteps and help. Been working tirelessly on this app, which essentially will be the platform for self support group. Not self support group, but a support group for the single dad podcast listeners. And hopefully we will grow the community exponentially with this platform. It's awesome. I'm excited. I cannot wait for everyone to see it. We'll probably throw some teasers up on Instagram this week, too, so keep an eye out for that again, Miguel, thanks so much, brother. For real, for real.

We're glad that obviously we've been able to make some sort of impact in your life for you to step forward and do that. And we just want to say we appreciate it big time because, I mean, these podcasts, they do Take time, they do take effort, they do take finances. Especially the app that we're releasing specifically for you men. I mean single parents can use it, but single dads, specifically males are gonna have exclusive access to certain things like the support groups and things, things of that nature. Because we want to make sure we honor your privacy, we honor what it is that you're going through and make it a safe space for men to be able to not just connect, but be able to be open, vulnerable.

Yes, exactly. You know, we're also going to have chat rooms where you guys can reach out to each other. You'll, you'll be able to even like see for those that share, you know that they're in Dallas, Texas or Argyle, New York. What's up, Michael Newsom? You know, you'll be able to see who is around nearby, wherever they are and connect with them and you guys can talk with each other and we're not even around. So. Yeah, it'll be awesome.

It's awesome, man. It's awesome what that's going to do. But today we wanted to cover specifically we received a message and we wanted to hit on it because I feel like a lot of us are deal with this, are dealing with this or will deal with this eventually.

And, and it's, it's, it's a request that we got from one of, one of our listeners who I don't know if they want us to mention their names. So we won't. And if you don't mind, I'll just read what kind of what they wrote and then we will do as we promised and touch on. Yeah, what you guys want us to. So this person says, hey guys, I saw that you're looking for new episode ideas and I figured I would just come and tell you my story. I guess the idea would be self betrayal as a single parent. So there's more to it. But that's in a sense the topic that this individual wants to touch on. He's got a seven year old daughter and joint legal and physical custody. The battles of court left left him traumas and triggers. And since he's been battling to recover himself, he found himself repeating toxic cycles from previous relationship cycles that he thought that he had left behind, but learned that he did not. So over time shattered some of the boundaries he placed for himself and became somebody that he never wanted to be. And hence the topic of self betrayal. So yeah, we will discuss that and hopefully help this individual and others.

Yeah. No, for real. So self betrayal is kind of a crazy thing because. And it's so important to deal with. Because if we don't deal with it, it will affect the way that we parent. It will affect the way that we show up, even just as, as humans in general in our everyday life. And that's why it's affecting this individual so much more than likely is because you're trying to break free of something that happened in the past. But for some reason that past keeps on controlling your present, which then affects our future. And we look down like six months down the line, we look back and for some reason we feel like, man, why am I still stuck in the same place? And it can be extremely, extremely frustrating, right? And I mean, I deal with this stuff too. I'm sure Scott does too, like any human being does. And one of the things that I would say is that more than likely right now you're experiencing a low self esteem and self confidence because of self betrayal. That's probably the number one thing that goes when we experience self betrayal. And I want to lay this out this way, okay? In order to have self esteem, it's not caused by somebody giving you compliments. Somebody think about how many people have given you a compliment. It's like, oh, you're a great dad, or you're great this, this and that. I mean, if we took all those compliments and that built our self esteem, then we would have self esteem. Because you hear so many good things probably on the daily basis or at least on the weekly basis, but that's not really it. Self esteem actually comes from the illusion of control. If we feel like I can control this situation or this outcome, in other words, the illusion we will address, we will come into that situation with way more confidence and way more quote unquote, self esteem because we feel like we can conquer that situation. Let me give you just a quick example, right? Like I trained Jiu Jitsu and I trained Muay Thai before, you know, if I am training consistently, I walk in with a whole new level of confidence when it's time to get on the mats and roll. But if I'm not on the mats, my confidence isn't that high. Why? Because I have not shown up for myself for that specific situation. So you want, you want to heal self esteem and you want to heal self betrayal, then it's you beginning to show up in tiny areas in your life for yourself again. And that's going to build trust in yourself. Because really what's happening is that because we've betrayed ourselves, we now don't trust ourselves. And when you don't trust yourself, your self esteem goes out the window. So it can be something as simple as you set. A small, tiny victory that says, you know what, I'm going to wake up in the morning and I want to be healthier. So I'm gonna commit to drinking one glass of water before I even start my day. That is going to be my goal for a month. And when you hit that goal, you're gonna feel good because you actually stuck to it. And it can literally be that small. We try and like, man, that's what's crazy, bro. We try and like reinvent the wheel. Like, we try and like change our whole lives in one day. So we set ourselves up for failure and then we wonder why our self esteem is low. It's like, well, it's because we couldn't reach that goal. So make attainable, reachable, simple goals. That makes you trust yourself. Right. And so that's, that's probably one of the number one things that I would say to start doing. Because then if you fail on that small goal, you're gonna fall back into the mindset of, dang, I see, I just betrayed myself again. This is who I am. And no, it's not who you are. And we're gonna jump into that here in a little bit more. That just because you make a mistake that you regret, it does not define who you are. And if you let it define who you are, then it is who you will be and keep on becoming.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, self betrayal is, it causes insecurities. Oh yeah. I mean, self hating because of past traumatic, traumatic experiences. And you know, from there, as we know, you can jump back into toxic cycles.

Yeah.

Regret, which of course is a, a negative emotion that, that hinges on what? Counterfactual thinking.

Yeah.

Which is basically something that we look back on things and create and concoct imaginary scenarios.

Yeah.

And you know, that's literally what gets us back into those cycles.

Yeah. That's what creates those feelings. That's the thing, man. Like, and ladies, whoever, whoever's listening, if, if you're imagining it in your head, I just want you to ask yourself, like, how realistic is it? Like, it's more than likely a delusion. Right. Because we create this whole story of the situation that probably has nothing to do with us. Right. And so when we mess up or we, we deal with self betrayal, we think, well, that's just who I am, I'm getting what I deserve. And that's one way to look at it. Or you can look back at it and be like, dang, man, I made a simple mistake. Now, I want you to think about this. If your kid made a mistake where they betrayed their morals, they betrayed their values, they betrayed their beliefs. Right. If your kid did that, how would you address that with them? Would you just come at them and be like, you got to do better. You got to be. Or would you. Or would you sit down and tell them, Be like, hey, it's okay. You made a mistake. Like, now it's just time to learn from it. And you can learn from it by simply asking these three questions. Okay? This is how I want you to. Whatever situation it is that you. You're feeling regret about that you feel like you betrayed yourself in, I just want you to ask yourself these three questions on paper. Do not do this in your head. Do not do this in your head, because you're just going to create more confusion, more fog. Okay? You got to put it on paper. I tell my 1% men all the time, when you're overthinking, you got to put those words onto text on paper. And when you're underthinking, you got to get text from the paper into your brain. That's just how we work as humans. So the number one thing that you need to do that I would highly encourage you to do is to evaluate the situation by asking these three very simple questions. What went well? And then write out specifically what went well.

Like self journaling.

Exactly. And then I want you to ask what didn't go well and write out what didn't go well. And then I want you to ask the question, what would I do differently now that I have this information? And then write out what you would do differently. This is going to get you to evaluate the situation, see what went wrong, what would. What didn't go wrong, and what you would do differently. And now you feel more in control of the situation. Why? Because you have a game plan, and naturally what's going to end up happening is you feel the illusion of control. In other words, I could go back into the same situation if it happens again, and now I know for a fact what I would do differently, how I would handle it differently. And you focus on that.

Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, advocate for yourself. Right?

Yep.

And, you know, practice setting boundaries. Of course. And once, you know, set boundaries, stay within them, which essentially is, you know, setting goals and. Yeah. Accomplishing them or achieving them or meeting them.

And this is. I want to hit on this because the writer that wrote this in said that he he allowed someone to destroy his boundaries. Right? Something. Something along those lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's why he's experiencing self betrayal, because he had boundaries, but he allowed this person to step in and take over them. Now, we do this for a couple different reasons. Even with our kids, we betray our own boundaries. Like I was telling Scott this earlier, how I betrayed so many of my own boundaries and my core values and my beliefs as a parent whenever I went through the divorce because I felt like I had to overcompensate for my little girl for her to be happy and have a great life. In other words, that's a scarcity mindset. If I don't. If I don't just bend on these things and I give her more comfort, then I'm going to be a bad dad. No, that's not true.

And as a widow parent dad, you know, I did the exact same thing. I, you know, do things. Well, his. If his mom were here or if his mom didn't pass away or, you know, I. I would have those thoughts. And I treated him differently because of that. And in hindsight, that's not how I should have handled a lot of things.

Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, that's where we have to draw a line. Like, we can treat our kids differently because obviously we have to since we're single parents, but we don't bend on our boundaries and we don't bend on our core values or our beliefs, which I did, and now I'm reconstructing that. And I'm seeing my relationship with my little girl become better because of it. So a lot of the times with our boundaries, the reason why we allow people to break those down is because we're scared that if we don't allow them to break that boundary, will lose that person or we'll lose that relationship, or we'll lose that friendship or we'll lose that job. And so it comes. I want you to watch this. It comes out of a scarcity mindset. I'm scared that if I don't bend on this, this person will leave, and so I'm going to betray myself to keep them in my life. Now, I want you to ask yourself this question whenever you're in the middle of that. Is this person worth me betraying myself?

Absolutely not.

Answer. Should always be that. Exactly. It should not be that. Why? Because your boundaries are an invitation to intimacy. Your boundaries are an invitation to connection. Your boundaries are an invitation to this is who I am, and this is the purpose and the vision that I have for my life. And if you're a man, you're the king of this castle. So you set the culture right. Not anybody else. Not a servant, not anyone else. No. This is your empire that you're building. Set the culture that you want, in other words, the boundaries, the core values, the beliefs, and do not bend on those. You could. You have to be assertive as a man to what it. Knowing what you want and why you want it. So don't just throw up a boundary because you want to have that boundary. Figure out why you need that boundary. Create the why around it 100%. It's got. It's got to be emotionally compelling. It's got to be something that fuels you, that you're like, this is why I cannot bend on this. And if I bend on this, it will affect me in this way, this way, this way. And this is why I stand for it. Right. And then you just communicate that when somebody's pushing it. And guess what? If somebody wants you to break that, someone that probably doesn't belong in your life. And that's okay.

Absolutely. And dare I say, create awareness or always be aware, which I say just about. About just anything. Yeah. It's key. Just being aware, you know, are you saying yes when you want to say no? You know, are you doing things that you.

Yeah.

You know, typically wouldn't for. For. For this person.

Yeah.

Or for a situation or for whatever. And when you're doing things against your will, against the things that you want to do or know you should do, when you should be advocating for yourself and you're going against that.

Yeah.

That's what you need to be aware of, and that's what you need to stop in order to put yourself. Or break the cycle.

Exactly. And for the person who sent this in, this is the practical work. First you're going to evaluate it with what went well, what didn't go well, and what would you do differently? And then I want you to establish your boundaries that you felt that you betrayed. And I want you to do one a week. Just focus on one a week or one a month. If you really, really want to make this super impactful. Write out your boundary, Write out why it's important to you, and then focus every single day when you wake up. This is the 1% method. Focus on how am I going to honor this boundary today?

Honestly, I. I think everyone should have sell some self journaling.

Absolutely.

In some form or fashion. If it's not about, you know, it may not have to be about self Betrayal. It may be about regret, it may be about.

Where you go.

Yeah, anything. But literally. And I'm one of those people, like when I write things down, I find myself making more progress.

Well, you know why you're one of those people? Because you're human. And it's scientifically proven that if you write down a goal, you're 25 times more likely to achieve it.

Yep.

So yeah, everybody should do. Should do that. And if you're like, ah, that's not for me. Well, maybe you should try it and see what different things.

You're not going to ride it. Then type it.

Yeah, exactly. Type it in your notes. But that's where I would say because as soon as you start honoring your own boundaries, that's when self esteem starts coming back. Why again? Now you have the illusion of control again. Now you're showing up for yourself. You trust yourself and that's how you begin to heal your self. Betrayal is by showing up for yourself and stopping the betrayal cycle. Honestly.

Exactly. And to put it into perspective, like my son, we recently had an issue and something I might talk about in another episode, but one thing that we are now doing or he is now doing is, is I kind of. Or I didn't kind of. I said, okay, son, moving forward, this is what you're going to do.

Yeah.

Because it's little things like you just said. And, and these things that he's doing are you're going to wake up every morning at 6:45 and here's your routine. You're going to make your bed, you're going to, you know, and also should have started with what he's going to do the night before because it's preparing himself mentally for the next day, even though he probably doesn't realize it at this point in time. Yeah. But by laying your clothes out and knowing what you're going to wear and it just makes everything glide so much easier. When you wake up and making your bed before you leave in the morning, you know, it starts out with kind of an organizational thing and mentally preparing yourself for school.

Yeah.

And I love that, you know, he. And he, you know, gets his lunch and puts that together and at night and makes sure he charges his iPad and everything that he's going to need for school. And these are now things that he has to do.

Yeah.

Period. You don't have an option. You want to live here, this is what you do.

Yeah.

And I've never done that with him before. And you know, there's, there's reasons I started, but it doesn't matter why I started. It's the fact that it's now being done and it's working well.

And, bro, think about this. That is probably an area that, if we're being honest, you backslidden a little bit to overcompensate for your situation in parenting 100 like I did. In other words, self betrayal.

Yep.

And now guess what you did. Hey, what went well? What didn't go well? What can I do differently? And then you're starting to implement the differently, and you're gonna. You're seeing a cause and effect in it anytime. That's the thing. If we're ever in a cycle, I want you to imagine an actual cycle. You don't need to stop the entire cycle. All you need to do is disrupt it. That's it. One simple disruption will throw the cycle off completely. Which is why I said, if you want to get healthier, establish one simple goal. A glass of water first thing in the morning. That is disturb the cycle.

That is such a valid point. I'm glad you said that, Frank. Just disruption of a toxic cycle, which is one thing.

Yes.

Can literally lead to throwing the whole damn thing off.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

And because it also works when you have a healthy cycle.

Yep.

Right. You do one bad thing, Negative thing to throw off. That maybe it's. You're, you know, you're trying to get healthier or a workout regimen or whatever, and you, you know, you cheat and you eat pizza or. Yeah, whatever. Get off. It works both ways.

Yes.

And just a super valid point. I'm glad you pointed that out because it literally just takes that one disruption to throw a toxic cycle off. Yes. And you're well on your way.

So can I give. Can I give one disruption that we can do?

Absolutely. Please.

I'm going to give us one disruption. If you're dealing with self betrayal, if you're dealing more than likely with I regret that I did that. I can't believe I did that. In other words, unforgiveness. You're having a hard time forgiving yourself. The cycle is. We keep looking back at a situation and the thought process is, I can't believe I did that. Why would I do that? Da, da, da, da. Which then begins to define us as a person. So let me give you the small, which, by the way, if it begins to define us, then we keep recreating the same things over and over again. That's why it's called a cycle.

And that's. You just defined counterfactual thinking.

Exactly.

Exactly what that is.

Literally. And so in order to disrupt that, I want you to think about this, okay? You're in a cycle of looking back at a situation and regretting what you did. Well, obviously, that hasn't been helping you, because you can't get out of it, because you keep looking back at it and regretting what you did. Now, instead, how about you look back at it and you choose to forgive yourself one simple disruption? Now, it looks. It can look this way, and I want you to see it this way. I want you to look at the mistake that you did. Not as that you're completely wrong, but that there was just one chip in the system that went wrong, and because of that, it led to that action. Let me give you a good example, okay? I want you to imagine just a water hose. If you're anything like me, you probably drank from the water hose in the summertime, and it was the best water. The best water you ever had.

It sucked, but it is what it is.

Yeah, it tasted like metal and dirt, but so, so good for you. I think. I think that is why we're so healthy and we can all beat Covid. If you drink from the water hose, you don't got to worry about COVID Don't. Do not quote me on that. There's so many people right now taking things out of context. It's a clear joke. But imagine a water hose. You turn on the water hose, and there's no water coming out of it. And then you look back at the water hose, and you notice that there's a knot in the water hose, a.

Little switch at the end.

Or that, like, does that make you toss the water hose completely out and say, well, that water hose is ruined?

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I'm totally kidding. Yeah.

No, we would just be like, oh, let me just take the knot out of the water hose. Well, let me. Let me tell you something. You are that water hose. The mistake that you made was a simple knot. That's all it was. So now that you see it, you can go back and what went well, what didn't go well, and what would I do differently? And guess what? You just untied that knot, so that knot does not lower the value of that water hose, just like your mistake does not lower the value of who you are. And simply by doing that and allowing yourself to be like man. You know what? That was just one tiny knot in my life that now I'm so grateful that I see it, because now that I see it, I can fix it. And I can change it and then do it.

Awareness. Yes, identify.

Yeah, awareness. Identify. And then take action and repair. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And I promise you, like, if you do that in the smallest sense of the matter, you're gonna see massive dividends pay off in the long run. I promise you. I see this every day, I kid you not. Every single day with the clients that I work with, they think that they have to change everything, but they start off with these tiny tasks that I give them that. All it does is it makes you think just a little bit differently. And I'm talking like 60 days or less. People are getting insane results, but it's because they're choosing a small disruption in. In their old thinking cycle.

Hey, I want to ask you a question. Yeah. So another one of our listeners brought up a topic to me via email.

And.

Because I'm not divorced, I don't have this situation. I offered advice on how I would handle it. But I want you to offer what you would or how you would advise because. Advise the situation because you might have either been in the scenario or could very well be in this scenario.

Yeah.

So this individual has a. I guess he and his ex made a rule that any. Anytime they started seeing somebody before they introduced that individual to their kids, they would be able to meet. Right.

Yeah.

Pretty fair rule.

Very fair rule.

I think it was pretty, Pretty mature that they were able to, you know, make such a rule as a, you know, co parenting. Yeah. So soon after, you know, splitting up. But there's a situation where one, I guess one of them's not keeping up. Or the.

The lady.

The lady's not keeping up and are keeping her into the deal. And she's got this new dude she's seeing and has only been seeing him for a short period of time, like a month and a half, two months. And has not only introduced or not introduced to the father, but is already posting photos of this guy and his kids on social media. Yeah, that would piss me off. I'm just saying it was. And unfortunately she's like refusing to introduce. Yeah, why? Why? And you make. That's what I'm thinking. Why. But I guess after a week's time or something of going back and forth, she agreed to introduce the guy. Yeah. So in that situation, how would you handle it?

Well, I mean, I think he handled it the best way he could, which was probably, I mean, addressing.

Let me rephrase the question because he said, all right, I'm finally going to get to meet this individual. Any advice? And you know, I provided advice to him based on common logic, at least what I think is common logic, and things went pretty well. But I'm just curious as to what you. How you would advise somewhere because. Because I know that might be somewhat of a common scenario out there for divorced.

Yeah, no, definitely. So I would say, first of all, you've got to assume that the dude had nothing to do with it. Because if not, then you're already starting off on the wrong page. Now you're.

Don't ever assume.

Well, but if you assume, assume the best is what I always say. Don't assume the worst. Assume the best. Because what's going to happen is if you go into that situation thinking right, like you said, don't ever assume, assuming that this dude forced her to do that, now you got a bad taste in your mouth for this dude. So because you got a bad taste in your mouth for this dude, negative thought, you're gonna feel negative against him, which means that no matter what action you take, you're gonna get a negative result, period is what's gonna happen. Cause you're not gonna show up happy. You're not gonna show up, you know, confident. You're not gonna show up secure. If anything, you're gonna show up insecure and anxious because you feel like you have no control in the situation. So control what you can control. Assume the best about him. Recognize that her making that choice has nothing to do with you. It's not to disrespect you blatantly. It's not to try and hurt you. It is simply the human experience that she probably just wanted to do that because she was. Had selfish motives.

Kicking him in the balls.

Yeah, and that's just the. That's just the reality of it is she's a human. She can make her own decisions. And if you try and control their decisions, it's good that they set up boundaries. But now he recognizes she doesn't respect these things. So if someone jabs you with their left hand and then you see them approaching you again to jab you with the same hit, they're not a good fighter. If they hit you again, you just suck at defense. And so control what you can control. Don't set yourself up for failure. Don't think that now. Oh, she. So she didn't honor this boundary. Maybe she's going to honor the next one. Now you're just setting yourself up for failure. Recognize what she did. Control what you can control. Look, here, use neuroplasticity. I don't know if you guys know what neuroplasticity is. The brain is plastic. Okay. Neuroplasticity is the training of visualization and using it to conquer situations before you even handle them. In other words, imagine how it's going to go, how you want it to go, how you want to show up. Don't imagine what you don't want to.

Happen or simply putting it. Think about what the result will be if you do this or if you say this and think about what result you want.

Exactly. And, and once you have the result that you want, identify who do I need to be? Who do I need to show up as to get that result? Right. And then just imagine yourself showing up super confident. Imagine yourself showing up like super secure, knowing that, hey, this dude is going to be in my kids lives. I don't know for how long, but I can't control that. All I can control is that he's going to be in my kids lives. And I want to show up in this way. Right. How would I want the other dude to show up if it was the other way around? Right. Same thing. And so focus on that. Because if you focus on what you don't want to happen, inevitably you're going to create it. But if you focus on what you do want to happen, you'll also create the best results possible.

So that's a buddy. And that's the advice almost verbatim. What I gave him. He showed up like a man and handled things accordingly. Yeah. And got out of it. The result that essentially he could best hope for.

Yeah. That's all that's. And it's good that he did that then because that would be another issue where he would deal with self betrayal if he. And we can see, see just right there. We see how quickly we can fall into it. And that's why this episode really is for everyone. And honestly, I'll probably have to listen to this episode in a week and then probably the week after that. You know, I mean, because we're humans but we got to have some grace on ourselves. Like if we were parenting our kids. Parent yourself. I know you're.

I mean that's, that's the whole purpose of, of the having this platform and, and part of laying it into a larger platform to increase the size of our community. Because we want to help more people. Yeah. And we know people need help. Because we know we need help.

Yeah.

And you know, it takes consistency and that's why we want people to get as much from this as possible and create community when you're around people who have, you know, like, similar regrets or similar situations. Self betrayal. Yeah. And if you're around people that are also dealing with the same thing, that is, you know, you're well on your way to.

Oh, yeah.

Creating a healthy cycle.

Yeah.

And not falling back into toxic ones.

Like, imagine a life, bro, where everyone in your life is aligned with your mission and purpose. That's. That's what, that's why I'm so excited about the app, because that's the support groups. That's what it is. Everyone in there is aligned with your vision and your purpose to become a better dad. To be, literally to become a better single parent and navigate these things. Now you have some other dudes that are like out there who they're not really interested in that. They're just interested in enjoying life and living selfishly for a season. And that's great. If that's the season you're in, go for it, but let it be a season. You know what I mean? Eventually you got it. You got to get your life back on track and focus on what matters, which is your legacy. But imagine just being surrounded by a bunch of people like that. Like it's going to make a massive difference.

Inevitably.

Inevitably. Because the number one thing that changes us is our environment.

Yep.

And the number one environment that we have control over is our mind and what goes into it. 1. And you know, you.

You know the thing. Show me who you hang out with and I'll tell you what you think about yourself.

Yeah.

And you are who you hang out with. And there's multiple other things that essentially mean the same thing, but you surround yourself with people with the desire to better themselves, with the desire to become a better parent.

Yeah.

Inevitably you are going to get just that. You're going to become a better parent. You're going to make friends in the interim. Yeah. And you're also going to have somewhere to go when you need to talk to somebody.

Yeah.

And it's awesome. That was our vision from the get.

Go, like a year ago too, right?

Yeah, Literally. And to see it come to fruition is amazing. Yeah. I cannot wait for people to start using this. And keep an eye on our Instagram this week. We will throw some teasers out.

Yeah. I'm excited for that. So remember, guys, key things to take away. Evaluate the situation that you're struggling with from your past. What went well, what didn't go well. And what would I do differently? And then recognize that you are a water hose. And that was just a simple knot in the hose, so you don't toss out the entire water hose. You just fix the knot. And you should celebrate the fact that you see the knot now, because now you can do something about it. And the last thing is forgiving yourself, recognizing that you are a human, recognizing that you did not have the insight that you have now then, and that is why that happened. And so thanking that situation for it being an opportunity for growth and giving yourself some grace, giving yourself the space, the man. Imagine this, the partner that you want. Don't you want them to create a safe space for you to fail? Like, if you mess up, wouldn't you want them to have grace on you and be like, man, like, that's not who you are. You messed up. And I get that. And I want to be here with you through that. That's the best kind of friendships.

So if you don't have that in your relationship, reevaluate.

Yeah. If you don't have that in your relationship, more like, more than likely it's because you don't have that for yourself. So you got to start giving that to yourself, because as soon as you learn how to give it to yourself, you can give it to someone else 100%.

That's a whole other episode.

Yeah, that is a whole nother episode, man. What a great episode, bro. Honestly, I really enjoyed this. I hope anyone who's listening to this enjoyed it. Make sure that you do. I know we're not that active on Instagram right now. We're trying. We're really trying to work on it. We had somebody reach out that wants to help out with it, and we're trying to get that established so that we can be more present on Instagram and just posting content. But we are present in the DMs. And so if you send us a.

DM about, I respond to every. Every single one of them. Sometimes a little delayed, but I respond to all of them.

Yeah. And if you really, really want us to, like, cover something specifically, you know, and you want our perspective on something that you're going through, then send it in the DMs. Like, that's what we're here to serve. We don't know. We don't got the answers to everything, but we can definitely offer a different perspective. And sometimes that's all we need is to look something a different way and. And it helps us get through it.

Absolutely. And just like I think I announced, was it last episode or the one before? You know, I'm. I'm mentoring a guy. Michael Newsome up in New York that reached out to me and we're continuing to. To work. Yeah, we're documenting things as we go and we're doing some really cool stuff. I can't wait to see where things are in six months and even a year. That's awesome. Shout out to you again, brother. Doing great. And Miguel, thank you again, brother, so.

Much for our boy Miguel. I wish they had the. The air horn, the Drake that. But yeah, everyone, thank you so much for the support. Make sure that you share this podcast if it is helpful to you. Share it with a friend, share it with a family member. Share it on your social. Let's. Let's spread the word. Let's help as many people as we can. Let's connect, most importantly, with as many people as we can so that we can surround ourselves with the right like minded people on the same goal, the same mission as us.

And one last thing before we go. If you were one of the people that tuned into our YouTube channel, we took it. Yeah, we took it down. Momentarily it will be back up and it will also feed into our mobile app.

Yeah. Let's go.

Let's go.

Alrighty, guys, y' all have a blessed day.