"The Orphaned King"

His name was Cedric, and he was 42 years old. At the time I was coaching him, he was engaged, and his wedding was in 9 months. On paper, he was winning. He had a full-time job. He was a full-time student. He was building a legacy. He was breaking generational cycles. He had very, very strong faith, and he had a solid relationship with God, with his fiancée, with his kids, and with everybody that was around him. But when I asked him about his health, he said, I've had some health scares, but I'll deal with it in a couple of months. After finals, maybe after this project, or after the holidays. And that's when I knew that Cedric isn't just building a legacy, he's building a tomb. And he doesn't even realize it. Because the thing is, is that you can't break cycles by breaking yourself. And Cedric, like so many of us, is so focused on being the man he never had that he's sacrificing the man his fiancée actually needs. And sacrificing the man their children need—a man who's present, not just productive; a man who's alive, not just achieving. This is Cedric's story, but it might be yours too.

First they want to see me fall, see me break, see me crawl. Never want to see me hope truth untold. But now I speak, so you gon. Feel it all. I'm the presence in the room. I don't just speak. I command your presence. Demand excellence. Breathe fire with reckless reverence. Plant it in the best soil, deep like ancestral truth. Try to form a plan, but you could never reroute me. I'm still here. Congratulate me. Survived it all. Wore it like a suit and walked through hell with a heaven-bound boot. That's the same path you gonna From broken to unbreakable, from loss to legacy. Talk intact life. We map the journey. Seven loops, five modes, five pillars. No attorney. Break your loop. Build your love. This is how we rise above. Shamsuddin Hakim. Intact Life Podcast. Welcome to the session. Let's go.

Intact Life.

Welcome back to the Intact Life Podcast.

Yes, I'm your guy, Shamsudin Hakim. On the last episode, we talked about the 7 pattern loops. We gave you the overview, the signs, and the 6-stage cycle. In this episode, we're going just a little bit deeper, focusing our attention on one person, a real client, a real live assessment, a real story. Because here's what I've learned in 25 years of coaching. You don't break your loop by reading about loops. You break your loop by seeing yourself in someone else's story. So today, I want to introduce you to Cedric. Cedric came on TikTok Live a few months ago. He took the INTACT assessment right there with me. I walked him through it, and we went over his results. And when I read his results to him, and I saw something that reminded me of who I used to be, it broke my heart because I know how this story ends. Cedric is a man who's so committed to being the father he never had that he doesn't see that he's He's destroying the father his kids will need. He's a man who's so focused on building a village that he's burning down the temple, his own body. Cedric is what you would call a Performer with a secondary pattern loop of a Fixer. And if you've ever felt like you have to earn love through exhaustion, if you've ever believed that rest is weakness, if you've ever sacrificed your health, your needs, yourself to prove you're not like the people who failed you, then this episode is for you. So let's meet Cedric. Here's what I knew about Cedric before we even started coaching. 42 years old, engaged, wedding is in 9 months. He's in what I call legacy mode. This isn't about finding love. He already found the love of his life. This is about building with her. But here's what else I learned. He has a full-time job. He's a full-time student, not because he's aimless, but because he's driven. He's building something for his family, for the generations behind him. His 5 pillar scores are well-rounded and balanced. His faith is 80%, which means he has a strong foundation. Finances, 80%, solid, and he's responsible with his finances. His relationships is 80%, meaning he has great partnership with his fiancée. His vocation is 70%. He's purposeful and he's working hard. His health is 40%. 40%, that's the crisis point. And when I asked him about it, here's what he said. I've had some health scares, but I'm handling it. I'll take care of it in a couple months after everything calms down. I'm thinking to myself, a couple months? So I said, Cedric, what if a couple months is too late? He paused because deep down he knew his body has been screaming at him for months, maybe years, but he's been too busy building to listen. And that's the performer loop. The performer loses themselves trying to be the perfect partner, the perfect provider, the perfect cycle breaker. They over-function and they over-give until the point to where they actually burn out, and then they resent their partner for not appreciating it, even though their partner never asked them to lead and that their partner never asked them to bleed. Cedric shows, shows 7 out of 12 performer signs. Here's what stood out the most. Sign number 1, he molds himself to fit expectations. Not her expectations, society's expectations. His own expectations of what a real man should be. He didn't have a male blueprint growing up. He had no father, no role model, so he's been freestyling his entire life. He's been piecing together manhood from culture, from faith, and from pain. And the version he created looks like exhaustion. Sign number 2, he overgives before anyone asks. He has full-time work, full-time school. He's building a legacy. He's breaking cycles. But no one told him he had to do all of this. But he feels like if he doesn't, then he's failing. Sign number 3, he suppresses his own needs. He has health scares, so he says, I'll deal with it in a couple months. He has exhaustion. That's just what it takes, is what he tells himself. He needs rest, but he says, I'll rest when I'm dead. That's not strength. That's a martyr complex. Sign number 4, He believes joy is earned and not lived. Here's what Cedric said that broke me. We work hard for vacations. That's the type of stuff we work hard for. Do you hear that? He grinds 51 weeks a year to feel alive for 1 or 2 weeks on vacation. So he hasn't made joy a rhythm, but he's made it more of a reward for nearly bringing himself to a point of exhaustion and burnout to where he's killing his body. And that's the performer loop. Here's the cycle that he's stuck in. The trigger is life gets stressful. There's more to do, more to build, more to prove. He keeps telling himself this. And his fear is that if I stop, I'll fail. If I rest, I'm weak. If I'm not producing, I'm not worthy. So his coping mechanism is he grinds harder. He sacrifices sleep. He delays healthcare. He performs effort as proof of love. And in the short term, it works. He feels productive. He feels valuable. He feels like he's adding on to his life and to— onto the generations, onto the relationship. But the thing is, is that he feels like he's honoring his mission. But in the long term, his body breaks. His relationship becomes transactional. His kids inherit a man who's present but not alive, a man who's emotionally disconnected but financially present. And that's the cost of the performer loop. But Cedric isn't just a performer, he's also a fixer. And his version of the fixer loop is rather unique because he's not trying to fix a person, he's trying to fix a system. He's trying to fix generational trauma, cycles of absence, the village that failed him. He showed 4 out of 12 fixer signs. Here's what stood out. Sign number 1, he's attracted to potential. Not in his fiancée. She's whole. She's solid. She's ready. And he's in love with her. But in his future, he's attracted to the potential of what his kids, his lineage, and his community could be. Sign number 2, he says, I can't stop. They need me. Who is they? Are you talking about your future kids? The kids you have now? Your unborn grandchildren? The generations watching? Your family? Your friends? Who is they? Who needs you this bad that you have to run to the point of exhaustion? He's carrying the weight of people that doesn't even exist in his life, or people that don't even support him in the same way. Sign number 3, he feels responsible for healing what he didn't break. He told me during our coaching session, I'm extremely big on changing the cycle and building the village. And I think that's so noble. I think it's actually very holy, but at the same time, it's heavy. He's trying to heal the bloodline by bleeding himself Sign number 4, he's exhausted from carrying the mission. Full-time work, full-time school, his relationship, the wedding plans, and he's trying to break a cycle. That's not a life, that's a project plan. And here's the fixer cycle for Cedric. His trigger is he thinks about the father he never had, the village that failed him. His fear is, if I don't fix this, my kids will suffer like I did. If I don't build the blueprint, the cycle continues. His coping mechanism is he overworks, he overbuilds, he sacrifices his health, his rest, his self to construct the village. And something I had to tell Cedric that I tell all of my clients is that self-care is never selfish. Because the thing is, is that in the short term, he feels purposeful, like he's honoring his pain by turning it into something beautiful. But in the long term, he becomes the martyr, the man who fixed everyone else but couldn't fix himself, and he couldn't enjoy the fruits of his labor. And that's the fixer loop. How does Cedric have these loops? It's because of a wound, a wound that says, I was not enough to keep. Somewhere in his story, whether through absence, abandonment, or simply not receiving what a boy needs, Cedric internalized, I wasn't enough to make them stay. I wasn't enough to receive what I needed. And when he was telling me this, I know that he was referring to his father. He was referring to the village that wasn't there for him and referring to the family that he wasn't present in because his family wasn't present in his life. So it created this wound to where he has to constantly perform to prove himself worthy and valuable so nobody will ever leave him absent or abandon him. And that wound It didn't make him collapse though. It made him perform. He ain't take time to collapse and to heal the wound the proper way. Instead, he decided to perform so that that wound would never bother him again, but only motivate him. And he justified this thinking, the logic of the wound, by saying things like, I wasn't enough, so I'll become enough. No one stayed. I'll be someone worth staying for. I didn't receive. I'll be the one who gives. There was no blueprint. I'll build one so no one feels what I felt. This is beautiful. Like I said, it's very beautiful what he's doing. But the thing is, is that this is survival and this is alchemy. Survival strategies have expiration dates because you can't always live on survival. And Cedric's is expiring very quickly because here's what the wound created. It created the Orphan King. That's Cedric's core. Identity. He was meant to be led, but no one led him, so he crowned himself. He became his own father, his own mentor, his own blueprint. The Orphan King builds empires to prove he was never abandoned, that he didn't need what he didn't get. But here's the problem. The Orphan King never learned to rest. Because if no one protected you, you protect everyone. If no one provided for you, you overprovide. The crown is heavy, but you won't take it off because you don't know who you are without it. And that's Cedric. He's a man who's so focused on building a legacy that he's forgetting to live one. He's forgetting to enjoy the fruits of his labor in a way that's healthy. So here's what I told Cedric. And if you're hearing yourself in this story, this is for you too. I said, Cedric, you are not defined by how hard you work. You are not your output. You are not your productivity. You are not your mission. You are a man, a whole, worthy, valuable man. Even when you're not grinding, your fiancée doesn't need your performance. She needs your presence. She doesn't want you working yourself into the ground for her. She wants you alive, healthy, here. Not just physically present, but emotionally available. Your kids don't need a martyr. They need a father. A father who's whole. Who models rest as strength, not weakness. Who shows them that real men take care of their bodies, not sacrifice them. You can break the cycle without breaking yourself. The village doesn't need a dead architect. It needs a living one. You're so focused on building for the next generation that you're forgetting You are the foundation. If you crumble, everything you built crumbles with you. Rest is not earned. Rest is required. Not because you're weak, but because you're human. God didn't design you to grind 51 weeks for 1 week of joy. He designed you to experience him daily in rest and presence and peace. The strongest legacies aren't built by men who work themselves to death. They're built by men who pace themselves, who protect their health, who who trust that sustainability is the strategy. You didn't have a blueprint, so you're writing one. Just make sure that rest is in that blueprint that you're writing. Here's what I told Cedric to do. And if you're resonating with his story, this is your action step to schedule a full physical this week, not next week, not next month, not when things calm down this week. Schedule a physical because your body is sending you warnings. And if you Ignore them long enough, then those warnings become crisis. Cedric said he'd do it. And I said, I don't just want you to schedule it. I want you to screenshot the confirmation, send it to your fiancée, and say, I'm protecting us. Not just you, but us. Because your health isn't just about you anymore. It's about her, your kids, the village that you're building. You can't build if you're broken. And here's the thing. Cedric did it. He scheduled the appointment and he sent the screenshot to her and he sent the screenshot to me. And you know what his fiancée said? I've been waiting for you to do this. She wasn't mad. She was relieved because she knows exactly what he's taking his body through, because she's been watching him grind himself into the ground and she's been scared. But she didn't want to push him because she knows he's carrying so much. But when he took that step, when he protected himself, she felt safer. That's what the performer doesn't understand. Your partner doesn't need you to sacrifice yourself to prove your love. They need you to stay whole, alive, and present. So that's the action step. If you're a fixer, if you're an orphan king, schedule the thing you've been delaying— the doctor's appointment, the therapy session, the rest that you've been avoiding— and tell someone, I'm protecting us, not just you, but us. Now let me zoom out just a little bit. Cedric is in legacy mode. Now that's one of the 5 dating modes that we talk about in the INTACT framework. Most people are in healing, exploring, intentional, or ready. But legacy, that's different. Legacy mode is when you're not just looking for love, you're looking to build something that outlasts you. You're trying to build a marriage, family, generational wealth, spiritual impact, a movement. That's Cedric. That's where he is. And if you're in legacy mode too, here's what you need to know. Legacy isn't built through martyrdom. It's built through stewardship. You can't steward a family if you're not stewarding your body. You can't build generational wealth if you're too sick to work. You can't pass down faith if your kids only remember Remember you as exhausted. Legacy requires longevity, and longevity requires rest. So if you're in legacy mode—engaged, married, building a family, creating something bigger than yourself—ask yourself: Am I building a legacy, or am I building a tomb? Because one honors your future; the other buries it. Here's what I want you to do right now: Go to intactlife.com and take the intact assessment. Click on the link in the show notes and take the assessment. Takes about seven minutes. And it's going to tell you your pattern loop. Are you a performer, a fixer, or something else? It's going to tell you your dating mode. Are you in healing, exploring, tensional, ready, or legacy? Your 5 pillar scores. Where are you strong? Where are you at risk? You'll get a personalized breakdown just like Cedric got. And if you want to go deeper, if you want me to personally walk you through your results like I did Cedric, then you can upgrade to the full INTACT assessment. Plus a 15-minute coaching call for just $20. I'll show you exactly how to break your loop and build your legacy without breaking yourself. Take the assessment. Click on the link in the show notes. Because here's the truth. You're not broken and you're not weak. You're not doing it wrong. You're stuck in a loop and loops can be broken. Cedric broke his. I broke mine. And you can break yours. So take the assessment and see your loop so you can break your loop. Let me tell you what's going on with episode three this week before I let you go. We're going to talk about who should the orphan king date. Now, after hearing Cedric's story, you're probably asking, okay, I see the performer loop, I see the fixer loop, but who should Cedric date? If he were single, who should he date? What does a good match look like for someone who's like him? Episode three, I'm answering that question. I'm going to break down three best matches for a performer, the three worst matches for a performer, and the five signs that you found a compatible partner.

And remember, join me on my TikTok.

We do lives where we coach people live. We take them through the assessment and we coach them live and we give them the highlights of their assessment so that they can actually identify where they are, their pattern loop, and they can know the exact type of person that they need to be looking for. So go ahead and subscribe below to TikTok, Instagram, all my socials. Do the assessment, come back for episode 3, and you're gonna discover exactly who the Orphan King should be dating. And I will see you then. Remember, it's your guy, Shamsudin Hakim. I'm Shamsudin Hakim. This is the InTech Life podcast. Live in tech, love in tech. Break that pattern and build love the way that you want to.

InTech Life. First they want to see me fall, see me break, see me crawl. Never want to You've seen me hold truth untold, but now I speak, so you gonna feel it all. I'm the presence in the room, I don't just speak, I command your presence, demand excellence. Breathe fire with reckless reverence, planted in the best soil, deep like ancestral truth. Try to form a plan, but you could never reroute me. I'm still here, congratulate me, survived it all. Wore it like a suit. Suit and walk through hell with a heaven-bound boot. That's the same path you gonna walk. From broken to unbreakable, from loss to legacy. Talk intact life, we map the journey. Seven loops, five modes, five pillars. No attorney. Break your loop, build your love. This is how we rise above.