Imagine being thrown into a world of order, discipline, and structure, and then suddenly, it's all gone. Sounds disorienting, right? This is the reality many military veterans face when transitioning out of service. Join us in this episode as we unpack the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, emphasizing the pivotal role of consistency, discipline, and structure - elements often missing post-service. We share from our own experiences and struggles to highlight the importance of an accountability partner or coach in helping veterans recreate this essential framework in their lives. Let us remember that discipline, indeed, equals freedom.
We also dive deep into the power of brotherhood and the profound impact it has on maintaining order and discipline post-military life. We discuss the necessity of replicating the military's structure in life after service and the importance of connecting with other veterans. Through personal anecdotes and stories, we aim to inspire veterans to live intentionally, prioritize effectively, and overcome the 'victim mindset'. Tune in to our engaging conversation, learn from our shared experiences, and kickstart your journey towards a disciplined and consistent life.
Imagine being thrown into a world of order, discipline, and structure, and then suddenly, it's all gone. Sounds disorienting, right? This is the reality many military veterans face when transitioning out of service. Join us in this episode as we unpack the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, emphasizing the pivotal role of consistency, discipline, and structure - elements often missing post-service. We share from our own experiences and struggles to highlight the importance of an accountability partner or coach in helping veterans recreate this essential framework in their lives. Let us remember that discipline, indeed, equals freedom.
We also dive deep into the power of brotherhood and the profound impact it has on maintaining order and discipline post-military life. We discuss the necessity of replicating the military's structure in life after service and the importance of connecting with other veterans. Through personal anecdotes and stories, we aim to inspire veterans to live intentionally, prioritize effectively, and overcome the 'victim mindset'. Tune in to our engaging conversation, learn from our shared experiences, and kickstart your journey towards a disciplined and consistent life.
Nathan Mansfield Instagram: @nathanmansfield
Speaker 1:
Military veterans who feel like they've lost themselves. Listen up, men and women, but men who grow up in erratic homes. You talk about not remembering. I don't remember much from my childhood at all Disassociation through the chaos. Your brain knows to shut down Right, and so I'm very sensitive to chaos. Now you know like if there's chaos in my house at all, my fight or flight is activated very quickly.
Speaker 1:
But here's a good metaphor for the military, for guys like me and you In a chaotic home where we don't know the emotions, we can't predict how dad's going to show up, are we going to get beaten? We're going to get screamed at? Is it like? What's the chaos that's about to ensue? All that we need in our lives as humans and as kids is consistency, consistency and discipline. Consistency and discipline. It's, it's the whole narrative of everything that I do in my life right now and coaching men and helping men and my kids and my family is consistency and discipline. Those are the two things that will set you free. So if your life is erratic right now, if you feel a lot of adverse emotions, if you feel out of control, it's because you lack consistency and discipline.
Speaker 1:
So imagine this we joined the military. I joined the military at 19. Sounds like you joined it 2021. What does the military immediately do for you that you have never had in your entire life? So so in the military, you had no structure, order, consistency, discipline. The human brain needs it Out of the military. You never had it In the military. All of a sudden, consistency, discipline, structure, order, right. It's not like in brotherhood, but it's not. It's. It's really those things that make us be able to strive and thrive in life Our consistently consistency, consistency, order, discipline, right.
Speaker 1:
So then here's what happens is, guys joined the military who had erratic childhoods because let's be real, guys, that people that joined the military joined the military. Not a very high percentage of them are not just like hey, I want to go serve my country and be a brave warrior. Most of them grow up in troubled households, like, and they're looking for something that gives them some purpose and meaning. So we go join the military in which we get consistency, structure, order, discipline. But then what happens when we leave? Whether you spend four years, eight years, 12 years for me, 13 years you go back to your old ways. You might have learned a little bit about discipline, you might have learned a little bit about consistency, but your nature is still thinking about 18 years of your childhood embedded into your mind about what life is like, and those habits, routines and behaviors of your past begin to creep back in.
Speaker 1:
And so this is why so many veterans feel lost. It's because, once they stepped out, there was nobody accounting for them anymore. There was no discipline in their life anymore. You're in the military. You're forced to wake up at 4, 4, 13, do PT and work out. All of a sudden, you leave the military and it's like now you're at your own demise. How many veterans get out of the military and then don't work out for the next five years? Many. There's no one holding your hand anymore, and so when you're left to your own demise, you're going to go to the place, the path of least resistance. When it's just you and you, you're gonna always navigate to the path of least resistance, which is going to be the least common denominator. It's gonna be the least best thing for you.
Speaker 1:
This is why I'm a coach. This is why I coach men. Why? Because I know the crutch in men. I know that the crutch in men is that they need accountability, they need discipline, they need standards, because when it's left to you, you're not gonna do what you need to do most of the time, like, let's just be honest with ourselves. Yeah, I mean, I know it for me.
Speaker 1:
I just recently hired a coach because I went three years without one, but I realized my life was not moving forward and projecting. In my career, I had a lot of success from the ages of 27 to 32, 33, and then 33. I stopped getting coaching and all of a sudden, my life started to come back down. I realized the one thing I didn't have someone that had achieved more than me, someone that had put their life better, a little bit better together than me, someone who has a little bit farther in the game than me. I don't have anybody holding me accountable. And so what happened? As soon as I committed back to someone that could be that man for me, all of a sudden, finances got better, relationship got better, image of self got better. It all got better. Why? Because I'm instilling a piece of the military that actually worked for me. It consistently disciplined, an order that now implements into my life, and now I'm incredibly disciplined, I'm incredibly consistent. But I needed that person and I think that, as men, we all need someone that is helping to guide us through the day to day, that is holding us accountable.
Speaker 1:
I have at least 15 men right now on my phone that text me every single morning. Hey, workout done before the sun, boss done, perfect. If they don't get a text from me, or if they don't text me, they get a text from me. Hey, what's going on, brother when? Yeah, I don't shame them, I don't guilt them if they missed, but I say, hey, let's get back up, let's go dust yourself off. It's just a failure, but we're gonna start back against strong tomorrow, right? So I love that.
Speaker 1:
Your story paints the image of everything that a man needs, everything that a human needs. We need consistency, order, discipline, and if you have those things, jaco says discipline equals freedom. That's the truth. If you live like, if you are go with the flow, you just wake up whenever you don't know when you're gonna work out, you don't know what your time, you're gonna eat. You don't have to be extremely militaristic, but if you have zero structure in your day, your mind is gonna be erratic, completely erratic. I live my life very strategically.
Speaker 1:
Now, like I've demonstrated and written down what my life priorities are, I think everybody has to know what their life priorities are. You need to write those down and you need to live your day and structure your day within those priorities. For me, it's God first, then me, then my wife, then my kids, then my work. Okay, my work is number five, even though I'm a provider and a protector for my family. So when I build my calendar out, I'm building it in that order. So the first thing I do is God, then me. I work out before the sun, then my wife I mean my wife do a devotional every morning at 6.15. We're going to devotional, I pray over her and I send her a text of two things that I love about her every single day of my life. Then I go. If my kids are with me that week. I take care of my kids. I get them up, I get them ready, feed them breakfast, pay attention to them. And then what happens after that? I work. Every day of my life is lived in my priorities.
Speaker 1:
What happens when we don't live life according to our priorities? We have an identity crisis. We can begin to feel like most people just wake up to an alarm clock that they've hit snooze three times and all of a sudden they're scurrying and scattering, trying to get their clothes on, and they throw some simple, complex carbs down their throat and then get to work and they feel like crap and they feel erratic and they're panicked and they're stressed and they're anxious. It's no wonder you have no structure in your life. You're not living your life by your priorities. You might be able to proclaim your priorities, but you're not living life that way. So it's no wonder that your mind's erratic. It's no wonder that you have anxiety. It's no wonder that you feel depressed. You're not taking care of your life.
Speaker 1:
But when you choose to do this and you live your life intentionally based upon the priorities of your life, everything will seemingly change very quickly. And this is how I coach, this is how I help people. I know what people need. I know what men need. They need that structure, they need that discipline. They need someone to call them out on their crap, when they're playing the victim too much, when they're not taking responsibility for their actions and they're blaming their wife for everything. Men need firm brotherhood, accountability, and I think that helps tremendously to lead you to the place that you want to be.
Speaker 1:
A simple is like doing exactly what I said Write your life priorities on a sheet of paper, write, schedule them in a calendar and live them as if you are living out your priorities in order. Having consistency in your life will change you in 30 days. It'll change how you feel about yourself. It'll fix that shame we talked about. Why? Because committing to something that is challenging for you and sticking with it every day is what builds. That's consistency Consistency when we do something every day, we build competence. Consistency plus competence equals confidence. All of a sudden, the narrative about you can completely change in 30 days just by committing to something, living it out every day, executing it at a high level and learning how to do it better, and all of a sudden, you can completely change the landscape of your life and how you feel about yourself very quickly.
Speaker 1:
The cool thing about this is that if you were to implement just a couple of things in your life and commit to it for 10 days, the number one thing that works for us is this is that you can't miss a day. Okay, you can't miss a day. A lot of people are like you don't take days off. Well, no, but my, I can, if I want to take my workout and just walk for a mile and do 20 push-ups and then 20 push-ups like. It might take me 40 minutes on a Sunday, but I'm not wearing myself out. But the point is consistency has to be done every single day. Here's why Is if I commit to a day off, it allows me to take two days off. Two days off allows me to take three days off. If I'm not feeling real good, I could take four days off. Right. When we start missing a day, then we get off.
Speaker 1:
You know, most of my clients live their life like this, rollercoasters. It's like, well, they commit to something, get all excited about it, they commit to a workout plan, they're all in seven days and then Sunday hits, they take the day off and then Monday they're not feeling good or they got a headache and all of a sudden they're back to and we go peaks and valleys, and peaks and valleys and peak. Life should be a continual move up, right, we might have a couple of like juts in the road, come down a little bit, but we're right back up, right. And so we do that by building consistency every single day of the week. You got to commit to something that you can do. This plan. When I go on vacation I'm still up before before 6am, 5am likely, I'm still going to go do my workout before the sun comes up, no matter where I'm at in the world, I can take this with me anywhere, right. And this consistency has built a ton of confidence in me of who I am, how I run my business, how I run my family. It's completely changed the landscape of me. But you can't miss a day. You got to commit to it and if you miss a day, you start back at zero. Why? Because that's a looming thing, like for me, like I don't want to miss a day, because then I have to go back to zero and I'm like I'm trying to stack the days. When you stack the days, you stack the wins, you increase the confidence.
Speaker 1:
It's the coaching infrastructure which I'm building is essentially a civilian military organization. I'm leading men and ex-military veterans are my avatar B, but I'm taking men through a transformation. But also where they have a unit in which there are, once you've completed my 33 hours, which is like a special forces selection if you're a top grad, you can come back and be a leader in the unit and it's a fraternity, it's a brotherhood that men can stay in for the rest of their lives. Basically, we have live events that you meet up with your bros, you hang out, there's competition. I'm basically creating a civilian military. Some people look at this and are like you're creating a militia. I'm like, damn right, I am Damn right, I am. And so one of my targets is because in my last 33 hours course, four guys were veterans that feel just like you feel.
Speaker 1:
My current coaching infrastructure, at least half of my clients, former veterans who feel just like you feel the military is really good at getting us so attached and secure with all the stuff that they provide and the infrastructure dependent. Yeah, that's where it is. We get so dependent on the military that when we leave, people just feel lost. It's not that I have not felt that way. I'm just grateful because I was. God led me to start a business while I was in and then I had a lot of success, and success is what got me out of it. I was making 10 times more income on the side than I was in the military.
Speaker 1:
But I'm kind of an anomaly in that that's not the path for most people, and most men that especially that I am connected with feel just like how you feel. But the key to it is that you got to look at what are the things that you loved while you're in Well, the things that made you you, the things that made you ascend and climb and want more, and then you got to replicate those things in your life outside of it, which is really tough because you're not in the ecosystem, you're not in the day to day, but you can mimic those things on the outside. So what are the things that I can mimic? Well, I know that I need a brotherhood, like I know. I need men close to me. Almost every single guy forgets about that. It doesn't matter if you were in the military or not. Men need a brotherhood. You need men that will hold you accountable, that will be there when you need them.
Speaker 1:
Two AM brothers. We all need men in our lives that we're close to, and if you're like me, I defer that a lot. I'm like, eh, I'm pretty good, I'm busy, I got a lot of work to do, I got my wife, I got my family, I got time for dudes right, and so that's actually one of the biggest demises of my life is when I don't have good brothers. So you need brotherhood. You need to have like one of my old military friends. He's probably my best military friend out of the 13 years I was in.
Speaker 1:
We set up monthly Zoom calls or bi-weekly Zoom calls now, so I just played them in the calendar. We went like three years without really talking. We're like man, this is dumb. Like why haven't we kept up? We were great friends and so now we put it in the schedule. So every two weeks we get on a Zoom call and we talk, we catch up, which is great. Now I'm building brotherhood with him. But you need brotherhood. You need to figure out the consistency aspect. How do you build a system in your life where either you have a coach or you can be accountable to yourself? Right, but you need to build that consistency, and those two things alone will help you tremendously.