How to Stay Positive When Your Marriage Is Falling Apart

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Transcript

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Alright guys, so let's get started here. So I want to talk to you today about how to stay positive. Well, your marriage is in crisis, your marriage is falling apart because ultimately we want to stay in the in the most positive way possible to give us the best chance. I'm going to talk about 10 attitudes that will absolutely not transform not just your marriage but your life altogether. So these these ideas that I'm going to share with you absolutely transformed my life. They transformed my health, my finances, my marriage, my mental health, everything. So this is not just limited to your marriage. Obviously, we're talking about it in that context. But uh take these ideas and trans uh use them for every aspect of your life. So the 10 attitudes start with attitude number one, and these build on each other, right? So the first one is that when the when when your attitude is right, the facts don't matter. So most men they lose battles that they could have won because they believe that the facts determine the outcome of their situation, right? So for many of you, this is a beautiful thing because if the facts did matter, we'd have real problems, right? Like if the facts did determine the future, then we're gonna have challenges because the facts don't really support a productive outcome. So all facts do is describe your current reality. It's all they do, they just give an accurate diagnosis of the situation that you're currently experiencing. So the attitude actually determines what you do with that reality. It's not the facts that determine what happens, it's it's your attitude surrounding those facts that actually determine your future and your reality. So your your future is determined much less by your circumstances than your response to them. Guys, if you if you can you close your, can you uh turn your mics off, please, guys, if if you don't mind. If your mic's open, if you could mute yourself, please, that would be fantastic. So a great example is lots of changes in Australia recently around finances, capital gains, property, stuff like that. It's not going to change anyone's future unless you allow it to change your attitude towards what's going on. Those who want to be successful will be successful, and those who want to use it as an excuse will use it as an excuse. So I had a conversation recently with a pastor and he threw it out to me. He asked me, he goes, Isn't it unethical, Cody, to teach the men that you work with that when their attitude is right, the facts don't matter? Is it really ethical to give men in crisis that advice that their situation, the facts just don't matter? And my response to that, man, well, do you believe in prayer? As a pastor of a church, do you believe in in prayer? Because prayer demonstrates that, right? You prayer does not build on the facts of the situation. Prayer allows you to enter into a reality or speak a reality into someone else's life. That the facts just simply don't demonstrate as being true at this at the same time. So prayer itself, which is pretty much a universal principle, right, amongst all major spiritual denominations of some form or another, demonstrates this principle. So if facts were final, then the universal principle of prayer would be an utterly pointless one, and it will simply would not have stood the test of time as we know it. So in light of the fact that if your attitude is right, the facts don't matter, then there really becomes only one intelligent question that you could ask at this point, and that is well, what is the attitude or attitudes, Cody, that produces an environment where the facts don't matter? Because I want to enter into that. I want to enter into an environment where what's going on in my marriage is not, it doesn't determine the future of the marriage. I want to enter into an environment where the diagnosis from the doctor doesn't determine the outcome of my health or the state of the economy determines my finances. I don't want objective reality to determine my future. I want my attitude to determine the future. So what is the attitude that produces that? Well, we've got them here and we're going to go through them right now. So, key understanding before we get into them is that facts only describe today. That's all they describe. Your wife is asking for a divorce, your wife's speaking to a lawyer. Yep, that is an accurate diagnosis of the situation. Those are the facts, and that describes your situation today. That is not descriptive or predictive of your future. Only your attitude will determine that. So, attitude here, and this is a key point, right? Doesn't deny reality. It determines what reality will become. We don't deny reality and go, that that's called delusion, and that's not a great place to be. Attitude is simply a predictor of our future. So attitude number two, which is probably the most ununderappreciated and overlooked aspect of everything, what we're doing here, right, is my health is more important than my marriage. So big marriage requires big, big energy. Big transformation requires big energy, big turnaround requires big energy. And the truth of the matter is, is your health is your greatest asset. If you're on your deathbed, you're not worried about the state of your marriage. If you're dying, you're not particularly worried about your sex life at that point in time, right? And what many of us are here because we were complacent and we took something for granted that we shouldn't. We took our wife for granted, we took our marriage for granted. We just assumed that it would always be always be there, and we just assume we'd always have it. And now we're here because of that complacency. Your health falls into that category. If you lose your health, you lose everything. So every attitude that is required to build an extraordinary marriage flows out of health. Your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health. No health equals no energy. And if you're gonna turn your marriage around, it is gonna require a lot of energy. You're gonna need that energy, and you're gonna need that health. And regardless of the outcome of your marriage, you can walk away from the marriage with your health. That's critical. You're gonna need that for the rest of your life. So also, no health equals no energy, no energy equals poor decision making. Poor decision making results in poor relationships. So without health, without physical health, mental health, spiritual health, etc., everything else is utterly meaningless. Everything you want is built on the basis of good health. So prioritize your health. If you have to choose between your health and your marriage, choose health. Because health is what supports the great marriage. So the key understanding here is that your health is a greater asset than your marriage. If you take care of the man, the marriage has a chance. If the man is dying, if the man is collapsing under his knees, he can't hold up his own weight, or his mental health has deteriorated to the point to where he is now essentially a dependent, he needs taken care of, the marriage doesn't stand much of a chance. So the next attitude is my experience is creating but is created by the meanings that I assign to them. So events don't create emotions, meanings create emotions. This the meaning that you assign to a situation determines how you feel about the situation, and how you feel about that situation determines how you're going to act in that situation. A great example here, very recent example. I'm not going to give any names, but I had a coaching core, and the man's wife is on having what he would consider an emotional affair on the computer on a gaming site with another man in another country, and it and it and it's destroying him emotionally. It's turning him into a monkey with a machine gun. He's wound up, he's upset, he's highly strong, easily agitated. Because what's been determined from this situation is that because she's talking to another man on a gaming site, she's having an affair. Well, the question then, the reframe is well, if that man was gay, would you be upset? Of course not. If you change the meaning of the situation, then everything changes. If all of a sudden it came to light that that man was gay, you wouldn't be upset, you wouldn't be agitated, you wouldn't be highly strung, you wouldn't be quick to pull the trigger, you wouldn't be confrontational, the your stability would increase, the tension level within the marriage would decrease, the space for you to actually speak to your wife and have a meaningful conversation would increase, or because the meaning of the situation was changed. Nothing in the situation has to change for the meaning to change. And the key takeaway from this, when you understand that your experience is created through meaning, is you have to find different meanings. And the way you do that is you ask the question, what else could this mean? So the meanings that you're coming up with currently are coming out of conditioning, they're coming from your worldview, from your beliefs, your past experiences, what you've learned from the world, your upbringing, society, the faith that you grew up with, schooling, the work environment, the people that you hang out with, etc. etc. These views and meanings truly aren't yours. They belong to someone else, they've come from someone else. And quite frankly, they're not supporting your marriage. If you change the meaning of the situation, you change the emotion. If you change the emotion, you change the experience that you're having. And if you change the experience that you're having, you change how your wife is experiencing you, which is critical. She has to have a different experience of you. So a great example that I use all the time. I'll use it for the new men here because you may not have heard it, but it's the Stephen Covey example from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where he talks about the man on the train. Where is a man on the train with three children and they're behaving very badly? And as the journey goes on, their behavior continues to deteriorate, and passengers on the train become more and more agitated until finally a passenger stands up, goes over to the man, and says, Sir, can you please get your children under control? This is a public space. This is unacceptable. And the man looks at him and goes, I'm you're absolutely right, I'm sorry. But we've just come from the hospital, they just lost their mother. They don't really know how to deal with that, and I don't really know how to deal with it either, so I'm sorry, I'll do better. And of course, what happened? Did the situation change? No, the situation was the same. It was an agitated passenger or passengers, a father, and unruly children. But the meaning changed in the passenger's mind. He had a paradigm shift. All of a sudden he saw the situation differently. He experienced a different emotion. And when how you see the situation changes, the situation that you see changes. The situation does not have to change physically for your experience of that situation to change. Now let me ask you. Did that change the tolerance in that man? Did it change the helpfulness in that man? Did it change the experience and the tension in the cab on that train? Of course it did. The meaning in the passenger's mind was changed. It changed his emotion. The emotion changing changed his experience. His change of experience changed everybody's experience. So the key understanding to take away from this, man, is that your experience of life isn't created by your circumstances. It's created by the meaning that you assign to those circumstances. What you tell yourself this means. Is this catastrophic or is this an opportunity? So building on this, attitude number four is my internal state creates my external world. The external world is just a mirror reflection of what's going on inside of you. Stable men build stable marriages. Unstable men create unstable environments. Let me ask you a question. Who here thinks an unhinged, unstable man has a stable marriage? Who thinks that a man that's emotionally unstable, mentally unhinged? Who thinks that they're creating a stable marriage and a positive environment for a family and to raise children? Categorically, man, it's not happening. Your internal state is a mirror image of your external world. Or your external world is a mirror image of your internal state. If you want to change your external environment, you have to change your internal state, which is why finding meaning is very important. Let's turn that around. A stable, reliable, predictable, mentally regul emotionally regulated, mentally stable man. Who do you who thinks his marriage looks healthy? Can I get you to mute yourself, please, Graham, if you don't mind? So again, if your if your emotional state, if your internal state is fear, guess what fear produces? Fearful behavior. If your emotional state internally is suspicious, guess what you're going to produce? Suspicious behavior. Fear produces more fear, fearful behavior. Confidence produces confident behavior. Internal stability produces stable behavior. The marriage right now is simply a reflection of the man leading it. As is your business, as is your job, as are your finances, as is your health, as is your relationship with your children. They're all scorecards of the man leading those events. So again, let me make this clear. Facts do not destabilize marriages. Behavior does. And as you can hopefully see, the behavior that you're engaging in flows from that interpretation, from the internal interpretation that you have. The question that you have to ask yourself is how is how I'm interpreting what's going on here? Is there a meaning, is the meaning that I'm assigning to this situation is it supporting the outcome that I'm looking for, or is it destroying it? Is being distrusting of your wife creating trust? Is being suspicious of your wife creating an environment for reconciliation? Is you believe is the idea that she's narcissistic or has some other kind of mental disorder, is that helping the situation? Is that changing the situation? So when you cut when you find different meanings, that produces different behaviors, and different behaviors produces different outcomes. If you think that you can continue to engage in the same behavior and get a different outcome, that is the definition of insanity. It's not gonna happen. And if you think you're gonna change your behavior without finding a different meaning, that is also equally as insane. So the key understanding to take from this is your marriage is simply a cumulative expression of the man experiencing it. That's all it is. Events do not determine your marriage. The behavior that flows out of those events do. There are many men on this call whose wife has had an affair. Some of you have saved your marriage, some of you will not save your marriage. So an affair is neither terminal or an indication of whether the marriage gets saved or not. If both exist, affair is the event, some men save the marriage, some men don't, then the affair is not the determining factor. And we can do that with any condition that you want to apply to this. My wife is narcissistic, my wife is avoidant, my wife is fill in the blank. Well, I can tell you that there are men on the core that have that condition that have saved their marriage, and there are men that have that condition in their marriage that have not. The marriage is an expression of the man in the marriage. That that that's the truth, and that is the attitude. That is determined by attitude. So attitude number five is a great one. This is one of my favorites. And it's don't get through this, get from it. There are two attitudes that you can adopt in any situation. One is I have to get through this, and the other one is I have to get something from this. I have to do this call today, I'm obligated to it. I'm paid to do it. This is my job. You expect this out of me. So this call is not a variable for me. It has to take place. So I can approach this call with one of two attitudes. I've got to get through this call, I've just got to get through it, or I need to get something, I'm gonna get something from this call, I'm gonna benefit from this. The call is not the variable, this call is happening. The variable is how I leave the call. Do I leave the call with, or do I approach the core with just this is something I have to do, so I just need to get through it? Or do I take something from this? The same is true with your marriage. Many of you approach in this situation from I have to I just have to get through this, Cody, I just have to get through this situation. This is an attitude that is disempowering. This isn't our attitude that creates meaning, that produces behavior, that creates more chaos. When you look at the situation, and we're going to build on this, with the attitude of I've got to get something through this, again, we can look at this a different way. When you wake up in the morning, there's only two ways you can approach the day with anticipation or apprehension. How do you face the day when you wake up? Do you go, wow, what another great opportunity today? I'm alive, I have my health, I have so many things. I can't wait for this day to take place. Or do you do you approach the day with apprehension? The day's happening, the day is not the variable. The day will start and the day will finish, and the chances are you will start and finish the day with the day and tomorrow will come. You are you are facing this day one way or another. Whether you face it with apprehension or whether you face it with anticipation is entirely down to your attitude. Whether you get something from the day and you learn, you grow, you get bigger, better, stronger, you increase your health, you increase your marriage, you increase your relationship, you increase your finances during the day. You grow, you transform. Or at the end of the day, you go, Great, I got through it. This is a reflection of the man, not the facts. So the situation, this situation is happening regardless. The only remaining question is what can you extract from it? This call is happening for me. What can I extract from this call? Can I get can I extract growth? Can I extract wisdom? Can I extract character, faith, discipline, perspective? Can I build influence? Can I can I grow my reach? There's so much I can get from this call over and above just having to show up. And the same is true for you in your marriage or any other situation. This marriage crisis is an opportunity for you to grow massively. So my challenge to you is don't waste suffering. We all have to suffer. That is not optional. And if it wasn't your marriage, it would be something else. My challenge to you is don't waste it. Use it to grow. So the key understanding here is I don't belittle your situation or dispute the pain and suffering that you're experiencing. It's bad enough that this is happening to you. It's bad enough that you're having to go through this. But my challenge is don't let it be for nothing. Every single circumstance extracts something from you. Being on this call is extracting something from you. It's taking your time, it's taking resources, it's extracting something from me. When I finish this call and I go engage in something else, what I engage in will extract something from me, if nothing else, 15 minutes of my life. But again, here's my challenge: don't let it be a one-way street. The situation is going to extract something from you. Make damn sure you extract something from it. And here's the key if you can extract more from the situation than it extracts from you, it you are net positive and you are growing perpetually. If every situation extracts more from you than you extract from it, you are declining, you are decreasing. An advancing man is attractive to everybody and everyone. And ultimately, if you want your wife back, you're going to have to attract her back. There's no way to get, there's no magic spells. You know, we're not voodoo casting voodoo spells or witchcraft or that kind of stuff. If you want your wife back, man, you're going to have to attract her back. And how do you attract her back? By becoming an attractive person. The only way, it's the only path forward. Everybody and everything is attracted to the advancing man. And the only way you advance is you accept the reality that every circumstance you engage in in your life will extract something from you, it will take. But you adopt the attitude that I am going to be damn sure I extract more from this than it extracts from me. That makes you an advancing man. And an advancing man is attractive. Attitude six is to adopt the philosophy that life is happening for me, it's not happening to me. And again, meaning, right? Go back and review the previous attitudes. Your experience of life, whether you have an extraordinary quality of life or an extraordinarily bad quality of life, comes from the meaning that you assign to the events. Is the marriage crisis that you are in right now the end of something or the beginning of something? It's both. But which are you going to focus on? If you are a negative ninny who goes through life on your knees, then this is the end for you. And that's what you're going to tell yourself. This is the end. This is catastrophic. If you are the advancing man who extracts more from every situation than it extracts for you, this is the beginning. This is the beginning of something. This is the beginning of growth, transformation. This is the beginning of wisdom. This is the beginning of character. This is the beginning of transformation. This is the beginning of reconciliation. Your marriage needs to die, it needs to end. It's why you're here. If it was good, you wouldn't be here. You don't need to reconcile. You need to take that marriage out into the garden, shoot it in the head, bury it, come back in and start a new relationship with your wife, a new beginning with a new man, with a new attitude. The advancing man. Life is happening for me, not to me. Every adversity contains opportunity, right? So let's look at this. We can go biblical, we can go secular, we can go Christianity, we can go Buddhism. You pick your poison. It doesn't matter. They all say the same thing. The biblical perspective. All things work to the good of those who believe. If you're a fan of Jesus, Jesus said that, right? Actually, I think it was Paul who said that. All things work for the good of those who believe. Does it say some things work for the good? Most things work for the good? All things work for the good. All things are working for your good if you choose to adopt that. When people ask me how I am, I say I'm fantastic. When I'm good, I'm good. When I'm bad, I'm good, I'm good. There is only good. Well, that's great. That's an attitude, Cody. Where do you get that from? I get it from this. All things work for the good of those who believe. Do I is that my attitude? Yes. Is life working for me or against me? It's working for me. So if all things work for the good of those who believe, I believe. So then if I'm good, I'm good. If I'm bad, I'm good. I'm just mistaken, right? I'm confused. So if I'm good, I'm good. I'm bad, I'm good, I'm good. There is only good. That's an attitude that people find attractive. Your wife, that's the advancing man. That's the man who's looking to extract more from a situation than the situation has taken from him. Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. Great book if you haven't read it. Every adversity carries the seed of an equal or greater benefit. Are you looking for the are you looking are you focused on the adversity or are you looking for the seed that carries a greater benefit than the adversity that you are facing right now? Whether you are facing great adversity or you are on the precipitate and the cusp of great benefit is determined by your attitude, not the facts. Here's another lesson. Life develops you. Calm seas do not make for good sailors. Good sailors come from rough seas. Life is developing you, it's growing you, it's transforming you, it simply is not just happening to you. That is a very disempowering position to take. It's very unattractive, and quite frankly, it just isn't true. So the key understanding here is the attitude that I would suggest that you adopt that when the attitude that when the facts, your attitude is right, the facts don't matter, is life is friendly. How many of you think that life is against you right now? How many of you think that life is hostile? What a way to go through life. I know people are like that. They're scared of everything, they have to protect themselves against everything. The attitude that negates the fact is that life is on my side, life is serving me, life is friendly, life is happening for me, not to me. And understanding that the opportunity that exists is already inside the adversity that you're facing. Every one of you watching this, face have the opportunity for tremendous growth, for tremendous transformation. Pain is a wonderful teacher, and pain is a wonderful motivator. Pain will make you take action that you ordinarily wouldn't take. Pain will motivate you in ways that otherwise you would be, it would be impossible for you to find the motivation to move forward. Pain is the only thing that gets us moving many times. Without pain, there's no movement. With no movement, there's no growth. With no growth, we're dying. So attitude number seven is the Jim Rohn. I learned this from Jim Rohn, Jim Rohn principle. Don't wish that the situation were easier. Wish that you were better. I always use the housing market as an example. Sydney is a crazy stupid housing market. Millions of dollars for a tear-down house that you wouldn't even rent to anybody. And you can have two approaches to that. You can say that the market's ridiculous, it's overpriced, and it needs to come down. The market needs to change. Or you can take the other view, which is the market is perfectly fairly priced. Many people are buying properties at this price. It's a free market economy. This is why they're priced like this, because the price the free market has set the price here. The problem's not the price, the problem is I don't make enough money. I need to become the man who can succeed in this market. If your plan, your strategy, is to wait for the market to change, or your wife to change, or the economy to change, or your business to change, or someone else, or something else to change, that's not a strategy. When you look at the situation, which frankly is painful, and you go, the problem is I don't make enough money, or I'm not skilled enough, or I don't have the right attitude, or any of those things, you've now put full control and power back into your into your locus of control. Can you earn more money? Yes. Can you upskill? Yes. Could you get a second job? Yes. Can you grow a business? Can you start a business? Yes. Your income is in your control to a greater extent. Whether the market decreases in value or not, you have zero control over. Don't wish for the housing market to crash. Wish for you to make more money. Don't wish for marriage and relationships to get easier. Wish for you to get better. Don't wish for your wife to change. Wish for you to have better skills to deal with it. So one position, wishing that the situation would change, creates dependence. The other attitude creates power. Which do you think is attractive? Dependence or power? Which attitude do you think negates the facts? Dependent, independence or power? Or dependence or power? So to put this another way, man, hope is not a strategy. Growth is. Hope in your marriage changes. Hope in your situation changes. Hope in the environment changes. Hope in the world changes. This is called the strategy of hope, and it is not a strategy at all. It is fantasy. Growth is a strategy. Where do you have power? Where can you change? What can you control? So again, don't wish life was easier, wish you were better. Hope is not a strategy. Intelligent, directed growth is. Attitude number eight is stopping, stop waiting for reality to change. Stop negotiating with reality. Reality has already happened. It is what it is. Look at pilots. Great pilots don't complain about turbulence or storms. They just adjust course. The pilot makes the plan, he makes the flight plan, and he takes off. And the wind is stronger than he thought it was going to be, and the storm is greater than he thought it was going to be, and there's more turbulence than he thought there was going to be. Does he just throw his hands in the air and say this is too hard? No, the pilot continually adjusts course. Here's the truth: whatever you want is going to take longer than you think it's going to take, it's going to be harder than you think it's going to be, and it's going to cost more than you think it's going to cost. Apply that as a universal law to everything, except that that's reality. It's harder, longer, and more expensive. Stop making that the end, stop making reality the enemy. When you go, well, it shouldn't be so hard and it shouldn't take so long and it shouldn't cost so much. Well, you might be right, but guess what? It does and it does and it does. Be like water. Water never argues with the rock. It simply finds another path around it. If the water comes up against an obstacle, it doesn't throw its hands in the air and go, this is too hard. It just simply finds another path to flow. This is the attitude. You put a problem in front of me, I don't care. I'm gonna go through it, I'm gonna go over it, I'm gonna go under it, I'm gonna go around it, I don't care. I'm just gonna get through the problem. End of. Or you can sit there and you can argue with the rock and go, what are you doing there, Rock? You shouldn't be there. You need to move. So here's the caveat: acceptance is not surrender, acceptance creates intelligent action. Accepting that your wife has asked for divorce, accepting that she's she's talking to a lawyer, accepting all of these things is not, I'm not suggesting that you surrender the acceptance of the situation. This is where we are, this is what we're dealing with, this is the lesson for the day, creates intelligent action. And when you can couple that with the previous attitudes of right, I need to get something from this. This is a challenging situation. My wife, I've just got a letter from the lawyer from my wife. This is challenging. Yes, this situation is extracting something from you. You better make sure you extract more from it than it extracts from you. You better change your meaning about this. If you decide that this means that your marriage is over, you're going to disempower yourself and you're going to take action that guarantees that is the case. So, two key understandings here. Stop negotiating with the reality, and acceptance is not surrender. Extraordinary men do not require perfect conditions, they require an attitude of continual adaptation. Be the water, not the rock in this case. So, attitude number nine is stop waiting for your wife to change. You might be waiting for a very long time. So, if your attitude is she needs to change, well, I'm sure she probably does. I'm not disputing that. But the reality is, where is your locus of influence? Can you make a change? Can you force her to change? No, of course not. So accept reality, it is what it is. Extract more from the situation than it's expecting from you. Look for the look for the benefit, not the adversity. What can you learn here? How can you grow? How can you become better and advance from this? If you are in a position of my wife has to change, or this should be 50-50, yeah, I don't disagree with you, it should be 50-50, but hey, guess what? It's not. And if you maintain this attitude, then you are in the victim mindset. And again, let me ask you a question: is victim is the victim mentality attractive? Do we associate victimization with the advancing man, with the attractive man? If you want your wife back, you're gonna have to attract her. How do you attract her? You become attractive. Is the victim mentality attractive? You answer the question. If it's not, then you need to ditch it if your outcome is to get your wife back. The transformational mindset, the one that negates the facts. I become the man I need to become first. Does she need to change for you to change? Does she need to grow for you to grow? Does she need to get something from this situation for you to get something from it? No. As Jesus said, let he who was that without sin cast the first stone. Until you have maxed out your transformation and growth, don't worry about her. Or in other words, stop looking outward at what needs to change in the world and start looking inward at what needs to change in the man because what you see in the world is a direct reflection of what is in the man. Change the man, you change the environment. Fix the man, you fix the marriage. So shift your attention. This is the attitude shift. Many of you are focused on circumstances right now. I do one-to-one with you, and it's all you can talk about. This is what's going on, Cody. This is what's happening, this is what she said, this is what the letter from the lawyer said. This was the text message that was sent. You are focused on circumstance, which squarely puts you in the facts do matter. Shift your attention, change your attitude from circumstance to character, and more specifically, your character. What is this teaching me about my character? What is this teaching me about my stability? What can I learn? Damn this is extracting a lot from me, so I really need to extract a lot from it. Stop focusing on outcomes and start looking at growth. You can't control if the crop grows, but you can control if you plant the seed. Here's the truth. The ground does not respond to need, it responds to seed. The ground simply does not care how badly you need a crop. It only responds to the seed that you put in it. When you're focused on outcomes, you are saying to the ground, you are on your knees begging, I need a crop. Give me a crop, please give me a crop. The ground just doesn't give a crap. Just doesn't care. And it's operating from a place of delusion. If you need a harvest, if you need an outcome, stop focusing on the outcome and start focusing on what goes into producing that outcome, which is seed, soil, sun, and water. Time. Focus on what you can control, i.e. growth. Stop focusing on the things you cannot and expecting that you're gonna get an outcome with no seed. Isn't gonna happen. And again, when you when you shift from outcome to growth, from circumstance to character, this is the antidote to the victim mindset, the victim mentality, to life is happening to me. Life is unfriendly. So the key understanding here is the moment that you stop waiting for your life to change, you reclaim your power. Right now, many of you are powerless men. And let me ask you again: is that attractive to be a powerless man? Do women find a man with no power attractive or repulsive? How many times throughout history has a woman looked at a man and gone to her friend? Man, that guy over there is powerless. I I gotta get me some of that. Never in the course of history has a woman looked at a powerless man and gone, I gotta get me some of that. I'm getting him. Women are attracted to powerful men, and I'm not talking about men who control, dominate, and red, pill, manipulate. I'm talking to men who have internal sovereignty, internal authority, internal power. The attitude that negates facts. This is all available to you today. So here's the truth: growth is always within your control. It is always within your power. Whether you develop wisdom today is on you, whether you develop character today is on you. Whether you develop stability today is on you. It's not on me, it's not on the world, it's not on circumstances, it's on you. 100% in your control. So attitude number 10 is is is one of it's possible. Without the attitude and the belief of it's possible, why even try? This is this is the fundamental belief, right? All of the previous attitudes that I've give you fundamentally build on the attitude of it's possible. Everything begins with belief. If you don't believe it's possible, you won't try. Without belief, there's no action, there's no persistence, there's no resilience, there's no transformation. I could go on. If you don't think that it's possible to save your marriage, are you gonna try? If you don't think it's possible to produce a different outcome, are you even gonna try? This is fundamental. So again, let's give some examples, and this goes on and on. Jesus said, all things, all things are possible to those who believe. Some things, few things, no, all things. Does that support when your attitude is right, the facts don't matter, or does it not support it? Henry Ford, let's go secular. Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. Napoleon Hill again. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. Can you believe it's possible? Because everything throughout the ages, through millennia, the philosophers that have withstood the test of time all say the same thing. Of all the spiritual denominations, of all the schools of psychology, this is the one thing that they can all agree on, and probably quite frankly, the only thing that they can all agree on. Or as James Allen says in A Man Thinketh, as a in a man as in the book, As a Man Thinketh, as a man believeth, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. This is a great little book, by the way. Um, as a man thinketh by James Allen. You can get it, you can get a free copy, you can you can listen to the audio version on YouTube for free. It's probably about an hour. I've read this book probably a hundred times. You can read it in an hour if you want to. Astonishing book. If you're gonna read anything, read this. What is the one thing that everybody, every philosopher, every sage, every guru, every spiritual leader has agreed on throughout millennia? Belief shapes behavior, behavior shapes outcome. This is the only thing we can all agree on. So the key understanding to take away is you will never consistently act what you genuinely believe is possible. Many of you don't think it's possible to save your marriage. So you're just not gonna take the necessary action. You're not gonna persevere for long enough. You're not gonna eat enough doo-doo. Get to the other side. Your belief changes your behavior, your behavior changes your outcome. And transformation begins with the moment you believe it's possible. So let's not deny reality. The truth is your marriage may or may not change immediately. It may or may not change at all. But here's the truth: you can. You can change immediately. And if you're sitting there looking at your marriage, going, you need to change immediately, and you're not changing, then that's not congruent leadership. That's not true masculine authority. That's expecting things to change so you don't have to. Your marriage may not change immediately, but you can. You can change today. You can leave this call a changed man. You can set a course of events, a chain reaction in motion today that will change everything. Because when you change, everything changes. And here's how we can summarize this, right? The greatest great gift this or any crisis can give you is becoming a man you never otherwise would have become. This is truly life-changing information, and I don't say that, like none of this information is mine. I haven't come up with any of this stuff. I've just curated it over decades of studying it and tired of being tired of living my life on my knees. Being a financial midget, being an intellectual minnow, being relationally broken, having no influence, having no reach, literally living my life on my knees. I had enough of it. I saw nothing different or better or special in the people that had the things that I wanted that were not in their needs, the extraordinary relationship, remarkable finances, an amazing business, great health, exceptional standard of living. I looked at those people and saw nothing in those people that was exceptional that I didn't have. Why are they walking around with their head held high and their chest out and their shoulders back and I'm on my knees begging for scraps? Why? Because I didn't understand this stuff. This is the culmination of decades of study and implementing this stuff in my life. I can testify to you that this will transform your life. I have thousands of men and women that have implemented this information and seen transformation. You don't have to spend your life on your knees. So let's bring this bad boy home, shall we? So the conclusion that I've drawn from this from over two decades now of studying and implementing this stuff in every aspect of life is when your attitude is right, the facts don't matter. That's true statement as far as I'm concerned. Your circumstances do not define your future. I don't care where you are right now, I don't care what you've done, I don't care what's happened, I don't care what condition, any aspect of your life is in right now, it's relevant to me. What I care about is what are you going to do now and what are you going to do next. That's all I care about. If you want to go into trauma and past and experiences, then go for it. I fully support that. But guess what? None of that defines what happens next. Only you do. You choose what happens next. Your past experiences, your past circumstances, what's happened to you previously does not define your future. The attitude that you choose today will. Your marriage can improve because you can improve. Everything in your life can get better because you can get better. So here's my concluding statement to the jury. Change the man, and you give your marriage its greatest chance and greatest opportunity of becoming what you want it to be. So that's it. Let's jump over to the QA.