Welcome to another episode of the family business, where family is everybody's business. And today, I'm Steve Alesi here with my son Christopher Alesi. Today. Today, and we're going to be talking about um relationships. Yep. We're right in line with this, so I need you to go ahead. Can you light our fire? Could get hot up in here if you're watching. Woo, yeah. Eternal flame. That cool? I love it. I know. Mom and I used it.
SPEAKER_01Did you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was good. We we actually finished before the flame did.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00Usually the flame. For the goal today? Yeah. All right. Conversation outlasts the flame. But uh, we need to do that. Chris, you're talking with me today, uh, of course, in this environment. We're talking about things we can't talk about on Sunday. Yeah. So uh you have some thoughts, and it's about relationships, it's about mindsets. Um, so why don't we dive right into it? Right. Stir it up right now.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, of all the podcasts we've done and all the clips we posted on social media, the one uh that I saw a lot of people reposting, at least the one that had to do with me, was when I told guys, just go ask her out. And I really started thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00Would this be a Valentine's edition? This would be a great Valentine's edition. Right there during Valentine's four, like, man, get this information before. How about every other week except Valentine's? Because Valentine's turns single people off, divorce people off. They don't have to worry about it. So this is for the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_01The rest of the year, fine. Go for it. It works too. Well, go date. And go ask her out. Do it. Ask him out. The girl. Maybe. Ask the guy. I think you'd want our daughters doing that.
I don't mind. As long as the guy's cool, yeah, go for it.
SPEAKER_01So here's here's the idea. So I remember when you guys bought chickens for Miami. This was before we even brought them to Georgia. And on our first harvest of eggs, I remember mom saying, I'm gonna make eggs today with our eggs. And that that thought was so foreign to me that when she made them, even though they looked better, and everybody around me was like, These taste even better. When it came time for me to eat them, I was nervous. I felt, I felt like this was disgusting. I can't explain it. I was telling mom the other day, they're right outside. We're eating something from our backyard. Oh Lord. That was so foreign to me. Um, I was kind of hoping she'd run out and have to use store-bought eggs for mine. And I just started thinking, where did I get this mindset that the store-bought, unhealthier one is somehow uh more palatable than the healthy one that I actually helped grow and produce. And it was a mindset, and I noticed that that's happening a lot with our young people. Uh, and it's not just in our church or the church, but it's it's in the world. They they're when they're trying to get married, when they're trying to find people, they're trying to build healthy relationships.
The truth is they don't even realize that they they have to get divorced before they can get married. And what I mean is they have to divorce the mindset before they could ever actually marry a person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I don't know where we get some of these mindsets from. Uh, maybe, maybe Hollywood, maybe insecurity, maybe you have a mom telling you that you're the world's best person when you're really, really, really just average. But you believe in your heart of hearts that you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah. You gotta learn to divorce some of these mindsets if you ever want to actually marry a person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we're seeing 30-year-old, 32-year-old, 35-year-old guys, girls never married, and they're not even dating.
SPEAKER_01No, they're not even dating anybody.
SPEAKER_00And we've got a great pool right here or pond right here in our church. And we're seeing some of them across the aisle like, gosh, just go, just go get married. Go to go talk to her, go, go ask her out. And if she says, no, fine, welcome to the real world. But don't let that mindset of maybe insecurity or fear or what happened to my parents or what happened in my last relationship. Don't let that mindset stay prevalent that keeps you from being able to embrace you're meant for connection. You are.
SPEAKER_01And I remember, I remember it started in my own life, you know, and I had to, it was when I was about to start dating Rochelle, I had this fear on me because I had never really dated somebody from our church. And I just remember thinking, how is it when I look back on everything before Rochelle, how did I find a way to say yes to all that? And I'm looking at this unbelievable person and I'm finding a way to say no. And that just started in my own heart. And then now we've been married, we make a year and a couple of weeks. I look at my friends and I'm thinking, how have you been able to say yes to your exes and yes to these people? But you're saying no to these girls we have in church. There's, I don't care what you say, there's something off. There's something
wrong. What's causing that, Chris? Well, I think it's my, I think it's mindsets. I think if I have to be, if I have to narrow it down, I think there's been severe miscommunication from one generation to another. And that's that whole, when I met her, I knew. And now my generation is trying to figure out what that means. What does it mean to know before you've even gone on a date with them? And now we feel like we have to have this remarkable experience. The first time we lay eyes on them to even consider. I see so many of our guys.
SPEAKER_00We absolutely can. Uh you don't hear about the 10 others that they thought they knew would be the one. They could only tell you about the one they were right. That's the one that they were finally right on. So you can't buy into that mindset.
SPEAKER_01I I see a lot of guys who they it's almost like they want to know that they like the girl before they ask her out. And they don't even realize you do not like her unless you've spent time with her, you've talked to her, you've developed that that gift to talk to a girl. You can't like her before you've hung out with her. You can have some type of affinity for the way that she looks and carries herself, but you can't like her. So these I've seen it. It's almost like you want to know that they're the other character in your story before you even approach. And you can't do that. You're never gonna get anywhere. And I do think that everyone listening to this podcast, if you're single, I want you to take like 30 seconds and do some inventory in your life. How far have your mindsets taken you? How far have your mindsets taken you? Do you like the results of your mindset? Because especially the people in our church, like you said, we have phenomenal options everywhere. I feel bad for some of the guys in our church because my only conversation with them is, hey man, good to see you. Did you see who's here? I feel bad. I would name them, but I'm not going to. There are some guys where I say, Man, good to see you. Love you so much. By the way, go ask her out. And it just, that's my they're married to mindsets and they they they're not even liking the results of those mindsets. And that started with me. I'm not beating up on anybody, but luckily people helped me get past that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh growing up, did we talk about this much?
SPEAKER_01I would, I would say, yeah. Um, you helped me develop the right mindsets about who I was and who I should be looking for. But even in all of that, I still found a way through movies and other things, things that people happen to say, I still caught on to aspects of the mindset that held me back. I had to get past that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Your sisters loved Rochelle.
SPEAKER_01Loved her, and none of them told me.
SPEAKER_00They didn't even tell me. If they wanted you to date her, they were praying. Please have them date Rochelle.
SPEAKER_01Meanwhile, no one's saying a thing. So if you're if you're listening to this and you feel like there's somebody you want to ask out, but you can't. You can't, because you don't know if you have your family's approval yet, as long as they're in the church and they're honoring God, just go ask them out and watch how your family's like, oh, thank God. Yeah. They don't feel like they can tell you the truth because they can't force you to like somebody. I just, I'm so grateful. Yeah. I'm so grateful because when I see Rochelle in the morning, right before we go to bed, she's always asleep before me. There's a moment at least three times a week where I'm like, I could have missed out on this. Yep.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And it wasn't because of sin. It wasn't because of I gotcha. We we just happened to miss. She wanted to go somewhere. It was nothing like that. It was mindsets. Mindsets.
SPEAKER_00Well, we said one of those mindsets that's keeping kids from doing your young singles from engaging is, you know, they're picking up on the Hollywood, and then you bought into this. Well, that's the one. I knew that's the one. What's another mindset that is keeping them from being able to connect?
SPEAKER_01You think to that front? I think we should do a whole series one day on the happily ever afters that weren't actually happy. Because when you look at like the notebook, there was a lot of conflict. Ashley, there was a lot of conflict in that dating relationship. And yet Hollywood makes it seem like the minute they got married, there was zero conflict. We know that ain't true. If there's conflict before marriage, there's more after. But I think another one. I love the way you say things. I thought about it the other day. I I I finally watched it with Rochelle once we got married. I'd never seen it. And I'm like, this is the love story that people are talking about. This is ridiculous. Like conflict for 10 years, 50 years of bliss. Uh doesn't happen. Yeah. Um, I think another one though, um
I I see I see people struggle with feeling like if they ask somebody out and it doesn't work out, it stains them somehow. And if we could just be really, really frank, dating doesn't stain you, sin stains you. Taking a girl out two or three times and finding out this ain't it, going on a date with a guy that you're not sure about, but you're gonna try, keeping your hands to yourself and your lips to yourself, and then deciding this ain't for me doesn't stain you. Yeah. And any future spouse that's like you went on that many dates, if that's a struggle for them, they're insecure. You're never gonna get there without the dating. And I remember as an example, I remember our girls, my sisters, looking at guys in the church who had dated a couple of girls in the church trying to find their wives. And I remember the day that my sister said, We honor that, actually. They were like, they're trying, they're looking. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I've been afraid that the peanut gallery is gonna think I'm an awful person because I'm just trying to figure it out. Meanwhile, my sisters are like, no, that's honorable. He's at least trying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I think guys watching this, girls watching this, you're not gonna be stained by trying. Just keep your hands in your chest. John Watchman card. For notebook. Hey, I was married.
SPEAKER_00It's all right. I made it 30 years. Give him mine too, then. Maybe he needs to go ahead and man up and actually watch it. Just watch the movie.
SPEAKER_01It's really sweet. I will admit I cried. You cried? I did. Yeah. But there was ex other circumstances. So I think that's one. Yeah. The fear of being looked at falsely. Um I think, I think sometimes in the church world.
SPEAKER_00Okay, can I stop on stop for a second here? Interject. Um, there is a mindset that it needs to be um, you need to mature from. And that's the one of, well, I'm gonna be uh uh she's not gonna want to go out, or I'm gonna be let down, I'm gonna be hurt, I'm gonna uh be dropped. Rejected. Rejected. Uh welcome to adulthood. Amen. Okay. Because we find it. All we find it in every area of life. You you have to get strong and accustomed to a little rejection. Yeah. And we can do it in career, we can do it if we're a sales individual, but some people just have a hard time when it comes to their personal lives. And it's okay to be rejected in that form. If you don't get up and at least get up to the plate to take a swing, you don't know if you'll ever get on base. You'll know if you can ever hit that ball. So it's important that people sit back and not allow that mindset of rejection that happened when I was 15 years old in high school and didn't get the girl that I wanted to. We can't let that stay with us as we continue to go uh mature. You you you you got to make that connection and press past that.
SPEAKER_01And you know what I found being 30, looking back on my high school years? I don't think a girl ever rejected me. I think she rejected how I did it. But I don't think girls actually reject the person, they just reject the process. When you do the whole texting, what would you think about hanging out with me? What's that about? I don't get it. It's kind of like you're baiting them to ask you out. Yeah. When the confident walking right up, hey, I'd like to get to know you. I want to take you out for coffee. What do you think? Just right there. I think girls are intrigued by that, that a guy would have that much confidence at the very least because nobody else is doing it to them. Everyone else is asking them out via DM or is starting to girls are smart and they notice when a guy is reaching out from time to time. You think you're being smart and just no, they get it. What so I don't know if girls really reject the person because they don't know the person. They will admittingly tell you, I don't know you. I think they're rejecting the way you did it because your first interaction with them is an insecure one. And if the first one's insecure, what else is there to find? So, man, I I look at some of the guys in our church, I'm like, you have no reason to be insecure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01None. A woman would be lucky to be married to you. And yet the way that they ask them out is by trying to befriend them first, which you know is here nor there, but it's kind of weird sometimes. It's an excuse. They they are hoping a friend might say something kind to them about you, or you do it the whole media way. And I just I just don't think that works. Yeah. So they reject that.
SPEAKER_00We we watch some things with our our guys, our good fellas, and and one of the deals is called the demise of guys. And they talk about the whole cell phone, the whole computer, the internet, the world gaming, the world that men are allowing themselves to get caught up in. And women too now. Yeah. Everything is behind the screen. They're hiding all the time. So they don't have to handle rejection. And it's when you're behind that screen, it's not a real world. Use it for business, use it for uh work, but don't use it for your sex life, it's not real. Don't use it for your dating life, it's not real. Um, it's drawing you in the that's the easy way to try to make connections, but it's not the authentic way. And the easy way never pans out. It's hard to walk up to somebody and ask them out. That's what makes it so fun when somebody says yes. It's it's hard to actually make a decision, you know this, about getting married. Oh, yeah. My gosh, we've dated eight months and we're older, we're more mature, we're ready to go ahead and move forward, which means I'm gonna have to make some adjustments with my money, my housing, whatever, well, the people that are in my life. But but that's what makes life so fun. Those are things that ultimately pay off huge dividends in the future. But you've got to do the hard thing and get away from behind the false, the fake of the screen.
SPEAKER_01100%. I remember a show I used to watch. A guy says, I'm not a I'm not good at the whole boyfriend thing. But if a woman would stick around with me long enough, I'd be a great husband and a great father. And I used to think that sounded so noble. I was like, wow. And I was like, that's me. I'm not good at the boyfriend stuff, but man, when I'm a husband, you know what that actually communicates? I'm not good at winning you over, but if I could win you over, I'd be great. That's ridiculous. And if you think asking a girl out in person is going to be hard, how much harder is it going to her father and asking for her hand? That's a lot harder, especially because if a father's excited to give his daughter up, there's nothing wrong. If he's elated by it, sums up. They're gonna struggle letting their daughter go. Yeah. A mother, if they don't have a father, is gonna struggle. So you but you still have to go in there and say, I'm asking you to do something hard. Give your daughter to me. I'm asking my girlfriend, your daughter, to do something hard, which is leave everything she knows to come live with me. I don't make anywhere near as money as that, as much money as that household. Yeah. I'm asking her to come and maybe she can't get her nails done as often as she used to. I'm asking her to do that. That's a lot harder than asking her to coffee.
SPEAKER_00It costs six bucks. Hey, what did you have to agree upon with your uh father-in-law? She had to finish school. That was it.
SPEAKER_01So he wanted her to finish school before I said before she got pregnant. First before she got married. Before she got married. And I said, Well, look, that's that's a that's not gonna happen. Well, I'm gonna marry her.
SPEAKER_00You wanted to marry her. So we asked him, hey, trust me. I'm gonna take care of her. And you know what? I did tell her. She'll finish school. Yeah, I told him that. He wanted her to finish school before then she gets pregnant. Before she gets pregnant.
SPEAKER_01And I told him, You can know that she's being married into a family that honors school. I graduated. My sisters have all graduated. Gabby's about to. Uh, my mom is the only one that didn't and actively says she wishes she did. So I was able to tell him with all the honor and respect that I possibly could, I promise you, she will finish school. And it's been one of the hardest points of being married, having to go and do a simple science class. But she's almost done. And that I'll tell you, if if that was a hard conversation. That was hard. That was hard for him. It's hard for me. We respect each other more because of it. But if you can't even just go and ask her out, how are you gonna have that next time?
SPEAKER_00How are you gonna do that? And you know, from parents, I know for some of our men that have younger girls and younger guys, you know, we've got to help navigate the kids through this, Chris. We we can't be so machismo as a father that we don't let any young man walk into our kids' lives. We cannot have that mindset that says nobody's good enough for my daughter. Well, when she's 35 and she's sitting home alone, you're gonna wish you didn't think that way.
SPEAKER_01Anyone's good enough for her.
SPEAKER_00Okay, now you're begging. No, that's true. You can't let that happen. You you've got to put yourself in their shoes. You want them married. You want them married to the right person who can take care of her, who's gonna take care of her. So you're there to help, you're there to talk her through some of the pros and cons of the person that's showing interest. Even if it's a young man, you're watching the young man, his work behavior, his honor, his respect, the way he treats himself. Yeah, treats his mom, all of that. You're helping her. You're just not putting up this whole thing, which is more machismo on the father's side. Nobody's good enough for my daughter. Well, that's not true. If even God says that he wants us to find that right one, men and women, they've made for one another. It's not good that they are alone, which then brings this up that little statement right there. There's demonic opposition to relationships and to dating because the enemy wants you alone. Yep. Doesn't want you to fulfill what would be the ultimate call of God to the universe, where he says, you got to be fruitful and multiply. That won't happen when you're sitting back all alone. You can't be fruitful in that way. So there is some head games, no doubt, going on, the mindsets, because that's how our enemy works against us. He attacks our mind.
SPEAKER_01I have one more, by the way. Go ahead. Uh, they think that they've been friends too long. Well, I just kind of see them more as a friend. Maybe that's a good way to look at things when in your like your early 20s. Maybe you can sit on that for a little bit. But at some point you got to ask yourself, has God brought anybody else around?
Is there anyone else better than this person? If the answer is no, you got you got the wrong mindset. You're looking, I mean, marriage is literally a lifelong friendship. It's we have decided that you're my number one and I'm your number one. I'm gonna know what no one else knows, you're gonna know what no one else knows. We're in this together. Uh a bedrock of a long friendship, it's beautiful. Yeah. So I just think I think it's important as we wrap up before the flame goes out. You gotta ask yourself, how far have these mindsets gotten me? Because if if you're not liking the results, then get a different mindset.
SPEAKER_00I don't like the show because I think it introduced a lot of stuff to society and culture back in the day, but the even the show friends, yeah. Uh some of them weren't just friends. Friends, they're dating dating, move into relationships. Some of your greatest relationships are going to be with people that are friends. Because here's the thing uh you gotta like the person before you can really love them.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And there are certain things that attract you to the opposite sex. Those attractions do not mean that that's love. Uh their skin type, uh, the the the the way they look, their hair with makeup, without makeup, uh all those things make such an impression on a person that then makes them more attractive to you. But that doesn't mean you love them. So it's better that you are friendly on the front end before you start talking about love anyway. Because love at first sight, when you say, Well, I knew the moment I met her, um that was not real love. That was a strong attraction that I had towards that person. I wanted to be with that person. Then the more I was with that person, the more I started to like them. And now my feelings started to move and grow. And when my feelings for them moved, it then became evident that now love was sprouting. Uh, but it didn't start with, oh, I just love you. No, I just liked the way you looked. I like the way you talked or the way you walked, the way you carried yourself. I liked all those things which made me very attractive to you. And I wanted to become your friend. We had to get friendly. Yeah. So being friends with somebody, and you're looking over and you're noticing, man, there's some serious attraction here, uh, that's the beginning of it. So that's all right to start looking in your friendship circle and wondering, all right, if I want to hang with that person, let me go ahead and ask them for that next step, that next level of courting.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I think that, and I will also say you might want to speak to this one more than me, but I've also noticed a lot of our younger guys, they have this arrogance and this cockiness on them, and they don't even really know how to sit down and talk to a girl. Yet they think they've got all this girl attention. And it's like, what did your mom do to you? Did she tell you you were the best? Because you're
not. Yeah, you're just not. I'll never forget the day I was meeting with a mentor and we were talking, and he was like, Have you been told you're wise beyond your years? And I was like, Yes, I have many times. And he was like, Well, they all lie to you. He goes, You're not. He goes, You can't be wise beyond your years. You're as wise as your years and experience say you are. Yeah. It's kind of like in football. You are what your record is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Same kind of thing goes for uh confidence. You you you just because your mom said you're great doesn't mean you're great. Go out and be great. Go out and and convince a great girl that you're great. Go, go, and then say, you know what? Maybe God put something in me. But not on the front hand where you're looking at great girls thinking, they almost have to ask me out because they're gonna be lucky to have me. That's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're talking a lot from the guy's standpoint today. John sent a question. He says when he's talking, or when a guy's looking at a girl, girls looking at a guy, he's got to ask the question Does this person bring out a better version? That's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_01Parents like who you are when you're dating this person or not. Hey. That's something mom said about you. They all and and Steph, when she was hanging with Muina. I remember the girls told me, We really like who you are when you're with Rochelle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that was the first time they had ever said that to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like, wow, and I like who I am too.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that's the gold standard right there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_00What the people closest to you, what do they think about? I know a dad doesn't have a problem with a guy in his girl's life, in his daughter's life, as long as she's he's bringing out the best version of his daughter.
SPEAKER_01That's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_00I'm not there yet, but my gosh, he's not gonna give an inch to a guy that brings out the worst. Brings out the worst.
SPEAKER_01And there seems to be two options, by the way. They either bring out the best or they bring out the worst. They don't bring out the medium. Yeah, they either bring out the best or the worst.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't do that. That's a lame relationship that brings out the same in you. Um, no, you're gonna have to step up to this. Uh, I hope our guys can get this. I do too. Uh, I uh we speak in a lot to the guys, but I'd say to the girls, you know, sometimes a a woman, when she's in her friendship circle too much, uh, it's a little intimidating for a guy to break into that friendship circle of a bunch of girls. That's intimidating. I love that you can post all the pictures of your vaces and you guys hanging out for lunch here or there. And but for a guy that looks at that on in on social media, it's a little intimidating when he's got to go through about four or five
looks on your girlfriends' faces before he can break in. I'm married and I had a conversation with a couple of our young girls the other day, and I'm I'm getting nervous. I'm getting nervous trying to break into a conversation with two of our young ladies in our church for no reason whatsoever. I'm like, I'm stumbling over my work. What's the matter with me? I'm 60 years old. I'm talking to young women. So if that's a 60-year-old guy that's married, happily married, trying to have a conversation with you and your girlfriends. Imagine imagine a guy that's got uh a little concern and insecurity. Yeah, and I consider myself pretty uh super. Of course, they made reference to my hair, which then broke down the walls. Then you're like, all right, then we had something to talk about. Our hair. Now that my hair is getting a little longer, it was like, oh yes, I do. When's the ponytail coming up? I'm wearing this product. You know, what kind of product you use? Do you you is your hair straight or is it curly? What's that? Do you use a blow dryer? I think I'm comfortable with the man card thing now. Well, listen,
guys, we only are trying to help you, and girls were only trying to help you. Men, women, young men, young women, you got to take the step up. You you gotta break past the mindset and divorce the mindset that you have. That would go pretty much in every area of your life. If you're not happy with your life right now, fully happy and content, then your mindset is what brought you this. Yep. And if you're going to change it up to move into a realm of security and happiness, especially relationally, it's going to require you to change your mindset. And uh what's the old saying? Doing the same thing in a way. Oh, insanity.
SPEAKER_01The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Same thing with your dating relationship. Not easy, hard, but we wish you the very best. The very best as you step into breaking that mindset, guys and girls. And it's all right. Chris has a great calendar open to whatever wedding dates you have. I'm ready. So we're ready. If you're ready to take that step up, he's ready to go ahead and get you guys married for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health shall death do us part. All right. Hope you've enjoyed yourself today, especially those that are flying solo. This was the Family Business with the Alessis, Steve and special guest, married happily, Christopher Alesi. Take care.
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