If You’re Only Growing to Save the Marriage, You’re Not Growing at All - The 6 Phases To Evolve No One Talks About l EP. 45 l

If you think doing the work will save your marriage — you’ve already lost.

This episode walks you through the full transformation from Nice Guy to mature, grounded masculine leadership. And more importantly, why doing it for her, the kids, or anyone else is still part of the pattern that’s killing your power.

You’ll learn:

• Why chasing self-improvement to “get her back” still comes from lack
• The covert contracts you’re still making that sabotage your trust
• How to rebuild confidence, not with hacks — but with your word
• The 6-phase framework to kill the Nice Guy and lead like a grounded man
• The reason your wife still doesn’t trust you — and how to change that
• What it takes to lead without needing anyone to follow

This isn’t surface-level. This is the full breakdown. For the man ready to reclaim who he is — for himself.

Join the 90 sec email club HERE

Or if you want more personalised help to step out of the nice guy & into the masculine man you're capable of faster,

Book a call HERE 

Join the free Skool community for the free 7 Day Nervous System Reset HERE

Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:05.178)
If you think the only reason to stop being a nice guy is to save your marriage, you are dead wrong.

Harrison Orr (00:16.954)
Welcome back to another episode of the Be Better podcast. I'm your host, Harrison Orr. I've coached almost 500 guys to reclaim their energy, their presence and lead with more power, presence and... Welcome back to another episode of the Be Better podcast. I'm your co... Welcome back to another episode of the Be Better podcast. I'm your host, Harrison Orr. And I've helped almost 500 guys to have more energy, more presence, more intimacy by ultimately stop being the nice guy.

and reclaimed their power and their presence and their energy. And this episode, the idea of this got sparked to me by a man I was having a conversation with in the DMs the other day. And he was telling me about his marriage or one that's falling apart at the moment. And he was talking about some of the other episodes of the podcast that he was listening to. And he wasn't really sure where to start.

And he's like, man, they're all great. But you know, I'm, I'm separated from, from my wife and I want to win her back. But as far as my, my personal journey, I don't really know how that helps. And I felt dumbfounded. I was struck. I was like, my man, the essence of being a nice guy is not just related to your marriage. It's not just you as a husband and

I had to look at some of the titles and went back through the content. was like, wow, I can totally see how it could be consumed that way, how it could be consumed from the lens that I'm only making these changes or I need my partner to be here for me to make these changes. But what I want to reframe there is being a nice guy doesn't just show up in our marriage, addressing our nice guy syndrome isn't a

a marriage saver. it, by, by it's byproduct, I should say often can be, but it's not a relationship hack, right? It's not a, it's not a tool that gets used to save marriages, to improve your, know, your sex life and all these things. Sure. Those things happen as a byproduct, but guys, this is all about us. This is all about you right now. And that's the purpose here. Like I will openly say, I'm not a relationship coach.

Harrison Orr (02:40.334)
I'm not a marriage counselor, I'm not a therapist, I'm none of those things. I don't work with couples. I work with the man who wants to change himself for himself. Yes, the marriage will benefit as a byproduct. Yes, as a father and his kids will benefit as a byproduct. Yes, his business will grow and benefit as a byproduct. But all of those things, like I just said, are byproducts. They are not the main cause, the main reason for doing any of this. Because

again coming back to the nice guy syndrome, if we are only making these changes to have more sex, to stop our wife from leaving us, to earn more money, to achieve this external outcome, we're still operating from the fundamental nice guy beliefs of I will do this thing if I get this in return. I will do more chores for you. I will say the right things. I will do the right things if...

You tell me I'm a good boy. If you sleep with me, if you know, we don't fight, if I get all these things, these needs met. And so what we need to fundamentally understand and then consequently address is the nice guy beliefs of these covert contracts. The belief that I am not enough or I am only enough. I am only worthy. I am only good enough when I do these things for other people.

when other people tell me that I'm worthy, that I'm good enough. So this episode is not going to be focused on intimacy. It's not going to be focused on the external world. We're going to focus on the internal world because the internal world, your internal world is where the shift actually happens, is where when we make this change is where we can actually embody this change. And it's not just another mask because nice guys

We've got plenty of masks, right? We've got the mask that we wear when we're at work or in the business in front of our clients. We've got the mask that we wear in our relationship when we're trying to get laid. We've got the mask that we wear for our friends and for our kids because we're always trying to seek approval, to be liked, to be loved, to have our needs met without us communicating them. And it's fucking exhausting. So we don't need another mask. We need to actually change

Harrison Orr (05:05.814)
our belief about ourself from the inside out, which comes from I'm doing this to be a better man. I'm doing this to be what I determine as my highest potential. I'm not doing this to save my marriage. Sure, that will be a nice byproduct, but again, I cannot control my partner staying or leaving. I cannot control my clients. I cannot control my kids. cannot control anything in my external world.

you can kid yourself and think you have a certain amount of influence over them and you might have a little bit, but much less than you actually have. You push that and it becomes manipulation, becomes abuse, right? So we only have like true control over ourself. And so I would much rather improve myself, work on myself, strive to reaching my full potential, my...

deepest, healthiest, masculine potential and know that when I reach that potential and through the journey to that, everyone and everything in this universe that is meant to be in my life will be here as they should be. And anyone and anything that is not meant to be will find its way out. And I know that's fucking scary. I know that's scary for a of guys to contemplate even.

to think, well, does that mean that I don't really love her if I'm willing to live without her? If I'm doing this for you, does that make me selfish or all this other self talk? And I'll share a moment in my journey that really nailed this perspective home. And let me be clear, I love my wife to death, right? I never want to like actually go down that route of us being separated or anything, but we need to know that

If we are doing this for them, we will stunt ourself. And for a lot of nice guys doing this, doing what we think our partner wants or becoming who we think our partner wants has got us into this scenario to begin with. And so I'll take you back about seven years. I think it was. And at this stage, I, this was before I'd done any masculinity work before I'd done any nervous system work before I'd done any real self growth, right? I, the growth I'd had in my life had come from

Harrison Orr (07:31.009)
life experience, right? It's not something that I had actively pursued other than a couple of books and podcasts. And I was a very anxious person. I was very self-conscious in my relationship. I was very jealous, somewhat manipulative and controlling looking back at it or I attempted to be. And I remember this moment. My partner at the time was out with friends drinking and

Drinking is foreign to me. I've got epilepsy, so I can't drink. And so I couldn't really entertain that world. So I had a bit of a distaste for that experience. I thought it was just for single people who wanted to go out, fuck and do all the things, right? Didn't really align with what I thought someone in a faithful relationship would do. Again, my self-belief. And so whenever she would go out with friends, I would get extremely insecure. I would, you know, get...

anxious, get like jealous, get all these negative emotions and would need to know her whereabouts and who she was with at all times. I would check the stories on the social medias for to see not just her, but the friends that she was with to see if she was where she said she was, if she was with who she said she was with and all the things, texting her, seeing how drunk she was and then just making passive aggressive remarks, just unnecessary.

sitting there clutching my phone almost shaking waiting for those three little dots to appear this like this gut this wrench in my stomach and now looking back I can see how immature that was I can see how not healthy any of that was but that's how I was operating and hopefully you're not at that space but you might be on some continuum of that type of scenario and what

What played out was I came to this realization that

Harrison Orr (09:33.709)
I cannot control her.

Harrison Orr (09:37.676)
If she is going to leave me, if she's going to cheat on me, know, my worst fear at this time, she's going to do it whether I like it or not.

If she's that type of person, if that's meant for her future, my future, it's going to happen whether I like it or not. And then is me behaving in this way, improving the likelihood of that outcome coming to fruition? Yes. Is me on that end of the phone being anxious, being stressed out, doing, saying all those just not healthy things, more or less likely to make her want to stay with me.

wanna love me, wanna not cheat on me. Much less likely, because one of two things will happen. Either she will just give up with her friends, come home because it's just too hard, basket, right? Or she'd be like, fuck that guy, put her phone down, stop replying, and then go out and get even more drunk. And then the chance of that happening gets exacerbated. You the chance of my worst dream gets exacerbated, right? And so,

In that realization, I know this is somewhat extreme for some people, but the realization that if she's going to do that, it's going to happen whether I like it or not. So me sitting here, anxious, stressed out, jealous, feeling like absolute shit is not helping. So I may as well go and enjoy the night off, go and enjoy doing whatever the hell I want to do and

If she's here and loves me and stays with me and stays faithful and all the things, amazing. If she doesn't, amazing. Thank you for seeing your way out of my life. And whilst I said that was very, that was very immature, that whole, whole space, the lesson in that that has stuck with me until then is that lesson. And it still rings true today of if someone is going to leave me, if someone is going to leave you, they're going to do it whether you like it or not.

Harrison Orr (11:48.955)
constantly seeking their approval, trying to do all these nice guy tactics, double down on being nice and doing all the chores and sacrificing more, giving all the stuff without communicating these needs, without expressing our true thoughts and feelings, without setting boundaries, doing all this, is only going to get closer to that. And so to bring that home,

Harrison Orr (12:17.676)
Only pursuing growth or to be better in the hope that our partner stays, in the hope that we get this other outcome.

is not, not conducive to long-term growth because then what that insinuates is eventually if that partner leaves me, if I don't get that client, if I don't get that outcome that I want, then I will stop doing all the things that got me here. I will become resentful because I've put all this time and energy and work into, into change with the presupposition that this person will do this thing or give me this thing in return.

What is much more empowering, what is much more powerful in general is doing it from the place of, I'm doing this to be my fucking best. I'm doing this for me. Because selfishly I know that if I'm at my best, it will make me a better husband by default. It will make me a better husband, father by default, a better business owner, a better coach, a better all these things.

by default. And yes, that will create a certain element of polarity, right? Because when you start to stand for something, you start to have firmer boundaries, you start to be firmer on your values, who you are, where you're going, what you believe, all the things. Yes, that will push some people away. That will trigger people, that will piss some people off, that will all the things, right? Just go to my comment section on some of my posts and see.

you know how much people hate on me and I'm not even that polarizing. It pushes a lot of people away. But what it does do for the people that subscribe to that version of you, it will make them double down on that love. They will find you so much more magnetic because in that pursuit, you become so much more potent in the essence of you. You become so much more full of yourself.

Harrison Orr (14:23.692)
Instead of parts of me are the people pleaser, the one avoiding conflict, who I think my wife wants me to be, who I think my kids want me to be, who I think everyone else wants to be, I'm just fucking me.

And when we are so much more potent in that space, the connections that we have, the people that are meant to be in our life, that we allow and choose to be in our life, are there not because we need them, not because they need us, but because we love each other, because we want them to be. And I know that in itself might be might be controversial, but I've always said that even to my wife. I'm like, I...

I want you to be in my life. want you to be here because you want to be not because you need to be not because it's more convenient for you to be not because it's easier than going back into any other form of life, but because you fucking want to be and for no other reason.

Harrison Orr (15:30.102)
And it's my belief that that is the sign of a successful parent. That when our kids get older, when they've got their own lives, their own friends and their own family, that they actively want to be a part of our life. That they actively pick up the phone and give us a call. That they actively want to go and spend time together and see each other and do all these things. Because at that point it's because they want to.

up until they're 18, it's kind of because they need to, right? Because we still provide for their lifestyle. We have the roof over their head. We pay for the food. We pay for all this stuff. So they're here because they have to be most of the time.

And so ask yourself, do you want your kids and your wife and people in your life to be here because they need you? Because you fulfill a certain role, maybe you just pay for everything or because they want to be.

And even though the physical outcome might be the same, the depth of that connection, the feeling in those interactions is what will be different. The presence, the depth of those feelings, the depth of those conversations and the vulnerability is what will be different. And so to tie this all back, this is just phase one.

of the nice guy journey, right? The nice guy growth from being a nice guy into being your healthy masculine essence. Phase one is just awareness and the ownership, right? Owning that I am here because of my actions, because of my beliefs, because of the way that I've been operating, right? That awareness and that ownership. Once we've started to identify that,

Harrison Orr (17:24.536)
then we can start to move into phase two, right? And notice that these phases don't have anything to do with anyone else. It's not, well, okay, this is something that I need to start doing with my partner, what I need to start doing with my kids. This is all things that you do for yourself because if we can't do it for ourself, we can't do it for other people, right? That's where I definitely used to get it wrong. And I know a lot of other guys get it wrong as well.

is when they try to, when they get upset that they can't lead in their relationship, that they don't have the respect or the trust in their relationship, but they don't trust themselves. They don't respect themselves, right? Because of their lack of integrity with their word and all these other things. And so phase two is breaking these covert contracts and these hidden expectations. First of all, with yourself, right?

First of all, identifying what actions are you doing with the hidden expectation of something in return.

Like what actions are you doing with that expectation? Because telling ourselves, I'm just a nice guy. I'm just like to be helpful. Cool. If you can, if you, if that's what you tell yourself and you can perform an action, help someone out and feel absolutely over the moon about just being able to do that thing for someone else without the expectation in return, then that is true for you. But if there's that,

resentment. There's that frustration or they didn't even fucking say thank you. Wonderful. There it is. They didn't return the favor. They didn't offer you, I don't need anything, but an offer would have been nice. Cool. You haven't fully owned this. And so where this, where this lands with you, with yourselves is owning the promises to yourself, being impeccable with your word.

Harrison Orr (19:32.697)
because from a belief standpoint, nice guys typically have shitty self belief. We don't trust ourselves. We don't respect ourselves. We don't have much confidence. That's why we want that external validation, that external love and approval, because we can't do it for ourself. And that's where that neediness and desperation ick kind of comes from, The way that we do that is start by being impeccable with your word, like for yourself, you know.

Some people will say impeccable with your words. Some people will say discipline, whatever you want to label it. But if you say, I'm going to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow and go to the gym or just period. I'm going to get up at 5 a.m. whether it's the gym, you've got to do some work, you want to do whatever it is. Fucking stick to it.

even those little micro commitments of, yeah, I need to hang out the washing or I need to put that, you know, dish in the sink or at work. yeah. I really need to clean out my email inbox or I really need to do this. All these little things that you say you're going to do that you never do. A keep a tab open in your mind. So that's why you're always overstimulated, brain foggy and struggle to make clear decisions. Cause you've got so many tabs running at the same time, but also

it breaks down the trust and respect you have for yourself and the confidence. Because think of it this way, think of yourself, you know, in your mind as two people. We've got two, we've got the higher version of ourself and the shadow version of ourself, right? And so the higher version is like, yep, I'm gonna get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna have an amazing day, I'm gonna be productive, I'm not going to scroll on social media, I'm not gonna watch porn, I'm not gonna give into temptation, I'm gonna do this, this and this, I'm just gonna run it like a fucking boss, right?

whatever it is. And then you get up, alarm goes off. You're like, I just snooze a little bit longer. And you know, you eventually get up at your normal time or, know, you hit a roadblock or you get bored doing what you're doing. So you just pick up your phone, go back to social media and whatever else your distraction or your cheap dopamine source of choice is. What that tells your brain, no, sorry, we'll go back. Like I said, you've got two people, right?

Harrison Orr (21:50.946)
If you saw someone doing that and they had promised you that they wouldn't go on their phone, they promised you they would get up at 5 a.m. They promised you that they would do this thing.

How would you start to feel about that person?

you would start to learn pretty quick that you can't trust what they say because they've said what they were going to do multiple times and haven't followed through. You would start to lose by consequence, respect for them because they don't follow through on their word. And it's really hard to respect someone that doesn't have those standards, right? It's like following through with your word is like the smallest thing that you can do. And then from a leadership position, why would I trust them to lead me?

and tell me what to do, to lead me, whether it's in a business or a relationship setting, if they can't lead themself.

Harrison Orr (22:42.488)
And so you see where that, that trust breaks down, the respect breaks down, the confidence breaks down and we feel insecure. Some people then keep going to feel, feel anxious and more than that. so think about that like a contract with yourself. If you want to feel trusted, respected, more confident, start by owning your words, being impeccable with your words, because one of two things will happen.

when you start to honor your word with like life or death type of integrity. One, you will either commit to less because you will then start to have the filter of, I'm only going to say what I'm actually going to do. Am I actually going to do that?

Harrison Orr (23:34.723)
It's not a fuck yes, so it's a no. Beautiful. One less tab is opened. I've said no, I'm not gonna do that. Two, the things that you do say you will do, you actually get done. You actually commit to you actually get done. And it's gonna take some time, but the repetition and the consistency of that starts to build that confidence, starts to build the trust in yourself, starts to build the respect in yourself. Because then you start with the small things.

All the things that are just, I said I would do that, but I haven't done it yet. Fuck yeah, go and do them. And then you can start to have confidence and trust in bigger tasks, when there's more on the line. I'll you a story about one of my clients was in this exact situation. literally within a couple of weeks of working together, we set this task. The Saturday morning, he got up.

And his sole mission was to do everything around the house that he said he would do that he hadn't done yet. Right. He was like a sparky by trade. And so had all this, you PowerPoints and lights and shit that he hadn't done yet. And she's like, cool. That's the mission for Saturday. Got up, went through every single one, you know, wrote them out in the list, ticked them all off. And his wife came in and was like, what are you like, what's going on? Cause like, again, he'd been saying he was going to do it for fucking months and never did it. Finally did it.

and she was throwing herself at him in the kitchen like she never had before. Not again, not because he set out to seduce her. This wasn't a playbook of cool, what am going to have to do to get laid this weekend or anything? He was doing this to be impeccable with his word for his own congruency. And that level of congruency, of direction, of action was magnetic for his wife.

And he hasn't, he will never forget that. Cause that was an interaction that he hadn't had, hadn't experienced ever with her purely because of taking action on those things. And so this is a task I give to a lot of my guys, but if you're for something to do, here's one right now, or give yourself 20 minutes and separate. We'll do this in two, two tasks. Do one for the business and one for you personally.

Harrison Orr (25:59.461)
First of all, for the business, write down everything that you have said that you were going to do that you have not done yet. Maybe it's update the website, it's clear out the emails, it's get back to fucking old mate, it's go look into AI if you're slow on that front, whatever it is, right? Write them all out, literally every single one that you can think of, because we're gonna close all these tabs in your head right now. Write every single one. Then,

Go through each one. First of all, you're identify, is that something that still needs to be done? Like, do I have new information to say that that task is not relevant, it's not important, you know, hopefully you're following the 10x is easier than 2x method so you're not just piling shit on your plate to be busy.

Is it something that still needs to be done? If it's a no, you're like, you know, that was just a shiny object syndrome. I don't need to do that. It's not a high priority task. Cool. Now it has a definitive no. Cool. Cross it out. Close that tab. If it's a yes, that needs to get done. Rank it on importance. Put it into the calendar, right? If anything here takes less than two minutes to do, you're gonna do it right now. If it takes more than two minutes to do, put it into the calendar.

based on its importance. So it might be later today, later this week, over the weekend, next week, whatever. But action it, put it in there to action. And then you got to follow through with that. And then do the same thing with your personal life at home, in your relationship. All the things that you said you would do. Whether it was, I said I'd start this renovation at home. I said I would take my partner to this nice restaurant that we always talk about, but have never been. I said that we would, you know,

take the kids away on this week. And I said, I would do this, whatever it is. I would set, I would start my diet on Monday. So I wanted to get fitter or go get a blood test, whatever. Write all those things down. And then the same thing. Is this still a high priority? Is this still something that I'm committing to? If it's no, cross it out, close that tab, forget about it. Yes, action it or put it into the calendar. And

Harrison Orr (28:12.75)
by starting with some of those easy ones, that's going to massively build up that confidence. And what's crazy about this is you will start to feel this energetic shift. You will start to feel this ball rolling. You will start to feel this confidence, this energy, this motion, because we're taking action here. We're not just writing a list. We're actually taking action. And soon what will happen is all these things that you need, you used to have to write down, write a reminder for.

yeah, I'll do it later. You just start doing, you just do them at the time. sweet, it'll take me two minutes. I'll fucking do it now. Right at the end of the call. yeah, man. Like, you know, I'll send you this and go check it out instead of putting a note to send it later. Cool. Look it up. Boom. Here's the link. Boom. Here you go, mate. It's in your inbox. Done. That level of execution, that speed of action is what creates success, is what creates momentum. And then

the people around you will start to notice this. They'll start to notice this energetical shift. They will start to notice you taking action, you always being in forward motion and it becomes magnetic. But again, we're not doing this for other people. We're doing it for you. So you're building that confidence. You're building that trust, that respect, because essentially all the things that we're trying to get from our partner by being a nice guy is because we don't have it for ourselves.

What creates the ultimate attraction is when we are so abundant in these things, in the love for ourself, in the trust, in the respect, in the certainty, into the safety. We are so in abundance of those things that it overflows us. It creates the space for them to feel it too, because we're not needing, we're not coming to them from a point of lack. It's like, I've got so much safety and certainty in my...

ability to earn money, my ability to defend, my ability to lead, my ability to just be who I am, which is also who my partner and my kids need. That perimeter enables them to feel safe without you having to tell them or ask them.

Harrison Orr (30:28.76)
And so that is a huge shift.

Phase three is where we start to own our shadow, own the parts of us that we suppress, that we do not like. Because essentially, nice guys repress their desires and they wonder why they're not attracted, our partner isn't attracted to us, right? We repress our feelings, we suppress our reactions, we become reactive or numb.

Right? We numb ourselves down and to avoid conflict, to avoid rejection, to avoid all these things until, you know, one day, maybe it's like once or twice a year, we just fucking explode like a volcano. Ruptures, we apologize. I'm I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We feel guilty, we feel shame. And then we're cool. We go back into suppressing. The idea here is not to suppress. I used to think we used to need to suppress and control our anger and our aggression and our emotions.

But that doesn't build trust. It's not healthy for us either because that charge is still in us. That trigger for that emotion is still alive. And so the goal is not unfiltered expression, right? Not becoming a sobbing mess or a raging, you know, aggressive lunatic. And it's not suppressing it either. It's neutralization.

We want to neutralize that charge because when we do that, there's no trigger there to pull later on, right? If we get triggered by something someone calls us, what they say to us, and often our partner is a beautiful source of all these triggers because they see us in all of our glory and our shame and all the things. And so the version of us that we like to think we are, they are very good at pointing out where we are not.

Harrison Orr (32:31.512)
that thing where we are not very good with our time management. We are not very, you know, clean or high with our standards. So it becomes triggering because there's incongruence. But when we own that, when we own

the parts of us that we try to hide because we try to hide these things, but I promise you, we're not as good as hiding them as we think we are. Other people can really see that when we own these things, we can then see the drawback and the benefit and then we can neutralize them. And things like aggression and anger, human emotions are human experiences. And so when someone doesn't feel that it's

It's kind of weird, right? Like if you've ever met someone that's like super happy all the time, like at first it's cool, right? You're like, that's all you're always happy. Like that must be a wonderful life. But often we find out a lot of those people are super depressed, right? But then you become a little bit suspicious after a while you feel like why you, no one is like that all the time. Like it feels like it feels fake. It's like who, what are you trying to?

to do to get out of this, like it feels weird, right? And so naturally you've got your walls up.

Harrison Orr (33:53.157)
But when we neutralize those emotions, we can learn from them and we find ways to then harness them, then we become truly dangerous. The analogy that you may have heard me use before is using these as a tool, right? Is aggression the right tool to use at your wife when dinner wasn't ready when you got home?

No, you know, when you're or when your kid is having their fifth tantrum in 30 minutes. No, right? Probably not. Is aggression the right tool to use when someone is physically threatening you, your wife or your kids? Fucking oath, right? So these emotions and these experiences are not good or bad. They're all contextual. But often as nice guys, we've suppressed all those things that being told and believing that it's bad to feel angry. It's bad to be aggressive. It's, you know, it's

You're dangerous and you're a threat and you don't want to be that because you're bad for society. You're bad for everyone. Contextual. It's when we learn to harness this, when we learn to integrate this shadow and these things that we become whole. We integrate these different emotions, these different experiences and we start to become whole and then we can use them when it is appropriate, when it's the right tool for the right job. And that leads us into phase four.

where we start to regain our power. We start to set boundaries and regain our power because we're not showing up and being like, I don't care, babe, whatever you want, it's totally up to you. And just giving your power away. A funny story about that. I was organizing to go and catch up with my dad for coffee over the weekend. you know, for the, I haven't done this too often.

because often parents are the ones that organize things. And then, so I was quite direct this time. Cool, we'll meet here, 8.30 Saturday, this place. How's that sound? Beautiful, done. And I was like, it kind of hit me after I sent that, I'm like.

Harrison Orr (36:05.306)
I haven't been that direct with dad before, right? You know, I've started to do it a hell of a lot more over last few, few months and years with, with other people, but not too much with him. And then it had me reflecting on all the other times where I used to say, yeah, I don't mind. Where do you want to go? Or up to you. I don't mind. I'm easy. And I actually got a little bit triggered at that because I was thinking,

That must be so fucking annoying. Asking someone, hey, where do you want to go? I don't care, whatever you want. Okay, what time do you want to meet? I don't mind, totally up to you. Like, dude, can you fucking make a decision? I actually got a little bit triggered at my own recollection at that point, which I thought was quite funny. But the point being is when we don't make a decision, when we don't set boundaries, we're giving our power to everybody else. And so,

If you're wondering why you're resentful and you're frustrated, that's a big cause. And so when it comes to setting boundaries, which nice guys are notoriously shit at doing, and I definitely fucked this up. When I first learned that I needed to set boundaries and start saying no, I went way too far the other way. I was like, cool, new tool, this is what I need to do. And still from the nice guy perspective, I would say no and I would set a boundary, but I wouldn't communicate it, right?

I wouldn't communicate why I was saying no, I wouldn't communicate that they had just breached this boundary that I just set in my head. And then I was wondering why people were getting frustrated at me, why they, they thought I was being a dick, why I was getting this pushback. And I was even more confused. Why am I getting this pushback? I thought this is what I was supposed to do. Isn't this what a man does? Like I've set boundaries. I said, no, I did the things. Why, why do I feel shit about it? Why is it getting this, it's

creating more conflict, which put me even more peril, right? So when we're setting boundaries, the first thing about setting boundaries is figure out the boundary that you need to set. Like, why is this a boundary that is worth setting? What value or stance or congruency of yours does it breach by this boundary being crossed? Second point then is to communicate this boundary with the appropriate people with

Harrison Orr (38:29.988)
partner with your employees, like at work, you have pretty standard boundaries of conduct with clients, with employees, you know, you get one, two strikes and then you're fired for obvious reasons, right? If you're sending nudes to clients, probably not a good, pretty good look on the business, right? Pretty obvious one, but a lot of other ones we need to communicate. And so having the boundary, having communicated the boundary, having them understand the boundary,

by simply saying, repeat back to me what you understand this boundary to be, making sure that that is alignment with what you've said, what you feel, what you're trying to communicate. Then third and final, having a consequence for the breach of this boundary, a consequence that requires them to do nothing at all, right? The consequence at work is when you beach a boundary, which requires them to do nothing at all is do not show up for work tomorrow because you are not welcome here.

Right? It doesn't require them to then go and do something else or this, all this extra stuff, because then it adds complexity to it. And then it becomes tyrannical and all the things, right? Especially in relationships too, because you can't really do that, but it's something that requires them to do nothing at all, but it's a firm boundary. So, especially if you've got maybe an example that reminds me of a client that I used to coach. had this, his in-laws.

were minding his daughter. And they're very healthy people. And they would often make chips for their daughter, right? Homemade chips, sweet potato, normal potato, just like cut them up and boil them or just chuck them straight in the fryer, whatever. That was what she knew as chips. She was with the grandparents and she said like, I want chips. Them not knowing any different, took her to McDonald's.

And this is the first time she'd ever had McDonald's, right? To go and get chips. And so if you're someone that values health, like I am, I'm sure you can, like, I can feel your head, like, being triggered and ready to explode right now as mine was when I was hearing this. And so he had to set a boundary. I know you were doing this, you know, what you thought was right. We do not allow greasy deep fried takeaway food for our daughter.

Harrison Orr (40:55.076)
We want you to have an amazing relationship with her. We want you to spend time with her. want this, like we love this. But if you give her takeaway food again, if you give her McDonald's or KFC or anything like that again.

she will not be spending the day with you. She will not be spending time with you without us present. And so you don't need to often set a boundary like that off one instance, especially if it's a miscommunication like that. But that was an example that he, a route he could have had to go to enforce that. See how it was communicated, then the boundary, sorry, the consequence requires her to do nothing.

It's just, you will not see your granddaughter. So think about how you can start to introduce those. And what this does as well is it reinforces the power of your word. It reinforces your power because you doing what you say you're gonna do is one thing when you're disciplined and it's for you and it's all the things, but doing what you say you're going to do when it comes to these consequences instills a much deeper level of.

of respect, of trust and confidence in you first and foremost, but then in the people around you as well, because they start, they then realize like, okay, cool. He's, he's, he's good. He's amazing. He's all these things. And okay, if you cross that line, do not fuck with him. Like I've seen this in, I actually saw this, a very good example of this actually was, uh, my son's swimming lessons a few weeks ago and

the instructor was there and they have this rule where if you're not with the instructor, you sit on the seat, right? On the little ledge. You do not swim off into the pool, Obviously safety reasons, these two year olds are learning how to swim. And she was off with one of the kids and she came back and two of the others had decided to jump in and go for a swim. And her tone was, you she was playful, she was happy, she was, you know, like encouraging, like very grandma kind of energy. She was an old lady, like amazing.

Harrison Orr (43:10.562)
As soon as that happened, she took the one she was with back to the chair, back to the bench and then grab those two, sat them off to the side and like a fucking light switch, her tone changed. She was direct. She was intense. She brought up the rule that they had already agreed to. They already knew about and said, we do not do that. This is for safety. We do not go swimming on our own. Next time you do that, you will be off the pool and the lesson will end for you right here, right now.

and her tone was so piercing, so direct.

that they paid attention.

And that's the power in this as well. That's the flexibility that you start to gain and confidence in yourself to be able to execute that. It's like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm chill. Like I'm happy to go with the flow, you know, provided doesn't go with my values and all that kind of thing, but you cross a boundary, you go that there's a line and do not fucking cross it.

If we allow people to cross it and nothing happens, there's no respect there. And so that's the power in setting that up. And people will feel so much safer around you, especially your wife and kids. Right? You won't need to raise your voice. You won't need to hit. You won't need to do punish. You won't need to do anything like that. When they know that they don't want to get on your bad side.

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it will create a depth of trust and respect that you probably haven't experienced before.

On to number five, right? We're almost there guys. We've got two more, two more phases to go. I know this has been one of my longest episodes, but we're going to wrap it up soon. So phase number five is building the self-sufficiency, right? Building the self-sufficiency and also the brotherhood, right? One of the things Dr. Robert Glover, Dr. Robert Glover talks about in No More Miss Nice Guy is having the group of men around you, right? Having that brotherhood, that community, that, you know, masculine,

You know, forge, however you want to phrase it, to help you kill the boy and step into the masculine. Because most of us haven't had that initiation from boyhood into manhood, from boy psychology into masculine psychology. And so having men that have those standards will help you to maintain those standards and help you to rise. It'll help you to feel

and be seen by your peers and help you to sharpen your sword because iron sharpens iron, right? If we're not around that level of that caliber of man, it's easy to get complacent. We don't get challenged in the way that we should. Most men say that they want support. They don't fucking, they don't need support. They need to be challenged. It's like, dude, why are you doing that? A good example would have been,

Andy Byron, the CEO of Astronaut that got caught cheating at the Coldplay concert. If he was with, is he was a part of a brotherhood, a masculine group. And he was talking about, oh man, know, the head of HR has, know, given me the look. She wants to go for, you know, for coffee first thing in the morning. She wants to, you know, get this drink after work. You know, I've, fuck man, like I love my wife and I've got a family, but like I'm getting tempted, man. What?

Harrison Orr (46:42.87)
A true brotherhood will do. It's forced you to make a decision. Man, you can't live in this, in this world of temperance. You can't play two games here. Either go home, have the conversation and end the marriage with your, with your wife, split up the family and go and pursue that fantasy or shut that fucking down and put the energy that you're giving to her back into your marriage where it really belongs and never talk of her again. Make a fucking decision.

Harrison Orr (47:15.202)
It's uncomfortable. But think about how much better off you would be if you had someone to challenge you like that. Someone to help you see through the fog, to push aside temptation, to see the forest from the trees. When you've got someone or a group of men that don't have the emotional bias in your life that you do. It becomes so much more potent and powerful. Which then leads us into our final step of

embodying our mature masculine essence. Right? We've started to lead, leave the nice guy traits behind. We've started to lead the people pleasing, the approval seeking, the I'm doing this for them. I'm doing this for everybody else. I'm being selfless. Fuck that. We're starting to step into our mature masculine essence, which means we know who the fuck we are. We know our values. We know our direction. We know where we're going. We lead with grounded presence.

with purpose and with power.

Because the confidence and the magnetism to a man that is on a mission

is intense and you can tell that just by the way a man walks. If you look at, if you're sitting in an airport and you just pick people out, you can tell by the way someone walks, by the way a man walks, if he's confident, probably if he's got high testosterone, if he's embodied in his mature masculine, or if he's a nice guy, if he's a people pleaser, if he's just seeking approval from everyone else.

Harrison Orr (48:55.61)
because it's the way that we carry ourselves. Because this is not for show, it's not for anybody else, it's for us. But the problem with the nice guys is everything is filtered through the lens of what does my wife want me to do? How much money do I need to make to make her happy, to rekindle the relationship? What do I need to do to earn my kids' love? What do I need to do to be successful by society standards?

meet up to everybody else's idea of me, of what they want of me or what would get me that status. And chasing that is, is never ending and not in the positive sense, never ending in the sense that you'll never get there because you'll never get the fulfillment or the satisfaction that you expect to, because no matter how many times those, those actions,

actually work and you get some sex, no matter how many times you get the pat on the back and the atta boy, it'll never never measure up.

And so when we learn to own our worth and our essence based on who we are, not what we do, not what we earn, the business that we've made, not the house that we built, but on who we are, and we determine that, your life fucking changes.

and then being able to express that and embody that. And it's not, well, I'm this person in the boardroom and I'm this person at home and I'm only able to keep my cool and be regulated after I've done my biohacking five hour routine in the morning. It's like, nah, this is who you are every day of the year. 365 from dawn until dusk, because we're not doing it as a show. The freedom, like the inner peace and freedom that comes from that.

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fucking unworldly. But most people will never get to experience it. Most men will never get to experience it because it's scary.

Harrison Orr (51:10.658)
So if you've paid, if you've stuck around for this long, thank you. Thank you for listening this far. depending on where you're at in this journey, I hope one of these phases resonates with you depending on where you're at. And so like always with this podcast, go and take action on something. Pick one thing. Maybe it was something that stood out from you from one of the stories. Maybe it was one of the action items that that resonated with you as like, yeah, I can, I can do that. Start saying,

start saying no, communicating your boundary, start being more impeccable with your word. Go and seek a brotherhood or a masculine container, a coach, a mentor, a community where you can sharpen that sword and people that hold you to that high standard.

It's not easy. It's often not fun. But I can tell you the payoff is worth it. If you're ready to step into that mature masculine and be your most potent self.

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And so with that, don't be sorry, be better. And I'll see you guys next time.