You Can’t Lead Your Wife… Because You're Not Even Leading Yourself. l EP. 56 l

In this episode, I break down one of the most confronting truths I’ve learned after coaching nearly 500 men:
 you don’t have a marriage problem — you have a self-leadership problem.

I walk you through why your wife has stopped trusting your word, why your relationship feels tense or distant, and why your kids don’t fully rely on you… even though you’re a good man who works hard and wants the best for your family.

This episode exposes the Nice Guy patterns that destroy your authority at home — over-explaining, breaking your own boundaries, hesitating, people-pleasing, avoiding conflict — and how those behaviors kill polarity, intimacy, respect, and connection in your marriage.

More importantly, I show you how to rebuild self-leadership through discipline, emotional control, follow-through, and masculine integrity. You’ll learn how your energy, your word, and your actions shape the entire dynamic of your relationship — and how to become the grounded, reliable, confident man your wife and kids feel safe around again.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, frustrated, or confused about why you’re not showing up as the man you know you could be, this episode will hit home.

This is where the Nice Guy dies — and the grounded, self-led man is born.

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Looking to fast track your growth with personalised support or a guided system to help you evolve out of the nice guy, rebuild your energy, presence, intimacy & become the grounded masculine man you are capable of, apply below. 

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Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:04.108)
You don't have a marriage problem. You have a leadership problem. And it starts with the fact that you can't even lead yourself.

Harrison Orr (00:12.984)
You're listening to the Be Better podcast. I am Harrison Orr and I've coached almost 500 men and one truth stands out. Your marriage, your business and your peace of mind all hinge on one thing, how grounded you are as a man. And it's my endeavor with this podcast, with my coaching through the grounded man method to help guys evolve out of the nice guy into grounded masculine men so that they can be better husbands, better fathers and ultimately a man that they are proud and confident to be.

Because a man who cannot lead himself becomes a man his wife can't relax around. His kids can't rely on and he can't respect. Self-leadership isn't about being in charge. It's about being a man who follows through on the things that he says matter. When you speak to a nice guy about leadership or about leading his wife.

there is instantly a lot of almost resistance and hesitation because of the connotations that come with that word. And I could speak from personal experience. When I used to think of these terms, like on one hand, there was the grandness of the leader, the captain, especially in sports teams and things like that, that carried that pride and that direction. But also if you're not careful,

And you'll only discover this when you dig a little bit more into your connotations, associations, self beliefs and situation of what else you tie that to.

And so if you're someone who has trouble being a leader, has trouble, you know, embodying these traits, it might just be that you have a negative connotation towards being a leader. You might associate being a leader with being narcissistic, being controlling, being domineering, being, you know, some negative trait in which part of you says, I don't want to be like that. That's not who I am. That's not what I stand for. That's a bad thing to be.

Harrison Orr (02:14.272)
and therefore if I am that trait I am a bad person. But on the other hand you've got you know a leader is confident, is self-assured, know people look up to him, he has good values, he has all these things.

And then so on your conscious mind, you've got the positive, but on a much deeper, much more influential level on your identity and self beliefs type level, you've got this negative connotation. And then that's where we start to be in this battle for who's gonna win. And just to let you in on a little secret, the self beliefs always fucking win. And this doesn't just apply to leadership. Like if you're struggling with the...

the goals or the identity or a progress in a certain area in life, you can look at what does it, who do I have to become in order to achieve that? What does it say about me when I achieve that? And what will I have or what will be different when I achieve that to who I am now? And now if you're someone who self sabotages, if you're someone who really struggles like you know what you need to do, but you just can't do it type bullshit.

There's a, other than, you know, we're pushing just basic discipline and action aside for the second. There is most likely an incongruence with your identity traits because who you say you want to be and who you need to become or who you would become in by achieving these things and by becoming that person. There may very well be a negative spin on that. And

An example I'll give you, was true for me for a long time, I, especially when I started moving into the space of my own business, I had this big block around selling and it felt sleazy. It didn't feel natural. I felt weird asking for money and I even had a mentor highlight this to me. He's, and he said,

Harrison Orr (04:18.154)
You avoid selling by trying to make your product so good that it's quote unquote sells itself. Your desire for having a better product and a better service and everything isn't born out of wanting to get the best results and give your clients and customers the best experience. It's actually born out of the fact that you want to avoid selling so much that you want it to sell itself. That was I happening. And then so we dug into that and

He said, cool. How do your parents feel about salesmen? How did they talk about them? And I've found out.

recent since since then that this was quite a common viewpoint on on salesmen of you know, the older people from you know, born in the know, maybe 70s and older, I'd say that salesmen are sleazy. They're not trustworthy, wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. They're money hungry. They are not to be trusted. They are sleazy, shit humans and just not very positive terms. Right?

If you ever heard that in your childhood, you probably have some blocks in this space as well. And so by extension, if I then become a salesperson or I'm then selling things to people, am then inherently in taking on all of those traits that...

my dad had labeled salesmen. So then I, according to my dad, am not trustworthy. I am sleazy. I should not be respected. I'm all these horrible things. And now, unless we've done a lot of deep work in regards to uncleaving from our parents and evolving out of that parenting fantasy bond, then we...

Harrison Orr (06:10.91)
subconsciously always want to be liked and loved by our parents because if we're not then as children that means death that means the exile that means exclusion and that's not a great place to be and so even as we get older we still operate a lot of the time on this belief of wanting to be liked loved by by mom and dad it's so there was this huge block there now tying this back to leadership look at

Who you see as a leader and the traits that a leader has. If you're having a block in this space, how do you think about leaders? Who do you associate as a leader and how do you feel towards them? And then extend that. How does your partner, how do your parents?

talk about people in this type of position or with this type of influence or power even and that might highlight some things to you. But we're not talking about leading others.

right now because you can't lead others if you can't lead yourself. And that's the big focus here because most men struggle to lead themselves and that's why they can't lead others and that's why it feels controlling or manipulative to lead others because they're not doing it from themselves because it's so it's not congruent.

And really, your wife isn't pulling away because she doesn't love you. She's pulling away because she can't rely on you. And it's not relying on you to pay the bills or show up to work. She knows you can do that. But it's because she can't rely on your stability, on your standards, on your follow through, on your emotional control, on your direction.

Harrison Orr (07:52.579)
Because every time you say you'll change, you don't. Every time you promise you'll do better, you slip back into old patterns and you've trained her to not trust your word, that this will just be another fad, another phase, and then you'll come back to the same old guy. And that's where true leadership, true self leadership is being impeccable with your word.

It's saying what you're gonna do, doing what you said you would, to the standard you said you would by the time or date that you said you would. When we start to actually hold that congruency, which is not easy for lot of people, but especially as nice guys, because nice guys struggle with boundaries and they struggle to say no. So they let a lot of things through that filter and end up with shit on their plate that they don't wanna do that they said they would.

But once you unclive from those, you heal those identities and you start to evolve out of the nice guy and you're able to say no, you're able to set boundaries without feeling guilty, without being an asshole and you're starting to then be impeccable with your word. A couple of things happen. The first thing that happens is you get a lot more...

specific as to what you commit to. Because when you know that you will follow through, you know you will fucking do it by the time you said you would to the best of your ability, you get a hell of a lot more specific as to what you say you would because you know what that commitment means. And so you start to say yes to less. And then when you do say things, not just to other people, but to yourself,

the level of congruency and action that comes with that and trust is infinitely higher. Because right now think about all the things that you've said you would do.

Harrison Orr (09:45.773)
Maybe you said you would start going to the gym or maybe you said you would take action on addressing these nice guys on being a better man, but you haven't yet. Maybe you said you would clean out the, you clean your car or the garage or you do these renovations or you'd call up and book, you know, something to get installed or some renovations to happen or a holiday, but you haven't. And so not only is this weakening your own trust and respect in yourself,

but it's also creating all these open tabs in your mind, which is just creating this noise and confusion. Cause we've got all these open tabs as well. And how many times do you then say, yeah, I was meant to do that. yeah, I said I would do that. yeah, I still need to do that thing. And so right now we have just over five weeks left to the year. One exercise that I'm getting the guys in my community to do inside the men's edge.

and you can go and do this too. Aim to start the year on a clean slate with none of those things looming in your mind. None of those, oh I need to do this, I said I would do this, oh yeah I forgot about that. Write them down. Write every single thing that you said you would do down that you've been meaning to do and take action on it. Either decide that this is not...

relevant anymore. You know what? I'm actually not going to commit to that. I don't want to do that. It's not relevant. It's not important. It's not urgent. It's not a priority for the resources needed and cross that out. Make a decision on that thing that it's not a now thing. Beautiful. On the things that are left.

Maybe it's starting taking action on your health or on your nice guy traits, whatever it is. Reach out to the person, to the brand, to the thing that you need to in order to start making that change. If you said, you know, there's some junk in your garage that you said you were gonna sell. If I can take the photos, put it up on marketplace or on eBay or wherever you wanna sell it. Start taking that action so that you start the year with a clean slate. This level of leadership.

Harrison Orr (11:50.403)
will do so much more, not just for your, the word to action ratio, right? Which we obviously want a high one there. We want it to be much more action than just words. It also does a phenomenal job at confidence. And in my opinion, this is where most men need to start. Confidence is not having a six pack.

I've had a six pack for the better part of 13 years. And yes, I feel more confident when I'm walking around without a shirt on, but the percentage of time without a shirt to with a shirt is drastically...

out of proportion, right? And it doesn't carry on to anything else. As soon as you then start talking to someone or you have to do something, then that confidence is now gone because other than people looking at you, it's not very relevant, right? And again, that situational, it's not embodied confidence. And that's what we're talking about here. Embodied confidence is your ability to figure it out.

to do what you said you would do, to handle hard things. And it's not your ability to predict the future, to create certainty in your life. It's the certainty in yourself that you can figure it the fuck out whatever happens. And now if we picture two parts of ourself, right?

And this is a lot more, I'm taking this a lot more from my one-on-one coaching, but when we look at ourselves internally, we have parts. If you've looked into internal family systems, you've heard people talk about the inner child or these other things, they all reference something similar. Basically there's parts of ourself, right, inside. We're not just one being that otherwise we wouldn't have the dialogue and the voices that we all do to some extent, some more than others.

Harrison Orr (13:49.357)
If you picture there's two parts of you, right? For this example, there's much more than that, but for this example, there's the part of you that says he's gonna do something and then doesn't do it. And there's the other part of you, which is like yourself or the part that is congruent. Now this goes on for a while, for years. How would you start to feel about that part? The part that says he's gonna do something that doesn't do it?

You'd be pissed off, you'd be frustrated, you'd be annoyed, you'd say, why are you like this? Why can't you be better? Like all this negative talk. And essentially, you then bring that into the real world. That's how other people start to feel about us because it's how we feel about ourselves. And so we are training other people on how to treat us, how to feel about us based on how we feel about and treat ourselves.

Harrison Orr (14:49.314)
Now I hope that lands. I hope that hits home because when we recognize that, we start to change the standards for ourself. We integrate those parts of us, recognize they all have somewhat of a purpose and then can actually start to be the leader in our life as opposed to being led by these little parts that are little, little boys or little girls operating from a space of trauma, wound, trying to seek safety.

Now this is the kicker for most guys when it comes to this leadership. Most guys, nice guys don't lack kindness. They lack a backbone because they over explain. They apologize for things they don't need to. They avoid conflict. They break their own boundaries. They hesitate. They seek approval. They wait for green lights to take on everything. Everybody else's permission. And then they wonder why their wife doesn't feel safe.

Like mate, she doesn't need a perfect man and she doesn't want someone that she has to manage and give approval and permission to every time he wants to do something. She needs a man who follows his own standards, who can make a decision and then take action on it. Isn't reactive to the external world and her emotions. They're not the signs of a man who leads himself. Because when you lead yourself,

We're not influenced by those things. And it's not that we aren't empathetic to those things. Like to be clear, being masculine and being a leader doesn't mean stonewalling your emotions. It doesn't mean showing no empathy at all. It's allowing other people to have their emotions. It's creating that space for them to have their reality. It's like you can have your emotions. You can have the reality that you experienced. I'm not gonna take that away from you.

that doesn't mean it has to be mine. And when we can seek to understand another person's reality without bending ours, we can take on, okay, well, this is how they saw it, how they felt. Okay, I can start to see this week. It's like we add another dimension to our understanding of the event or of reality. And then we can start to understand.

Harrison Orr (17:11.5)
we can drop the grip that we have on our reality is this is right, this is the only way that it happened and just loosen that and say, well, this is the way that I perceived it. That doesn't mean that I'm right because I've got all of my emotional biases, all of my framings, all of my traumas and wounds and all of the things that I, that have accumulated to the way that I see life. And that's just my experience. Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's mine.

Harrison Orr (17:44.495)
And so when we start to embody this self-leadership, I should say, if we neglect the embodiment of this leadership, not only do we have that incongruency with ourself, but our partner and our kids start to respect us less.

They will test us more, which from an unregulated man will drive him further into reactivity, frustrated and drive that wedge in distance even deeper. She will then become reactive or cold or start to walk on eggshells and ultimately start to stop sharing things because of that lack of your ability to hold it.

He'll get reactive. He will blow up. It'll start a fight and I can't be fucked for a fight right now. So I just won't say anything. Intimacy and sex becomes forced or inconsistent. you get this marriage or this relationship where there's this huge chasm of...

You trying to figure your shit out, but not quite being the leader that you want to be. And because she doesn't have that leader in you, she has stepped up into her masculine to lead not only herself, but the relationship. And so now in order to balance that, you've not only got to lead yourself in that space, but then start to then prove yourself worthy enough to lead her so that she can relax into you, which...

Assuming that you have a partner that fucking loves you. Assuming that you guys are on the same page and you want the best for each other, you want the same life for each other and you want, you know, shared goals and all that jazz. Then she wants you to be the man of that standard. She wants to relax into you. She wants you to take control and she wants to wholeheartedly be able to know he's got it.

Harrison Orr (19:37.963)
and not just hear that in words, but be able to feel that in whatever it is, whatever the situation, he's got it. And know that it's not her problem.

Not that it's not gonna affect her, but she trusts you and the man that you are, the resource you have available, the confidence you have in yourself, the impeccable like congruency with your words and your actions that you will figure it the fuck out. If you don't have the ability or the knowledge or the skillset, whatever it is to address the problem yourself, you will find someone that can.

And that is something that took me a long time to learn when it comes to not just women, but like self-development. Like there's this perception of men that we need to be able to do it all ourself. We need to be able to figure it out. Like we need to be the one who makes all the money. We need to be the handyman around the house. We need to be all these types of things. And it's somewhat unrealistic, quite daunting as well.

And if you're a victim, you'll say, it's unfair. It's all that kind of thing. Well, not, not quite. We get many privileges being masculine, being, being the man. So we take that responsibility as part of that.

What I've realized is it's not our ability to have to do everything ourself. It's our ability to be resourceful to figure it out ourself.

Harrison Orr (21:08.182)
And so by figure it out, I do not mean do it all ourself. I mean, find someone that can either show us how to do it or that can do it for us. So if you are not a great handyman around the house, it doesn't mean that you need to look up and how to do it yourself. But if you want to do that, amazing. But if you can't, you ring up, you find an electrician, you find a carpenter or someone that can do it and they come and do it. The end goal, either way.

is you got the job done. That's the end outcome that we're looking for is like, there was a problem, you fucking handled it, the thing is taken care of. That ability is what creates safety. That is what creates the masculine essence and energy that she's looking for.

It's what also breeds a lot of pride and confidence in a man in himself is that ability to figure it the fuck out.

Harrison Orr (22:14.764)
Now, if you're still learning that, if you're still trying to find this leadership for yourself, maybe you're stuck at what the real issue is here. I'm here to tell you, you don't have a wife problem. You don't have a communication or relationship problem. You have a discipline problem. You think that she's emotional. You think that she's distant. You think that she's hard to read. No.

She's just responding to the fact that your words and actions live on two different planets. And so self leadership isn't sexy. It's discipline, it's consistency, it's fucking boring. It's being the same man on your good days and your hard ones. And it doesn't mean that you don't have emotions, you don't get affected by life, but it's that you show up and lead in the same way.

but when you fail to lead you, you forced her into the masculine role and she resents you for it. That's why there's that gap. And so when we're having these hard days or these hard times, that's why it is pivotal to have a support network in your space that is not your wife.

having a group of high caliber men, a circle of men that will hold you to a high standard and help you to navigate this. Because I promise you, if you bring all your problems to your wife, or what do you think about this? How should I do this? I'm struggling with this. At first, if you've been, you know.

emotionally constipated and struggled with sharing things that might be nice for her initially. he's finally opening up, he's sharing things. But subconsciously that is going to erode her trust in you to handle this stuff. Because she doesn't need you as her masculine partner to be another gossip girl. She needs you to be the man that has an issue.

Harrison Orr (24:12.788)
sorts itself out either on his own or speaks to someone that can and then navigates it. And by all means, you can still share this, hey, had this thing navigated with this, I'm working with this person, we're finding working on a solution, it's all gonna be sorted, know, no need to worry, but just as an FYI. Completely different to I'm struggling with this, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, what do think I should do, I don't know, and then like bringing your problems to her. Because now your problems are her problems and...

There's no leadership in that.

being resourceful to figure it out. So if you don't have that circle of men, I highly implore you to find one, whether it's joining the grounded man method, it's joining another men's circle.

Be cautious of the mates that you have if your mates are just drinking buddies. Ideally, they should be high caliber men that are not afraid to challenge you on your way of thinking and hold you to a high standard. Because otherwise, they're just going to agree with everything and that's not helpful in leveling up. I know Jordan Peterson spoke about this especially as parents when people would say like, no, no, you're perfect the way you are.

If I'm perfect the way that I am, why do I feel like shit? Why do I feel like I'm not enough? What, like, I have all these questions. So that's not helpful. It's like, yeah, you're right. You're not enough. Because I can see your potential brother and I can see that you can be better.

Harrison Orr (25:44.994)
That's not to put you down, that's to call you up. And so that's where the power of...

brotherhood, men circle helps to elevate you. And that's why this leadership, self-leadership more specifically is a core principle in the grounded man method because combined with

presence, the masculine presence and the energy. It creates a man that is selfish or self validated that leads himself that knows who the fuck he is, where he was going and is able to be the man capable.

of being the leader for his wife and his kids, that is capable of having a relationship that has a healthy dynamic in masculine and feminine polarity, that is capable of doing all the other things that he wants to be and wants to do in life.

Harrison Orr (26:43.798)
Now, I hope this has been helpful. I'm gonna wrap this up here. Remember, if this self leadership is something that you struggle with, go back to that exercise. Start with being impeccable with your word. Write down the shit that you said you would do, but you haven't done. Either decide that it's not applicable anymore and...

Importantly here, if there was someone that you promised this to, go and tell them. Don't just decide that, cool, that's not a priority anymore and cross it off your list and not communicate with that, communicate that to them. Now, if you're still stuck in nice guy syndrome, that's gonna be a tough conversation. So you might have the maybe inkling to, well, I promised this person I would do something to keep this on the list. You might have to go back on your word there.

Own it, whichever one you decide, but make sure you communicate that if you need to and all the rest, go and fucking do it. Notice what changes in your energy. Notice what changes in your confidence. Notice what changes in the way that you show up when your word actually fucking means something. Don't be sorry, be better. Bye.