Stop Calling It a Projection and Start Owning Your Shit l EP. 66 l

Most high-performing men don’t struggle because they’re “too sensitive.”
 They struggle because they can’t discern what’s actually theirs to own… and what’s simply someone else’s emotional reality.

So they do what Nice Guys always do:

• take it personally
• spiral in their head
• over-explain, apologise, or shut down
• avoid the hard conversation altogether

In this episode of Be Better, I break down a framework that changes how you handle criticism, tension, and emotional conversations — without collapsing into shame, or hiding behind “that’s just their projection.”

I walk through the three layers I use to discern reality in any charged interaction:

1. Triggers — what hits you emotionally is usually pointing to something you haven’t fully owned yet
2. Reflection — even if you don’t agree, where could their interpretation be valid or useful feedback?
3. Projection — when their emotional intensity doesn’t match the event, and you’re simply on the receiving end of their stress, history, or unresolved patterns

I also explain why “everything is a projection” can become a spiritual bypass for men who avoid accountability — and how grounded leadership is being able to take what’s yours, learn from what’s useful, and release what isn’t.

If you want to stop overthinking every conversation, stop outsourcing your confidence to other people’s opinions, and lead your marriage and life with clarity — this episode will give you a simple framework you can apply immediately.

Want short impactful emails to help you shift & evolve delivered right to your inbox? 

Join the 90 sec email club HERE

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. 

Apply HERE 

If you’re a high-performing man who’s capable and respected at work, but finds yourself reactive, tense, or second-guessing yourself at home, this will resonate.

In this free masterclass, I break down why so many capable men keep reverting under pressure — especially in their marriage — and what actually creates grounded, steady, self-led leadership that holds when it matters most.

Watch Unshakeable Masculine Le

Transcript

Harrison Orr (00:01.856)
Everything is a projection and a reflection at the exact same time. And this is how you discern between the two.

Harrison Orr (00:11.566)
You're listening to the Be Better podcast. I'm Harrison Orr. I've encouraged almost 500 men to be more grounded, better leaders of themselves and their marriage. And when you can be more grounded in your nervous system, it makes life a hell of a lot easier to discern between what is for you, like what is worth, not worth, what is there for you to own and what is simply somebody else's reality. And so I'll share how I got to this point and what's brought this up.

recently. So when I was first becoming becoming an adult figuring out my my interpretation of the world, I was very much a nice guy. I which falls into the category of a victim most of the time, right? If someone is is rude to me, if someone points something out to me, it's this weird balance between, well, that person is just an asshole, and taking everything personally, right? But it's not taking it personally in the often constructive

way of like, okay, thank you for pointing that out to me. Here's how I can be better next time. It's take it personally. Therefore, I am not good enough. I am not worthy. I'm a piece of shit. I'm unlovable. And you know, that self deprecating type language, even though I necessarily wouldn't think down that spiral, that was the the feeling that came with that. And I know for a lot of nice guys, that's why

taking ownership of things is so difficult because there is still that belief. If I own up to this, it means that I made a mistake, it means that I'm not perfect, it means that they won't trust me, it that they won't love me, and it does the exact opposite. So it's this wild misconception in the mind of a nice guy.

And so that's how I used to be, right? This balance between, fuck you, that person's an asshole, it's their fault. And woe is me, I take everything personally and I'm a horrible human. Then through my personal development journey, you come across, you know, I believed in, I think most men start to gravitate towards, you know, that grit, that hard, mentally tough, brutal type.

Harrison Orr (02:30.018)
motivational attitude, but also just the way you've carrying yourself, know, the David Goggins type attitude, you know, the like the, the just toughen up just the hard work ethic, like that type of vibe. And what comes into that, course, for the mental side of things is Jocko Willink with his extreme ownership view. All right, if you haven't read that book, highly recommend it, or at least go watch the Ted talk. You can get his story from how that was birthed.

in that and it's it's pretty fucking moving and extreme ownership is what it's called and that's just the viewpoint of like everything is your fault right everything is your fault own it do what you need to and move on

And as an underlying principle, if I had to pick one between, know, woe is me, victim taking it personally versus like extreme ownership, I would still most definitely pick extreme ownership because I think there's so much more power in that. Because when we look at it from a high level, when we take ownership of something, if we admit it's our fault, it's also within our ability to change it, right?

If we just blanket it to, well, no, it's because of this person, it's because of that person, that automatically relinquishes not only like the responsibility and the blame, but the power to that person.

And so some people will like everybody else to have the power in their life because they'd like to play the victim that serves them in some capacity. But the fact that you listen to this podcast, I'd say you're not in that category of human. And so we want to take back that control. We want to have that power over ourselves, over our life. And keep in mind the control that we do have over our life is very minuscule compared to what is out there in terms of the world. We actually have very little control.

Harrison Orr (04:29.162)
if we're giving even breadcrumbs of that away, we're getting smaller and smaller and smaller as to what we actually have any form of control over. So we want to bring that back. Okay. Now everything in my life.

is here because I either allowed it, right? I allowed someone to treat me that way. I allowed this standard to be withheld, to be held up to or be pushed down to in my life. I allowed this boundary to be crossed, right? Or I orchestrated it. I deliberately made the decision, took the action, said the thing to bring this thing and keep it into my life.

A lot of people, obviously I speak to a lot of married guys, a of guys having issues in their marriage and like to point the finger at their wife or their ex partner, especially, oh, my wife is this way because of her, because of this, like, cool. At one point you chose her. At one point you put a baby in her. At one point you did this. Do not relinquish that power of what you have, the part you have played in creating this reality for yourself.

And again, I don't say that as a self-deprecating thing as a like, you know, it's your fault, so suck shit, but it's awesome, man. It's your fault, own it. So now what are you gonna do about it? And I think that still takes a level of...

growth to then be able to discern between like how you then balance that, that checkbook essentially at the end, like how do you balance that between, okay, I'm taking ownership for this so that I can do something about it. I'm not just owning all this stuff and just piling it on because I'm a piece of shit and it's all my fault. Not a helpful state.

Harrison Orr (06:15.63)
And then so last week, a mate reached out to me who has been in some of the coaching programs and the men's circles that I've run over the last couple of years. And he wanted my opinion on something. He's like, mate, I just had this altercation was the framing that he used, but a heated discussion. And.

He's well aware of projections and reflections and all these things. And he said, Harrison, how do you discern? How do you tell the difference between what is?

there for you to own, like what is the reflection of you and your traits in this, what this person is saying, and then what is simply a projection of them onto you. And it's there for you to acknowledge, but it's theirs to own, not for you.

And I thought that was a really good question. And of course I've got a framework for it. I've got a framework for quite a lot of things, but I thought that'd be worth sharing because why I find this is so helpful in communication, it helps us to a grow because we're getting to see another side of our, another side of the consequences of our actions, another perspective of our actions and our reality and things mirrored back to us that we otherwise wouldn't see. But it also helps us

to evolve in terms of our understanding of other human beings. But that can only come with a level of depth of understanding of ourself. I subscribe to the belief that...

Harrison Orr (08:00.898)
You can only understand and love another human being as deeply as you could understand and love yourself. So if we don't understand the parts of ourself, if we don't understand why we are the way that we are, it's going to be extremely difficult to have compassion for why another human is the way that they are. another word, another said differently, there is absolutely zero proof.

that if you had lived that person's life up until this exact moment, there is absolutely zero proof to say that you wouldn't be doing and saying the exact same thing. Does that make it right? No. Does it make it wrong? No. What we're doing here is...

seeking to introduce a level of compassion. Because then if you truly believe and understand if I had lived this person's life up until this point, all the ups and downs, the experiences, the traumas, the reward for certain behaviors, the punishment for other behaviors, there is absolutely zero fucking proof to say you wouldn't be doing the exact same thing. And in the flip side, if they had lived your life.

because it's so easy for people to sit back and say like, well, if I was in that position, I would do this. It's like, well, no, you wouldn't. There's nothing to say that you would be able to do anything different. And when we can see that as an overarching belief,

And then depending on the context on the person, on the relationship and things like that, if you wanted to dive into, cool, I wanna understand why you see it this way, how you got to this conclusion, how you got to that perspective, cool, then you get a deeper level of understanding. But from a blanket term, because...

Harrison Orr (09:50.329)
A lot of the time when you're having these types of conversations or altercations, as he put it, with people, they're not always gonna be with someone that you have the opportunity to or even really want to understand to that depth. But when we consider the possibility that I would behave the same way in their shoes and that B, there's probably something going on in their life that has nothing to do with me in this moment. And I've just been on the receiving end of something.

An example of what I often use is if someone cuts you off in traffic, right? They speed past you, you're going down the highway and they cut you off to go up to the ramp and zoom off and it kind of throws you off. You have to like slam on the brakes or swerve a little bit. Some people will get road rage, right? Will get frustrated and like, oh, blame this person, flip them off, start swearing, all things.

essentially taking it personally, like they deliberately, I see that car, I see that guy, screw that guy, they cut you off just to piss you off. When you put yourself in their reality, what else could be going on that has nothing to do with you? They could have just found out their house is on fire. Their partner could be in hospital about to give birth.

one of their family members might be in hospital, might be about to take their last breath. It could have, it could, there is a 99 % chance it has nothing to do with you. They're just in their own world. You just happen to be a part of their reality for a brief moment in time.

but so many people allow little instances like that to then set them off for the day and why they have a bad day, because they allowed something or they took something personally and got triggered and let it ruin their day. So back to the framework. Framework, when you're in this type of a heated...

Harrison Orr (11:53.443)
conversation, and there's some personal things thrown out, there's some, some nasty things and you're trying to discern between, okay, what's here for me? What is a projection of them? And I want to make sure that you don't get too caught on like, that's just a projection. Because too many people will be. What's the word I'm looking for?

not woke, like almost self aware in the sense that like using the terms projection and reflection, that's just their projection. And they will just shield that and say, cool, that's a you thing without taking any ownership of like what's there for them. And that's just spiritual bypassing. That's just people who are afraid to take accountability. So the first point, the easiest first step.

is the things that triggered you in that conversation, the things that you felt an emotional reaction to, that's for you. That's for you to own. The first, the triggers are the ones that are there for you to own first. The comments that they said, the way that they responded to certain things, and you will know those ones. They're the most obvious ones, because you feel, you know, maybe your jaw clenches or maybe, your...

instinct to defend, to bite back, to say an insult in response or to get a defensive or a certain reaction over. That's for you. There's a level of truth in what they have just said.

That's because there's probably something there that you haven't owned because on some level you believe what they have just said to be true. You may not want to, you may not like it, but on some level you believe it's fucking true. Because if I looked at you and with all the venom in the world and with the most conviction in the world, I said, mate, you look so fucking stupid with two heads. Why don't you just go and do, do, do, do,

Harrison Orr (13:56.911)
you would think I was mentally insane. You're like, what are you talking about with two heads, man? Like, you on crack? Like, you wouldn't even register as being an insult because you don't believe it. You know it to not be true. You're like, what are you talking about? But if I insult your, right, your...

your hairline and that's an insecurity of yours. Like a lot of people online think that's an insecurity of mine. It's like, guys, I shaved my head because I needed to see how I looked and I've owned that. I'm well aware that my hairline is not what it used to be. I am well aware that, you know, I don't have a lot of hair. I'm totally okay with that.

But it's interesting when people send those out, because there's also, there's two things there, right? There's, okay, cool. There's, am I getting triggered by that? If there is, there's, cool. I haven't fully owned it yet. And I see all those comments and I don't feel any emotional reaction. So, cool, I'm happy that I've owned that. And then the second is, is the projection piece? And it's like, the fact that you think that that's an insult tells me that's probably an insecurity of yours.

that's a fundamental game to play. When people insult you about certain things, it's the reason that they think it's an insult to you is because either they...

potentially know you or they've seen some of your behaviors. Like if, if it is an insult, okay, cool. They've, they've read through your, your facade of trying to mask this thing as an insecurity and they've seen that or the other side, if you're like, you don't even get triggered and there's no response like, cool. Thank you for sharing that. I know that's an insecurity of yours. Now the fact that you think that that's an insult. So

Harrison Orr (15:41.891)
Back to the framework, the first part is take ownership of the things that trigger you. So on some level, you think you agree, you think that it's true. You've been called out, your facade has been seen through, your insecurity has been highlighted, your incongruence between what you did, what you said you would do has been highlighted, or an incongruence between your values or who you say you are and the behavior or the words that came out.

That's just ownership dude. Ownership. Yep. You're right. And know that in that moment of ownership, it does not mean that you're a bad person. It does not mean that you are, like it doesn't mean that you need to attach any other labels to you. It just means that in that moment, that's what you did. That's what you said. Or there's an insecurity or something that you have not fully owned yet. Thank you.

And that's almost like, obviously when you're triggered, you're not gonna wanna thank the person. But as we grow, as we evolve, at least in my way of thinking, the idea is to keep evolving so that the things that do trigger me get less and less and less. Especially the things that are insecurities, that are beliefs, that are incongruencies. That's...

for me at least anyway, that's the play, right? To be treated by less. So if someone presents one of those that you were potentially unaware of, amazing, you've just highlighted something that I can grow on, something that I can improve on, something that I can address that otherwise I wouldn't have known was there. And so that's why I'm a firm believer that our partner and our kids can be our greatest teachers and mirrors if we allow them to be.

because they will reflect things back to us like nobody else, A, because we're with them so much, but also because they know our buttons, they know how to pull on those heartstrings and everything else like that. And so that also provides a...

Harrison Orr (17:49.059)
very fast feedback loop, right? You get very fast feedback with our kids and our partner because we see them and interact with them so often as to how well we are going in addressing those triggers in owning those, those traits and those incongruencies. All right, the next piece. So we've owned the surface level stuff. Amazing.

than everything else that they've said, because some people, depending on where you're at in this journey, will then be able to say, cool, I didn't get triggered, so it's not for me. Okay, but what if it was?

What if it was true? Or how could this be true? Because remember, there's always your truth, their truth and the reality.

Nobody's perspective of the situation or of life is 100 % true. It's based on your mentality and your frame of the world, which is determined by what you've been rewarded or punished for in life. What you have like your brain has filtered through the delete, the distort, the generalized filters that we all run through so that we can consolidate memories. And what you deem as being worth remembering and not is based on all those things.

just talking to a client yesterday and him and his partner are having these issues over parenting at the moment. both have kids to separate marriages and they have a blended family. And at dinner time, he just sits there and eats. He's not paying attention to any of the tiny details of his kids or anything like that.

Harrison Orr (19:23.946)
She, on the other hand, is scanning for, they sitting on their feet? Are they sitting upright? Are they making a mess? Are they chewing with their mouth open? Are they doing all these things? And he's like, I didn't even notice that. Like it's not even on my radar of shit to notice. So like, how am I supposed to parent these things that I'm not even aware to? And so we have the, we pick up on different things based on our experiences, right? And so,

in situations like that, it's beautiful. It's amazing when you and your partner have to pick up on different things. Like obviously there's some crossover, so you share some reality.

but the difference is amazing because then you've got a more blended way of, more rounded way of parenting, of seeing the world. Like, I saw this and had this experience and thought this, that's so cool. I did this and this like amazing. Now we start to pick up different ways of seeing the world, different things that are worth noting and we grow, we expand our view of reality. And so as we go through everything else, okay, where is it? How could this be true?

doesn't necessarily mean you need to agree with it, but like, how could this be true? How could this, what this person is saying be true about what I've done, about what I've said, about this situation that will.

take any other learnings from this as well. Because then again, you don't need to be triggered by this, but okay, cool. I can see how me saying this was interpreted in this way. I can see how this person thought I was being a dick. I can see how this person thought XYZ based on that. Not agreeing with it, not condoling it, like nothing, not apologizing for it, just nothing. Just, okay, cool, yeah, I can see that. Third.

Harrison Orr (21:14.36)
Third layer is...

their projection. So the first two are reflection. The final layer is projection. And this is when someone is projecting their reality onto you. They have, you remind them of a certain person. You remind them of their ex. And so even though you haven't done certain things, some of your traits remind you of them. So they now treat you like their ex.

They get frustrated, get triggered, they treat you a certain way, they accuse you of things that you haven't done yet. And they start to play at that reality because in them when they see how this ends because they've picked up those connected the dots in their mind at least anyway.

Harrison Orr (22:05.742)
And again, when we're seeing something as a projection of someone else, right? Another example might be if you know your partner has got a hell of a lot of stress on, right? Maybe they've got a big, big event or something, a big projection, a big, sorry, presentation or something at work, for example, coming up, or they've got a big business launch coming up. They've got something else that really has nothing to do with you, but...

that stress comes home and little things escalate into big things and that stress just gets directed at you. There's a line here, of course. There's a line between, I can see that you're stressed, but I'm not tolerating being a punching bag, being your just emotional meat sack that you just vomit your stress and shit at all day. That's not what this is.

This is like, okay, cool. can see this like, this reaction is not about me right now. This is just something coming out from you. And that's not something that you would say, because I can guarantee you that's probably not gonna land very well for most people. But the way that you can tell this is if the venom in the words, the emotional response does not match the level of event.

So in the same way that you got triggered, right? You got that emotional trigger from the start. They are having this moment with some of these other things. So, for example, you forgot to do something around the house and then your wife gets home, fucking loses her shit, right? And I'm talking like next level. You never do anything around this. You don't do this. I'm just sick of this. I do everything. And it just escalates to this massive fucking thing. Cool. There's...

could be a couple of things there. Like in that example, maybe there's been a bunch of shit that's been swept under the rug that hasn't been addressed yet. But what that's also speaking to is that it's not about this moment. It's about other things.

Harrison Orr (24:08.396)
And then that's your job as a masculine is to be able to hold that grounded space, that grounded presence, and then discern between, okay, what's here for me? Like what's here for us? Like what haven't we addressed yet? What are the needs that are not being met? How are you not feeling hurt or validated? And then what's going on in your space?

What are you carrying right now? Like where is this coming from? Like so that you can understand and then, okay, that's them. The point of identifying the projection for any person, right? There's not just people in your intimate relationship, but this can be a customer, a client, a random on the street, someone else that you encounter, is to be able to see that and see the person with a level of compassion.

with a level of curiosity. Because coming back to one of the original frames, when we see this person as we see ourself in this person, like I can see that if I was in your shoes, I would react the exact same way. I can see how in other moments I've been the one to be stressed and reactive and like projecting some of these things. It helps you to...

bring the human back into the into the moment. We remove any any tension of having to be right or wrong. It's like can I can see you as a human. Maybe you've got some shit going on. It's like it's not about me right now. That that that frame. If you're someone that

posts on social media a lot, like you need to for business, or you're building a personal brand, or you just like to for personal reasons, whatever it is, and you get some hate, you get some negative comments, which I've got a decent amount of, and that frame really helps me. You can see some people that just unleash this extremely negative, hateful comment.

Harrison Orr (26:18.518)
that when you look at the context actually has nothing to do with the content that they're posting on, nothing to do with the message that you're sharing, nothing to do with even you at all, but it's just their reality coming out. Because again, they see something in you that maybe they don't have, that they wish that they had, but they don't.

or a myriad of other things. And it's, we have to be careful here that we're not seeing this as an ego play of like, I'm better than this person. I'm just a reflection of all the things that they hate. So like, I'm better than them. And like they look less than the means like, no, they're just at that part of their journey right now.

Being able to see that as another human with a level of compassion then enables you as the grounded leader to discern between how do we handle this? You can then lead this interaction as to how am gonna handle this? This is no longer getting constructive. Thank you for your time, goodbye.

You just walk away. If it's just a stranger or somebody else, it's with your partner, it's with your kids. Okay. Navigate, okay, what is needed right now? Do they just need me to hear them? Does this require a solution? Does this require everyone to just take a fucking breath and slow down for a second? You can decide. because this frame also brings in how you're handling it in the moment, but also

Enabling you to grow from it as well. So one of the reasons that one of the biggest

Harrison Orr (28:04.258)
constraints in nice guys is they avoid hard conversations and when you avoid hard conversations, then you can't grow from them, right? It's like you're avoiding hard workouts. Well, how do you expect to grow if you never have a hard workout? You just won't. It'll be extremely slow. And so you have interactions like this. Your nervous system learns cool. I can hold that level of pressure of emotion in a conversation and still stay grounded and still lead the conversation and still

grow from it without being self-deprecating about it. And also being able to let go the stuff that's not there for you too.

Previously, if I ever had interactions like this, it would have kept me up at night. We would have been, know, at A, taking everything personally, and then over to doing, I should have done this, I should have said this, and it would just like, it would rattle me. And then so I had all this reinforcement to avoid hard conversations, to avoid this type of interactions by running away, by people pleasing, by apologizing. But now, when you handle these things differently, you get to be the one.

that leads the conversation. You get to be the one that holds his head high. You get to be the one that regulates the energy of the nervous systems of the people involved, of the energy of the room. Get to be the one who learns and grows from this. And so as you grow in life...

then whether it's with your team at work or even with your kids, you get to share some of these frameworks and these lessons so that your kids can handle conflict in these things better and grow from them. You can handle conflict with your customers, with your clients, with your employees better. And navigating that makes you a very powerful and respected man. So.

Harrison Orr (30:04.174)
If you've had a conversation recently where this framework would apply, maybe you got triggered and maybe you already attached, well, that's a projection or this is a reflection, things like that to it. I invite you to take a couple of minutes after you finished listening to this to revisit that conversation in your mind and see what else you can learn from it. Cool. First of all, pick out all the triggers, right? They're the low hanging fruit. What have I not owned? Where has I inked and ruined?

I can take that. Everything else that was said. Where could it be true? Okay, I can see how that person's reality. Yes, now I can see another perspective of how my behaviors or my words or how this thing was interpreted and things like this. Okay, amazing. Okay, I can take some more lessons from that. Because now I'm able to.

learn how things can be interpreted and perceived by other people so that I have the best possible chance of when I deliver my message or my action to have it received in the best possible, like with the highest likelihood of it being received the way that I intended to. And then the final piece is

seeing their reflection, their projection and not as a, you know, dusting my hands off, but like, I can see that's, that's for you from a compassionate standpoint, not an egoic standpoint of like, that's yours and you need to own it. you know, that's, that's you, but okay, cool. Thank you for that.

and see what you notice in your body. Like if you still had an emotional charge towards this interaction, towards this person, maybe you still had this frustration or this resentment or this tension, see how you feel now differently after walking through this or after getting to that final step. See if you notice it, if you feel any lighter, if you feel any more peace, if you feel like this.

Harrison Orr (32:01.762)
this release of this emotion that you may be holding onto that was there as a reminder for you to learn something from this and to see things differently, but doesn't help you in resolving this conflict in yourself or with this person.

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