S2 Eps 3 What If Strength Starts With Being Seen

We are back to talk about what it means to be a man in 2026, and why brotherhood can be the difference between drifting through life and showing up with real power. We get honest about how our marriage started to splinter, what changed after Louis' men’s vitality weekend with bros.nz community, and what it takes to see each other again.

• Grounding our conversation in Easter 2026 world events and the pressure of rising fuel costs in New Zealand
• Why male friendship and brotherhood matter after immigration and years of isolation
• What the men’s vitality experience looks like and why fire becomes a conduit for truth
• The difference between healthy masculinity and the harmful pull of the manosphere
• How permission seeking erodes attraction and trust in a long relationship
• Why “Louis 2.0” feels like a reclaimed spark and steadier direction
• Reading our 2008 vows and asking what commitment means now
• Redefining success as relational wealth and being a good husband and father
• Breaking old survival patterns from dark immigration years and building a bigger toolbox.

So if something has sparked an idea, made you rethink the rules, or reminded you that you're not alone on this journey. Don't keep it to yourself. Share it. Talk about it. Believe it. Take action.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We’re Here

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey there, I'm Louie. And I'm Bridget. Welcome to the Bolton Ink Effect Podcast, where we are navigating new horizons.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Each week we're pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to build something remarkable: a business, a life, and a legacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

So join us as we share honest conversations about relationship, entrepreneurship, video production, and the art of building a life together in a new land.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Because sometimes the biggest risks lead to the greatest rewards.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

How can we help?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Can I ask you a question?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Morning, Lily Bolton. Good morning. Welcome to the Bolton and Confector Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you very much. Good to be back. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

It has been a while.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I think I always say that when we start these uh podcasts, it's been a while.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yes, you you you probably always say the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

But life, love and everything else, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Um so I wanted to so we talked about some possible themes for today's podcast, but I've got to turn it around. Um and I'd like to interview you. I would like you to be a guest on my podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

This is the Bridget Bolton podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Uh and and the podcast that I'd like to talk about is just explore a little bit about what it means to be a man in a relationship, what it means to be a man in 2026.

World Headlines And Home Pressures

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Um, but before we get in, I'd like to timestamp this just by referring to some of the events around the world. Um because those events will change. But it's interesting to reflect back and go, oh yes, remember that. So Artemis 2 has has landed.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Before you do that, at the time of this recording, it's just after Easter 2026. I was gonna get there.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Okay, so um Artemis II has landed. They went all around the moon and in fact lost contact with all humanity for an hour. So they saw the back of the moon and are bringing those pictures back. So that'll be uh uh in fact mind-blowing to see. We are potentially on the brink of a massive war. Uh we're waiting for Iran to agree to stop strikes on Lebanon. And then we're hoping that the Strait of Hormuz will open again so that we can get uh um base crude um stuff around the world again: oil and helium and all the other gases that come around there. Uh it's just after Easter, as you said. It's Easter holidays for us. Petrol is hitting a I don't think it's the highest it's ever been, but it is pretty groundbreaking. So in some parts of Auckland, or in fact on Waiiki Island, petrol is like seven bucks a litre.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Diesel or petrol.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Sorry, diesel is seven bucks a litre. Um in our lives, diesel is what, four, four, four dollars? Nearly four dollars a year.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Three weeks ago it was sitting at about 180.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah, exactly. So so the impacts of this are the the knock-on effects of this are enormous, just in terms of where this could leave us as a global population. So in and amongst all of that, we as humans still have to contend with our relationships with each other, with our community, with ourselves.

The Question Of Modern Manhood

SPEAKER_02 3:26

And uh you were recently a couple of weeks ago on a um a fairly enormous, is probably the best way to say it, um, expedition into yourself amongst a brotherhood of 30 other men. Um and I'd actually like to hear, in your summary, give me the short version of that weekend first, and then what I'd like to do is ask you some follow-up questions of where you are now that it's two weeks in your history. So, can you share with me a summary of what that me can weekend was to you, what it meant to you?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So if I summed up the men's vitality experience that I um that I went on just before Easter, in a nutshell would be connection, transformation, brotherhood, and what it means to be a man, what it means to show up as a man in my life. That would be the the summary of what I okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

So why why is brotherhood important?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Okay, so in order for me to in order for me to explain it, I just need to give you a bit of context for how I got there and what it actually means. Okay, so you and I, as we know, and the reason this podcast exists was to talk about life, love and everything else on our entrepreneurial journey and our journeys through immigration from South Africa to here. We've been here nearly eight years, and in that time, I haven't made many male friends. I've got acquaintances, but my two main friends are overseas, one in England and one in South Africa. And it's been an interesting time for me to be able to um experience myself of what that actually looked like in terms of not having a male friend, a confidant that we that that I could relate to. Or even a community, or even a community, yeah. And I've tried various um avenues or or groups to try and get that, even through you know, sport, through ultimate frisbee and through pickable, um, etc. But what happened was there it just it it didn't tick all the boxes for me, it didn't go to a certain level that I needed to feel like it was a real connection. And I came across the bros group, bros.nz. Okay, and I can't even remember how I got to them, but they held an online monthly circle which I was invited to, or they sent it out and you could go onto it. And it was just a container where men got together um online at New Moon and just spoke to each other and and and held a container where we could just share maybe what was going on in our lives. But it wasn't about giving advice or healing or anything like that. What it was is just being heard and just being seen and realize that okay, cool, there are other men out there that are um out there for lack of a better word.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

But it did feel I think there are other men out there who want and are seeking connection, because otherwise you wouldn't all have been together in that space.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

The word that you use there's seeking connection, yes. And I'm not talking about um a connection with a female or or the opposite sex, I'm talking about actually a like a brotherhood. And what does that even mean? It for for me that's a that is that is what does it mean to be a man? Okay, and at the time, before I went on the on the on the weekend, I was lost. I was definitely a yes man. I was soppy, I was feeling very sorry for myself. Um, you know, to the point where a couple of my mates actually, you know, got hold of me and said, dude, you need to pull your finger out your ass and stop being a whiny bitch. You know, and in the moment you can't really see it, you know that there's something wrong. And I mean, in even in our relationship and and and how we related to each other as man and as woman, there were um definitely warning signs of of I don't know how to paint it, I'm not sure. I mean, you'll have to speak to it from your perspective, but it just gives us some context.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, let's put that in a container because I would like to come back to that.

Fire As A Conduit For Truth

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So, what happened was um there was a weekend called the men's vitality experience where they look at the mind, body, and spirit, and it's men that the premise is more men around more fires. Fire, ironically, is for men, or for me, I'll I'll I'll speak from my perspective, it's like a conduit. It's like you can look into a fire sitting around with another man, and it's like a it's like a um it's like a third wall, or or what's the word I'm looking for? It's like a it breaks down the barrier, it doesn't put the barrier up. So you can say something and look into the flame, knowing that that other man is looking into the flame, and I don't have to necessarily meet him at his eye.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

So you can almost share confidences with this third party that is collecting. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, you know, and I mean this this goes back, this is primal. Yes, primal uh male, masculine energy where people would gather around the fire to you know to bribe or to barbecue or to congregate to share stories, to tell stories, rituals, dance, drum, etc. etc. with a flame with a fire. Um there's some so much stuff coming to coming to me now. But it was it's a conduit for for for shared experience. And if you think about it, if you think about a fire, you start a fire with a spark, and the male energy is a spark, it's an in it's an ignition, it's a it's it gets things going. Where the female is the container and the nurturer and the vessel that needs the spark to ignite it in order for it to do what it does. And the fire allows one to start small and with sticks, and then you put bigger logs and bigger logs on, and it creates this force and this energy and this light, but you have to keep feeding that fire, you have to keep feeding it in order for it to grow and sustain, and eventually it transmutes and it actually burns out, and it there is a transformation from the solid into the ash. So there's there's a lot of metaphorical, there's a lot of figurative, there's a lot of layers to it, and that really resonated with me on so many levels. You know, even energetically, I've got to find the spark in myself and feed that energy through good food, through good uh um health practices, uh, feeding my my mind what I need to do spiritually in order for me to be the best version of myself. And through the years that we've been here, that I've been here, it came at just the right time. So I went away down to Munganoa Farms down in Wellington, where the brose community um hosted this men's vitality experience, and 30 men of all walks of life and ages gathered in ceremony, gathered in ritual, gathered together around fires, and we got shit done. You know, we we we built trails, we did a sweat lodge, um, we had sacred combats, we we ate amazing, amazing food. Uh uh bless the Kai Kings, they were just incredible. But the sustenance that we needed in order to sustain that energy, and I mean we would go from like six, seven o'clock in the morning right through to ten, eleven o'clock at night, and it was just unbelievable the energy levels and the and the container that was created in order for us to individually and as a group do what we had to do. But Bridge, the most important thing for me on that on that weekend was the meeting of another man in front of him and seeing him and being seen and holding that gaze with no animosity, with no aggression, with no agenda. Agenda, correct. That's a great word. And actually just seeing it for the person and the man that he is, and them seeing you for the man and being witnessed at the same time, and a brotherhood was formed. And it's not a separatist thing, it's not an us and them thing. It was just a recognition of what I needed to go, okay, cool. I need to focus on me in order for me to show up as the best version of myself. If I can look after me and take care of what's going on inside, that then transmutes outwardly to my beautiful wife sitting opposite me and my daughter, and naturally around the work space and my life. And that's exactly what

When We Stopped Seeing Each Other

SPEAKER_00 11:54

happened.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, and I think the distinction between a brotherhood like that getting together and honouring your lives and yourselves in order that you can honour the community and the partners and the people in your life, I think is a really um significant thing where we see the emergence of the manosphere coming up, where there is a um a younger generation of men who are seeing themselves as totally separate from women and totally um superior to women, and that women are inferior. And it's it's a really hurtful um dialogue to watch, uh, and it's I think distinctly painful for where men and women sit in terms of being in relation to each other. Um so so so you know, getting back to where our relationship was before you went, I would definitely agree that there was some dis-ease, there was some shaky ground, there was um we weren't quite meeting each other anymore, we weren't quite seeing each other. Um and and I think that that yeah has unfortunate knock-on effects because it affects um everything that comes out as a result of the relationship.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

You know, the the partnership uh is is something that then starts starts to splinter, the communication starts to splinter. Um the fact that we are individuals who work quite well together starts to splinter, and we suddenly were becoming individuals who were either were working as individuals, but not together anymore.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I'll tell you one of the biggest things that I realized when I came back from the weekend was when we saw each other after the the four days and you looked at me, I recognized something in you that I hadn't seen in a long time, and it was a softening. It was a recognition that standing opposite you was the man that you fell in love with. Okay, and I think that it eased a lot of the tension that was between us because you'd felt, and we've spoken about this, that you didn't have to look after both of us. That I'd claimed my power and claimed my space back. Hence, you could actually just go Yeah, yeah. And that's very powerful. Yeah because even though I might not have my shit sorted out in terms of you know, maybe getting to the point of financially looking after us or it's it's a work in progress. What I'm saying is I'll claim my power back. Yeah, and that was very noticeable.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Yeah, certain, certainly was for me. Because I kept I kept saying I in in my own head, I I kind of wanted Louis 2.0 to walk through the door. Um and and you know, and I and I knew what that felt and I knew what that looked like. And when you got back from that weekend, that was definitely Louis 2.0. And I know afterwards you were concerned that you needed to hold on to what had happened there. Sure. And I kept saying it's already integrated into you. And it's amazing that such a small event can be so significant in every other part of your life. So when you think about that fire, um, you know, the embers had kind of, and I'm not sure how or why they had. I think that you had um, I mean, we always allow things to happen to ourselves, it's never anybody else's fault. I think that you had allowed your own voice to just overwhelm you um and it was washing over you.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And instead of instead of Well, I was looking for an outer. I was looking from I was looking for something from the outside when it had to come from within. Exactly. That's that's how I recognized it over the weekend. It's like the voice inside me, the fire inside me, not not being not being validated or or looked for from the outside.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Yeah, and and and we know personally that that is one thing that I absolutely hate. I hate to have to encourage people. I hate to have to say, yes, you look fine, it it everything is okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It doesn't have to come from you. If you if you feel that you need to say it, it comes from a place of like, wow, you really look good, or I appreciate it. Exactly. Because it comes forward because you're recognizing it comes, it comes from does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Yeah, otherwise I just I just resent I resent having to do that.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And it and it it's uh it's a push away rather than a pull towards.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

So it makes one think about you know being in marriage. You start off, and and and this is a typical journey in a poem and a love story. You start off and it's and it's all so exciting, and this person can do no wrong. And then and then you get how so how long have we been married for?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

So it's interesting.

Choosing Love Through Change

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Um we'll get on we'll get into this in a second. Um we've been married for we've known each other for 26 years. We got together in 2000. 2000. We got married in the eighth of the eight to the eighth, in 2008.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

2008, that's right. Yeah. So so so we've had enough of a journey together. Absolutely. And we came to together much later in our lives. I mean, I was, I think about nearly 38-ish? No. I can see when I was 40. So how could I have been? I don't know. You're in maths.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I'm me in maths, sorry, my numbers.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

So I I think you were because we had your 30th birthday in Botswana. Yes. And so I and and I'm just a few years older than you, just only a few. Less. Um we were early 30s when we decided that we wanted to get married. Um, when we decided that we'd worked and lived in other countries, we'd traveled enough, we'd experienced life enough, and we decided that that was uh a union that we wanted to keep and take, take form. So I've always felt that there was a slightly stronger, different foundation to our relationship. One that was born out of maturity and um experience and that sort of thing. So it really surprised me to get to this stage of being married for you know what, 18 years, to find that I was feeling very alienated from you. Yeah. And wondering whether I actually wanted to be in this relationship anymore. Like what was it giving you? What was it giving me? Like and and yeah, what were we giving to each other? Yeah, like like how were we building each other up?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Like you get to, you get to, I get to a point and you think, what am I getting out of this and what am I giving? And is it worth it? So we so were you feeling that? I was definitely feeling it after a conversation that we had that you know we that you said we were in two different wakkas, we were in two different boats, and we were sort of drifting along next to each other, but those currents, different directions, our currents were taking us. You know, 26 years is a long time in anybody, anybody's book. Yeah, sure. It's a long time. When we met each other, it was a certain phase, and we've seen each other go through various iterations. I've seen you blossom and and and motherhood and businesswoman, and you've seen me grow up and and and do what I've had to do, you know, to the point now where I kind of know who you are and you know who I am. But do I? Because the reason I say that is that I would be a fool to think that it would be the same as the beginning. Things change. 100%. Things change, you change, and we start to make physically, mentally, spiritually, everything. And it's up to me to be able to adapt and change because I still love you. Yeah. From the bottom of my heart, essentially, I think that's what's allowed me to look through a different lens and go, I want to be in this, I choose to be in this, and I'm happy to go through the next 28 years, 30 years for this. So, what do I do about that? I commit to recommit to myself and recommit to you.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, because relationships very much are about the give and take, they're about the compromise, until it comes to a point where you're compromising yourself too much. And there are things that that you can't go beyond. So I'm I'm certainly not saying every marriage or every relationship, whether it's a friendship or a or a or a or a marriage or whatever the case is, not everyone is worth saving. I just don't want to do life without you. No, but it did come to a point where I could almost imagine life without you. We both did. Yeah, exactly. So what was the difference for you? What made the difference? I I there was definitely Louis 2.0 who who walked back in after that weekend. It was a a reclaiming of your own power. It was a spark. You drop that like wilted kind of life is battering me, like thing, which I which I hate. Um I I can't help that. I hate that kind of weakness. I I really do. It doesn't bring out the best in me. And I don't know if that's my my old monkey brain, you know, the animal inside, you know, we all have this animal brain back in. I don't I don't know if it's that enough. I haven't managed, if I'm not, you know, advanced enough to have tamed that, but it just brings out the absolute worst in me.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

It just goes back to what you were talking about, the manosphere and that. And essentially for me, and this is this is how I see the world, is the ego or or or that monkey mind, whatever you want to call it, you know, the brain, it's just in it just wants to survive, it just wants to make you so it predicts how can I get out of this alive. And for me, I had to drop into the heart space and go, okay, cool, I hear you, I'm aware of that, but just soften, don't necessarily speak, don't necessarily ask or or even open your mouth, just be there and just listen. And in that space, and be the observer of what's actually happening in the mind, allows a little bit of space for me to to respond and not react. You know, just take a breath. Indeed. And respond rather than react. So and I really appreciate you saying that to me. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Well, look, if there's if there's nothing else in our relationship, there is always honesty. Because neither of us are are very good at hiding things. And and and it's that feeling when you start to just walk beside each other without even Seeing each other. And that for me was was I guess was the hardest part. And once I'd realized that that's where we were, that we weren't actually even seeing each other anymore. We didn't want to recognize because there was a sweet day.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah. Yeah, it was it was it was an uncomfortable, horrible space to be in.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

And and I guess that's relationships, relationships have that.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

You know? Bear with me.

Marriage Vows Unearthed And Read

SPEAKER_00 22:22

So these that I gave, I went and dug in my old my wedding suit. Okay. And I found these in the pockets. Oh wow. So I'm gonna read these. These are my marriage vows to you. Okay. From this day on I choose you, my beloved Bridget, to be my wife. I promise to live with you and laugh with you, to stand by your side, to have you sleep in my arms. I promise to bring joy to your heart and food to your soul, to bring out the best in you always. I promise to laugh when it's good times. I promise to laugh at you often. Often, yeah. To struggle with you in the bad and to solace when you are downhearted. I promise to wipe away your tears with my hands, to comfort you with my body. I promise to be your friend always, to respect and honour you, to be truthful and kind to you. I promise to mirror you with my soul, to share with you all my riches and honours.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Well, okay, so we're still waiting for that bit. So did you put a date on that? I want to share all my riches when 2027 rolls around.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

To play with you as much as I can until we grow old and still love you sweetly and gladly until our lives come to an end. That's very sweet. That was the 8th of 8th, 2008. Can you believe it? Thank you for sharing that with me.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

I I I I reckon you're still on track. Yes. And and and maybe when we talk about riches, we're not talking about gold and diamonds and no, maybe not. Maybe we're talking about You know, I'm gonna add this. Be able to sit with your family and play multiple rounds of worm span from the beginning to the end and always be the humblest of losers.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

But just add it, just I just want to add one thing. I heard this beautiful podcast the other day with from Rich Rich Mulholland, and he said something which which I'm gonna share with you today in this day and age of like comparison and men, etc. etc. And you know, you look out to to men that are not necessarily on the right track or whatever the case is, but he used the example of Elon Musk. Yeah, Elon Musk is very successful and mega wealthy, etc. But if you put him on a Venn diagram or a chart, in one area he is over-indexed. I mean, he's going to Mars and Tesla and the whole thing. So he's extremely successful. But on the rest of it, categorically, categorically, I am more successful than Elon Musk. I am a better husband and a better father. Categorically, and I will argue anybody that says otherwise, because I realize what I have successfully and still working on and in of what that means to be a brother, a father, and a husband. And a son. And a son. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Yeah. Um but we say this often, you know, the measure of of wealth is not your riches.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

For me, it's a comparison game, like, oh look at that, so successful. It's just it was a reminding of like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Different courses for different horses, different different courses, different horses for different horses. It's our own individual journey.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

I think that the thing that stands out for me so clearly, and this is a story, I mean, this you you you were with me when this happened, was when my cousin Craig died.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yeah, that was early in our relationship.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

And and the the church was so was huge, and it was so full. There were so many people there. And and that stood the test of that stood the testament to who he was as a as a human. The riches, the richness of all of the relationships that he had. And that's and that does that does. Yeah, if if if if we can have successful relationships around us and see ourselves in relation to somebody else, that's that's you have to work at it. You do have to work at it.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And it's not hard. It's just it's just an acknowledgement and it's a self-awareness piece.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Yeah, sure. You know, another insight that I had when we were talking when when you just got back from from um from Wellington, is that it's so much easier to measure yourself in relation to somebody that you're in a relationship with.

Redefining Success Beyond Money

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Um it's so much easier to grow when you're in a relationship because you have that person who mirrors constantly, who mirrors back to you constantly. And if you if you're alone in this world, I think it's that much harder. Like, how do you like what what is the mirror you hold up to yourself if you're not in a relationship with anybody?

SPEAKER_00 27:07

It's an interesting question because I think sometimes being alone is very important for you to actually figure out your I think it's very important to be alone so that I can figure out my my but you can be alone in a relationship and come back to it. Yeah. I I understand I understand the sentiment that you that you're saying because the the the person opposite me is a direct mirror and reflection of what I'm saying, but I've got to be self-aware enough to go, okay, cool, that's not cool. Or I need to work here or um draw the line here. I mean one of the biggest one of the biggest things that I realized over the last couple of weeks is my decisiveness and my directness. And it's not about being your lack of decisiveness. No, before.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Oh yes, yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Before. So now there's been a decision to say, okay, cool, I'm going to do this, or this is what it costs. Or so what I'm what what what come out of it is I don't have to passively agree and pander to say what is the right thing to say in this moment. No, because that gets me nowhere and it makes me feel like I'm not being heard. And I'm not talking about being arrogant or or obnoxious. I'm just going this is what I cost or this is the decision I've made. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's very empowering. Yeah. And I mean, you know, like we should know this stuff, but but it's a constant feeding that fire. It's feeding that fire and keeping that flame alive in order to burn brightly and be then show up for you, show up for me in order to show up for you.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I think that if if if you if you have um if you consider yourself like a mountain, over time that mountain erodes. There's rain. Environmental factors. And there's environmental factors. And if you're not constantly building the strength of that mountain, keeping everything um consistent and sacred around that mountain, yes, it does, it does tend to be washed away by tides and by bad weather if there are no roots that that that keep it strong. Yeah, yeah. And and that's really our job on earth is to know our ourselves. I must know myself. That's the only thing I have to do here. Because if I know myself, I know when I've overstepped a moral mark, I know when I'm falling out of spiritual context with myself, I know when I'm not following and or being true to myself. So if I know myself, that surely is my only point of being alive.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Do you see that as a mirror through me?

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Um it's an interesting question because I have to I have to stay congruent with who I am.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Um Like what are you feeling right now, like in your body? Like if you checked in, like what where where are you at now? In relation to me.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm I'm I'm back on board with you. We're we're back in in our little waka together, in our boat together.

unknown 30:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah. And it's fun because I feel like we're we're rowing in the same direction. And it's interesting analogy for water, because water means everything in my life. And for you, you'd rather be on dry land. No, but I mean the waka is dry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

That's that's absolutely fine. I appreciate that. What would you like to see happen going forward? Just if you if you could.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

I just need you to I just need you to stay congruent and I need you to stay true to who you are.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Don't ask me for permission to to be or to breathe or to do or to say or to do anything. I respect that. Because that really does bring out the absolute worst in me.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

I respect that.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah. Um and and I said it to you a little while ago. We have to be our individual people.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Correct. And I think that's more so being recognized. I'm recognizing that more and more so the further we go down in this walk and as we're in relation with one another, that it's okay, but we can come back to each other and we can relate.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah.

Cracking Codependency After Immigration

SPEAKER_02 31:07

One also has to be clear about how this relationship between us became so codependent because we changed countries. We we were actually the only thing that we had in those very, very dark times, you know, a couple of years back, which were very dark times. It was, you know, our our I mean, every everything was was was scary from work to immigration.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Um that's it's it's it's a huge point in terms of just me being able to rely on you. And I was in survival mode. We now think both of us. Both of us were surprised. Both of us were so it becomes a habitual pattern that you follow. Yes. And the negatives outweigh the positives.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Eventually, because that's that pattern of behavior that was so necessary then is is eventually not necessary anymore, but it's still a pattern of behavior that you both fall back on.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

So we had to look at it and crack that open and find what new behaviors do we need to do in order to carry on the next chapter.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Um and and you remind me of of the of the story by um we were listening to that podcast a little while ago about beliefs. And there is a tool for every job. You can't like a a um carpenter. Yes, a carpenter doesn't just have a chisel. Yes, exactly. He doesn't tackle everything with just a chisel. He's got a whole workroom, a whole workbench, a whole toolbox. And we in in life have that. So instead of tackling things with just a hammer or just a chisel, use all of the tools at your disposal and and open your brain to recognizing what those tools possibly are. So for me, Louie, the trick is to keep a guard on your own personality. Yep. Make sure that you're constant. For me, I must make sure that I'm constantly open to learning and that I'm always honest with myself. Because if I'm honest with myself, I can be honest with you. And and the truth is, I I would much rather go into my future knowing that you are there.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Halala.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah, absolutely. And that's and that's probably the bottom line for me.

Rumi’s Wake Up Call And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 33:07

It's a perfect segue to finish this podcast. Yes. This is a poem by Rumi. Oh, yes. Which um was shared to me by John Ball, who's one of the brothers from the bros community. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Oh, that's lovely. And that's yes. That's lovely.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Don't go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Neither of us.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

I love you.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

On on that note, I sometimes think that there is a lot of wisdom to be had. Like if you read the writings of Khalil Jabron, if you read Rumi. Um and and there's and there's a wisdom there that we can we can take.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

And tap into.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

I love you, Louie Bolton.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I'm not shaking your hand.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

I want you to shake my hand. Okay, well to cut this a bit out then. Okay. A little bit bigger.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Can I ask you a question?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

That's a wrap for today on the Bolton Inc. Effect podcast. The world doesn't need more noise. It needs bold voices and real stories, people who are willing to show up. So if something has sparked an idea, made you rethink the rules, or reminded you that you're not alone on this journey. Don't keep it to yourself. Share it. Talk about it. Belize it. Take action. Because at the end of the day, it's not about waiting for permission. It's about showing up, doing the work, and making something that matters. So thanks for being here. I'm going to build and create. Keep pushing forward, and we'll see you next time.